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Writing a prologue/exposition?
I'm not really sure if this is the right place to ask, but can somebody tell me what the difference between a prologue and an exposition is (in writing)? And how do you write one without boring the audience to death?
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Welp, they are kind of boring, that is why they are usually just a small part of a much larger text.
For the purpose of doing a class assignment, you should really ask your teacher or a classmate what the difference is because the definitions they are using could be different than common use.
A prologue is basically an introduction before the action of the main story or performance starts. It gives the basic details about setting or main characters and is usually more explanatory rather than revealing.
For example, this is one of the most famous prologues in english lit, it's from Romeo and Juliet.
Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur’d piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
All it basically tells the audience is these two great families in Verona are fighting, to the death, and two young loves will die over it. Keep listening and maybe you'll learn something.
Exposition is simply a word the describes the kind of writing that does what a prologue does, but it takes place within the larger story, rather than before it. If you ever read Harry Potter, whenever Dumbledore spends 3 or 4 pages droning on about the Order of the Phoenix before Harry was born... that's pure exposition. It just an information dump that provides background info to make the current story make sense.
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