Marla Madison
She’s Not There, a novel of suspense and my first novel, has a 4.2 Star rating on Amazon.com after more than 600 reviews, and is the first novel in the successful TJ Peacock & Lisa Rayburn suspense series.
The story begins when psychologist Lisa Rayburn discovers abused women are disappearing at a rate too high to be a coincidence. I felt that this discovery by my main character through a group of statistics would not be an engaging enough start for a suspense story, so I decided to do a prologue that introduced the killer.
Marla, thanks so much for contributing this post. You give writers some helpful guidelines to consider when deciding whether or not to begin with a prologue. And I think readers will agree that your own prologue is definitely suspenseful!
I like a good prologue, especially when they act as an appetizer for the rest of the book. In your opening, the reader has to know the two parts are linked. Now he/she can sit back and discover why the driver wanted to die.
Right. I like prologues too. Funny how often you go back and reread them as you go along! I haven’t used one in my other books, but will if it seems to fit.
Nice to hear from you, Gayle.
Marla