Shelley Costa
Early on, while A KILLER’S GUIDE TO GOOD WORKS (Henery Press, September 2016), was a WIP, the Prologue was sixteen pages long. Sixteen. Before I turned in the completed draft of the book to the editor, I thought better of a Prologue being that long and cut it in half. When the development report came back, among other tough suggestions to improve the work (including addressing what the publisher felt was the problem of eight separate points of view — imagine!) was their desire to have me ditch the Prologue. Altogether. In a mystery, it’s a really hard thing to eliminate points of view because the writer has pretty much stuffed them with clues, right? But I was game: who was expendable, much as I loved every single one them? Whose clues could I turf to a point of view character I was keeping? At length, I managed to cut the points of view in half. But I held the line on not eliminating the Prologue altogether. I needed it. This friendly confrontation with the editors made me have to think pretty deeply about why that Franciscan friar in Veracruz, 1595, needed to stay.
Thanks for contributing this post, Shelley! I loved A KILLER’S GUIDE TO GOOD WORKS, and I agree–the trimmed-down prologue is both intriguing and essential. Thanks for giving us this glimpse into your decision-making process.