How to introduce my villain in the prologue?

Question

I am currently doing a rewrite of my story, starting with the prologue. Now, my prologue exists mainly to introduce the main villain of the story, and I've been working on making some improvements, such as spreading the big bad's description across the prologue, rather than just simply dumping it all in one paragraph. The prologue introduced him playing chess, getting interrupted by someone begging him to help his associate, and ordered his guards to dispose of the interloper before returning to his game. However, I've had some criticisms such as the perspective being too objective, (I use 3rd person, and try to avoid 1st person), and a few other things. I know it'll never be perfect, but I at least want it to at least be more engaging.

Answer 1

What are the Stakes?

Scenes are interesting because someone is taking a risk; I want something, but something else prevents me from getting it, so I take a risk, and a scene happens.

As you've described it, the villain is not taking any risks. They don't want anything. So the scene isn't engaging because the POV character isn't really engaged.

The Petitioner's Risk

But the Petitioner wants something. And they are certainly taking a risk. Re-frame the scene around the Petitioner. Do they understand the risk they're taking? Why do they take it? How do they feel about it?

Seeing the Villain through the Petitioner's POV is probably going to show the readers a lot more of who the Villain really is, and it should be more fun.

Answer 2

You should not do this at all.

This doesn't sound like a prologue, but an opening scene.

That said, your structure is all wrong. Your opening scene should be hero oriented.

JK Rowling got away with a kludge in the first Harry Potter book (Sorcerer's Stone), introducing a lot of magical elements, but still focused on magicians saving the baby Harry Potter, whose magician parents were murdered, and placing him secretly in foster care with relatives where the killer would not find him. Chapter Two just jumps forward 10 years, to Harry's tenth birthday.

This was prologue presented as a scene; about the only way to do it, and it seems to be what you are trying to do. But the focus of Rowling's Chapter 1 is definitely all about Harry, the Hero readers are supposed to identify with.

The other adult magicians present in Chapter 1, like Dumbledore, are prominent characters we will see later. This helps introduce them. But no villains were depicted, except by reference. (Any villains would ruin the secrecy of where Harry was hidden away; clearly the main villain tried to kill Harry and failed.)

The person you focus on, in the first "chapter" or "prologue" or "background" or whatever that the audience sees, is going to be assumed as the focus of the entire story, the person the audience should follow.

Do not make that the villain.

I'd strongly recommend not writing a prologue at all. Stories typically open, for the first 10% to 15% of the story, on the hero and their "Normal Life" before some triggering event happens that upsets that normal life. (AKA the "inciting incident".)

The rest of the work is focused on the escalation of the problems caused by that inciting incident, etc.

In Rowling's first Harry Potter book, we can see that pattern starting in Chapter 2 (not 1, the disguised prologue), on Harry's 10th birthday, when strange magical things start to happen to Harry, and finally Hagrid the giant comes pounding on the front door to collect Harry and escort him to Hogwart's.

The inciting incident is Harry's birthday, he has come of age to start his formal wizarding school, and we the audience are introduced vicariously through the naive Harry to a world of nearly constant magic everywhere all the time.

If you want to introduce your villain early from the villain's POV, change viewpoints for your Chapter 2. You don't have to alternate, but this is the "natural" way for the audience to experience the villain.

Hero POV first, Villain POV second.

You can alternate, or not, you can primarily focus on the Hero, but switch once in a while to the Villain POV. You are not necessarily trying to tell the Villain's story, but you might switch when the Hero first does something to attract the Villain's attention, like thwart a plan the Villain had, to piss off the Villain.

This is a harder story to write; but Stephen King does it, e.g. in The Stand. 007 Movies do it frequently. But it is a bit harder because when you focus on the Villain, the audience expects to be privy to the Villain's decisions and strategic moves, and will feel "cheated" if the author fails to show Villain scenes where crucial decisions and/or mistakes are made by the Villain, and those in turn must be well justified.

I think you could just as easily demonstrate your Villain's psychopathic disregard for life either indirectly (the Hero discovers a village with slaughtered children or something), or from the Hero POV: The Hero watches helplessly while the Villain kills people mercilessly.

I would not open your story on the Villain. Best selling authors like Stephen King or Rowling or Dan Brown with a huge guaranteed audience might get away with that. Publisher's trust them to know what they are doing and trust the audience to buy their stories sight unseen.

Amateurs hoping to get published for the first time should stick to the script. Obviously new authors are getting published all the time; but publishers tend to want to minimize as much risk as possible on new authors. They want to see a new story with great writing and strong characters and scenes but in a very familiar structure that they know works.