I LOVE epilogues!
When I end a book I really loved or watched a great movie, I look forward to the bonus material at the end.
In the movie theater, I'm the person sitting in her seat until the very last second while the poor theater workers wait for me to leave so they can clean the room. I watch the people leaving as the credits role, and I'm always so tempted to ask them if they know there's more to come. Whether it's bloopers, a cute bonus scene or a hint of what's to come in the sequel, I want it! I'm actually disappointed when a movie doesn't have a little something extra in the credits.
The same thing goes for the stories I read. Some, I realize, won't have epilogues because it doesn't make sense. If the book ends with a cliffhanger for the next in a series, then an epilogue won't work. But if it's the final book in the series or a stand-alone title, then I want to know that the characters I loved so much really did achieve their happily ever after. That's why in A Boy Named Justice (and of course, the series compilation) I added an epilogue to let you know that all the "boys" had great futures ahead of them.
I don't feel the same about prologues. I'll read them, but usually I wish the author had found a way to sneak the information I needed to know from the prologue into the main body of the story. I know some people who skip the prologue altogether and will only read it if it's obvious they're missing key information. (I wonder if these are the same people leaving the movie during the credits....)
What about you? Do you read prologues and epilogues, or do you wish they weren't there?
When I end a book I really loved or watched a great movie, I look forward to the bonus material at the end.
In the movie theater, I'm the person sitting in her seat until the very last second while the poor theater workers wait for me to leave so they can clean the room. I watch the people leaving as the credits role, and I'm always so tempted to ask them if they know there's more to come. Whether it's bloopers, a cute bonus scene or a hint of what's to come in the sequel, I want it! I'm actually disappointed when a movie doesn't have a little something extra in the credits.
The same thing goes for the stories I read. Some, I realize, won't have epilogues because it doesn't make sense. If the book ends with a cliffhanger for the next in a series, then an epilogue won't work. But if it's the final book in the series or a stand-alone title, then I want to know that the characters I loved so much really did achieve their happily ever after. That's why in A Boy Named Justice (and of course, the series compilation) I added an epilogue to let you know that all the "boys" had great futures ahead of them.
I don't feel the same about prologues. I'll read them, but usually I wish the author had found a way to sneak the information I needed to know from the prologue into the main body of the story. I know some people who skip the prologue altogether and will only read it if it's obvious they're missing key information. (I wonder if these are the same people leaving the movie during the credits....)
What about you? Do you read prologues and epilogues, or do you wish they weren't there?