First off, a brief background. I am currently editing a fantasy novel and I ran into a predicament. The 'evil' characters in the story were evil simply because I, as the writer, knew this and also because the characters would refer to X race as being evil. Well, the reader would most likely not know *why* they were evil. Sure, there was plenty of evidence that X race were bad, but not bad enough to really hate them or understand the level of evil I had intended. So I made some changes throughout the story and on adding one scene, I thought it might be best to include it into the prologue as I thought it would work great as a hook. However, there was already a prologue. Here lies the questions--

1) is it considered wrong to have 2 different scenes with different characters in one prologue? (one scene would be months before the story begins while the other would be just days preceding chap 1)

I think I've seen the this done before, with one scene as the prologue and the other as a preview but was hoping for your thoughts.

2) is it all right for the main character of the story to not be introduced until the first chapter, after 10 pages of prologue that he is not mentioned in? Would it throw the reader after or possibly turn them off to reading more?

With my story, the two scenes in the prologue really help to both act as hooks to interest the reader as well as set up the background of the story(character abilities, showing who is bad and why, basis for the plot, etc). As the story stands now, I can't put either prologue scene as a later chapter since the events within them need to happen before chapter one's events.

3) is it anyone's opinion that a prologue either helps or hurts to a great degree?

I'd really love to hear what everyone has to say on either of the questions or anything else you might want to add about prologues. Thanks much in advance and I'm sure I'll be spamm---err, posting in the very new future )

I would consider the following two possibilities:

1. Could the second scene be moved to the start of the first chapter?

2. Could the first scene be used as a flashback, or recounted as a story told by a character at a later point in the novel?

The second option is possibly the better, if it will work, because that would also resolve your concerns about the introduction of the protagonist, although the amount of text you're talking about doesn't seem to be too much to me.

In the novel I'm currently working on, the protagonist is introduced at some point around page 6 or 7, and I'm fairly certain that isn't a problem. I'm not sure about much more than that, though.

This concept shouldn't be as difficult as it seems. A well written prologue that ties into the story is good and a badly written prologue that doesn't carry into the story is bad.

Check out Fragments and Feedback, particularly the initial discussion on setting a mood and feel free to ask for crits (remember to only post your first thirteen lines and ask for volunteers to crit the entire piece).