My cousin's advice about skipping prologues took 3 years to make sense

Tbh my cousin Rick in Austin told me back in 2021 to just skip any story that opens with a dream sequence or a history lesson. I thought he was being lazy and missing out on worldbuilding. Then I slogged through a 90 chapter epic where the first 12 chapters were basically a geography textbook and the actual plot didnt start until chapter 40. He was right, I wasted a whole month on that thing and now I check the chapter summaries first. Anyone else have a rule they ignored way too long?

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richard_mason11d ago

Man, I feel this in my bones. I once defended a 50 page prologue about a war that happened 500 years before the actual story, and by the time the hero finally got off his horse I had forgotten why I even cared. My buddy Mike called it 'reading homework' and I got all huffy about it, but now I literally check the last page of chapter one to see if anything happens. The wild thing is, I still buy the books with the boring prologues, they just sit on my shelf like trophies of my stubbornness. It took me three tries over two years to finish one series because I kept refusing to skip ahead, and my own rule now is if the prologue mentions a 'chosen one' or 'ancient prophecy', I'm out. I guess some lessons just need to hit you over the head with a geography textbook before they stick.