Yet another possible Cliché

[aldan]

I agree that you probably won't need it, and so shouldn't use it.

As for the title, it sounds more than slightly Roman, which may confuse people who first see the title.

[Magus]

Prelude is the musical equivalent of a prologue. It's a movement set before the actual beginning of a song.

[Anthentar]

I was kind of afraid of that. Well, I'm sure I'll come up with something

[Spiderkeg]

Are you thinking of prequel?

Prologue is the short story (chapter) before the full story... like a narrative intro or historic setup.

[Magus]

I just meant that prelude is to music as prologue is to books. A prequel is different then what I was talking about, but probably the word that the others were questing for.

[aldan]

THANK YOU SPIDEY!

Prologue! That's it!

[Spiderkeg]

To clarify things a bit more... prequel is a story (book) that takes place before the main story.

An example would be: The Hobbit is the prequel to the Lord of the Rings.

A prologue is a chapter (like chapter zero) which is listed in the front of the book before all other chapters begin and simply feeds the reader with knowledge they should be aware of before reading the full story... but the prologue is not a whole book.

I just feel the need to really clear that up if there was any continued confusion. Magus is right about prelude relating to music, though I think I've seen the phrase also used with plays. SquareSoft tends to use prelude a lot when naming their orchestrated works of game music.

[Magus]

I wouldn't say The Hobbit is a prequel so much as The Lord of the Rings is a sequel. The Hobbit was conceived, written, published and released decades before The Lord of the Rings. The Lord of the Rings continues the story after The Hobbit and involves The Ring and many of the same characters.

The very definition of a prequel is:

A literary, dramatic, or cinematic work whose narrative takes place before that of a preexisting work

The Lord of the Rings fails to qualify as a preexisting work and therefor The Hobbit, as Tolkien's first published novel, fails to qualify as a prequel.

The Silmarillian, on the other hand, qualifies as a prequel to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

[Magus]

Prelude may also be used with poetry, I believe. I know that I've used it that way and I think it's also technically correct, although I'm unsure.

[Spiderkeg]

You are right about the Hobbit being written before the Lord of the Rings, however, because of the shear magnitude and popularity of LOTR the Hobbit is often noted as being the prequel. Eh, this is understandable... people view the second trilogy of Star Wars, which takes place before the original older work of Star Wars, as the prequels even though they were made decades later. It's just a matter of chronological order and definition.

[Magus]

Yeah. It's understandable, but wrong.

But, by definition, the second Star Wars trilogy, the one where the only good one is Episode III, is a prequel. It's a cinematic narrative which takes place prior to an existing work, as in the Original Star Wars Trilogy.

[Spiderkeg]

So attaching the the term "prequel" to the Hobbit is wrong, even though it comes before the LOTR?