A quick rant.

By theDeadTree.

I'd like to start off with this quote that I'm sure most young people would know.

"I'd never given much thought to how I would die…"

Twilight, yeah? The preface. The very first line of the whole saga, in all its unbearable terribleness, or amazing awesomeness, whichever side you'd prefer to take. Whatever.

Now, I can understand the occasional bad grammar, a small plot hole here or there, mythology that is all WRONG and irritating, insufferable, one dimensional, mary-sue characters. But one thing I cannot stand is the increasingly common misconception that a preface means the same thing as a prologue.

Um, yeah. Okay. I have just one small quip about this, that being;

IT DOESN'T.

No, really. I have stuff to back me up on this and everything. It's a perfectly valid argument.

Look for 'preface' in a dictionary and you'll get this;

a preliminary statement in a book by the book's author or editor, setting forth its purpose and scope, expressing acknowledgement of assistance from others, etc.

As opposed to a prologue, in which case you'll get something along the lines of this;

an introductory scene, preceding the first act of a play, opera, novel, etc.

You see the difference, yes? A preface is by the author as the author, while a prologue is actually in character.

Funny, I could've sworn Meyer's I'd never given much thought to how I would die line was in character, not in her own perspective. And so, by the dictionary, this first set of paragraphs should be entitled and prologue - unless of course Isabella Swan is an even bigger Mary Sue than we all thought and Stephenie Meyer is simply writing an autobiography with the names of people changed. Somehow though, I don't think that. I think Meyer did not do her research when she decided to write her internationally best-selling saga and labelled it a preface.

Which it isn't.

And to further my point, because of the Twilight Saga's nauseating popularity with adolescents (some of whom may want to go on to write their own stories), people have been calling what is most clearly a prologue a preface. How odd, that this rise in mislabelling prologues has coincided with the rise of popularity in Meyer's genuinely crappy books. What a strange coincidence.

Thank you for teaching young writers how not to write an interesting, original, engaging novel with lovely rounded, three dimensional characters that have depth and flaws Meyer, you twat. Granted, she's not the worst author in the world, but the fact of the matter is that most terrible authors don't get clearly undeserved world acclaim.

It makes me want to jump up and down and throw globs of melted mozzarella cheese at passers-by while yelling "OH MY GOD, WHAT THE CRAP IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?"

Ahem.

But you get the gist, yes? A prologue is not a preface and vice versa. They are different words with different meanings and are the names of different things. Do your research before you publish a book. Please. I'm begging you.

(PS. sorry about the abundance of Twilight Saga bashing, but it was the best example and quite frankly, I didn't really like the books to start off with. So...sue me.)