I’ve got another prologue for you this week. Writing tutors don’t like prologues. But then again, they don’t like lots of things that they say you shouldn’t do, but which are actually pretty cool.

I like prologues. It’s a chance to whet your reader’s appetite. It’s that chance to get them hooked, when they’re browsing the bookshop shelves or the website listings. It’s the overture to the musical, it’s the small artwork in the entranceway. It’s your chance to say “here it is, this is what it’s like, are you interested?”

This particular prologue starts the novel “Twelve Days”. Which isn’t out yet. But every crime / thriller writer has a serial killer book in them. It’s de rigeur. I started writing this several years ago, but then put it to one side. “Silence of the Lambs” had come out a few years earlier, and then everyone tried to jump on the serial killer / FBI profiler bandwagon. Mine was set in the UK, but even so, it just seemed to follow the herd.

But in recent times, the serial killer story just keeps coming up, and they’re still popular. It’s a chance for a writer to get their “page per kills” ratio down.

Anyway, I hope you like it. It’s over on the #SampleSunday page: http://geraldhornsby.wordpress.com/sample-sunday/

Don’t forget my two short story collections in the sidebar.