Preface quotes & poetry

[howeird]

Some of the books and short stories I've read have a quote or a snippet of a poem just before the story starts, put there by the author as a sort of mini-preface. About 75% of the time, the quote is not familiar to me, 90% of the time it does nothing to tweak my brain in the direction the story is going to lead, and 99% of the time it's more distracting than anything. The remaining 1% of the time it's either from Lewis Carroll or Mark Twain. :-)

Comments?

I'm especially interested in hearing from published writers why they do or don't follow this tradition.

Comments

[spacekatgal.livejournal.com]

I think it sometimes works. For example, Meg Cabot starts every chapter of the "Princess Diaries" series with a quote from "The Little Princess." It really works for her in setting the tone.

But - I think you're right. Sometimes it's just uselessly tangental. One of my favorite novels, "Snow Crash" starts with a litany of definitions of the words "Snow" and "Crash." Random blather, much?

One of my favorite innovations on the opening of a book came from Joe Klien with the notorious fictional non-fiction Clinton expose "Primary Colors." It went as follows...

"This is a work of fiction and all of the usual rules apply. None of the characters are real - and of course, none of this ever happened."

Bri