The answer for my current WIP is NOT to prologue.

If you've been following me on Facebook you'll know I've been agonizing over how best to present my main characters' backstory without clogging up the narrative flow. I finally decided on a prologue.

At first it seemed like a good solution. Then it didn't. And I felt like I'd just wasted a few days writing something I couldn't use.

I was wrong!

What hammering out a prologue DID do for me was to give me a very clear, dramatic view of "what happened" to make these two close friends fall apart. As I worked at making the prologue short and punchy, I realized that NOW it would be easy to sprinkle in backstory rather than making a huge exposition dump at the beginning.

So I'm going back through the first three chapters to replace info dumps with vivid memories from both characters.

 And I'm a happy author again!