It was hard to find pictures for this one.  Anyway, onwards!

Or, should that be, "forwards!"?

Or "forewords!"?  Okay, lame joke, I know.

Actually, you see the sign where it says "foreword" when you're writing a new fic?  Or when you click on the front page of a fic?

That's all lies.  I've seen very few actual forewords on this site.  You probably haven't seen many either.  Here's why:

A foreword (not a forward, because forward is not a noun) is usually written by somebody other than the author about their interaction/relationship with the author, or the interaction/relationship between the foreword's author and the text.  Usually, the person writing the foreword is a Pretty Big Deal in whatever field the book is in (I mean, forewords are all over the place in non-fiction, but pretty rare in fiction unless the book is a new edition of something older (and famous) or it's won a prize).  Essentially, if your "foreword" isn't written by somebody who's not you and who isn't relatively well known in the field that you write in, it's not really a foreword.

What the "foreword" really ought to be called for fics on this site is actually a preface.

So let's change the chapter title.

Prep that Preface

There.  Much better.

So.  What exactly is the preface?

The preface is...

Wait for it...

A foreword that's written by the author!  Amazing.

TL;DR

Avoid: being lengthy!  Over 500 words (or three/four scrolls on a phone screen) is really pushing it.  The longer the foreword, the fewer its readers.

Also avoid: Content from the actual story (especially prologues): if your description is done correctly, you don't need it (there is such a thing as overkill); overly descriptive character descriptions (especially if they're directly contradicted by the pictures you put up or the actual characterisation you put in): the more you say, the more the reader will be able to work out the plot, which you want to avoid; anything that isn't actually related to the story.  Spelling mistakes.

Go for: brevity - or at least conciseness; content warnings (if any), trailers, poster and other acknowledgements (e.g. beta readers); disclaimers; clarifications of discrepancies; why you wrote the story/inspirations.

VL;RA/Reasons for the Above

The foreword preface is technically an introduction to the story, why you wrote it, what you were trying to do with it (but not, ironically enough, an actual introduction, which you usually see in academic work outlining the arguments presented in a book), the main themes, problems you faced writing it, etc.  Essentially, think of it as a massive author's note before you start the story.  If your story covers dark themes, or potential triggers, then this is the best place to put them.  Or the reason why it's marked M, if it's marked M.  Just general housekeeping, really.

It's kind of hard to say if there's a golden rule to writing the perfect preface, or even decent guidelines to do so (unlike with a title or description), but there is one thing, possibly two, that you really, really, really need to take into consideration.

1) Okay, this one is a golden rule.  Under no circumstances - this is the internet, remember - make your preface long.  Ever.  For the simple reason that people just won't read it.

If it's a physical book, fine, have it as long as you want.  Many people - myself included - will skim about the first page of a preface in a physical book, read the actual book, and then come back to the preface if they've enjoyed the book.  If it's something you're reading for class, then you probably do want to read the preface because it means you'll be able to analyse the book better.  If it's non-fiction and you're reading it for research, you probably do want to read the preface (and foreword and introduction) so that you know whether or not it's actually worth reading the book.  Oh, and the index and table of contents.  But on the internet, if you see a wall of text after a fantastic description that really makes you want to start reading at once, you're not going to hang around to read the foreword, and that probably means you're not going to read it ever.

So keep it short.  And if it's not going to be short, then make sure it's pithy and engaging.  But really, just make sure it's short.

I am probably not the best example for how to write a short preface that contains everything you need, but as a general rule of thumb, I'd say that if you're on the computer and "Foreword" and the "next" button aren't more or less on the screen at the same time (particularly if you don't have pictures), then your foreword is probably long enough for most people to be skipping (unless you have no chapters up, in which case they probably will read it if your description is gripping).  For a phone screen, that's probably the length of three/four screens.  It's more or less 500 words.  That said, considering a fair number of people will be reading on their phones/a tablet, a foreword probably does need to be shorter than that, because walls of text for a reader aren't nice.  This paragraph that you're reading at the moment, on a computer screen, is about nine lines long, for example.  On a phone, it's probably somewhere between twenty and thirty.  Huge walls of text are something most readers don't like to be confronted with because your eyes tend to slip and lose concentration on exactly where you are and what you're reading.  Your attention latches onto what is irregular rather than what is regular, after all.

If you have a large chunk of text that is interesting, a reader will be much more likely to sit through it, whether it's split into several paragraphs or all lumped together into one.  If you have a large chunk of text that isn't interesting, then people probably aren't going to read it.

My best prefaces, in terms of actual prefaces, are probably the ones in the "foreword" spot for this and for the DLWL reference compilation.  The thing is, both of these are actually non-fiction.  The description is literally "this is what you will find in this story" and the preface is basically "I'm writing this because... this is the kind of formatting you'll find... etc."

2) Second... not really a rule, I guess, but just a piece of advice.  Don't include extracts or a prologue in the foreword.  1) Because anything of a decent enough length to be included is going to be long (unless you want your reader to have little to no clue about what is going on) and people will skim/skip it and 2) because if you've done your description correctly, you shouldn't need snippets from your story on the front page.

Also, if your description is amazing and your snippet is not, you've just killed your description and people are going to be closing that tab pretty quickly.  Yes, it's only a snippet, but if the story promises you fire-breathing dragons and pirates and the first chapter has the main character waking up to an alarm clock and panicking because she's late for school, readers are going to be having a pretty similar reaction.  But writing something short, concise, engaging and amazing that's prose fiction rather than a tantilising description is actually very hard.  And if you're just going to write another tantilising description... well, why have two?  There's really no need.

The other thing about prologues in particular: you'd be surprised at the number of people in general who just don't read them and skip straight to the first chapter.  I don't know if anybody's conducted a survey or anything, but I've heard before that at least fifty percent of readers do skip them.  Once you get into agent, editor and publishing circles - and I'm saying this because I've seen agents writing blog posts on this, and some will genuinely turn your story away just from seeing "prologue" in there (however necessary you think it will be) - a lot of professionals - and I mean a lot - view prologues as an excuse to write a lazy first chapter.  I'll do a separate chapter on prologues, but usually what you have in the prologue is an intense scene, or a scene that's intensely emotional - either from before or during the main story (though it's quite often from before the main story and backstory if it is) - and then in the first chapter, it's life-as-usual-and-nothing-particularly-interesting-happens-because-everybody's-read-the-prologue-right?  WRONG.  So many readers skip them.  And to be honest, if there's a massive title saying "foreword" and you write your prologue under it, a number of people are probably going to skip it anway, or they're not going to pay too much attention to it even if it's the prologue because they're eager to get to the first chapter.  9/10 prologues don't actually need to be there anyway.  But as I said, more of that in another chapter.  Anyway.  You should always start your story assuming that any extracts or prologues haven't actually been read.  (Ironically, on the internet, if the prologue is the first chapter, it's much more likely to be read.  So put it there rather than on the foreword.)

As for extracts, if you're going to insist on putting them in there (and please don't - as I said, your description should do all the work needed to convince somebody to read), for the love of God, don't make it the first part of your first chapter.  Or from anywhere towards the beginning of your story.  Why?  Because as soon as the reader comes to the part they've read before, particularly if it's recent, they zone out, or skim read it.  And believe me, that is not the way you want them to start reading your story.  Start as you mean to go on.  It applies to writing; it applies to reading.  If you start the first chapter bored and skim-reading you're likely to continue skim-reading until the end because that's the mindset you're in, and the first chapter ought to be the most important chapter in the entire story.  But this isn't about first chapters (there'll be another separate chapter on first chapters): this is about your foreword.  Your preface.  Your larger-than-normal a/n at the start.

When an extract is included, most often I see an argument.  It's usually similar to the pink-and-blue quotes I used last chapter (with anger and "yah!" scattered around too), with a few dialogue tags, etc.  Maybe this is just me personally, but I really don't feel like they work.  They try too hard to grab your attention and say "see, my character is experiencing intense emotion!  You should be experiencing intense emotion too!  Doesn't the character they're shouting at just annoy you soooo much?  Why do you think they're arguing?"  Either that, or it's an extract for something that's supposed to be a total shocker.  Put that in the story, please.  It's a point of tension and shouldn't be beached in the foreword.  If you're supposed to be getting married to some stranger you never knew, save that revelation for the first or second chapter (obviously, it's probably in the description as well).  I've lost count of the number of stories (arranged marriages in particular) where all the exciting stuff happens in about ten words in the foreword (usually "Park Hana!  You will marry him!  Your grandparents swore an oath!"  "Bwoh?  Eomma hajima!  I won't!  Shireo!" and then in chapter one they're either saying their vows or already married - like, what happened to the girl's resistance?  Running away?  Talking to her parents about it?) and in the first chapter it's taken as read that all this has happened... when half the time it hasn't been read and the description leads the reader to believe that those ten words in the foreword are the main point of conflict for the story.

As I said, story content, in the story.  Not floating around outside it.  In it.  In part because people just won't read it if it's not actually there.  Foreword (or preface) by the nature of the word precludes actual story content.  People don't expect to find it there, so it's best not to put it there.  Besides, if people are going to read, they want to read a nice big chunk of it, not a small snippet, so they're probably also going to skip it in favour of finding the juicy stuff.  The description should be doing all the work enticing the reader to scroll down and click the next button.  If you find yourself putting story extracts or a prologue in your foreword, then 1) your description/blurb isn't powerful enough and 2) even if your description/blurb is powerful enough, you're effectively screaming "I have no confidence in my description!" and undermining what power it does have.  There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  Take chocolate cake.  Too much of it and you'll be sick.  It's not nice.  You want the perfect amount, not too much.

And because I'm struggling to find places to put in pictures, here's a picture of a chocolate cake:

The other thing I see a lot of in "forewords" is character descriptions.  I have mixed feelings towards them.  Some people I know take sides on this, dig trenches, set up their barbed wire, and stay there, manning the guns in preparation.  (Really, some people I know feel very very strongly on this subject.)

There are essentially two schools of thought on this.

The first school of thought:

"But I want to know what kind of characters I'm getting invested in here!  What do they look like?  What's their role in the story?  How can I relate before the story's already started?"

The second school of thought:

"If you have to describe all that before you start, you're doing all the description in the story wrong and you're just being lazy."

I guess I lean more towards the second (largely because the majority of stories I've read - not just on here, but on other websites as well, but particularly when it comes to fanfiction - that have character description charts do tend to be horrifically lazy about establishing actually character for those characters and describing what the characters look like, and that is lazy).  I don't have much against a list of characters, or a dramatis personae, provided that's literally what it is, though if it's a story about EXO or Big Bang, then your readers really w