#cliffhangers
Leaving readers off on a cliffhanger is honestly so satisfying. Like, you don’t know what’s gonna happen but I do and I could tell you, but I’m not gonna, because I’m mean and enjoy watching you suffer until the update. There’s zero pressing reason for a cliffhanger. It is literally just there to cause chaos and make you yell at me in the comments.
This is perhaps one of my favourite writing topics. Personally, I always try to leave each chapter on a small cliffhanger. Something that makes the reader want to read on when it’s 1am and they know they should put the book down. To do this effectively you have to know the difference between cliffhangers that raise the stakes and cliffhangers for shock factor.
The Shock Factor Cliffhanger
We’ve all seen this before. The chapter/book is coming to end and in a last ditch attempt to keep you interested the writer adds a completely unrelated, highly shocking, plot disrupting event.
While the key to a keeping reader interested in a series is to leave them with questions, shock factor cliffhangers feel like a cheap trick that only leaves the reader unsatisfied.
Does this mean you should avoid shock factor cliffhangers? NO! Just don’t rely on it being the only thing that keeps your reader tethered to your story.
Take The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan, because that was a shock factor cliffhanger and half, but there were other stories left unfinished, other characters we were worried about, other questions we had that demanded answers. Which brings me onto the next kind of cliffhanger.
The Stake Raising Cliffhanger
A far more subtle form of cliffhanger (and the kind I try to leave at the end of almost every chapter) is one that raises the stakes of the story. It proves a point to each chapter, which helps you as the writer to decide which chapters are needed and which are not.
This can be anything, small or large. They find a key piece of information, realisation dawns on the protagonist, one of their friends are in danger, they are in danger, they discover something that puts the whole plot at risk, but save the big ones for your catalyst, your midpoint and your all is lost plot points.
The purpose of these cliffhangers if to leave your reader with unanswered questions, seeking answers they cannot wait till morning to discover, questions that will make them buy the next book!
What’s the conclusion here?
Cliffhangers are not about the shock factor, the drama factor, the danger factor. They are about one very simple thing. Questions.
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Cliffhangers are fun! You get to put your character in a precarious position and then not let the reader know what happens until later. The idea is that since some of the stuff has to happen later anyways, you might as well put readers in a position where they want to find out what it is.
Some people like to have a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter. This is fine if you position your chapters so that each one ends where a tense point in your story already is. If you find yourself manufacturing cliffhangers just so you can place one at the end of each chapter, however, stop. You will end up with a bunch of awkward and anticlimactic points in your story because not every spot that looks like a good end for a chapter can effectively use a cliffhanger.
A short yet revealing sentence with its own paragraph for emphasis can make a great cliffhanger (“He was behind me.” “I fell out the window.” “They were werewolves.”). Do it all the time, however, and it will start to get annoying. If you use cliffhangers often, save these sentences for only the most important ones.
A hero hanging from a cliff by one hand keeps readers interested because they want to see how he gets out of the situation you set up (or if he dies instead). Changing the situation afterwards by making the cliff only ten feet high is anticlimactic and breaks a kind of promise you made to the reader by setting up the situation to be so interesting in the first place.
If you discontinue a published or posted writing project on a cliffhanger, it’s nice to give your readers notes on how it would have gone.
If the protagonist has gotten out of a certain situation before, putting them in a similar situation doesn’t make a good cliffhanger. “Oh no, the protagonist is outnumbered! I bet he won’t use his super fire spell like he did the last time he was outnumbered!” This works for building tension in general, not just in cliffhangers.
TV Review: Flash Gordon #TV1-A
TV Review: Flash Gordon #TV1-A
TV Review: Flash Gordon #TV1-A
Digging through my pile of random DVDs, I have come across this set of three episodes of the 1950s German/American TV series of FLash Gordon starring Steve Holland. As previously mentioned, the three lead characters, Flash, Dale Arden, and Dr. Zarkov, were played by American actors while almost everyone else was Germans, many of whom learned their lines…
