Hanging On
Have you ever been reading a story, not really completely drawn in but the chapter endings are cleverly cliffhanged that you can’t seem to put it down? That is excellent planning, my friend. A rousing bit of conflict cropping up from nowhere to snag your attention and keep your eyes planted on the page. Ideally your story would hold readers throughout, and I’m sure you’ve all read something that is grabby from beginning to end. Today though, we are focusing on cliffhangers. The way I see it, there are four types:
The Conflict: Ending on a note of danger or tension, the character(s) must face a dilemma that threatens them in some manner.
The Secret: Something springs up into the story that informs the readers, someone is keeping a secret!
The Suggestion: An in-between of the secret and the reveal, this type of ending leaves the reader with an implication of odd going’s on.
The Reveal: Remember that thing you were wondering about a few pages earlier? Here it is- clear as day and what a shock!
In a perfect world, the end of every chapter you write will employ one of these cliffhangers. However, the overuse of them can sometimes feel convoluted so plan carefully, choose wisely and keep that reader hanging on!
With that said, I have to inform you that I’ll be away on vacation for the next several days, so until I return, there won’t be any new blog posts. I know, devastating isn’t it? Never fear, there is plenty to read from in the blog archive. Enjoy!
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8 Comments
A nice summary of cliff-hanger endings 🙂 Have a nice holiday.
And look, I can randomly get to your blog again!
Thanks! Everyone should feel free to add more if they can think of them! These are just the few I could come up with. Very weird, but probably a good sign!
How about the Extreme Loss: a loss so devastating and final that the readers just can’t believe it really is final. Thus, they continue reading just to find out if the author was bluffing or not. OR there’s always the Loose End: the one and only nagging thing the author didn’t explain or fix.
Nice article. =0) I like how you distinguish between types of cliff-hangers instead of just explaining they are useful.
Those are good additions. They’re like subcategories of The Secret x) Glad you enjoyed it!
Great topic! I love trying to end my chapters in ways that not only make sense, but also keep the reader wondering “And then what?” How about the Interruption? Whether in the middle of dialog or action, I find this one works pretty well when properly used.
That’s definitely a useful one! I think it could also be applied to the other categories as a sub-option since it’s so versitile.
yeah cliffhangers can be cool but also a bit cheap if that makes sense I think if you have too many of them it starts to seem a little contrived …
I completely agree. I sort of touched on that. Gotta be well placed and well managed.