Cliffhangers are the spice in a book's story. They are the glue that holds the story together. If applied correctly, they are like wings carrying readers through a book. If done wrong, they can line the pages like tombstones, a miserable reminder of what could have been. When writing, make sure you'll find right amount of spice to add to your story. Too sparingly may leave the reader bored. Too hot might burn you instead.
Cliffhangers are there to keep readers hooked and reading on. They entice them to turn page after page even when meaning to do the dishes or go to sleep. Like fishermen, authors place these hooks at the end of scenes. A scene ending with everything resolved tends to make people lay down the book for the time being. Cliffhangers on the other hand make the reader tense about what will happen next.
At the beginning of a scene, state the character's goal. Ideally, the mission is something urgent, or important, or both. By stating this goal at the beginning of the scene, you place the reader in suspense about whether the hero will accomplish his goal or fail. The end of the scene should answer this question but preferably not straight out. That would end the tension you are trying to create.
The conclusion to the scene can be a resolution with a twist that adds complications or a part resolution with more to do to reach the goal. It might even be total failure and increased tension due to that. All of these ploys are perfectly acceptable. That is, as long as you are up to delivering a satisfactory resolution later. Don't dig yourself a hole you can't get out of.
The technique is easiest to work when doing scary scenes. Putting a character into a dangerous situation without obvious escape is the fail-sure way of keeping readers hooked; at the very least, they will go to do what they need to do and then return to the book to find out how the situation is resolved. The next scene will start where the previous one left off. It will show how the character managed to extricate itself from the situation. This feat can be accomplished under the hero's own steam or with the help of a rescuer.
If your story is told in several strands and layers, cliffhangers can hold suspense for several scenes as you switch from one place of action to another. Not every scene or even chapter needs a cliffhanger ending, but you can use several in your story. The most important and dangerous placement of a cliffhanger is at the end of a chapter. It must be serious enough to warrant the placement, but manageable enough to resolve without any undue hanky-panky. Like any good spice you use in cooking, too much might kill the story in a book.
When you go to the trouble of building up a cliffhanger situation, you have to resolve it. The resolution has to have adequate length, scope and depth to fit the tension. If you resolve it in a single sentence after leading up to it over a chapter, readers might just stop reading full stop. Cliffhangers are there to open up a detailed scenario and action appropriate to the tension. Don't try to cheat, readers are the first to notice.
Authors of book series sometimes tend to end a book with a cliffhanger. While their marketing mind might be thinking of added sales, this is a dangerous ploy. Readers want a situation resolved when a book ends, at least so far that they don't feel cheated by not knowing at least part of the plot. If they are kept waiting for too long for the next book and the resolution of the cliffhanger situation, they might shoot back with scathing reviews. It is better to end a book with the acute scenario resolved. There is the hook of the wider story, and suspense can be built with a character hook, too.
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