I recently read a fantasy book that was half Alice in Wonderland retelling and half standard “Faerie court/politics/trial by combat” sort of thing. It was a decent book, though the main character’s use of modern style language was so different from everyone else’s that it just threw me off. But the part of the book that had me absolutely refusing to recommend it, to never read the sequel, was the way it ended.

It was a cliffhanger.

Not a proper cliffhanger, but an “I’m going to stop right in the middle of the action to make you read the next book” cliffhanger. 

Now, you might be thinking, “Isn’t that the point of a cliffhanger?”

No. Well, yes. But also no. Because there is, actually, a right and wrong way to do a cliffhanger. And if they’re done right, they are spectacular and absolutely draws readers onwards. And if they’re done wrong, they end up like this particular book. Never to be named again.

As an editor, I’ve seen my share of bad cliffhangers, but I obviously can’t edit every book, so I thought I would share what makes a good cliffhanger, what makes a bad cliffhanger, and why it is that so many authors do it wrong.

A good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end (to simplify things, though of course this is far more complex in reality). Each story is a complete arc. The characters have completed their story, their goal, their development change, whatever. The story is complete. You might think that a cliffhanger doesn’t require a story to be complete, but you would be wrong. A cliffhanger works so well because the current arc is complete, the current challenge is overcome, and then something else happens. A new challenge. A new path that they didn’t expect.

All the work that our characters have put into saving the world or their town or whatever is potentially for naught because of this new development. 

It is the jumping off point of a new story. Same characters, new story. Essentially, you’re starting another book right at the end of the first, just giving the readers a hint of that inciting incident and then ending the book. The readers will want more, because these characters they’ve come to know and love now have a new challenge to face.

However, most authors—such as with the book I read—do not resolve the current story arc. They just stop right in the middle. In this particular story, the MC was in the second battle of the first trial and was seriously injured before the trial could begin (her opponent cheated). Then, the author started the battle and just…stopped. The fatal blow? No idea if it came. The trial (which was one of four or five) wasn’t even near completion because this was only the second battle out of three or four. The author just…stopped. The arc would have been complete if the author had finished the battle and then finished the trial. But right in the middle, despite the dramatic politics happening at the moment? That’s not a complete story. It just feels like the author was too lazy to finish the first book and instead wanted to force readers to buy a second to finish the story.

I see this a lot.

The second type of cliffhanger is so frustrating because there is no emotional payoff for the reader. They get invested in the characters and are waiting with bated breath for the drama to reach its climax and then…nothing. The arc is cut off right in the middle, which means the book is incomplete. There is no completion of goals, no hint of a new story to get invested in, just the annoyance of having to buy a second book to finish the first.

Frankly, it’s lazy writing. 

If an author can’t come up with a new scenario for the next book to continue the series, then there should not be a next book. It is perfectly acceptable to write standalones. Not every book needs a dramatic cliffhanger to pull into a next book. Yes, series tend to be more lucrative than standalones, but the successful ones are stories that are complete arcs within an overarching story arc. Not one singular arc that’s broken up. That is just choppy and you don’t get the development that comes with the various arcs mingling together and working off of one another.

Unfortunately, this type of cliffhanger is so common simply because it is more lucrative for authors to have a series. Standalones are notorious for not bringing in as much money and being harder to convert into repeat sales, that is readers who come back for more of the author’s work. So they take one story idea and break it up. 

I get it from a business standpoint. But from a story standpoint?

I hate it. I will tell people why I hate it. I will never read another book by the author, even if I really liked the first book. It shows a severe lack of understanding of storycraft and writing for an audience. 

I know some people don’t care how their cliffhanger comes, but as an editor and author and reader of many, many books, it really bothers me. 

What do you think of cliffhangers? Do you like good ones? Or do you dislike them all? (Some people do, which is perfectly acceptable.)

The post Word Nerdery: The Dos and Don’ts of Cliffhangers – Why So Many People Hate Cliffhangers first appeared on Tarney Brae Creative Endeavours.