Dear Readers,
I wanted to talk about cliffhangers. According to the site literary devices.com/cliffhanger/
“A cliffhanger is a plot device in which a character or characters are left with a difficult dilemma or a shocking revelation at the end of a chapter or section. Authors use cliffhangers in order to encourage the reader to keep turning pages to find out what happens, or to buy the next book in a series.”
If you go to the site, you will see some example of famous cliffhangers in books and on TV. I understand if an author is using cliffhangers on the pages of a book to ramp up dramatic tension in that book and as the definition states to “encourage the reader to keep turning pages to find out what happens,” – I get that. I am not talking here about the cliffhangers at the end of the season of a show on TV. At least the reader knows that if the show won’t be cancelled in three four months they will see the resolution of the cliffhanger one way or another.
What actually caused me to want to talk about it is the use of the cliffhanger at the end of the book in a series when the next book is not even close to being written yet. I know the author wants me to be hooked enough to buy the next book, but almost any series which has a cliffhanger at the end of one of the books in the series won’t be the series I want to continue. Especially if the cliffhanger is the plot turn that has the main character’s lives in physical danger.
Of course, cliffhangers can be very different from one another. For example I had no problems with the cliffhanger at the end of “Fourth Wing.” I was surprised, but the revelation did not make me worry about the main characters staying alive in the next books.
I did not mind the cliffhanger at the end of the first book of Ginn Hale’s Price of a Thousand Blessings series that I recently reviewed here. The character was in a dangerous situation, but the book two was coming a month later after the first one so I knew that the wait was not long, you know?
Of course, of course authors should write their books the way they want to, but I just do not understand why the last chapter should end at the precise moment when it seems that the character may die on the next page? By all means kill the character if you want to, all I am asking, not even asking – wishing, is for the book to let me know whether it will happen or the danger will pass at the end.
Again, I understand that you wish to hook the reader into waiting for the next book, but for the reader like me in the 99 percent of the situations the effect will be the exact opposite of what you (hypothetical author) may have intended. I am not likely to bother picking up the second book.
And honestly, this is a big part why I am not really reading any long series these days.
I had been singing praises of Ilona Andrews’ works (especially the Kate Daniels series of course) in the past a lot and when I am typing this I am once again reminded how they somehow managed to write ten books full of danger and adventure and fun and avoid the darn cliffhangers somehow for which I want to wholeheartedly thank them :).
What do you think about cliffhangers in the books? Do you like them, hate them, none of the above?
Sirius
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Sirius
Sirius started reading books when she was four and reading and discussing books is still her favorite hobby. One of her very favorite gay romances is Tamara Allen’s Whistling in the Dark. In fact, she loves every book written by Tamara Allen. Amongst her other favorite romance writers are Ginn Hale, Nicole Kimberling, Josephine Myles, Taylor V. Donovan and many others. Sirius’ other favorite genres are scifi, mystery and Russian classics. Sirius also loves travelling, watching movies and long slow walks.
