Cliffhangers as Chapter Endings, Good or Bad?

Authors often employ different writing techniques to make his or her readers eager to turn to the next page in their book. A cliffhanger at the end of a chapter is one method that authors make use of—to keep their readers engaged in their story’s plot and characters—forcing them to turn pages. We refer to these types of novels as page-turners.

Would you be surprised if I told you that this writing practice was popular during the age of Queen Victoria? One of the progressive ideas to come from this age sprang between a monthly magazine and an author. Short story author like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, you ask. No, I am talking about a completed novel not stand alone short stories. The magazine published sections of a novel one chapter at a time. Thomas Hardy is given credit for being the first to add a cliffhanger to the end of each of his published chapters. You see he needed a gimmick to keep his readers wanting more, thus ensuring a monthly paycheck from his publisher. Hey, that’s something that we all want; only now we call it royalties.

The question that I’m asking today is do you use cliffhangers in your own manuscripts/books and if so, are they found at the end of each chapter?

Posibilities for Plublication

Possibilities for Publication

Welcome and thank you for reading my blog. Warning, if you become a regular reader you might get excited and begin writing Science Fiction and Fantasy (SiFi/F) novels. So who am I to write such a blog? Good question, if you ever find out please let me know. I have been searching for an answer for years.

I titled this blog Possibilities for Publication because in SiFi/F anything is possible. Wow, what a profound statement. Do you believe it? Let’s take the anything is possible phrase and talk about it. If you are writing a novel can you weave anything you think of into your story without dire consequences?

In an orderly world everything happens in a logical manner. If you write about this type of world anything you make up must meet the accepted norm for your world or your reader will not believe it. In the worlds of science fiction or fantasy the same rules apply. I do not recall Frodo from the Trilogy of the Rings ordering a hamburger. Why, because it would not fit into the world J.R.R. Tolkien created. The same logic must apply to anything you or I write. The phrase anything is possible is correct as long as your SiFi or fantasy world permits it. The good news is that you are the world’s creator. This puts a heavy responsibility on you.

The science fiction or fantasy world you dream of for your novel must be constructed using your descriptive words. Now I will date myself. Many of you will not remember the days of radio. Yes those days of yesteryear without TV or Mp3 players. Radio programs brought all of our entertainment into the house. I remember the advertisements some of which made my mouth water. Coca-Cola comes to mind. The announcer would talk about the product and at the same time open a bottle (yes we had glass bottles) next to his microphone. The sound of the liquid splashing over ice cubes was enough to make me rush to the refrigerator and grab…you guessed it, a Coke. Now apply this same principle to your descriptive writing when you describe your novels world and you will have the reader turning page after page. A good exercise would be to take the above Coca-Cola scene and put it into words.

Your job, should you accept it, is to create a place (another word for world) that allows your readers to escape to and believe all of it. Another question is what makes up a place? We will discuss this next.