MESSAGE BOARD TOPIC #49

[Comicality]

When reading a series, you begin to invest a lot of time and heart to the characters you read about. The story itself can take on a real presence in your life when you're enjoying it. So when you get to the end of each chapter, you'reexpecting to be somewhat fulfilled until the NEXT chapter is ready for consumption. But SOMETIMES....you get to the end of a chapter and find yourself dangling helplessly from that awful terror known as....'the cliffhanger ending'!!! Dun dun dun!!!

 

This week's question is...

 

= What are your feelings on cliffhangers from both a writing and reading point of view? =

 

Where is the balance towards creating a 'good' cliffhanger? Do they frustrate you? Anger you? Take away from that completed feeling that you were expecting at the end of a chapter? Or does it excite you? Maybe even pull you in deeper so that you're left desperately seeking the next chapter in hurry? What's the difference between a good and a bad cliffhanger?

 

C'mon folks! Don't leave us hanging! Tell us what you think? The board is open!

[Mark Arbour]

I agree completely. I think cliffhangers can be useful in a book (at the end of a chapter) or at a serial story that is posted frequently. In those stories for which there are long delays between installments, I think cliffhangers are frustrating, and for me, they erode their enjoyment of the story.

 

I think an author of a serial story who plans to use cliffhangers should have the next chapter ready to publish when they publish the chapter with the cliffhanger. That way, the author can allow a certain amount of anticipation but, since the next chapter is already done, there won't be an unduly long delay.

[JamesSavik]

Cliffhangers are a good thing when used to dramatic effect. But don't leave the readers hanging to long and come back with something worth the wait!

Edited June 1, 2005 by jamessavik

[dbene]

A good cliffhanger leaves me feeling like I'm sinking in quicksand...I'm sinking further and further into the story.

[lurker]

The cliffhanger is one of the most overused techniques in online serial writing. Good writing doesn't need a deliberate cliffhanger (unexpected visitor, fade out in the middle of dialogue, last minute explosion or collision, etc.) to build suspense. There are some authors who think that the cliffhanger is needed in every other chapter (at least), and it drives me nuts when I'm reading it.

 

Others have already posted some of the reasons I dislike cliffhangers, such as 'unending' stories or waiting too long between posts. I agree with Mark that having the next chapter ready ought to be a prerequisite for posting a cliffhanger. And even if an author isn't quite that fastidious, he better at least KNOW how that cliffhanger gets resolved.

 

If a story is suspenseful and interesting, then I'm eager to read the next chapter whether the last line is "And then I went to sleep for the night" or "What are YOU doing here?" The feeling that I can't wait to see what happens next can't be manufactured simply by how an author ends a chapter. It also loses the suspense if I know that a cliffhanger will be resolved in the first 3 sentences of the next chapter, because that is the author's m.o.

 

I don't mean to suggest that no cliffhangers are ever successful as a technique in building anticipation. But the good cliffhanger comes chapters and chapters along in a story, catches the reader off-guard when it appears, and takes more than a paragraph to resolve in the next chapter.

[Agincourt]

Over in the DomLuka area they talk about C.H.A.D. -- "Cliff Hanger Anxiety Disorder."

 

Seems like there's a lot of that going around.

 

A

[Comicality]

Hehehehe, I hardly even remember these! That seems like so long ago.

 

Might as well jump in...

 

Cliffhangers? I'll be honest, I LOVE cliffhangers! I love writing them, I love reading them. But I truly think it's because of my reading habits. I think mkes a HUGE difference. I don't usually have a whole lot of time to actually sit down and read whole books anymore. So I've been reading online series more than anything else since like '97. A little here, a little there...one chapter or maybe two before bed. I might only read like 10 or 20 pages and pass out for the night.

 

However...there are people out there who devour books like a hungry pack of hyenas! Hehehe! There are people who devour ALL (and I mean **ALL**!!!) of "Gone From Daylight" in a weekend! It took me over a DECADE to write all that, and they read it all in a weekend??? I'm really happy that they liked it, that's AWESOME! But for me to keep up with them is imposible. So yeah, I can completely understand that to them, they want to read everything in a day and be done with it and move on to the next full story. They don't have any closure, and cliffhangers probably piss them off to no end.

 

But I like writing them that way. And I like posting new chapters every week to different stories and bring in new people to the site and hopefully getting people 'excited' about the next chapter of their personal faves.

 

Then again...sometimes people just get mad at me and leave. Hehehe, that happens too. :: Shrugs :: What can I say? I can't really feed the 'hardcore' folks as fast as they want it. But I do hope to make it worth the wait.

[Tipdin]

I hate cliff hangers. I used to get sucked into buying the next book in the series - I was buying books all the time and my bookcases were filling up with trilogies, and volume after volume.

 

Now I try to find books that are old. The author may be dead or the story may have been printed decades ago and nothing new has come out since.

 

I like a good read - but I do NOT like being held hostage. Tell me a story - and finish it, then let me go.

[JamesSavik]

One of the best SF series that I've read is called The War Against the Chtorr by David Gerrold.

 

It was an interesting series about an ecological invasion of earth. It was an excellent series of three books.

 

The bad part was that it wasn't finished. The fourth volume came out a decade later. Three more are promised.

 

Now... I only read series that are finished.

[Agincourt]

It seems to me there are two separate issues here.

 

1. The use of cliffhangers as a means of propelling the reader toward the next segment or chapter.

 

2. The annoyance/irritation of not being able to move ahead to the next segment or chapter because it's not yet written.

 

I think the first one is fine. I think the second one is a problem.

 

I had actually thought of starting a separate thread on why stories don't get completed. In the case of many here, I have come to believe it's because the "obvious" path and "obvious" ending no longer seem satisfactory to the author. In the search for a fresh approach, and the failure to find one, the author becomes discouraged and just stops.

 

I have said before that it would be a courtesy to readers for the story listings to have some kind of symbol indicating which stories are complete and which are incomplete.

 

A

[phana14]

Hehehehe, I hardly even remember these! That seems like so long ago.

 

Might as well jump in...

 

Cliffhangers? I'll be honest, I LOVE cliffhangers! I love writing them, I love reading them. But I truly think it's because of my reading habits. I think mkes a HUGE difference. I don't usually have a whole lot of time to actually sit down and read whole books anymore. So I've been reading online series more than anything else since like '97. A little here, a little there...one chapter or maybe two before bed. I might only read like 10 or 20 pages and pass out for the night.

 

However...there are people out there who devour books like a hungry pack of hyenas! Hehehe! There are people who devour ALL (and I mean **ALL**!!!) of "Gone From Daylight" in a weekend! It took me over a DECADE to write all that, and they read it all in a weekend??? I'm really happy that they liked it, that's AWESOME! But for me to keep up with them is imposible. So yeah, I can completely understand that to them, they want to read everything in a day and be done with it and move on to the next full story. They don't have any closure, and cliffhangers probably piss them off to no end.

 

But I like writing them that way. And I like posting new chapters every week to different stories and bring in new people to the site and hopefully getting people 'excited' about the next chapter of their personal faves.

 

Then again...sometimes people just get mad at me and leave. Hehehe, that happens too. :: Shrugs :: What can I say? I can't really feed the 'hardcore' folks as fast as they want it. But I do hope to make it worth the wait.

Hey there mister!!

There are those of us who WILL wait for the next chapter!!

COOL YOUR JETS, EH?