Cliffhanger Endings
I’m writing a series that will have around eight books, and I have it generally outlined, but I keep wondering how to end each one of the individual books. That is, I want to have each book have its own sort of conclusion and resolution, but I also want people to go and buy the next book when they’re done. I guess what I’m asking is how exactly is a good way to end a book in a series? Are cliff-hangers good or bad? Are cliff-hangers okay but only to a certain extent? Thank you! —anonSome people love cliffhangers and some people loathe them, but there are different kinds of cliffhangers and some rules that make them okay.A soft cliffhanger ending, on the other hand, is one that occurs after the central conflict of the story has been resolved. After the character has reached their main goal. After the answer to the dramatic question has been revealed. The soft cliffhanger hints at more trouble to come—the trouble that will be the central conflict of the next book. In the first Harry Potter book, for example, we want to know if Harry will succeed in thwarting the evil Lord Voldemort’s attempt to return. He does, and we are satisfied because we have that answer. But because Voldemort escapes and we know he is likely to try again, this gives us a new conflict to look forward to—something to entice us to read the next book.
A classic cliffhanger ending is one in which the story ends abruptly, before the story’s central conflict is resolved. So, imagine if Jurassic Park ended as the velociraptors were jiggling the handle of the kitchen door, or if The Wizard of Oz had ended when the flying monkeys capture Dorothy and Toto. We’d be left without answers to the dramatic questions posed by each story’s central conflict. Will Dr. Grant and company escape Jurassic Park? Will Dorothy defeat the wicked witch and make it home to Kansas? The promise of discovering the answer to those questions kept our eyes glued to the screen, and when the story ends without giving us those answers, we tend to feel shortchanged.Since you have your series planned out, you can look at the central conflict in the next book and find a way to use it as the soft cliffhanger for the previous book. Let’s say in book one, your protagonist quashes an alien invasion, but in book two, a bigger wave of aliens attack. You could have your protagonist and her buddies sitting pretty, reveling in their triumph, when she looks skyward and sees not dozens, but thousands of alien ships twinkling against the night sky. Or perhaps her father is a military general, and she’s there when he gets a phone call from the government: NORAD has been tracking a second, bigger wave of ships arriving. This will leave them satisfied but curious about what will happen next.Resources:
