Cliffhangers

What's your opinion on cliffhangers?

Fun to write, a pain to read. 

Cliffhangers, I think they’re amazing to keep people interested, or rather curious, about a story. It’s the cliffhangers that keep me reading chapter after chapter when I’m reading a book. Every single time I’m reading, I tell myself I’m going to stop once I finish the chapter I am on, but over and over again I find myself reading the next chapter as well. And then when I’m at that chapter, again I decide to stop when I finish that one, but then the same happens and so on and on. I’m hopeless when it comes to putting a book aside when it has cliffhangers at the end of each chapter. 

I don’t mind cliffhangers in a book not as much as the ones on Wattpad. That’s for the sole reason that in a book-book, you can read the next chapter right away whereas you have to wait when it’s a story you’re reading on Wattpad – unless it’s a finished story of course. 

Cliffhangers are important, necessary even, but it’s not good either when there are too many of them. I know that I hate it when every single chapter ends with a cliffhanger. 

Then there’s also the question of what a good cliffhanger is. To me, a good cliffhanger is one that keeps you wondering what will happen - but not like when a sentence just has been cut off, I really hate those endings. Throughout the whole chapter there’ll be this building up to something you really want to know, and then just when you think you’ll find out, it ends and you have to read the next chapter to find out – that’s a good cliffhanger to me. It’s also way better when a cliffhanger isn’t just put there because the author wanted to end with a cliffhanger. I think you can see a reasonable difference between the cliffhangers that have use, and the ones that are only there because the author thinks it’ll keep the readers more interested. 

Personally, I like to add a cliffhanger to my stories as well, because sometimes it just makes the story more interesting. Sometimes a chapter just ‘begs’ for a cliffhanger and it wouldn’t be fair not to add it. Plus, I think it’s always fun to read the comments to a chapter that ends with a cliffhanger – even when it’s not my story. 

To tell it in short, cliffhangers can be useful and are necessary from time to time, but I’d rather not read them when I know I’ll have to wait for the next chapter – I’m just impatient like that when it comes to reading.