The Great Debate: To Cliffhang or Not to Cliffhang

 

There was a trend a couple of years ago (and is still seen, though a bit more rarely) where authors (especially new ones, and Indie ones) 'divided' their books into 'parts' that had cliffhanger endings. Readers, for the most part, (including myself) HATED this trend and felt, rightly so, it was a 'ploy' for the author to make money, banking (haha) literally on the fact readers wanted more of the story so would pay...and pay...and pay...

Well...no.

I tended to be...harsh...on authors who wrote cliffhanger-buy-next-book ploys. I felt cheated, and really, really, really (did I mention really?) hated this practice. I felt it was the mark of a less great author to cliffhang a book just to make me, the reader, buy the next. It's beneath a good writer, IMHO, to cliffhang one book to sell another book.

 I wasn't alone, judging from the reviews. To this day, if I see a review on a book that mentions a 'cliffhanger', I won't read or especially buy it.

Then my all-time favorite author wrote a new series, and the first and second books ended on major, stop in the near middle of a sentence, cliffhangers.

I honestly cried when I read the first one. I felt betrayed. I felt appalled. How could she DO this to me, her faithful long-time reader?

Do I still read her books? Yes. 

She's my rule exception for the simple reason I have read her...umm...since the 90s, when she was barely known and just getting her name and talent out in the world. I have read her still going series under her pen name (it's almost 60 books strong now) since the very first paperback in 1995. Because 1. she's the absolute best writer in the universe; 2. she's like a member of my family; and 3. her stories have me caught up enough that I want the next one, even if I have to pay more to get it and wait a year. Bonus: she's also redheaded and Irish, so she's part of my tribe and people, even if I'm sputtering frustratingly mad at her because the character walked into a portal and the book ended.

I'm not a patient person. Any longer.

See, I'm one of those from the generation where we watched Hans Solo get frozen in carbonite and then had to wait THREE WHOLE YEARS to see Luke, Leia, and company rescue and unfreeze him. It wasn't like Harry Potter in the 90s, where the movie stopped and a year later you got the next (and to be fair,  The Hunger Games, The Lord of the Rings, and the Marvel movies, etc. all have used this same ploy). Or you could binge-stream the whole 8 movies in a weekend. We had to wait THREE WHOLE YEARS. I was barely a baby when Hans froze and almost in high school when he unfroze. That is mucho, mucho time, people.

But as I grew older, I grew less patient. Although I must say when we viewed the first Lord of the Rings movie, and it literally just stopped, my ten-year-old son stood up, shook a fist at the screen, and loudly announced, "WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT'S THE END??? PUT ON THE REST OF THE MOVIE!"

So I'm not alone. Or it's genetic. Or both.

TV shows were notorious for the May cliffhanger that made viewers wait until the show resumed from Summer break in September to get a resolution (Who Shot JR from Dallas is the prime example)...but I was too young to care, and my parents didn't let me watch Dallas anyway, so I think more of the Bones episode where Tempie went off to discover a lost tribe in the jungle, Angela went to Paris, Booth went to Afghanistan and we all had to wait a couple of months to see them reunite again in DC.

But books...sighs. I don't want to read cliffhanger books. Books are different from visual media. I make my own visual media when I read a book (or at least I do for the good ones) so they are like movies and tv in that way...except I don't get auto access to the next part of a cliffhanger. 

Don't get me wrong. I love series books, where we get 'the next chapter' of a couple's story when that couple has had their main story. I mean, I write these sorts of books. I never cliffhang, but you do see the main characters from book 2 (like Anna and Robin) in book 3. In the new super sweet series I'm writing, some of the main characters have lifelong issues (like PTSD and recovery from abuse) that aren't solved in one book, and pop up for them as now minor characters in other books. Because that's real. That's what happens in real life.

But I don't stop mid-scene.

So the reader me sees this as totally different from just literally stopping a book mid-chapter, or mid-scene and the reader has to wait for the rest. I just can't do it. I can't invest precious time (I'm a teacher, a counselor, an admin, and a writer not counting 'real' life: believe me how precious time is) reading a book, trying to remember everything, while I wait for the next.

The above author is my sole exception. I usually wait for all three books and then read them all I want, cliffhanger or not, because I know the next chapter is literally at my fingertips. My exception to the rule.

So...to cliffhang or not to cliffhang? That is the question... Have an answer? Share it in the comments!