Cliffhangers are for TV

   “Who Shot JR?”, the question that kept America and much of the world in thrall in 1980 was an excellent advertising gimmick that pulled people back to the show. 

   Many authors who serialized their novels for magazines also used the cliffhanger to their advantage in hopes that it would encourage readers to purchase the next installment. The intent of the cliffhanger - entice the reader to purchase another copy of the magazine/newspaper.  If the circulation of the periodical went up, then the author could charge more for the next serialized story.

   However, the use of the cliffhanger in a full length novel is something I find distasteful. 

   There is nothing like slinking down in bed with a good book and cup of hot chocolate.  Unfettered time, reading a book is like riding the waves.  The reader’s emotions ride the crests and troughs of the storyline.  Readers are willing to have their emotions buffeted hither and thither for one reason and that is to know what all of the angst was for.  To put in hours of time, allowing ones psyche to be shredded, only to come to the end of the book at a crucial event.  It reminds me of the way Annie Wilkes, in “Misery” feels after her favorite character is killed off,  unrelenting rage. 

   Recently, I went through a spell of reading self-published novels.  It soon became apparent that many relied upon the cliffhanger as a marketing technique and as long as they mentioned that their story was part one of whatever, I had no issues. I wasn’t going to buy it, but then I wouldn’t give it a bad review either. Problems occurred when the more senior self-published authors began doing the same thing.  J R Rain author of the popular “Vampire for Hire” series is a good example.  The first novel “Moon Dance”, while flawed was fun and fresh.  I inhaled the story.  I immediately purchased “Vampire Moon”, only to inhale that one as well, only to come to a screeching halt.  One of the main plot points was coming to culmination when…the story stopped.  “To be continued”, what can be forgiven in a magazine or a newspaper, where the item being purchased is not the story, cannot be forgiven when I have spent my hard earned money on a “book”, when I have invested my rare free time in an item that is advertised as a book, then I expect that book to have a beginning, a middle and an end that ties all the threads together. 

   I wish I could say that it was only the self-published that have resorted to the cliffhanger device.  Unfortunately, the fantasy/paranormal genres are littered with the cliffhanger. “The Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice and Fire” series is an extreme example, by the time the final book is published 25 years will have passed since the first book was published. 

   More recently, the “All Souls Trilogy”, by Deborah Harkness also became one story told in three parts.  A friend had recommended “A Discovery of Witches” and while I found the storytelling a bit slow, I was enjoying the story. When it ended with nothing being resolved, I was irritated.  Luckily, the 2nd book in the series had already been published and I hoped that it would at least give some closure.  It didn’t. By the time the third novel came out, I wasn’t sure I wanted to revisit the series.  I’m still not sure.

    Cliffhanger, that lingering question of “what happens next”, emotional manipulation to force me to purchase the next installment.

     Curling up in bed with my book and hot chocolate, going on that wonderful trip that only a book can take me, following characters and their threads to completion;  that is what I, as a reader craves.  A book, a complete story, is an entity unto itself.  A cliffhanger is a broken thing, best left to TV shows.