Have you ever been there? It’s 1:00 AM. Your alarm is set for five hours from now, but you can’t stop. You finish a chapter, and your thumb automatically swipes to the next one before your logical brain can protest. The book has its hooks in you so deep that sleep has become a secondary concern.
I know that feeling because I just went through it. I recently read The Diviner’s Game Trilogy by Jennifer Cody, an MM paranormal romance series that does this perfectly. The trilogy keeps you on edge, not for one book but for all three, and then extends that tension into the spinoff series Shattered Pawns. Each book shifts perspective to a different character pairing. You could read each book alone and get a full story, but unless you stick all the way to the last book, you will have questions that only get answered in book three. Even though the story is retold, each version adds a new angle and keeps the tension building. Every chapter, every interaction, and every reveal drives you to keep going. That is how you do cliffhangers right.
That feeling (that breathless, compulsive need to know what happens next), is the result of masterful tension management. It’s a literary magic trick where the author becomes a dealer, and the drug they’re pushing is suspense. The tool they use to administer that drug is the chapter ending. More specifically, the cliffhanger.
The internet is full of writing advice that screams, “End every chapter on a cliffhanger!” And so, many aspiring authors do just that, believing it’s the key to an unputdownable book.
But here’s the hard truth: A cliffhanger is a promise. It’s a contract signed with the reader. And if you repeatedly make promises you can’t (or won’t) keep, you don’t create engagement. You don’t build suspense. You breed resentment. And a resentful reader doesn’t just put your book down; they often throw it across the room.
The Sacred Contract of the Page-Turn
To understand why this is so critical, you have to understand the psychology at play. Every time you end a chapter with a question: Will the hero survive? What’s behind that door? What did she just find out? You are creating a “curiosity gap.” You are intentionally unbalancing the reader’s mind, creating a small, nagging tension that their brain craves to resolve.
This act creates an unspoken contract. You, the author, have made a promise: “If you invest your time and turn this page, I will give you the answer. I will give you a payoff.”
When the reader turns the page and you deliver a satisfying answer that deepens the story, you have fulfilled your end of the bargain. You have paid your debt. The reader’s trust in you grows. They learn that turning the page is rewarding.
But when you repeatedly fail to deliver, or when the payoff is cheap and unsatisfying, you breach that contract. The reader learns that their investment of time and curiosity is a sucker’s bet. They stop trusting you as a storyteller. The suspense curdles into frustration. The engagement sours into a feeling of being manipulated.
Good Tension vs. Bad Tension: Suspense vs. Manipulation
Not all cliffhangers are created equal. The line between a brilliant, earned chapter ending and a cheap, manipulative one is the line between suspense and a fake-out.
The Fake-Out (Bad Tension):
A fake-out is a cliffhanger that relies on withholding obvious information or tricking the reader, only to reveal that the stakes were never real. It’s a narrative practical joke, and readers hate it.
Example of a Fake-Out:
Chapter 12 End: Her heart hammered against her ribs. She slowly opened the creaking closet door, her eyes widening in terror at what she saw inside. It was him. After all these years, he’d finally found her.
Chapter 13 Start: Her older brother, Jim, stood there wearing her favorite dress over his clothes. “Boo!” he yelled, laughing. “You should see your face!”
This is literary malpractice. It retroactively erases the tension of the previous chapter. It makes the protagonist’s terror feel foolish and the reader’s suspense feel unearned. The author has deliberately manipulated the reader’s emotions with information they easily could have provided. Do this once, and you risk a groan. Do it multiple times, and you risk a one-star review.
The Real Cliffhanger (Good Tension):
A good cliffhanger resolves an immediate question while raising a new, more urgent one. It escalates the stakes. The payoff doesn’t deflate the tension; it amplifies it.
Example of a Real Cliffhanger:
Chapter 12 End: Her heart hammered against her ribs. She slowly opened the creaking closet door… and it was empty. Relief washed over her for a split second, until she looked down and saw the muddy boot print on the floor—a bootprint that matched the ones the detective had shown her from the crime scene.
Chapter 13 Start: She slammed the closet shut, her back pressed against the wood, trying to silence her breathing. He wasn’t in the closet. Which meant he was still somewhere else in the house.
See the difference? We answer the first question: “Is the killer in the closet?” The answer is “No.” But that answer immediately creates a far more terrifying question: “If he’s not in the closet, where is he?” The promise is kept, and the stakes are raised. That’s how you build trust.
The Cliffhanger Toolkit: More Than Just a Character in Peril
Many writers think cliffhangers are only about physical danger. But a master storyteller has a full toolkit of chapter endings that can create suspense in different ways.
The Action Cliffhanger: This is the classic. The hero is dangling from a ledge, a bomb timer is ticking down to zero, or the villain’s knife is plunging toward their chest. It answers the question, “Will they survive this immediate physical threat?”
The Revelation Cliffhanger: This ending reveals a shocking piece of information that changes the entire context of the story. Think “I am your father.” A trusted ally is revealed as a traitor. A long-held belief is proven false. It poses the question, “What do the characters do now that everything they thought they knew is wrong?”
The Decision Cliffhanger: The protagonist is faced with an impossible choice. They have only one dose of the antidote and must choose between saving their mother or their child. They must decide whether to sacrifice their principles to achieve a necessary goal. It asks the question, “What will they choose, and what will the consequences be?”
The Emotional Cliffhanger: This is an intimate, character-based cliffhanger. A character makes a vulnerable confession (“I love you”), delivers a devastating blow (“I never loved you”), or makes a life-altering statement (“I’m pregnant”). The question isn’t about physical survival, but emotional outcome: “How will the other character react?”
A Guide to Keeping Your Promises
Understanding the theory is one thing; putting it into practice is another. Here are some actionable guides for using cliffhangers effectively and ethically.
- Deliver the Payoff Immediately
.When you end a chapter on a cliffhanger, the reader expects the answer at the start of the next chapter. Don’t switch to a different character’s POV for three chapters before you resolve it. That’s not building suspense; that’s causing frustration. Resolve the immediate question on the very next page. - Escalate, Don’t Deflate
As shown in our good vs. bad example, the payoff for a cliffhanger should almost always make the situation worse. The resolution should complicate the plot, deepen the conflict, or raise the stakes. The mantra is “Yes, and…” or “No, but…” Did the hero defuse the bomb? “Yes, and he just realized it was a decoy.” Did the heroine escape the killer? “No, but she managed to grab his weapon.” - Vary Your Endings.
A book where every single chapter ends on a massive, life-or-death cliffhanger is exhausting. It’s like a song that is only screaming crescendos. Readers need moments to breathe, to process, and to reflect. Vary your chapter endings. Follow up a big action cliffhanger with a chapter that ends on a quiet, emotional note. Let some chapters end thematically, with a resonant final line that makes the reader think rather than gasp. Pacing is about rhythm; the balance of tension and release. - Pass the Honesty Test.
When you’re editing, look at every chapter ending and ask yourself one brutally honest question: “Am I ending the chapter here because it is a natural, dramatic, and significant turning point in the story? Or am I just stopping mid-action to artificially force a page turn?” If the answer is the latter, you’re on the path to manipulation.
Trust Is Earned in the White Space
Try This: A Beta Reader’s Feedback
As a beta reader, I see this all the time. Writers think cliffhangers are clever when they are just cheap. If your reader feels tricked, you failed.
Ask your beta reader if they felt rewarded for turning the page. Did they feel manipulated? Did you earn that tension? A good beta reader will tell you the truth.
Real cliffhangers come from real stakes. They come from what your characters stand to lose. If your beta says, “This feels cheap,” believe them. Go back and fix it. That is how you build trust.
Ultimately, your relationship with your reader is built in the white space between chapters. That small gap holds all the trust you’ve accumulated. The cliffhanger is your request for that trust. The payoff is your reward for it.
Your job as a storyteller isn’t to trick or force your reader into turning the page. Your job is to make them so invested in the characters and so engaged by the stakes that they can’t bear not to.
So go back to your manuscript. Examine your promises. Are you a trustworthy guide on a thrilling journey, or are you a manipulative trickster leading your reader to a series of dead ends? Build your story on a foundation of earned suspense and satisfying payoffs. That’s how you create the book they’re still thinking about a week later. That’s how you earn a reader for life.
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