  Mystery
This week: Hanging over the edge Edited by: Arakun the twisted raccoon  
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Quote for the week:
No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye.
~Elizabeth Bowen
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| ASIN: B01FST8A90 |
Product Type: Toys & Games
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Amazon's Price: $ 24.95
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Serialized westerns of the 1930s came to be called "cliffhangers" because episodes often ended with the main character in a dangerous situation, such as dangling off the edge of a cliff. "Tune in again tomorrow," a dramatic voice would say, "to find out whether Mary Sue falls to her death."
The term cliffhanger is still used to describe a suspenseful situation occurring at the end of a chapter, scene, or episode. While the cliffhangers in those early serials were often melodramatic and cheesy, they can be a great way to keep a reader's interest if used carefully. Authors such as Dan Brown and Dean Koontz are masters of the cliffhanger at the end of a chapter. Their stories have kept me up all night turning "just one more page" more than once.
Here are some guidelines for using cliffhangers wisely:
Create likeable, interesting characters. If the readers don't like your characters, they won't care enough to keep reading, no matter how dire the situation.
Make sure it makes sense. Don't create an unrealistic situation or make your characters do something stupid just to set up a cliffhanger. It should be a logical development in the story.
Every chapter or scene doesn't need a cliffhanger ending. While every chapter should have some kind of hook to keep the reader's interest, save the real cliffhangers for the most suspenseful, important developments.
Give your readers something worth waiting for. When you use a cliffhanger to create suspense for your readers, don't disappoint them with an anticlimactic event. For example, if a character says, "I know who the killer is," at the end of a chapter, he should not say, "Just kidding," at the beginning of the next.
If you end a story with a cliffhanger, give the reader some closure. Be careful of ending a story with a cliffhanger, unless you also create some resolution. Your characters might solve the current mystery, but hint that the story isn't completely over. Maybe the answers your characters have found create more questions that can be the subject of a sequel.
Something to try: Write a mystery story using cliffhanger endings. |
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| Question for next time: Do you like to have everything explained at the end of a story, or leave some questions unanswered? |
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Mystery: March 26, 2014 Issue [#6225]
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