A cliffhanger is not a trick, but a promise. As a storyteller, you want to grab your reader’s attention and hold it until the end. The greatest complement a reader can give is saying, “I couldn’t put it down.”
A good cliffhanger doesn’t simply heighten the drama, it advances the narrative by turning tense moments into doorways instead of stopping points.
In this article, I’ll show you how effective cliffhangers work and how to write them in different mediums. Lastly, I’ll give you a Story Weapon to help you write irresistible cliffhangers of your own.
Learning how to write a cliffhanger means understanding that it’s a promise, not a trick — an unanswered question left open to pull readers forward rather than a forced moment of peril. The strongest cliffhangers come from character decisions rather than surprise, and they lose their power if overused, since genuine suspense needs contrast with quieter scenes. Ending a chapter at the exact moment a choice becomes unavoidable creates more momentum than any shock twist.
What is a cliffhanger?
A cliffhanger is a moment in a story where you’ve created an important unanswered question. It doesn’t always have to be life or death. Sometimes it’s something simple, such as:
- Will they say yes?
- Who sent this letter?
- Why did her father lie?
- What will happen when they finally walk through that door?
Your readers naturally want closure. Once you raise an important question, the brain starts searching for the answer. Your job, as a storyteller, is to delay the satisfaction of closure until the end by creating thrilling twists and turns along the way.
But if every chapter ends in peril with someone screaming, collapsing, or pointing a gun, your readers will quickly recognize the pattern. The suspense stops feeling genuine and reveals itself as manipulative. Real suspense comes from emotional investment, not constant danger.
A cliffhanger isn’t always an action scene
A common myth is that cliffhangers must include things like explosions, murders, or shocking information. However, some of the best cliffhangers are rather subtle.
Think about a woman who opens an envelope she’s been waiting to unseal for twenty years. She unfolds the paper within. Her smile fades. End of chapter.
No explosions. No deaths. But the reader must turn the page to learn what she found in that envelope.
In ratcheting up the drama, consider how you can push on the emotional levers of your characters.
Mid-story cliffhangers keep momentum alive
You might think cliffhangers only belong at the end of TV episodes or to close a book in an ongoing series to push readers into buying the next installment. But you can use cliffhangers at any point in a story to help keep the momentum going.
You might place a cliffhanger moment towards the end of a scene, just before moving into another viewpoint or picking up a new story arc. Imagine that your protagonist finally finds out the identity of the prime suspect in a case. Before making an arrest, the story changes the point of view to that of the suspect’s teenage daughter who doesn’t know anything about her mother’s crime. This way, you’re playing into the suspense but haven’t stalled the plot unnecessarily.
Should every chapter end with a cliffhanger?
On the contrary, if each chapter leaves readers on a cliffhanger, the technique loses its effectiveness. It gets boring. There is no real emphasis on the truly dramatic story beats due to a lack of variation.
Tension requires points of contrast. Cliffhangers are most effective when used selectively.
There will be times for exposition, quiet character-driven scenes, comedic beats, romantic longing and turmoil. If you leave each emotional scene open, and cut away to something else, your readers have no opportunity to process what was said.
A note for different types of writers
Novelists: You control the pace. You get to decide where chapters start and end, as well as how much time your reader spends in each scene. There are endless possibilities here to build suspense and anticipation.
One tool is ending your chapter right before an anticipated climactic moment. If you have two characters who’ve been avoiding a crucial conversation for most of the story, consider ending the chapter where one of the characters is forced to reveal something they were previously hiding.
The conversation itself becomes the reward waiting on the next page. Readers don’t feel manipulated because you’ve promised something meaningful rather than simply withholding information.
Memoirists: Your readers know that you’ve made it through whatever happens in the story, and they might even have a general sense of the ending from your book description and chosen memoir category. Is there room for suspense here? Yes, but it lies in experience, not in outcome.
Memoir readers expect to find emotional resolution at the end, so of course you won’t be using a book closing cliffhanger here. But they can still live throughout the story, to great effect.
Our lives are full of suspenseful moments. Although your readers might have an idea of the ending, they don’t know what it was like for you to live through those moments or what you may have lost or learned along the way.
Screenwriters: Here you have ample opportunities for cliffhangers, but you have to find the right balance.
They often appear at the end of scenes or major acts, and you can also have mid-action cuts right before a moment of impact, leaving your audience to imagine the fallout before it finally cuts back again.
Each act break should raise a larger dramatic question. Television episodes rely heavily on this structure. You’re constantly encouraging viewers to return after the next break, watch the following episode, or continue streaming.
While cliffhangers are expected here they shouldn’t feel cheap. If you use them too frequently, or if there’s not a satisfying payoff for the viewers, your audience will grow frustrated.
A simple exercise to strengthen your cliffhangers
Here’s an exercise I recommend to writers who feel their chapters losing momentum. Ask yourself the following three questions.
- What question does this chapter answer? Every chapter should resolve something, even if it’s only a small piece of the larger story.
- What new question naturally grows from that answer? Notice the word naturally. You shouldn’t have to invent a surprise. The next question should emerge from the consequences of what just happened.
- What’s the latest possible moment I can end this chapter before answering that new question? Often you’ll discover you’ve carried on for another page or two after the ideal stopping point.
Surprise versus suspense
One final thought. Many novice writers chase shock. They want the unexpected death. The huge twist. The secret twin. The hidden villain. Those moments can certainly work, but they’re difficult to earn.
Experienced writers focus on something else: suspense.
Suspense engages your reader’s curiosity so that your story can build in meaning. Curiosity is quieter than shock, but it lasts longer. A shocking moment might surprise readers for a few seconds, but suspense will hold their attention until the end.
As you’re writing, pay attention to the questions your story naturally raises. Don’t rush to answer all of them. Let readers wonder and anticipate. That’s where momentum comes from.
Your story weapon: End on a decision, not a question
Here’s a technique you can try in your next chapter. Instead of wondering how you can create a bigger cliffhanger, ask yourself: “What decision is my character about to make that changes everything?”
There’s a subtle but important difference in this approach. Questions create curiosity. Decisions build momentum.
Imagine your chapter ends with a character standing outside someone’s front door. That’s a perfectly serviceable cliffhanger.
But now imagine the chapter ends with them finally knocking, knowing that once the door opens, there’s no going back.
The tension isn’t just about whether the door will open. It’s about the choice they’ve made. Readers aren’t just waiting for information anymore. They’re waiting for consequences. That’s often where the strongest cliffhangers come from.
So, the next time you’re tempted to end a chapter with a random surprise, pause for a moment. Look at your character instead. Ask yourself what they’re afraid of. What they’re hoping for. What impossible choice they’re about to make.
If you can end your chapter at the precise moment when that choice becomes unavoidable, you’ll create something much more powerful than a gimmick. You’ll create anticipation that’s rooted in character.
When suspense grows naturally from character, readers keep reading because they genuinely care what happens after the cliffhanger.
Mastering techniques like the cliffhanger allows you to create stories that hold your readers’ attention through genuine curiosity rather than artificial suspense. To deepen your understanding of pacing, tension, and character-driven storytelling, join one of my next workshops: The 90-Day Novel, The 90-Day Memoir, or Story Day, where you’ll learn practical techniques for crafting stories readers won’t want to put down.
