I think the most interesting thing has been the feeling that I really already knew the answer to my question. And whilst I’m not great at cliffhangers, I’m even worse at chapters! My main building blocks are scenes, and if splitting it up like that doesn’t work I’ll have to learn how to think in chapters!

The problem with cliffhangers is that unless you’re careful you’ll find yourself working the story around them. That happened a lot in Doctor Who and still does in 24. The storytelling is motoring along perfectly fine but then the close of the episode comes along and everyone essentially takes a detour for the cliffhanger which is then resolved inconsequentially the following week and then the storytelling gets back on track.

Chapters mark a structural break in the narrative. The break is usually there to indicate a transition. That transition may start and end before or after the break.

Cory doesn’t always use cliffhangers in Little Brother but he sets up your curiosity about what will happen next, and the chapter breaks mark that you are going to have your curiosity sated a bit and see the action move on.

So what I’m saying is, no. You don’t need cliffhangers. If they evolve naturally, so be it. But don’t force them into your story. Focus on your characters. Let them tell you what needs to be there.

Cliffhangers are not necessary, no. A reader is always driven by a desire to know what happens next. As long as the story has an unresolved question that the reader wants answering, ending a chapter or scene on an explicit ‘oh lord, the hero’s car has just driven off the cliff, how can she possibly survive?’ isn’t necessary. It fact, it doesn’t work unless the reader cares about the hero and, equally, it doesn’t ensure a compelling plot.

The example I’d use of a story that doesn’t feature oodles of tension, conflict and drama, yet manages to be utterly captivating… well, it’s illustrated by this clip better than I can explain it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0bHlRQLObU

However, I’m not sure if the ‘get in early, leave late’ method ever really works. For a first draft, yes, but it becomes incredibly hard to justify the padding when you come back for a re-write

As a child of Doctor Who, the cliffhanger is what (almost quite literally) kept me hanging on from week to week waiting for the next episode. In fact, it still does. But in literature it’s tricky and often overused.

In a written story, rather more than on TV or a film, you maintain interest not with moments of peril and great drama that require a resolution but with emotional interest. And I don’t mean that tediously. In a written story it’s easier to hang the story on internal turmoil or decision making and that can be more compelling and equally cliffhangery.

In print, I find dramatic cliffhangers (esp from chapter to chapter) often quite trite and mechanical, and the tool of a formulaic author: this is the end of the chapter, we must have a desperate situation that needs sorting. I think that provoking a reader to wonder ‘I must read on to find out how this will turn out?’ is more than adequate. I’m suspicious of authors who stoke up too much anxiety, even if I do sometimes find it immensely enjoyable. ;o)

On the same token, I’ve read some technically precise detective novels that just don’t do anything for me, cliffhangers or not. So I really don’t think cliffhangers are required. It’s about whether you can make your reader settle into your story and then it’s for you to take them where you want to.