Being an established writer with a poorly done cliffhanger is not going to make me appreciate it. A debut author with a good story and a cliffhanger on the end is still going to be enjoyed.
"To be continued..." or better alternative for ending a novel in a series?
- Thread starter Galumph_Triumph
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Very true, also. But for me, it comes down to a matter of trust as well. If you stick me on a horse I've never seen ridden before, I'm not going to attempt to jump a stage 3 course. But a horse I know well, and know its strengths and foibles? Sure.
I haven't read the other comments, but you should always end a novel in a way that it would be okay if it stood on its own. There could be unanswered questions, but there are a number of reasons you want the first one to be able to stand alone, two most important would be 1. You're much more likely to find representation if noting the novel has "series potential" instead of claiming it is a series. Especially as a debut author, agents and publishers are not going to trust your book will sell. They will hope, but knowing that they must publish a second if they publish the first is going to be seen as a turnoff. Plus, depending on sales, you may not get the chance to publish a second. 2. I don't think it's fair to your readers to not have some form of conclusion at the end of a book. As I said, it's perfectly okay to leave some things open giving the possibility of further explanation and continuation, but the major conflict of the novel should be resolved, and the next in the series should have its own new conflict to fix. A novel isn't 1/20 TV episodes where you're waiting for the cliffhanger to be resolved in a week or so. It's a much different creative avenue and needs some form of THE END at the end. Especially in the first of a series.
Please, please, pulleaze... end the book on a cliffhanger. It makes things so much easier for the rest of us when you write a book that will never get an agent or publication.
Jeff
Totally agree. I need a decent conclusion, and then every subsequent installment, I love a good cliffhanger.
I'm firmly in the "finish the story" camp.
Whenever I get to the end of a book that has a cliffhanger before the main plotline is resolved, I feel cheated. It doesn't make me want to read book two, it makes me want to avoid everything that author writes in future, because I know I'll be similarly short-changed again. I don't want to pay for half a story, I want a beginning, a middle and an ending, and if a series keeps ending on cliffhangers, I'll immediately suspect that the author has no idea how to write endings.
It seems to be a trend with particularly self-published series, that plotting takes inspiration from TV series arcs. What these writers don't seem to realise is that the better way to do that is to make "book one" equate to "season one", rather than "episode one". A full arc that wraps up at the end (with the assumption of cancellation), but leaves enough threads dangling to pick up in season two - rather than an exciting introduction to the characters, and then "stay tuned next week!" to see how their problem is resolved.
Whenever I get to the end of a book that has a cliffhanger before the main plotline is resolved, I feel cheated. It doesn't make me want to read book two, it makes me want to avoid everything that author writes in future, because I know I'll be similarly short-changed again. I don't want to pay for half a story, I want a beginning, a middle and an ending, and if a series keeps ending on cliffhangers, I'll immediately suspect that the author has no idea how to write endings.
It seems to be a trend with particularly self-published series, that plotting takes inspiration from TV series arcs. What these writers don't seem to realise is that the better way to do that is to make "book one" equate to "season one", rather than "episode one". A full arc that wraps up at the end (with the assumption of cancellation), but leaves enough threads dangling to pick up in season two - rather than an exciting introduction to the characters, and then "stay tuned next week!" to see how their problem is resolved.
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I'm having a bit of difficulty deciding whether or not my ending would be considered conclusive. While my book ends in a peaceful place, and with the main antagonist thwarted, my deuteragonist's overarching goal is still unachieved, and there are several lingering questions. Most YA novels that I've read, which are part of a series, have similar endings where the main crisis of that book gets resolved, but it's very clear that it's not the end.
You are selling the second book when the first book is not yet proven on the market. Unless you are going for self-publishing, editors and agents alike will see this proposition as too risky business-wise. Sell book one. Get the sales volume you need to introduce the second book.
-cb
I agree with others and agree that it's a good idea to "make sure the story ends with a fulfilling conclusion". But just a caution on HOW you do that... It sounds like your whole 2-part series is really a single story or "narrative". (It could be two separate stories with an overarching series story, but if that was the case I doubt you would've posed your original question in this way.)
So, to end with a fulfilling conclusion, make sure you don't try to shoehorn the first book into some narrative structure that doesn't fit with your ideas. Instead, you could perhaps end it after the characters achieve some important requirement towards the full series-story's goal.
On the other hand, if the first book actually has its own complete story in it, you should definitely make that come to a complete conclusion, while hinting at the larger overarching series stuff that isn't resolved.
(I hope this post isn't too confusing, I have been studying narrative theory that uses some weird terms so I had to try really hard to translate, lol.)