Is it the end?

CindyB

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My current first book ends with a cliffhanger. My second book picks up hours later but continues with the new challenges brought in by the end of the first. My first book is only about 50,000 words.

What I'm trying to decide is if I should scrap the idea of a second book and just continue it with the first. There would be a POV shift in the middle though which is what worries me. If I combine stories it would be about 100,000 words. Is that too many?

Any thoughts would be welcome!

Thank you
 

Maryn

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I'd be angry at a book that ends with a cliffhanger instead of a resolution of the main plot--angry enough not to buy the second book. I'd interpret the non-ending of the first book at a blatant ploy for sales of the second. And I'd probably tell friends who read the genre to skip the first book and probably anything else by that author.

Is how I'd feel clear enough?

Maryn, honest
 

tiddlywinks

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Hi, Cindy, and :welcome:

So, this is just my two cents, and you should take them with heapings of salt...

First, is this adult or YA? I took a brief peek on your website and I'd guess adult, but I wanted to verify. Straight up paranormal isn't a genre I read a lot in (I do read PNR but that's a different animal), so I can't speak knowledgeably to the standard practices. I'll just provide my reaction as a potential reader from a broader level:

1) I hate cliffhangers personally. If I picked this up and didn't know from the get-go that it ends on a big cliffhanger, I'd feel cheated, especially given it's so short. Again, this is totally my personal reaction/opinion, but I'd also be suspicious that you, the author, were just trying to string me along to shell out more money for Part 2 of what really should have been one book, if it's that short.

2) I don't know the standard wordcount range for paranormal offhand, but even not knowing that, 50K seems a wee bit short. Usually, I've seen low wordcount range listings for novel genres in adult categories ending at about 60K. If it's a very tightly written novel at 50K, sure? Then again, I'm a fantasy reader so I like a little more meat on my novel bones. :)

3) Have you had beta readers give you feedback on whether the length works, or if you're stopping too soon? If you leave a lot of threads undone, it could be very unsatisfying. Then again, if you've tied everything else up but for the one major thing...well, it could work? It's all in the execution to be honest, so tough to say. In spite of my note #1, I have read cliffhanger endings I've enjoyed in a scream of agony "I have to wait another year for the last book to answer this" way...but those have generally been YA novels? I've been scratching my head to think of a recent adult novel I've read that ended in a cliffhanger which wasn't an obvious "buy book 2 which I really just split to make more money" ploy and I'm coming up empty. I'm sure they are out there.

4) I can't think of a novel example where it switches POV mid-book, but again, I think it would be doable if executed correctly. And I wouldn't bat an eye at a 100K paranormal. Unless you are completely getting rid of the one POV that we start with by...say...killing them off mid-book? That could be dicey with readers. Is there a way you could have the other POV coming into play earlier? That way, you could make the transition/hand-off to the second POV more natural and less abrupt. Again, I don't know the plot of your novel to know whether that would work, but it's a thought.

Not sure if any of this helps. Figured I'd muse out loud and say "good luck"?

(But I personally would look to combine them if I could, if that's what my gut was telling me.)
 

starrystorm

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I agree that you should combine them. Maybe split the book into two parts and each part would clearly signal a new POV.

Like Part/Act 1 MC's name
Part/Act 2 FMC's name
 

CindyB

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Thank you! I appreciate the feedback! I appreciate the honestly and could see where I could anger someone if I left it off where it is. Beta readers have mentioned it ends too quickly which is another good sign I should continue it. The second POV person is in the book from the beginning and takes over when the other main character is incapacitated (It's a bit more complicated than that, but that works) for awhile. I'll give it a go and see how it flows. I do tend to jump POV throughout the story, but have 1 character I mostly stick with.

Thank you again!
 
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BethS

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What I'm trying to decide is if I should scrap the idea of a second book and just continue it with the first. There would be a POV shift in the middle though which is what worries me. If I combine stories it would be about 100,000 words. Is that too many?

No, it's not too many unless you're writing children's fiction. Certainly you can make it one book, with two sections: Part I and Part II. Since Part I ends with a cliffhanger, it's possible that changing to a new POV in Part II would work fine, assuming there's a good reason for the change (like the first POV character dying in Part I).
 

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I'd interpret the non-ending of the first book at a blatant ploy for sales of the second. And I'd probably tell friends who read the genre to skip the first book and probably anything else by that author.

How you feel is how you feel, of course, but...doesn't that do an injustice to books like The Lord of the Rings, which is one story divided into three volumes? And that's not the only one out there, just the most famous. Some stories are just too long and complex to fit between the covers of a single volume. It's not a sales ploy; it's practicality.
 

Maryn

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Sure, some stories are indeed too long for one book, but for me, each book in such a series needs to have a plotline that resolves. I'm fine with big-picture plotlines that take multiple books (LOTR, GoT), but in those, lesser plots for multiple characters' story arcs do come to an end, even though we still don't have the ring or the white walkers are not defeated.

My objection would be a book with a single plot--and it's hard to fit in much of a subplot in a 50K novel--that ends on a cliffhanger.

Maryn, with a Gallic shrug
 

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There are cliffhangers and there are cliffhangers.

There's an author I won't ever touch again because her first book leads up to what feels like a climatic battle and literally stops in the middle of the action. I turned the page, ended up in an appendix, and turned back, thinking I had missed a page. I hadn't. Nope, not trusting her again.

There are series I won't pick up again because the entire first book felt like set-up for the real story, which I have to buy book 2 to read. No thanks.

If I'm spending hours reading a book, I need that book to have its own ending.

I don't mind books that have their own climax and resolution, and then at the very end, set up for the next book with a mini-cliffhanger.
 

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I don't mind books that have their own climax and resolution, and then at the very end, set up for the next book with a mini-cliffhanger.

+10 to this.

To Beth's question, I'm okay when there's a broader series plot arc that isn't finished (totally fine with that given I love fantasy and the entire plot line doesn't resolve itself neatly in each book). But generally, each book in the series has its own mini-plot problem that is mostly resolved, as per Sage's note.

It's when it's a giant "where's the rest of the book????" kind of cliffhanger that I tend to have Maryn's reaction.
 
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Lone Wolf

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I agree with most of these comments above.
To Beth's question, I'm okay when there's a broader series plot arc that isn't finished (totally fine with that given I love fantasy and the entire plot line doesn't resolve itself neatly in each book). But generally, each book in the series has its own mini-plot problem that is mostly resolved, as per Sage's note.

It's when it's a giant "where's the rest of the book????" kind of cliffhanger that I tend to have Maryn's reaction.

Good example is Harry Potter (and many other YA series) - you have a decent story arc within each book and you generally know with these that it is a series. And when it's a great book you're glad there's more to come.

On the other hand, recently I tried reading a couple of free novels on google play. Now I guess you get what you pay for, but these were very short and ended in the middle of the story without anything like a resolution or full plot. It was clearly designed to hook you on the free sample then make you pay for the rest of the story. I paid for the second book but it answered none of the mystery set up in book one and was also very short. There was another 10 books and clearly it was just one novel chopped into bits. I was fuming. And it certainly wasn't good enough plot or writing to warrant my money.
 

BethS

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I'm fine with big-picture plotlines that take multiple books (LOTR, GoT), but in those, lesser plots for multiple characters' story arcs do come to an end, even though we still don't have the ring or the white walkers are not defeated.

Hmm. You might need to explain to me what you mean by "come to an end," because to me, the volumes in those series stop at major turning points, but not with any kind of resolution or ending, even for subplots.

[My objection would be a book with a single plot--and it's hard to fit in much of a subplot in a 50K novel--that ends on a cliffhanger.

We're in agreement there.
 

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Thank you! I appreciate the feedback! I appreciate the honestly and could see where I could anger someone if I left it off where it is. Beta readers have mentioned it ends too quickly which is another good sign I should continue it. The second POV person is in the book from the beginning and takes over when the other main character is incapacitated (It's a bit more complicated than that, but that works) for awhile. I'll give it a go and see how it flows. I do tend to jump POV throughout the story, but have 1 character I mostly stick with.

Thank you again!

When the beta readers said it 'ended too quickly' did they explain exactly what they meant?

Did they feel the story should 'continue' from where it presently ends, or that there should be more story before the present ending is reached?


Good luck.
 

call-of-the-mind

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There are cliffhangers that can work at the end of a book, for example the way Sarah J. Maas ends her Empire of Storms with a cliffhanger and I'm dying to read the next one. But if I read a book and it ended on a note that just didn't make sense (like the book Sage described). These just make most readers angry, so if you're going to end on a cliffhanger you definitely need to make sure that it's something that's going to ush readers to want more, instead of just aggravating them. That being said, most books do end with a new problem that the next needs to solve, with the exception of Books like Harry Potter, where each has a problem and then is resolved by the end of the book, with the whole series leading up to one underlying problem.

If you think your cliffhanger is a good one, do it. Have someone else read through and give you their opinion at the end.
 

KBooks

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I think the type of cliffhanger matters. I enjoy books where the main conflict the book presented is solved, but there is a tease at the end of future problems on the horizon the main characters will have to puzzle out. The Hunger Games had these sort of endings. As already stated, Sarah J Maas' books have these sorts of endings.

I dislike books where it feels like one book chopped into multiple parts for the sake of forcing readers to buy the next installment in order to find out how the original book they paid for ends. That always makes me feel cheated out of my money, and does not make me want to keep reading, because I assume the same thing will happen at the end of the next book. Enticement to read on is one thing. But my two cents is that if you're selling a book, it should have a solid beginning and ending within that unit. A hook to keep reading is just a bonus.
 

CindyB

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They felt that there should be more story.

When the beta readers said it 'ended too quickly' did they explain exactly what they meant?

Did they feel the story should 'continue' from where it presently ends, or that there should be more story before the present ending is reached?


Good luck.
 

quicklime

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My current first book ends with a cliffhanger. My second book picks up hours later but continues with the new challenges brought in by the end of the first. My first book is only about 50,000 words.

What I'm trying to decide is if I should scrap the idea of a second book and just continue it with the first. There would be a POV shift in the middle though which is what worries me. If I combine stories it would be about 100,000 words. Is that too many?

Any thoughts would be welcome!

Thank you



this is gonna be very cursory, ill-informed, and unfair. It is also going to probably be right close to 80% of the time, so you can decide if you're the exception or not:

If you have a 50K book and intend to print, you're on the short end of acceptable. Perhaps beyond acceptable even. On the flip side, if you are like most "beginners" for lack of a better term, that 2 books clocking in at 100,000K words probably makes a better 80K book anyways.

So unless you are a huge "putter-inner" where you tend to start skeletal and your stories increase by 20, 40, 60% on revision, you are probably better to write one lean, full-length book than 2 padded novellas.....
 

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this is gonna be very cursory, ill-informed, and unfair. It is also going to probably be right close to 80% of the time, so you can decide if you're the exception or not:

If you have a 50K book and intend to print, you're on the short end of acceptable. Perhaps beyond acceptable even. On the flip side, if you are like most "beginners" for lack of a better term, that 2 books clocking in at 100,000K words probably makes a better 80K book anyways.

So unless you are a huge "putter-inner" where you tend to start skeletal and your stories increase by 20, 40, 60% on revision, you are probably better to write one lean, full-length book than 2 padded novellas.....

Right.
Or even divide the cleaned up 80K book into 'part 1' and 'part 2'. Or 'book 1' and 'book 2'. This will help legitimize changes in style or POV or what have you.

Concerning the 50K book--perfectly acceptable, but for 'digital first' publishers and publisher arms, where any actual printing will only happen on demand. For an old school publication of the type that results in books standing in actual physical stores, 50K really is too little these days, unless one is a star. Gaiman's Ocean at the End of The Lane is a solid more or less recent example. I bought it in a bookstore. It's on my shelf. It's 50K.
 
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spork

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I agree that you should combine them. Maybe split the book into two parts and each part would clearly signal a new POV.

Like Part/Act 1 MC's name
Part/Act 2 FMC's name

I like this idea. I've read a few books that started shifting first-person narrators late in the story and it was a little disorienting. I'm not sure which POVs you're switching between, though.
 

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I agree with combining. You might also go back and see if you can't introduce the second POV in one or two of the earlier chapters, so the change is less jarring.
 

CindyB

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Thank you again, everyone. I really appreciate the advice!
 

RoyalFool

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Firstly, I agree with others I would get angry with a book that ended on a cliff hanger, enough not to buy the next book as I would feel cheated. It's a bit like Back to the Future 2 when I went to the cinema to see it, and it ended unexpectedly with a "to be continued...". I have never seen Back to the Future 3.

It sounds like you're a little worried that your story being covered in one book would make it too long. There is no such thing - even in these days when some novels seem so short they are printed with double-line spacing just to bulk them out a bit.

To misquote someone: A novel should be as long as it needs to be and no longer.

Now, I have read excellent novels that ran to 390 pages (Christine Falls - Benjamin Black); 694 pages (The Likeness - Tana French) and even 1495 pages, with quite tiny print (Noble House - James Clavell) and all were the right length. The most amazing thing with Noble House is it documents just a week in the lives of the characters, but there's so much happening and so many POV etc., that it remains engaging and interesting from the opening lines to the last words.

So, I would say put it all into one book.