I recently stumbled upon a Reddit thread where people were discussing what made them give up on certain book series. One person fulminated about a series in which the author had the temerity to end a book on a cliffhanger. This was a bridge too far. 1 This particular reader found it offensive and manipulative, a transparently crass mercantile ploy to force readers to buy the next book. And decided not to fall for it, thereby opting out of the series from then on.
I get it. I have a small measure of sympathy for this person. But given that I famously ended the second book in the I Hunt Killers trilogy with three (or was it four? Let’s call it four to be safe) cliffhangers, I also took it a little personally.
Let’s talk about cliffhangers for a moment, shall we?
On their most basic level, sure, cliffhangers exist to get you to come back for more. They are pretty much synonymous with the old movie serials, which would end each episode on a dastardly moment of “How the hell will they get out of this?” so that people would return to the theater the following week and pony up for a ticket for the next installment.
I think, though, that as with so many elements of art, the devil is in the details. A cliffhanger can be a grossly transparent beggar’s hand, or it can be an important part of the story. The very best transcend mere “story element” status and become, in my opinion, a gift to the audience.
Let me explain. To do so, I’m going to take you back thirty-something years. A lot of you either weren’t alive then or were trundling around in diapers, but that’s OK — you don’t need to have been alive to get the point of this story.
In 1991, Young Barry was obsessed with the TV show Twin Peaks. If you’ve heard of it, great. If you’ve seen it, better. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, it doesn’t matter — follow along.
(And, uh, spoilers for season 2 of Twin Peaks, y’all…)
The central conceit of Twin Peaks is that a malevolent possessive spirit named BOB (all caps!) has been using the bodies of others to murder young women in horrible fashion. FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper is uniquely suited to hunt down BOB, and has been in the town of Twin Peaks, Washington looking for the killer.
In the final episode of the second season, Cooper does the impossible and rescues BOB’s next victim before she can fall prey to BOB’s horrific depredations. But in the closing moments of the episode, we are shocked to learn that there is a price to pay for Cooper’s victory: Now he is possessed by BOB! The one man alive who can stop BOB is now utterly in BOB’s thrall!
How’s Annie?
That was the end of the second season.
And then it was announced that the show would not be coming back for a third. 2
A lot of people were pissed. In fact, I think that much of our cultural distaste for cliffhangers can be traced back to that second season finale and the shock that this was the how story would end.
I was never angry, though. Not at the moment I watched that finale, and not for the next twenty-three years of my life, at which point season three was announced.
Because I saw that cliffhanger as a gift.
From 1991 through to 2014, I had no way to know that there would eventually be a third season. And for those 23 years, I thought about Twin Peaks and the ending of the story and its implications.
I spent most of my adult life contemplating that show and what that ending could mean. Not in an anxious or perturbed way, mind you. But rather in a thoughtful, excited, and imaginative way. Twin Peaks opened up a universe of possibilities and potentialities for me, giving me multiple storylines and notions to consider and play with over more then two decades.
Not for an instant was I upset about that cliffhanger! Not for an instant did I think, Now I’ll never know how it ends! Instead, Twin Peaks became my Roman Empire (long before the viral tweet) and I thought about it almost every day. It was comfort and intellectual stimulation and creative catnip all in one.
Like I said: a gift. Something wonderful to think about, in a way that would not have obtained if that second season had had a definitive ending.
And though it may seem the height of hubris, I like to think that those four cliffhangers at the end of Game were my gift to my readers. Something for them to consider, to turn over in their minds, to play with and to (sorry) game out for the time between books.3
I submit to you that if a cliffhanger gets you to buy the next book, then you weren’t manipulated — you were hooked! No cliffhanger, no matter how dastardly and conniving, can make you care about characters you hitherto had had no interest in. No cliffhanger, no matter how thrilling and breathtaking, can make you yearn for the resolution of a plot you’d been bored by.
If you happen to be watching or reading a story and it ends on a cliffhanger and your immediate reaction is a reflexive Ick!, I’d encourage you to take a moment. Step back. Think about it. Are you really upset by the cliffhanger itself, or have you been conditioned by the weight of culture to disregard it?
Some stories don’t earn their cliffhangers, true. I’m not saying every cliffhanger is worthy or worthwhile.
But some of them are gifts, if you’re willing to accept them.
- Get it? Cliff? Bridge? I’ll see myself out.
- Turns out it did…more than 25 years later! But of course, I couldn’t know that at the time.
- I am sorry the third book took about six months longer to come out than originally intended. Wasn’t my fault. Also wasn’t the publisher’s fault. It was just a series of unavoidable coincidences that added up, and I still feel bad about it.