Insecure Writers Support group - December

 It's the first Wednesday in December, so it's time for the Insecure Writers' Support Group!

The awesome co-hosts for the December 4 posting of the IWSG are Ronel, Deniz, Pat Garcia, Olga Godim, and Cathrina Constantine!

This month's question is very much something that is on my mind at the moment:

Do you write cliffhangers at the end of your stories? Are they a turn-off to you as a writer and/or a reader?

My critique group have been talking a lot about this very thing, not so much at the end of stories, but at the end of chapters. Leaving a cliff hanger or at least an intriguing moment at the end of the chapter encourages the reader to keep going, to turn the page and get immersed in the next chapter. Done well, you can sometimes get readers to stay up half the night to finish your book.

The way I write doesn't really lend itself to doing this except occasionally by accident. Because I write out of order and don't usually create chapters out of my text until the book's pretty much finished (or I'm putting up chapters for my critique group and need to divide it into relatively equal chunks for them to read), but it's definitely something I aim to do with the finished product.

In terms of short fiction, I prefer to end my stories with a twist that leaves the reader surprised or to end with something for them to think about. I love a story that leaves the reader with questions about either what happened in the story, or what might happen next. That's where discussion comes from... Like when you go to a film and everyone you went with has a slightly different idea what it was about and you have a lively dinner conversation about it.

When it comes to novels, I hate a cliffhanger ending. It usually means a book is part of a series and I can't stand reading a series unless the whole thing has been written. Far too often I get within a few pages of the end of a book and realise there's far too much to wrap up for the number of pages left, and get the hideous feeling that I'm reading the first part of a series. I loathe that. I don't want to wait a year or two to read the rest of the story. By then I will have forgotten the detail of the first one and I may not even care. Or the first book won't sell well and the next books in the series never get published.

So, while I'm not entirely pro-cliffhanger, they do have their place.

What are your feelings about cliffhangers?