Each chapter should end with something unresolved, something the reader wants to know. It may be as subtle as waiting for an important letter, or it can be a real cliffhanger, with the hero treading water in a black ocean as the cruise ship lights fade into the night, but to keep the reader turning the pages, his curiosity must be aroused and not satisfied.
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| And then? |
The unresolved issue doesn’t have to be in the last
paragraph, but it should be very close to the end of the chapter to maintain
the tension and make the reader want to keep reading. Don’t let her forget the
question by the time she reaches the final paragraph—it lets the reader off the
hook.
1 comment:
End-of-chapter unresolved issues do keep me turning the page as long as they are germane to the plot, not something added almost as an unrelated afterthought. And, as you mentioned, not every chapter needs to end with a cliffhanger. Tricky to accomplish.
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