You Won’t Believe the Cliffhanger at the End of This Post—Or Will You?

The Art, Psychology, and Power of Cliffhangers in Stories and Life

His fingers were slipping

What Are Cliffhangers?

A rock climber hanging off a cliff – the perfect metaphor for a suspenseful “cliffhanger” moment in storytelling.

A cliffhanger is a plot device that ends a story segment at a moment of heightened suspense, drama, or uncertainty. In other words, a chapter, episode, or movie concludes just before the resolution of a tense situation or a big reveal.

I'm a binge streamer. So cliffhangers drive me on, one episode to the next, for seasons at a time. I no longer wait a week for the next episode.

The audience perches on the edge (“hanging from a cliff,” so to speak), desperate to know what happens next. The term cliffhanger comes from a literal example: Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy once ended a serialized chapter with his hero dangling off a cliff. What's next? Humans are driven to distraction by 'what's next.'

As far back as the Middle Ages, storytellers used suspenseful breaks to keep audiences hooked. One legendary example is Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights, who told the king a new tale each night and always stopped at a nail-biting moment, ensuring he spared her life one more day to hear the rest of the story. Writers are clever when cornered by kings.

Fast-forward to the 19th century, and authors like Charles Dickens mastered the art of ending magazine installments with unanswered questions, making readers line up eagerly for the next issue. By the early 20th century, film serials like The Perils of Pauline popularized the device, often showing the hero or heroine in dire peril as the words “to be continued…” flashed on screen.

Why They Work

Why do we love to torture ourselves with unanswered questions? We're human! Unanswered questions drive us. Cliffhangers formalize the process into a story. Psychology + emotion = engagement—a tired and true story formula that keeps people in their seats or turning the pages.

A good cliffhanger plays on our brain’s natural craving for resolution. How does it end? We need to know! Psychologists talk about the Zeigarnik effect, a fancy way of saying people remember and feel tension from unfinished business. If a story is incomplete, our minds just won’t let it go.

Ever found yourself thinking about a season-finale cliffhanger for days (or months) on end? Blame your brain – it keeps replaying the unresolved story, nagging you with “what will happen next?” until you get the answer. Cliffhangers essentially hack our memory: we’re more likely to remember and return to a story that left us hanging than one that neatly tied everything up. It's sweet torture. Does Jon Snow live? People are talking about it.

There’s also some brain chemistry at play. When we anticipate something exciting or nerve-wracking, our brains drip-feed us dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward. Studies show dopamine isn’t just released when we get the reward, but also in anticipation of it. A suspenseful “to be continued” moment keeps our reward circuits firing. The promise of a payoff (will the hero survive? will the couple finally kiss? what’s behind that door??) thrills us. We enjoy the anxiety; it’s like a roller coaster for our emotions. We’re on the edge of our seats, heart pounding, utterly hooked. It’s the narrative equivalent of leaving a chocolate cake in front of someone and saying, “You can have a slice… but not just yet.”

How to Write Them

Cliffhangers are potent tools for writers. But how do you craft one compelling (not just cheap shock value)? Here are some tips and techniques for writing cliffhangers that will keep readers flipping pages (or viewers binge-watching episodes):

• Leave Them Dangling (Literally or Figuratively):

  • One classic approach is to put your character in peril at the end of a scene. Will the hero make it out alive? Tune in next chapter to find out!

  • Physical danger isn’t the only way to dangle your protagonist, though. You can also leave them in a personal or moral dilemma – a tough choice with no easy answer, presented right before you cut away.

    
    

• Drop a Bombshell Revelation:

  • Another technique is the shocking twist or secret revealed at the end. Think of it as the “Oh WHAT?!” moment. Perhaps your quiet sidekick character says, “By the way, I’m your long-lost sibling,” or the detective realizes the killer is their partner.

  • Revealing a game-changing piece of information and immediately pulling the curtain is a surefire way to make readers scramble for the next page.

    
    

• Pose a Big Question:

  • Not every cliffhanger needs explosions or surprise villains. Sometimes, a simple unanswered question is enough. End a chapter or episode by asking (or implying) a question to drive the narrative forward. Example: A knock on the door late at night – the protagonist opens it and says, “You?” with a gasp… cut to black.

  • The question “Who was at the door?” is the cliffhanger.

    
    

• Tease the Romance and Emotions:

  • Cliffhangers work great for emotional stakes, too. Will-they-or-won’t-they romantic tension can be a fantastic hook. For instance, two characters move in for a long-awaited kiss… eyes close… and a cut-end scene!

  • It doesn’t have to be life-or-death; it can be heart-to-heart. Just make sure the emotional moment is left unresolved.

    
    

• Use Time Pressure:

  • A classic suspense builder is the ticking clock. If you introduce a time-sensitive scenario, you can end a scene at the deadline for maximum tension.

  • This device, used expertly in TV series like 24, keeps readers on edge.

    
    

• Mix Up the Scale:

  • Not every cliffhanger must be a huge, earth-shattering event. Variety is key. You can alternate between big explosive cliffhangers and smaller, subtler ones. Some chapters might end with a bang (literally), while others end on a poignant, quiet uncertainty.

  • For example, one chapter ends with a gunshot, and the next with a character quietly saying, “I’m leaving town,” surprising the reader.

    
    

• Pay It Off (Don’t Cheat):

  • Perhaps the most important tip is to deliver a satisfying answer later if you raise a question or create suspense. A cliffhanger promises the reader that the tension will be worth it.

  • Resolve the immediate question in the next chapter or episode before moving on to new ones. Nothing infuriates an audience more than a perpetual tease with no payoff (or a cop-out resolution like “it was all a dream”).

In short, establish a scenario that the reader can’t ignore. Raise the stakes, then pause right before the resolution. You’ll create an audience that’s addicted to your story.

Who Are the Masters?

Cliffhangers show up in all kinds of storytelling, and some creators have practically become synonymous with leaving us hanging.

Here are a few masters of the cliffhanger:

• Scheherazade (The OG Cliffhanger Queen):

  • We have to start with this legendary Persian storyteller. In One Thousand and One Nights, Scheherazade survives by telling the king a new tale each night and stopping at the most suspenseful moment so he spares her to hear the next part.

    
    

• Charles Dickens:

  • The 19th-century literary superstar published his novels in serial form. He became a master at ending installments with big questions and dramatic turns to keep readers hooked.

    
    

• Thomas Hardy:

  • Hardy inspired the term “cliffhanger” by dangling poor Henry over a cliff in A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873).

    
    

• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes’s Creator):

  • Conan Doyle gave Victorian readers a doozy of a cliffhanger (albeit unintentionally) when he killed off Sherlock Holmes in “The Final Problem” (1893) by having Holmes plunge to his death at Reichenbach Falls.

    
    

• Dan Brown:

  • Dan Brown (author of The Da Vinci Code and other thrillers) is known for his relentless cliffhanger chapter endings in modern fiction. He practically engineers each short chapter to end on a hook – a sudden revelation, an unanswered phone call, a threat emerging – so you have no choice but to keep reading.

    
    

• R. L. Stine:

  • A master for the younger crowd, R. L. Stine made a generation of kids addicted to cliffhangers with his Goosebumps series.

  
  

From age-old storytellers to contemporary novelists and TV producers, the best in the business have proven that cliffhangers are timeless. They know how to keep us engaged, and we love them for it… mostly.

How to Use Cliffhangers in Real Life

Cliffhangers aren’t just for novelists and TV producers – the core idea of keeping your audience in suspense can be applied in many real-world contexts. Whether you’re a writer, a marketer, a public speaker, or just someone posting on social media, you can borrow the cliffhanger’s bag of tricks to engage and captivate your audience:

• Storytelling and Public Speaking:

  • If you’re giving a talk or telling an anecdote, consider using a cliffhanger-like pause to pique interest. For example, start with a compelling personal story, but don’t finish it immediately. Just be sure to return to it and deliver the goods before you finish speaking! (No one likes a tease who never actually finishes the story.)

• Blog Posts and Articles:

  • Writers of nonfiction or how-to content can use mini-cliffhangers to maintain reader interest. Suspense can be a powerful engagement tool, turning informational content into a narrative.

• Marketing and Advertising:

  • Marketers frequently use cliffhanger principles, even if they don’t call them that. Think of a movie trailer that ends with an intense moment and the words “Coming Soon”. The key in marketing is to build anticipation, and cliffhanger-style messaging is tailor-made. It creates buzz.

• Social Media and Online Content:

  • In the age of short attention spans, leaving an audience hanging can ironically keep them more engaged. Content creators on platforms like TikTok or Twitter use deliberate cliffhangers to boost engagement – you’ve probably seen those “Part 1, Part 2” videos where Part 1 ends just as something crazy is about to happen, prompting viewers to like/follow and watch Part 2.

• Business and Product Launches: Even outside of content, the psychology of anticipation is huge in business. Tech companies are masters at this – they’ll leak small tantalizing details about a new product (“coming soon: a phone that folds!”) to generate excitement, essentially a months-long cliffhanger until the launch event. A cliffhanger is a promise, so deliver a satisfying resolution when you finally unveil the product or news.

In everyday life, we all use cliffhanger tactics, too. Telling a friend, “Oh my gosh, you won’t believe what happened at work today…” and then pausing for dramatic effect is a mini-cliffhanger to grab their attention before you deliver the juicy gossip.

And then ...

From ancient storytellers to modern showrunners, cliffhangers have a magical hold on us. They frustrate, excite, and even infuriate us – but we keep returning for more.

Life often feels like one big cliffhanger, full of unresolved threads and suspenseful moments. Like a roller coaster, the thrill is in the build-up as much as the drop.

Humans love stories, so cliffhangers will never go out of style. I approach the cliff on a bright day, the ocean far below, and I think of her, how she broke my heart. “You can’t end it there!” Oh yes, I can.