As writers, one of our core missions is to craft stories in which our readers can invest. Stories so captivating that readers fly through the pages.

The most opportune time for readers to set a book aside comes when they finish a chapter. In that space between one page and the next, readers ask themselves just how much they care about the fate of the characters. Do they need to know what happens next? If their gut says no, they’ll likely set the book aside—and there’s a decent chance they might not pick it up again.

To pen a deliciously addictive book, it’s therefore vital to consider the page-turning power of your chapter endings. Where a dull closing page will deter readers, a few intriguing lines can hook them in for yet another scene. But how, exactly, do you go about instilling readers with the need to know what happens next?

The Problem With Cliffhangers

Many writers turn to cliffhangers (i.e. endings that leave readers in suspense) to keep their readers turning pages. Suspense, after all, is a valuable storytelling tool. So long as readers care about the fates of the characters involved, the high-stakes uncertainty of suspense demands resolution. As such, there’s nothing wrong with utilizing a few well-placed cliffhangers throughout your book. 

However, trouble arises when writers rely solely upon cliffhangers to create page-turning interest. Cliffhangers, you see, are born out of conflict, and constant conflict in storytelling is exhausting. Well-paced stories need scenes in which characters address the consequences of recent events, celebrate their victories, regroup, resolve differences, make plans of action, etc.

When you don’t give your characters—and, by extension, your readers—an opportunity to breathe between conflicts, you end up with a story that feels contrived, that relies upon flash-and-bang action in a desperate attempt to entertain readers rather than a masterful story in which conflict arises naturally out of the characters’ choices and experiences.

Readers know when they’re being baited, and they don’t take kindly to such contrived attempts to hook their interest. If you want to craft a truly irresistible story, it’s time to move beyond the cliffhanger.

The Power in Posing Subtle Questions

To better understand how to craft page-turning chapter endings, we must take one step back and talk about scenes. Every chapter contains at least one scene, after all, and it’s the end of a scene that will also serve as the end of a chapter. Therefore, it’s vital that you understand what a scene is. Or rather, what it isn’t.

A scene is not merely an event or a brief moment in time; it’s an incident. Its happenings result in consequences that are yet to be determined. Therefore, every good scene contains a turning point. By the end of a scene, something has changed. Whether internally, externally, or interpersonally, your characters are no longer in the same place they were when the scene began.

This shift can be monumental or it can be subtle, but what it cannot be is trivial. Every scene must serve a purpose within the larger context of your story. If you can remove a scene without affecting readers’ understanding of your story’s arc (i.e. the sequence of events that comprises its plot), then that scene isn’t a scene at all. It’s an inconsequential snippet.

Because scenes contain turning points, they introduce or highlight tension that reorients your character toward the next conflict in their journey. A cliffhanger certainly achieves this goal, but it does so with all the grace of a man hanging from a precipice screaming, “Do you want to know whether I’ll live or die?!”

Experienced writers, on the other hand, understand the power of subtlety. They know that a simple revelation can introduce just as much tension as the sudden appearance of a gun. Both instances raise the question of what will happen next, but subtle turning points do so without dragging contrived conflict into the mix.

Such subtlety can manifest as unfulfilled desire, the unpaid cost of a moment’s peace, or the possibility in a raised brow. It can be found in the beginning of a rift between friends or an unexpected understanding between enemies. It can even appear as the chill finger of unexplained fear or the sudden grip of guilt. As a lie, or as the words one never meant to speak.

Subtlety is quiet and often unassuming, but never mistake it for inconsequential. If you’ve taken care to craft characters whose journeys readers can invest in, then readers will want to know the answers to the questions that tension poses, no matter how modest

Trust in your readers’ capacity to care and in your ability to encourage them to do so, then pen your scenes with the page-turning power of turning points in mind. When you do, you can’t fail to craft a story that will see readers flying through the pages to discover what happens next.