It’s the first Wednesday of the month, so that means it’s time for another installment of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! It’s the time of the month when we send out our insecurities into the ether and receive support by the bucketload in return. It’s a pretty sweet deal. To sign up for the group yourself, click here.

Our co-hosts this month, gently keeping us all on track, are  Ronel the Mythmaker, Deniz, Pat Garcia, Olga Godim, and Cathrina Constantine! Click on over to their blogs as well and leave some comments. The whole point of this group is to make those connections, build those good walls to shore yourself up for those times of self-doubt.

And the optional question for this December 4th posting is: Do you write cliffhangers at the end of your stories? Are they a turn-off to you as a writer and/or a reader?

As an author, do I write cliffhangers? No. As a reader, do I like cliffhangers in my books? Also, no.

I generally do not like cliffhangers, because in the genre of romance there is an established author trick/technique where a writer takes a couple and stretches their saga out for three books (OR MORE, please don’t do this, authors, three is already too many for me, thank you so much for your attention in this matter).

Quick refresher that the definition of romance as a book genre is; the story of a loving relationship between two people which comes to a happy and emotionally satisfying ending. I have a whole post about it, and how that can make a 100K word book. It drives me nuts as a reader when what could have been a satisfying, if chunky, book is stretched out into three books. Or, even worse, when a story which was honestly pretty thin to begin with is stretched beyond the line of decency into three books with molecule-thin plot. Why do authors do this? Because three books make more money than one book.

This is an established method and many authors follow it. I’m not trying to rain on their parade or turn my nose up at their methods. Marketing is hard! My gods do I know how hard it is. I think the cliffhanger trilogy works because a lot of readers, unlike me, love some good tension. They’re invested in the couple and their story, and they want to know what happens!

I don’t like it because 1) I have the attention span of a caffeinated gnat 2) I work full time, so I don’t have a lot of time to read a long drawn out series 3) I know it’s a technique and therefore I’m on guard against it and 4) I want a story. A complete story, with a beginning, middle, climax, and ending. Cliffhangers somehow make me feel cheated, like I didn’t get that good story arc.

Now that I’ve established I don’t like cliffhangers, let me mention that I do love and enjoy book series. I will happily buy every book in an interconnected series. Especially if there are siblings or a family involved. The main difference for me is that each book in the series has a resolution. It’s not really a cliffhanger because I’m not left hanging. There are usually some things that need to be cleared up, a few more questions in the overarching plot arc that need answering. But the main couple for that book have made it to their happily ever after, and I’m happy for them to take the support role in the next book.

Off the top of my head some romance authors who can write a fantastic series are: Nora Roberts, Kati Wilde, Ruby Dixon, Honey Phillips, Nalini Singh, and Kresley Cole. Authors in another genre than romance who can write up a damn good series: Terry Pratchett, Tamora Pierce, Brandon Sanderson and Diana Wynne Jones.