Several years ago, I attended a writers’ workshop by the great Terry Brooks. As an aside, do you know he pronounces Shannara with a short a at the start, instead of an a like in father? It shocked a lot of people. But I digress.
He stressed that every chapter should end with a cliffhanger ending. “No exceptions,” he said. As a young aspiring writer, I thought that sounded cliché. Now that I’m an older aspiring writer, I see the wisdom of it. Which brings me to the manuscript I’m about to send out.
Not perfectly focused, I know
So this is from my War of the Wars reimagined. It you’re reading this from a home computer, you can find links to excerpts in the column on the right, or if you’re reading this from a smartphone, you can scroll down to the tiny words that say “View web version” and see that column. My working title will be Fairy War. Here is the cliffhanger ending for a chapter:
My senses were overwhelmed as I lay there, head lolling on hard wood, and
I could not differentiate between the steam and smoke obscuring my vision when
I blacked out.
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How’d I do?
That's definitely a cliffhanger. That must have been a great workshop. It sounds like you got a lot out of it.
ReplyDeleteThank you. He also said to always keep a notebook with you, in case you see something interesting in everyday life that would be interesting to add to a story.
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