the reason i ask is that a project i'm working on looks like it's going to take a similar route: characters splitting off (well, sort of; some were never together in the first place...). to me, everyone's "journey" (again, not exactly a journey, but...) is equally interesting, but i don't know if others will agree.

any advice?

TTFN & lol

When you are moving from one set of characters to another set of characters (which you more or less have to do to keep them current with each other) you want the reader to move between them along with you.

If you end the part with one set of characters on a cliff-hanger, and then go to the other set of characters, you are running the risk of having the reader skip the part about the other set of characters in order to find out what happens to resolve the cliff-hanger.

Even if the reader is interested in all of your sets of characters, cliff-hangers can be particularly irritating if they are not resolved in the next chapter.

If none of the characters that you are splitting off are main POV characters, then you might be better off letting them tell a main POV character what happened to them rather than trying to follow them. If you do not view them as being important protagonists, and you dislike reading POV for non-protagonist characters, then you will need a very compelling reason to write it this way.

Remember, much of the information that we rely on in real life is second (or more) hand rather than first hand. The same is realistically true for most people even in fantasy works (exceptions being the super powerful villians that are everywhere at once). So there is nothing wrong with having important plot developments come to your main protagonist (and the reader) at second hand.

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there is no reason to use "cliffhangers" in writing a book unless it is going to be serialized

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the best part of cliffhangers is the waiting, the anticipation and the nail-biting until the next installment comes around. If the next installment is just over the page, it makes a cliffhanger redundant.

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I disagree. I think cliffhangers have their place in fiction. If serialization is their only justification, then they're obsolete, but I don't think it is and they're not.

Among other things, cliffhangers are a little like charging $7.99 for a product instead of $8.00. It's really all the same in the end, but pyschologically it works. Sure, ending a chapter or a scene with a cliffhanger may not keep the reader in suspense for long, but it does ratchet up the tension nonetheless. It keeps the reader turning pages, which -- all things being equal -- they would have done anyway, but it makes a more enjoyable read.

For readers who have to steal small segments of time to read and who may, more often than not, stop at scene or chapter endings -- a sort of self-imposed serialization -- cliffhangers make them more anxious to get back to the book. Without them, that edge of urgency is absent.

When cliffhangers are not overdone -- not every scene or chapter should end with them, else you risk tiring out or annoying the reader -- they are simply one more tool in the writer's toolbox. Like any tool, they should be used properly.

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The purpose of cliffhangers seems to be to encourage readers' curiosity. Therefore, when you introduce an entirely new set of people and/or goings on, the reader will want to skip ahead.

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This might come under the heading of using cliffhangers properly. I confess, I've never felt compelled to skip over passages just to catch up with a previous scene. I've skipped over boring passages or off-color ones, but I've always been content to follow the author's lead and trusted him to get back to the scene in question, while I enjoyed the anticipation of the cliffhanger.

From a writer's standpoint, why would we not want to utilize something that stimulates reader curiosity?

I can see a use for cliffhangers when two or more protagonists are operating in separate scenes in an overlapping time frame, and both or all of them must be brought together at the end of that time, especially if the scenes are longer. (Short scenes might be too unwieldly for this kind of stop-and-go, although somewhere there is probably an author who made it work.) Also, if the resolution to one or more of the scenes would lead to too much of a jump ahead, time-wise, it may be necessary to stop at a cliffhanger.

Again, it's only a tool that must be used properly.

I think that properly escalated tension will keep the reader turning pages because the dramatic action is ongoing, while cliffhangers make the reader want to skip pages because the waiting is artificially imposed. I don't know any real reason that you would want to encourage readers to skip pages, it seems like a patent waste of effort both for the writer and for the reader (both those that slog through the pages they were supposed to skip and those that have to hunt about for the resolution page when skipping those pages), but that is really all that "cliffhangers" as such, are good for in a book...unless you are writing a series of books.

A series has a lot more in common with a serialization than just the first four letters of the word. But you have to be aware that many readers don't want to get stuck reading a series unless they really are impressed with the authors writing. Cliffhangers do play some part in increasing the anticipation of the next book, but they are only effective in doing so if the reader actually cares about the characters and dramatic elements of the previous books. My belief is that if a reader cared for the characters of a previous book, then they will seek out additional books about those characters, so the "cliffhanger" really adds nothing except heightened anticipation (which only leads to readers feeling a bit less patient with you should you take a sabbatical or work on another project, as far as I can see). And I personally believe that too many cliffhangers tends to eat up a bit of the audiences good will for the author, and by proxy, the characters.

if it really erks me later i guess i can always scrap it and start again. i've been doing that more and more lately (alas).

thanks again everyone!

TTFN & lol