Someone, somewhere is out there plotting against me.
And they're plotting to make sure I tear my hair out and throw a book across the room.
Unfortunately, they're not plotting their own book. I don't know who is giving out the advice to stop books in the middle of a scene to increase "readthrough," but this is terrible advice for a couple of reasons. It destroys the pacing beyond recognition of any regular beats that a reader might expect. Since I see this primarily in genre fiction wherein the readers expect to have some familiarity with the pacing and not say, experimental literary forms, it ends up disrupting any enjoyment you might get.
I'm even going to be so bold as to say that these books are doing are NOT cliffhangers, really. I'd forgive you a cliffhanger in a second or third book. Once you've already secured an audience, you can fuck with them a bit. However, you can't do it before you've proven to them that you can write ONE fully realized narrative.
I just call this a Drop-Off Ending. Some of the problems can be enumerated thusly:
1) For some writers, they think it's easier to just write ONE BIG BOOK instead of three and then chop it into parts. After said dismemberment, they toss it out like chum to the water.
The problem with the dismemberment technique is that any changes that you need to make to the first third should impact the second and third installment of the series.
Are you going to be okay with substantially revising each book because you chose to write it this way Or are you going to give your dev editor a thumbs up and send them the next one? Since writers often do this to beat the algorithm and have books come out, they are less inclined to put out their best product and do the revisions necessary between books.
It just seems like a terrible waste of resources in the name of speed. If your first book isn't very good, why do I want to keep reading? You get very few chances as an author to make a first impression on your audience.
2) A number of those books are written as though they don't have any plot to sustain them at all. The author draws out what little plot there is, having the characters piss around, describe the act of walking around a car in minute detail, and eat pancakes multiple times. As a result, very little happens until the end, when a plot FINALLY emerges, picks up, and then ends without any resolution.
This is the most annoying, unsatisfying way to conduct the plot. Moreover, readers can see this behavior as a cash-grab. If you don't want to progress the characters too far because you're working on a slow burn, fine. But why is there no movement on the plot until the end? And then there's no end?
If I'm meant to wait two more books to find out whether you can write a satisfying resolution, I'll just opt out. I can't trust you to end a book, how can I trust you to end a series?
3) It doesn't necessarily have to be this way, but in books like these, I often find serious problems with character progression and development. How does this inhibit character progression?
The characters are overly reflective, meditating on events, repeating their emotional reactions ad nauseum... until the last 20 minutes when actions start to happen, but then... it's over. So when the Book Two picks up, we're back to the reflecting and thinking and eating pancakes. The character is a bump on a log, waiting for their cue to do something.
These leaves the characters flat and passive and their revelations repetitive.
4) The last option is the worst to me. What if you had great characters and great character progression? What if I couldn't put it down until the very last page?
In that case, I'd be even angrier that the author didn't see fit to offer a semblance of an ending. It casts a pall over the previous pages, one that I can't necessarily go back to enjoy again because I'm pissed I spent money on a book you didn't see fit to finish.
Some might be complaining at this point that their readers don't mind. You can't read the review of the person who dropped you a low-star review and noped out on your work forever. Regardless, I've seen one-stars on books specifically because of this "strategy." You don't want that.
Consider, instead, that while you don't have to resolve the Big Plot, you need to consider what the first arc of your series needs to be. What point does each main character need to reach by the end? How far should the main couple have progressed? What is resolved by the end?
After that, what unresolved elements lead into the larger plot? How much farther does the protagonist need to go before they can face the final obstacle? You can look to a number of popular series to recognize how authors will open and close various threads throughout their series. Katniss wins the titular Hunger Games, but the Capitol is still in charge. In V.E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic, Kell and Delilah save the prince and stop the magical takeover of Red London. Some bad guys are killed, and some will rise in the sequels.
That's the tension you need to get to the next book. Not "what will happen at the end of this battle I just stopped writing" but "how will my characters resolve their larger internal and external conflicts?"
I'm not going into more detail here because these posts are meant to be short. We might pick up other pacing issues on another day. However, my partner is doing a workshop later in the summer that deals with pacing and plot. It's called Pancakes are Not Plot and will address how to keep tension going throughout.
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