Buffy teaches us how to write a cliffhanger

From Poynter.org -

Buffy teaches us how to write a cliffhanger

Thanks to my friend Vicki Hyatt, I hold in my hand a shooting script for the first episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." This treasure, dated Sept. 4, 1996, was written by Joss Whedon and carries the title "Welcome to the Hellmouth."

"Buffy," as many friends know, is my favorite television series. I own, and have watched three times now, all seven seasons of episodes. Whedon builds his story on a brilliant conceit: that a Valley Girl is the savior of the human race from all things evil, demonic and apocalyptic. She’s the chosen one. And damn cute, too.

I was interested to see that the script, which runs 57 pages, divides into four "acts." Each act ends with a small cliffhanger, a scary or dramatic moment that invites the audience to hang on through the commercial break, a classic bit of television shtick.

That strategy corresponds to Tool 30 in the book "Writing Tools":

To generate suspense, use internal cliffhangers. To propel readers, make them wait.

It was fun to read through the Buffy script to study the locations for each of the most suspenseful moments:

At the end of chapter one, for example, three girls in a locker room gossip about Buffy, the new girl in school. Suddenly:

Something FLIES OUT of the locker at [one of the gossiping girls]! She SCREAMS as the dead body of the boy from the opening collapses on her, eyes horribly wide. ANGLE: FROM ABOVE. The body sprawls out on the floor as the girl steps back, screaming for all she’s worth. BLACK OUT. END OF ACT ONE.

Here’s the end of act three, in an abandoned church. Luke is a vampire:

ANGLE: THE POOL OF BLOOD. We are low, right about the surface, as Luke prays before it. Suddenly a HEAD shoots up from in the blood. Luke starts, looks at it. He moves back away from the pool. Something breaks the surface of the liquid. Something rises. It is THE MASTER, the most powerful of vampires. Born Heinrich Joseph Nest (some six hundred years ago,) he wears a vaguely SS-like outfit.

What he does not wear is anything resembling a human face. He is as much demon as man. As powerful as Luke is, it’s clear that this man is much more so, both from his bearing and from the reverence with which Luke looks upon him. He steps forward, holds out his hand. Luke grasps it reverently. Luke: "Master."

It turns out that this episode is the first of a two-parter. So instead of a nice resolution, Whedon must leave us with another cliffhanger, this one ever more suspenseful, so that we’ll return next week. The scene takes place in a mausoleum, with Luke trying to kill Buffy, knocking her into an open tomb atop a withered corpse:

She’s hurt pretty bad. She looks up but no Luke. Only the wall of the tomb. He could be anywhere. Slowly, achingly slowly, she lifts her head. Truly scared. Looks over one side of the tomb — nothing. Looks over the other. Luke FILLS THE FRAME, roaring, jumping into the crypt on top of her. She tries to fight him off but she’s well pinned. He contemplates her for a moment with gleeful animal hunger. Teeth dripping. He bears down. BLACKOUT.

So that’s how it’s done on television. But let’s not abandon the cliffhanger in print. At the end of a chapter or even of a section of a chapter, or right before the jump, place something interesting or dramatic that forces the reader to turn the page.