Anatomy of a Cliffhanger: Deciphering the Art of Suspense

If there is one format that uses it, it is the Duanju: a rhythmic milestone and tool for attention, the cliffhanger serves the narrative arc as much as the economic model of duanju, provided it is thought out and used with finesse.

Definition and legacy of the soap opera cliffhanger

Every viewer has already experienced the "cliffhanger" effect while watching a series: that moment when the story, instead of giving us more to see, suspends. The Anglo-Saxon etymology puts it simply: " cliff" , the cliff; " hang" , to remain hanging. The hero is left at the edge, facing the void, and we with him. The invention is neither new nor confined to the digital format: it developed in the 19th century in newspaper serials, when the episode ends at the exact point that requires buying the next issue. However, the use of the cliffhanger takes on a new dimension within duanju. In the attention economy, the cliffhanger is a driver of viewer loyalty: to come back later but soon, to resolve what was left hanging.

Duanju, the art of cutting and breaking

The cliffhanger is a narrative device as old as the soap opera and yet as new as our phone screens. If it's making a strong comeback with duanju , it's not simply through mimicry. Indeed, duanju isn't just a new viewing habit. It's a new form of writing. Each ultra - short episode imposes an art of cutting: concluding without finalizing, promising without disappointing, setting the pace without running out of steam. The cliffhanger fits naturally into it, episode after episode, like a sensitive metronome: it punctuates the action, sets a memory marker, plants a promise or an uncertainty that calls for its resolution. In this format, suspense is not a stylistic extra: it is the very backbone of the story.

Memory of the Unfinished: The Zeigarnik Effect

We know why the cliffhanger works so well. The viewer, carried away by the narrative and emotional tension, returns all the more willingly because there is still something to resolve between him and the story. Psychology has given a name to this memory of the unfinished: the Zeigarnik effect . An interrupted task is better imprinted than a completed task and an unfulfilled desire remains active. In the same way, an episode that stops before the resolution imprints a mnemonic tension: the story remains open and the viewer wants to return to it. The cliffhanger uses this mechanism creatively when it knows how to stop just before the answer, on the threshold of resolution, where the mind remains active.

Converting the fear of missing out into action

Another explanation. Duanju fits in with our fragmented time, our accelerated pace of life, and our reduced availability, as well as with the search for immediate intensity, surprise, and novelty. This last quest responds to the phenomenon of FOMO (fear of missing out in English), the fear of missing out on something. The cliffhanger crystallizes this dynamic: it materializes the stakes of the story in the form of an acute present tense (“something is happening now”), triggers curiosity, and converts interest into action (watching the next episode).

Fiction and its intrusion into reality

The cliffhanger technique also engages the digital format specific to duanju. Thanks to mobile devices, tension can escape the diegesis, the time of the story, to extend its effects outside the episode and burst into reality. The notifications inviting the audience to pick up the thread of the interrupted story constitute a piece of extradiegetic writing. This hook, which lights up on the phone between two meetings, recalls the promise awaiting resolution and resituates the stakes of this story that had been put on hold. A notification no longer simply encourages the viewer to immerse themselves in the story again, it relaunches the fiction with a short sentence in the form of a promise: "You'll never guess who's back in the next episode..." The cliffhanger transforms attention into gesture, passivity into action: watch the next episode, like, share, comment. The cliffhanger then becomes a temporal signal as much as a narrative figure: it seeks out the viewer within their everyday reality to bring them back to the fiction. Done well, this back-and-forth between fiction and everyday life reinforces engagement. Done poorly, it becomes a crude "push" and damages trust. One tool, two possible effects.

The cliffhanger put to the paywall: conversion and economic tipping point

Economically, the cliffhanger also has a performative function and accelerates the shift: closing access to the first free episodes, it precedes the paywall and the promise of resolution becomes a promise of conversion. Does the cliffhanger then become a simple economic tool? Or can it also constitute a possible alignment between the narrative gesture (promising a sequel) and the product gesture (offering to continue now for a fee)? This seems possible to the extent that the first gesture remains coherent and convincing, not subject to the financial model. The paywall should not be a guillotine that cuts in the middle of a sentence: it works when it is inserted after a clear promise and before a short resolution, fitting into the very logic of the story and its progression.

The wear and tear of suspense: excess and caricature

Another trap: overkill or caricature. A promise, repeated too often, wears thin. We end up recognizing the seams, anticipating the false alarm, and growing tired of an intensity that's always at the same level. The misunderstood cliffhanger becomes an old refrain added at the end of the verse by reflex, or an editing trick that artificially concludes the scene without it carrying any stakes. This potential dramatic inflation then works at the cost of credibility. The characters stop learning or choosing: they only serve as vectors for yet another twist. The promise becomes disappointing, and the bond of trust with the viewer withers away. We return by reflex, not by desire.

Towards mastering tension

This is why the cliffhanger must be used not as an automatic narrative instrument but as an ecology of tension: a way of managing, saving, surprising, alternating. Every promise requires preparation, clear formulation, and resolution. The ideal cliffhanger is not one that contradicts the narrative thread, it is one that is inevitable: unpredictable in its form, necessary in its meaning. In duanju , this discipline of the cliffhanger is accompanied by a good evaluation of the frequency, rhythm, and delay between promise and resolution. It is up to the screenwriter or director to orchestrate: end-of-sequence questions, suspended lines, interrupted actions (micro-cliffhangers), end-of-episode suspensions (macro-cliffhangers). Without forgetting, between two episodes with strong cliffhangers, breathing spaces, partial resolutions, humor, moments of intimacy, so that the frustration attached to the cliffhangers remains positive and the progression of the story remains fluid.

The example of the series “Next Door Adventure” (Sanjorge Production)

We observe this fine orchestration in the mini-series Next Door Adventures, produced by Sanjorge Production , which masters its narrative. In this fiction, the cliffhangers truly shift the story, which begins as the encounter between a candid young man and his overly charming neighbor, with a clumsy game of seduction on the part of the former. Then, a castle appears and with it, a change of scale and setting. The appearance of this surprising castle opens a new space for play and mystery. A butler then enters the scene. A disruptive character, he upsets the emerging dynamic between the young man and his neighbor: the duo becomes a trio. The dance of seduction is interrupted just as it was taking shape. The emotional tension gains in density because a third party redistributes forces and complicates rapprochements. Further on, the fantastical erupts: mischievous gnomes shake up realism, add the unexpected and adventures, forcing the heroes to reveal themselves through trials. This new genre enriches the series' register. And the viewer shares the characters' surprise: a suitcase shelters the improbable, the butler mysteriously disappears. The audience is attached because the obstacle is not artificial: it tests the romance, forces it to redefine itself. Here, each cliffhanger serves to advance the story (new location, new stakes), a transformation of the relationship between the two main characters (complicity, admiration), a renewed emotion (desire, expectation, fear), or a revelation. The tension of the cliffhanger becomes both an emotional and narrative springboard.

Vary the suspense and pleasures

The open question ("how will the romance evolve?") does not have the same music as the suspended decision (continue the adventure as a couple or as a threesome), which does not have the same effect as the deferred revelation (the butler's disappearance), as the countdown that shrinks time, as the reversal that reverses a certainty, as the dramatic irony that delivers to the audience what the hero still does not know, or as the dilemma that promises meaning more than action. Should we abandon codes? Rather, we should work on them as families of effects to be varied rather than repeated. We can call upon them all, but not together, not all the time, not without progression or coherence with the story. With each cliffhanger, the key question remains: what is its impact on a character's arc? If there is none, we have probably hung a decorative effect.

Use cliffhangers sparingly

Why shouldn't we overuse cliffhangers? Because rhythm isn't just about endings: it's born from the density of scenes, the intensity of looks, gestures, and silences. Because promise without resolution is just disappointment. Because variety in tone, intensity, or genre protects against weariness. Because emotion matters as much as plot: what we're following isn't a well-oiled technique that works every time; it's above all an evolution of the story and the characters.

Measure to tell a better story

Because duanju offers precise metrics, it allows us to observe the effectiveness of a cliffhanger: viewing time, series continuation rate, abandonment after cliffhanger, and comments. If a type of cliffhanger leads to abandonment or rejection by the audience, this data is above all an opportunity to rewrite the balance. The challenge is to build long-term viewer loyalty.

In conclusion...

Duanju thus reinvents the structure of the soap opera, and the cliffhanger is one of its key tools. Used well, carefully prepared, and meaningful for the story and the characters, it accelerates the narrative while respecting the viewer. The cliffhanger, in duanju , must once again become a consequence of the story, not its condition. Otherwise, it exhausts and impoverishes. Balance is the key: alternating promise and resolution, tension and breathing space, surprise and fluidity. It is on this condition that duanju , a new narrative form as much as a new consumption format, will continue to bring the word "soap opera" up to date.

Article written by Maëlle Billant

Editor for Duanju.fr , lawyer by profession [Linkedin] , and podcaster [YouTube]

Sources:

Webmd , July 12, 2024

Thinking about changing , February 28, 2021