Begin with a Cliffhanger

The Cliffhanger.

Leave the character in a suspenseful situation. Make the reader keep reading to find out what happens next. You'll find them (usually) at the end of a chapter. Sometimes at the end of book.

But Dodie Smith has a different approach to cliffhangers in her book I Capture the Castle. Oh, it may not be a cliffhanger in the original sense of the word. Nobody is hanging off a cliff. But the cliffhanging art of suspense is certainly present.

However, instead of dropping her teaser at the end of a chapter, she puts it at the beginning!

Okay, a bit of background on this book. It's written in the format of a journal. The writer is 17-year-old Cassandra, the protagonist of the novel. Cassandra's passion is to become a writer. And this journal is her outlet. Chapter X begins with these lines:

Oh, I long to blurt out the news in my first paragraph -- but I won't! This is a chance to teach myself the art of suspense.

Smith is almost too obvious here. Yet, coming through Cassandra's voice, it works. Cassandra wants to become an author, so it makes sense that she'd try to work on her technique.

And guess what? It also does the trick. The reader does want to find out what it is that Cassandra is holding back. Smith does this same thing later on in Chapter XIII -- this time, it's a little less obvious...

Oh, how bitter it is to read that last line I wrote little over three weeks ago -- now when I cannot even remember what happiness felt like!

I didn't read back any further. I was too afraid of losing the dead, flat, watching myself feeling which has come this morning for the first time. It is utterly dreary but better than acute wretchedness, and has given me a faint desire to empty my mind into this journal, which will pass a few hours. But shall I be able to write about the wicked thing I did on my birthday? Can I bring myself to describe it fully? Perhaps I can work up to it.

Yes, the suspense is just as powerful. Perhaps even more so...

And yes, it comes at the opening of a chapter.

Taken from:
Smith, Dodie. I Capture the Castle (1949), pp. 189, 268.

How did I rate this book? 4 stars