cliffhanger
Other forms: cliffhangers
A cliffhanger is a plot device in a book, movie, or TV show that leaves the audience in suspense at the end of a scene or episode. If your favorite show ends its season with a cliffhanger, you'll have to wait months to find out what happens next.
The key to a good cliffhanger is a character in some precarious position — this keeps the plot exciting, and it also ensures that the audience will return to see how dilemmas are resolved. In the case of a book, a cliffhanger keeps you turning the pages. The use of cliffhangers goes back to Homer's "Odyssey," though the word itself dates from 1937, from serial movies that would sometimes literally leave characters dangling from a cliff at the end.
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Vocabulary lists containing cliffhanger
Middle school gets off to a rocky start for Peppi Torres after an awkward encounter with Jaime Thompson — and things only get worse when Peppi's art club begins feuding with the science club. Can Peppi save the day?
A twelve-year-old boy with autism strikes up an online friendship but worries about meeting his new friend in person.
When a technological miracle allows Jamal's best friend, Q, to be brought back to life for a few weeks, Jamal must decide whether to tell Q the truth about what happened to him.