I just noticed, maybe coincidentally, that my pages always seem to end with a real page turner like: then the page ends. Anyway, do your pages ever seem to just fall together like this, or do you purposefully arrange them to have a page turner at the bottom? And do publishers often format their pages like that?
You may be subconsciously gearing it that way without realizing it. Remember that a 8.5X11 pages in Word is not equivalent to a standard paperback printed page, so your 'page turners' would not align in the same way in that format. I use Scrivener, which does not split pages in that manner as you are writing, only once compiled, so I would not know if such a dynamic is present as I write.
I just write. If the pages work out well they work out well. I'm not a big fan of trying to put in page turners at the end of pages or chapters because I detest it when they are overused.
Pages, no, but chapters, yes. I try hard to end a chapter with something, not always a cliff hanger though. In one chapter, for example, my protag has had an emotional event, she's crying and her mother's comforting her. She feels wrongly placed guilt that she was responsible for a friend's broken arm when the friend tried to copy what she'd done. “Oh Sweetie, that doesn’t make it your fault.” “I learned how on a lower overhang. I should have told him, I didn’t think.” I was sobbing uncontrollably then. Mom came to my side of the table and held me until I stopped crying. Then she asked to my surprise, “You can climb to the top of Steamer Cliff?”
Both of my books end in cliffhangers. I actually was mad that my second book wasn't published yet (when I finished egotistically reading the first) because I wanted to start reading it right away to find out what happened. WTH?!?! I wrote the dang thing!!! I already know what happened! I still got caught up in the plot and fell for it. Like a sucker.
Congratulations on finishing and publishing! It must be a sweet feeling ha ha! To the OP, I just write. The only page turner I think about between pages is the language, as well as it's ability to hook keep readers in the scene. Beyond that, the scene itself should be engaging to maintain readers until the next section. But try not to think of all the technicalities while writing. Do your scene maps and plot out the story, and then just write. Worry about it being engaging after you write, otherwise you start to dam up the creative flow.
Because I've no idea of how the pages of my word editor correspond with actual printed pages, I don't pay attention to that. Sometimes I do like to leave the occasional cliffhanger at the end of a chapter or where there's a break between paragraphs (say, POV changes), but not nearly always. I try to retain some flow between chapters and parts though, so I pay attention to the continuity, I just don't always use cliffhangers because I find their overuse annoying.
I just try to finish each chapter on an appropriate note. Sometimes it's "OMG! What now?!" for the reader, sometimes it's a simple "Ah, well, that's settled then.". But page by page? No. As others have mentioned, the formatting always changes things. I use a large font when writing, and when it's finished I save to a smaller font - that alone makes significant changes to where each page ends.
As others have said, it's impossible to plan "page turners" at the end of each page because you're not in control of the final formatting of the book. However, if you write stories in which a lot of those situations occur, and your prose style is geared towards highlighting these situations with lots of punchy lines, then statistically, you're likely to see a fair number of these page turners at the ends of your pages. My own stuff tends to be more sedate (I hope that's not just a euphemism for "dull"!), so I'm likely to produce fewer of them.
Shadowwalker and I seem to have the same sort of idea on this. Page by page I do not try and use a page turner, as that seems forced and like a cheap tactic. However, some chapters I do try and end with a mini cliffhanger or closure, depending on what is required.
the only page-arranging i do [or, as an editor/mentor, that i would recommend doing] is to avoid having a paragraph's last line appear on the next page, if at all possible... and never allow it to, if the next page is the last page of a chapter... nothing else should matter, as nothing else will matter to the agent or publisher's acquisitions editor who will hopefully read your ms...
I actually prefer to write in programs that don't separate by pages. I feel like I end up focusing too much on how many pages that particular chapter/scene is instead of focusing one what really matters - the content of that chapter. But that's just me. So, no, I never have anything like this happen.
My chapter's usually end on a kind of link - like if they're packing for a trip in Chapter 11 it's because Chapter 12 has the trip and if the reader wants to see what happens they'll read on. I don't try to force a jazzy cliffhanger sentence, instead I try to work in a query/question/idea that the reader wants resolved and that's usually not just a single sentence but a feeling built up towards the end of the chapter's final scene. Like - Although the trip sounds good the reader has read between the lines, he knows the characters, knows it won't be good and reads on. Too clever cliffhangers remind me of commercial breaks in soap operas - Kent, Darling, what are you doing with that gun? Speeding up our divorce, honey - cue the Charmin bears.
I write in LaTeX, so I never know where the page ends anyway. But I do occasionally (not always) add cliffhangers to my chapters. In fact, thinking about my last (and really, current) project, about a third of my chapters end on a sort of cliffhanging note and the rest more sedately and settled.
