Why the Cliffhanger?

I have a serious love/hate relationship with series books. I understand that to have a successful series is similar to being given the option to print your own money (especially if said series is in hardcover and has had the movies rights picked up and done well) but do authors have to constantly employ the cliffhanger? Seriously. It's irritating. I hate to read a great book only to have it "not end" so that I will read the next one! I feel like the authors don't trust us as readers to come back so they have to employ the cliffhanger defense to ensure that we are all begging for the next installment. FYI to authors: we are loyal, we will come back (. . . as long as you continue to write good stuff), go ahead and wrap up the current story without a big shocker. I just feel like it is a ploy that some writers will use because they don't know where the story should go next (or they do know but don't know how to get there).

For example, some authors that don't really use the cliffhanger but have successful series are Charlaine Harris, J. K. Rowling, and Stephenie Meyer. Sure there are unexplained and unfleshed out elements of each of those stories, but they wrap things up within the book pretty well before ending it. Except for the shocker at the end of Half-Blood Prince, they aren't trying to sucker us into reading more, we genuinely want to come back because we care about the characters and want to see how things turn out. These authors create debate with their fans rather than leave us all hanging by our fingernails.

Cliffhangers, when used correctly, can be good, but I don't think that authors that take 3 years or more to write the next book need to use them. At that point, I have forgotten what happened and may not have time to re-read everything, and then may not continue with the series until it is done. Take Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Talk about creating debate and dissension among readers for longer than I have been alive (28 years for me, 30 some odd for DT fans). I am a devoted DT fan and will go back through the series about once a year because I love the story and the characters and because there is so much to find each time it's read. But the thing is that I didn't have to wait for the next installment of the series each time: I read it all in about 2 weeks after they all came out circa 2005. So I didn't have the animosity that some fans had because there were HUGE gaps between many of the books, some that spanned 10 years or more, with no guarantee that it would ever be finished. King didn't always employ the cliffhanger, but the books were never wrapped up tight (notable cliffhangers: Wastelands, Wolves of the Calla, Song of Susannah, and Dark Tower). There were three reasons for that in my opinion. One, and he has admitted this publicly, is that he had NO IDEA where things were going to go next sometimes. He ran out of gas in the story and had to just stop. Two, had he continued some of the books past the cliffhanger, the books would have been even more monstrous (the total series spans around 5,000 pages I think) than they already are. And, third, he was writing an Epic. I don't think that the normal rules apply to writing epics because it is a continuation of a complete and present story, rather than different episodes in the characters' lives like traditional series usually are.

Another author whom I love that employs the cliffhanger is Diana Gabaldon. The irritating thing with her books is that it takes her about 3 years to write the next. And, they are huge books, with multiple storylines so it's almost impossible to remember all of the intricacies without re-reading. Her current book ends in a ridiculously unresolved way that I didn't think was necessary since her fans are some of the most loyal in the industry because they will wait years between books and still read the 1,000+ pages of each (even if it's a dud like Fiery Cross!). I just don't understand the purpose for it.

Some cliffhangers seem to be part of the MO like with YA authors. To keep some kids hooked you have to employ some sort of gimmick and cliffhangers are perfect for that becuase it keeps them thinking and talking about the books. But why use it with adult series books that are wildly successful? It's just irritating frankly and makes me want to wait to read (and buy) them until they are all out.