Cliffhangers - leaving your characters dangling

Yesterday I was working on Eyemind again, rearranging chapters to make them end with something dangerous. But I don't like harming my characters, which makes the design of cliffhangers challenging.  If I have a man about to shoot my heroine Keri, how do I stop her getting hurt while keeping the tension of the story up?

The answer is to end the chapter just before the shot, and get her rescued at the start of the next one.  This is the classic 'cliffhanger', where the reader is left worrying whether the character will survive.  It's a great device for keeping readers turning the pages.  In Panthera : Death Song I've even managed to put in a real cliffhanger, with one of the characters dangling over a steep drop.

 When I was planning Panthera : Death Song I thought about cliffhangers right at the start.  I had a detailed twenty-page chapter plan, and the story was worked out in some detail before I started  writing.  But even so I realised I'd missed several opportunities for cliffhangers.  I added them, and adjusted the story around them, and the book is better for that increase in tension.