Posted by Dave Thewlis on August 21, 2006 at 14:52:47 from 70.191.49.25 user dthewlis.
In Reply to: Re: Sequels, Prequels etc etc posted by Jock on August 20, 2006 at 22:40:30:
Completing a book left unfinished is certainly difficult although it has been tried a lot (I suspect the urge to 'put something of oneself' into the work is nearly overwhelming). The best and most successful such completion I've read is Dorothy Sayers' Thrones, Dominations, completed by a very well-established writer, Jill Paton Walsh. Carefully and cautiously selected by the trustees of the literary estate, she did a brilliant job. Even so, it does feel a little derivative; perhaps she was too careful about introducing completely new plot elements.
Writing new works based on an established canon is a different sort of complication, although the dangers and pitfalls are much the same. There are many examples of authors picking up someone else's creations and moving on with them, with varying degrees of success (depending on how much of a purist the reader is, I suppose, in addition to how skillful the writer is). Again I believe the urge to make the characters and story one's own rather than the original creator's is the most common problem which dishes the attempt. However well done, the work doesn't 'feel' like the work of the original author. It is probably very hard for such a successor book to be judged on its own merits rather than as a legitimate part of the original canon.