Unfinished creative work

An unfinished creative work is a painting, novel, musical composition, or other creative work, that has not been brought to a completed state. Its creator may have chosen not to finish it, deferred its completion indefinitely, or may have been prevented from doing so by circumstances beyond their control, such as death. Such pieces are often the subject of speculation as to what the finished piece would have been like had the creator completed the work. Sometimes artworks are finished by others and released posthumously. Unfinished works have had profound influences on their genres and have inspired others in their own projects. The term can also refer to ongoing work which could eventually be finished (i.e. the creator is still living) and is distinguishable from "incomplete work", which can be a work that was finished but is no longer in its complete form.

There are many reasons that a work is not completed. Works are usually stopped when their creator dies, although some, aware of their failing health, make sure that they set up the project for completion. If the work involves other people, such as a cast of actors or the subject of a portrait, it may be halted because of their unavailability. Projects that are too grandiose might never have been finished, while others should be feasible but their creator's continual unhappiness with them leads to abandonment.

Unfinished works by popular authors and artists may still be made public, sometimes in the state they were in when work was halted. Alternatively, another artist may finish the piece. In some fields work may appear unfinished, but is actually finished, such as Donatello's "non finito" technique in sculpture.

Many acclaimed authors have left work incomplete. Some such pieces have been published posthumously, either in their incomplete state or after being finished by somebody else.

It is the job of literary executors to take charge of the work of a writer after the writer's death. They must often decide what to do with incomplete work, using their own judgement if not given explicit instructions. In some cases, this can lead to something happening to the work that was not originally intended, such as the release of Franz Kafka's unfinished writings by Max Brod when Kafka had wished for them to be destroyed. These works have become iconic in Western literature. The posthumous publication of some of Ernest Hemingway's unfinished novels was met with controversy. Several books were published, but it has been suggested that it is not within the jurisdiction of Hemingway's relatives or publishers to determine whether these works should be made available to the public. For example, scholars often disapprovingly note that the version of The Garden of Eden published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1986, though not a revision of Hemingway's original words, nonetheless omits two-thirds of the original manuscript.

Novels can remain unfinished because the author continually rewrites the story. When enough material exists, someone else can compile and combine the work, creating a finished story from several different drafts. Mark Twain's The Mysterious Stranger was written in three different versions over a period of 20 years, none of which were completed. Twain biographer and literary executor Albert Paine combined the stories and published his version six years after Twain's death. Similarly, J. R. R. Tolkien continuously rewrote The Silmarillion throughout his lifetime; a definitive version was still uncompiled at the time of his death, with some sections very fragmented. His son, Christopher Tolkien, invited fantasy fiction writer Guy Gavriel Kay to reconstruct some parts of the book, and they eventually published a final version in 1977. In 1980, Christopher Tolkien published another posthumous collection of his father's unfinished work, appropriately entitled Unfinished Tales. Between 1982 and 1996, he published twelve volumes of The History of Middle-earth, a substantial portion of which is unfinished and incomplete drafts. In 2007, Christopher Tolkien published another novel from his father entitled The Children of Húrin. Like The Silmarillion, Christopher assembled the novel from various incomplete drafts.

The size of a project can be such that a piece of literature is never finished. Geoffrey Chaucer never completed The Canterbury Tales to the extensive length that he originally intended. Chaucer had, however, already written much of the work at the time of his death, and the Canterbury Tales are considered to be a seminal work despite the unfinished status. English poet Edmund Spenser originally intended The Faerie Queene to consist of 12 books; even at its unfinished state—6 books were published before Spenser's death—it is the longest epic poem in the English language. Honoré de Balzac, the French novelist, completed nearly 100 pieces for his novel sequence La Comédie humaine, but a planned 48 more were never finished. Notes and plot outlines left behind by an author may allow a successor to complete a novel or series of novels. Frank Herbert left behind extensive notes related to his Dune universe, which led to son Brian Herbert and science fiction author Kevin J. Anderson's completing several prequels to the popular series. Mervyn Peake, author of the Gormenghast novels, meant to write a complete biography of the main character, Titus, but died after only completing three books in the series. (His notes for a fourth novel were compiled into the book Titus Awakes by Peake's widow.) The Familiar, a book series written by Mark Z. Danielewski and ambitiously planned to span 27 installments that are each over 800 pages long with interlocking characters and stories, prematurely stopped at less than 20% complete after the fifth volume, Redwood, in 2018, when poor sales forced its publisher, Pantheon Books, to drop support for it. Another famous example of an unfinished book series is George R. R. Martin's dark epic high fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, which was planned to comprise seven books, but only five have been published as of 2024^[update], the sixth book, The Winds of Winter, which Martin began writing circa 2010 still being incomplete. When the series' television adaptation, Game of Thrones, finished adapting the first five books over the course of five seasons while Winds was incomplete, Martin was able to give the series showrunners an outline on what Winds' story was meant to be like, so that they could continue the series uninterrupted and mix in some original content instead of disappointing fans with a delay of the final seasons of the series.

Some works are presented as separate sections, each written at different times. This can lead to a piece appearing complete while the author actually intended for it to continue, or where other authors try to fake their own writing as part of the work. The first four cantos of Lord Byron's narrative poem Don Juan were written in 1818 and 1819, with a further twelve completed and published before his death in 1824. Numerous "continuations" of the story had been published by various publishing houses even between issues of the story, along with several fake conclusions. Byron had intended to continue the story, as evidenced by the find of the 17th canto after his death, but it is not clear how long the poem would continue or how it would conclude. It is still regarded as one of his greatest achievements. Charles Dickens was writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood in monthly installments when he died, completing just six of the twelve intended. The story surrounded the murder of the titular Edwin Drood; because the story was never finished, the murderer was never revealed. The book was still made into a film and a musical, with the latter having the unusual concept that the audience members vote for who they think is the murderer.