Last week in Inside the Writer's Studio we covered Story Requests - If asked, would you write one? and established that some will, others won't.

(Probably more then a few of the regulars held back rather then publicly committing themselves one way or the other.  Which, if that's the case for the lower turnout of responses, I understand.)

Now we move on to part two, an adjunct question - the subject of unfinished stories.  We've all experianced it - just when one really got interesting the author, for whatever reason(s), simply stopped cold and never came back to it to give us any closure to his tale.  At the same time, over the course of time, inevitable thoughts have come to us as to what might have happened next.

Now I'm assuming, of course, that you've sought out and been given permission by the original author to complete their work.

Remember, it's not just enough to finish their story - most importantly, do you have the ablity to suppress your initiate writing style and replicate the sense and flavor of theirs?

(I only know of one instance that this has successfully occurred on the forums: Whoopy's Hiccups - continued by Whoopy's Stand-In, who was later revealed to be Hi-Standard.  So well done was it, that unless you have both copies its hard to see where one left off and the other began.)

So, given the stated parameters about Unfinished Stories - Could you complete one?

Nope.

I'm with Seldom on this.  Emulating someone else's style is quite difficult.  If I were a real writer with real skills I might be able to pull it off, but I just write what comes to my mind and channel it into words.

Also, I don't know what the original author had in mind for their characters and ultimately where the plot was intended to climax and conclude.  I wouldn't want to take their story to a place they didn't want it to go.  I'm quite possessive of my stories and wouldn't want to see someone else mess it up.

Re-envisioning I've done...  My "Monkey's Paw" story exists thanks to Lingster's story but they're two totally different stories with totally different characters and styles.  I enjoyed the "Amazon Cruise" story so much that I may end up writing my own experience on that cruise line, but it'd be totally different than the existing story.

Those're my thoughts...
Ratty!

I haven't tried continuing a story in another persons style as of yet.

That being said I would like to play around with some plot devices left glowing strangely in the dusty corners of FMG/BE/Mini-zon fandom.

It's rough when I see some of these unwrapped tales because there's so much potential.

Probably brought this up in another post somewhere but repetition helps creates brand awareness.

For instance;

Doug and Jonas' miniature pituitary stimulation emitter from "Numa Maduk's Amazon Extravaganza, Chapter 1" by The Mighty Lingster. The story takes place in 1998 and I'd love to do a 10 years later flash forward especially since cellphones have saturated everyday experience. The original story had a usb powered device but a modded cellphone held near the brain doesn't seem too far fetched.

Arcane Software's 'Imposer 1.0 Gold Edition' from Augoose's "Imposer". These Caballah decorated mystic plastic pressings could affect the real world through a Poser program style interface. While I favor pseudo-science instead of out and out magic in stories the experimentation and reveal in this story had me hungry for more.

Dr.Ghust's drug or virus that was developed to counteract tissue degeneration in Whoopsy and Hi-Standard's "Hiccups". Unleashed on the UCLA campus this material seems to be activates when someone has a heart rate accelerating event after dosage. 

"Dr.Amastien" by Spitfire has cloning, head swapping and all sorts of forays into areas man Was Not Meant To Go. Doctor A ends up saving his wife only to have her new body change the power dynamic at home and leave him taxed to keep up. The next step might be him expiring from sheer exhaustion or attempting to escape his ravenous bride.

Well that's a few which have been bleating in the back of my brain for a continuation.

I don't think so - I wouldn't want to tread over the original author's vision with my own ideas and writing style. If they'd given me a blueprint for what they wanted to happen, I would consider it. Adapting my own style to fit theirs would probably be hard, though. Hmmmm.

Good question, as ever!