Author Existence Failure

"After all, as some of you like to point out in your emails, I am sixty years old and fat, and you don't want me to 'pull a Robert Jordan' on you and deny you your book." —George R.R. Martin on A Dance with Dragons

A Fandom's worst nightmare.

Sometimes editors go bankrupt, and sometimes authors die. Even more worrisome is when they do so before completing a series, leaving it orphaned. If readers are lucky, the author had enough warning or foresight to keep notes on his plans for the rest of the series or at least fill someone else in on the most relevant plot points, so that their work can be continued by someone else. This may result in the series Jumping the Shark if the replacement isn't very good, but at least you have closure. Worse would be if the series just isn't popular enough to justify going through the effort to find a new author.

This can also happen with individuals who play a major role in creating a group work; for instance, actors or directors.

If the author is still alive but decides to quit, it risks becoming a Franchise Zombie.

Please note that this trope applies when a creator (writer, director, etc.) ceases work on a project, not a participant (actor, well... mostly actors) unless they had significant input.

Not to be confused with the criticism trope known as "Death of the Author". Or Apocalyptic Log. See also The Character Died with Him, where the show goes on without the character a dead actor portrayed, and Fake Shemp, where there is an attempt to disguise the absent actor.

Examples of Author Existence Failure include:

• Anime and Manga
• Comics
• Fan Works
• Film
• Literature
• Live Action TV
• Music
• Video Games
• Webcomics
• Western Animation

---

In-Universe Examples

• Parodied in Monty Python and the Holy Grail; the knights were saved from a cartoon monster by the death of the animator (Not really, mind you, just in the movie. Terry Gilliam is still alive and well in Real Life as of this writing).
• Simultaneously lampshaded and subverted in Bob Fosse's All That Jazz; a fictionalized account of Fosse's own life story, including a serious heart-attack which occurred during one of the most stressful periods of his career — while producing both the film Lenny and the Chicago stage musical simultaneously. A heart attack that he survived; but which his Expy didn't. The question of whether the "play within the film" would ever be completed is left hanging; although previous scenes strongly hinted that it would be simply scrapped.

"You could be the first show on Broadway to make a profit without really opening."

Tabletop RPG

• Gary Gygax left many unfinished projects behind for Dungeons & Dragons, including his oft-promised but never delivered Castle Greyhawk dungeon complex.
• Carl Sargent, a popular module writer for TSR, disappeared suddenly in the late '90s, leaving many D&D fans wondering what happened (according to a fellow module writer and friend of his, Sean K. Reynolds, the truth is that he was involved in a car wreck in 1997 and has been unable to write due the severity of his injuries).
• In 1995, Nigel Findley, game designer and novelist who wrote for Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun, and other RPGs, died suddenly of a heart attack at age 35. His work introduced many key metaplot elements (e.g. bug spirits) to the Shadowrun game setting, which later authors expanded upon.
• Dream Pod 9, the Publishers of Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles nearly suffered from this; most of the company's artists and writers left in short order, leaving both storylines in the lurch. Heavy Gear was picked up by Steve Jackson Games in 2008, nothing happened, and in August 2010, SJ Games handed the franchise back to DP9.
• Similarily averted with Battletech - Twice; when Decipher shut down FASA (who they owned at the time), the Battletech fame franchise was inhereted by Wiz Kids who, in turn, leased them to Fan Pro, a German company who had been publishing localized Battletech material for years, resulting in the game being picked up in short order. Following the shutdown of Wiz Kids, the Battletech rights (as well as most of the writing staff) went to Catalyst Gaming Labs. Most fans feel that the Fanpro-Catalyst years have been some of the best the franchise has ever had. Shadowrun experienced the same fate moving to the same companies (though fan opinion as to the quality of post-FASA releases is far from a concensus).
  • However the video game series was effectively in Exsistential Failure as the new company making MW5 can't make a new game. This did not stop fans from working on a Total Conversion based on Cry Engine 2; Mechwarrior: Living Legends

Theatre

• Jonathan Larson, the creater of the Rock Opera Rent, died the night before opening night of an aortic dissection, thought to be caused by an undiagnosed case of Marfan syndrom. Despite his death, the cast performed half of the show sitting down before the high energy of the Act 1 closer, La Vie Boheme, caused them to continue the show as usual, minus costumes.
• Late in his life, Eugene O'Neill began work on two massive drama cycles: A Tale of Possessors Self-Dispossessed, which was supposed to have as many as eleven plays, and By Way of Obit, which would consist of eight one-act monologue plays. He only managed to complete one play in each cycle, A Touch of the Poet from the former (the fifth play out of the projected eleven) and Hughie from the latter before illness prevented further writing. All the incomplete plays were destroyed, with the exception of More Stately Mansions (the sequel to A Touch of the Poet), which survived in draft form.
• After Lost in the Stars, Maxwell Anderson and Kurt Weill began work on a musical adaptation of Huckleberry Finn. Weill died, and the project was aborted, leaving behind five songs.
• Henry Mancini died not long before the Screen to Stage Adaptation of Victor Victoria was produced, so Frank Wildhorn was brought in to write the additional songs with Leslie Bricusse.
• The death of John Latouche while working on the musical Candide with Leonard Bernstein is one major reason the show ended up having so many lyricists.

Web Original

• Spoofed in PRIMARCHS, where the Emperor of Mankind! obliterates the writer at the keyboard for back-chatting him. He gets better.
• SuperPie suffered a (fortunately non-lethal) version of this in Game 11 of Comic Fury Werewolf.
• The Gungan Council has had two confirmed deaths of writers: Skelosh Delaroch and Raven Darkness.
• Eddsworld creator Edd Gould died after a long fight with cancer in March 25, 2012.

Other

• Walt Disney. Though, contrary to certain urban legends, he did not cryogenically (or otherwise) preserve any part of his body and did not tell his employees exactly what to do after he left. The last Disney film to ever be made during his entire life was 1967's The Jungle Book.
• Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War breaks off abruptly partway through the eighth book. Fortunately Xenophon picked up where Thucydides left off, so we know how the war ended. Athens lost.
• WWE superstar Michael "Hawk" Hegstrand appeared with his partner Joe "Animal" Laurinatis on the May 17, 2003 WWE RAW and despite his history of severe drug and alcohol abuse, performed exceptionally well, as he had finally gotten completely clean. According to those who knew him, Hegstrand had dedicated himself to staying drug-free for the rest of his life; unfortunately, his years of drug abuse had taken such a physical toll on his body that he died of a heart attack six months later.
  • He, unlike many drug addicts and alcoholics, managed to live up to hope. He remained clean for the rest of his life.

Tropers

• Weremonkey Gus, one of the founders and original host of The Other Tropes Wiki was reported to have died at some point around the beginning of 2009. (However, after ATT forked from TVT in 2012, evidence came to light which suggested that Webmonkey Gus, Fast Eddie, and several other TVT staff members were all Sock Puppets for a single person—a fellow by the name of Gus Raley—and the "Gus" persona did not so much die as was retired.)
• Danny Lilithborne, aka Dasrik, JuJube The Tree, blankpage, and Ricardo Arturo Lafaurie, Jr., passed away January 2nd, 2010 after several weeks in a persistent vegetative state. In his last days, he was continuing work on his highly regarded Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic "Negative Zero", as well as a series of novels called Chateau Aensland. Rest in Peace.

---