Here’s the situation, folks: We’re living through the golden age of unfinished fantasy series, and it’s about time we talked about why some of our most beloved authors seem fundamentally incapable of closing.
I’m not saying this isn’t without precedent. Charles Dickens never finished The Mystery of Edwin Drood, but at least he had the courtesy to die instead of just wandering off to write seventeen other projects and gaslight us all on his blog. These days, we’ve got perfectly healthy (relatively speaking) authors sitting on incomplete masterpieces like they’re Smaug hoarding literary gold (speaking of, Tolkein never finished The Silmarillion, but again that’s because he died – and he’d already published his masterpieces so he gets a double-pass).
To find out what’s going on here, let’s take a walk down the hall of shame. Because patterns emerge when you look at the data.
The rogues gallery of procrastination
George R.R. Martin, the Night King of not delivering. Thirteen years since A Dance with Dragons, and The Winds of Winter has become the most famous book never written. Martin’s own updates have jumped around erratically, from “three years” in 2011 to “months away” in multiple blog posts, to most recently “this book is the bane of my life”. It is NOT LOOKING GOOD people.
His reasons are manifold and well-documented. Distractions from HBO success, the complexity of his plot threads, and what appears to be a terminal case of shiny object syndrome (the man owns a cinema). Martin’s no slouch. In the hiatus between ASOIAF books he’s written entire (different) books, produced multiple TV shows, and co-authored physics papers. That just makes it all the more frustrating that his magnum opus sits unfinished.
Patrick Rothfuss gives Martin a run for his money in the excuse department. Thirteen years since The Wise Man’s Fear, and The Doors of Stone remains trapped in what Rothfuss calls “perfectionism.” There’s even a subreddit dedicated entirely to the wait for the final volume, bluntly called “r/isbookthreeoutyet. The answer is always no.
His publisher Betsy Wollheim publicly stated in 2020 that she hadn’t “seen a word of book three” despite advance payments. Rothfuss himself admits to dismantling “big pieces” of the book and starting over. His reasons include mental health struggles, family issues, and an admitted inability to move beyond perfectionist paralysis. Brandon Sanderson – who has published exactly nine thousand books since The Wise Man’s Fear was released – defended Rothfuss. He noted that “no one wants that book to get done more than him,” which somehow makes it worse.
Melanie Rawn takes the prize for longest wait. Twenty-seven years since The Mageborn Traitor, and The Captal’s Tower remains stubbornly hypothetical. Rawn’s reasons make for a tougher chew. Her mother died, precipitating a bout of clinical depression that lasted nearly a decade. She’s since written multiple other series, always promising to return to Exiles “after the next project.” In 2014, she announced she’d finally start The Captal’s Tower after finishing Glass Thorns. That was eleven years ago.
Scott Lynch rounds out our primary suspects. After his spectacular debut with The Lies of Locke Lamora in 2006, the Gentleman Bastard series has stalled repeatedly. Those three horsemen of derailment struck again. Death, divorce, and depression scuppered his momentum after Red Seas Under Red Skies in 2007. The third book, The Republic of Thieves, took six years. The fourth, The Thorn of Emberlain, has been “nearly complete” since 2019. Lynch has been admirably honest about his mental health struggles, and while six years ain’t 27, the tealeaves on this one suggest it ain’t coming any time soon.
The exception that proves the rule. Fourteen times.
Not every author struggles to finish; some struggle to stop. Robert Jordan planned The Wheel of Time as six books. It became fourteen, plus a prequel. Jordan himself realized he might not live to see completion (he didn’t). The series famously suffered from “the slog” through books 7-10, where Jordan’s sprawling subplot addiction nearly killed reader interest. What started as tight storytelling became bloated with secondary characters and meandering political intrigue.
This isn’t a problem unique to Jordan. Terry Pratchett’s Discworld ran to 41 books (too many even in the estimation of his most ardent fans). And any reader of Royal Road knows that once an author realises they’re onto a good thing, it’s apparently very, very, very difficult to call time on it.
The Culprits
Despite their different circumstances, these authors share troubling patterns:
The perfectionism trap
All these authors created beloved early works that generated massive fan anticipation. The burden of living up to your own success can be crushing. When millions of people are waiting for your next book, the stakes feel impossibly high.
Both Martin and Rothfuss explicitly cite perfectionism as a major factor. Martin has described throwing away hundreds of pages. Rothfuss dismantles chapters he’s already written. They’re not blocked; they’re terrified of disappointing expectations. It’s human, understandable, and crushingly ironic. They don’t quite seem to grasp that at this point any version of their long-awaited books will be less disappointing and frustrating than another year of sweet FA.
The success trap
Martin’s HBO deals and Rothfuss’s charity work aren’t inherently bad, but they represent the problem of options. When you’re successful, people want you around more. They want you to do stuff. They want to coax you out of your little den where you spent years building your fortune and reputation. If those people are TV producers, the problems become exponential.
Because when successful fantasy series become multimedia franchises, everything gets worse. The financial stakes rocket, which adds pressure but also provides financial security that can mitigate the drive to finish, publish, and pull in some royalties. Then there’s the myriad exciting work opportunities that come with it. Why struggle with a difficult chapter when you can sit in an air-conditioned writers room eating pastries all day?
The mental health trap
Lynch and Rawn have been refreshingly honest about crushing mental health issues affecting their work. It raises questions about the sustainability of long-form series for authors dealing with chronic health issues. There’s clearly a link between those with the kind of imagination capable of creating awe-inspiring worlds we all love to inhabit, and those who struggle with depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder.
While George RR Martin doesn’t suffer from the same (as far as we know), his method of writing his dense and intricate multiple POV epics would be enough to melt anyone’s brain. And if the rumours are true that he’s recently realised he’s well and truly written himself into an MC Escher painting of logic issues and plot holes…let’s just hope he has a good mindfulness app.
The…fantasy fiction trap?
Poor George isn’t the only one dealing with eye-watering length and complexity. Most fantasy authors create entire universes complete with consistent magic systems, detailed histories, and interconnected plotlines spanning thousands of pages. One small change might kick-off a ripple effect of extensive rewrites. Trying to balance all of that as a series enters its autumn years is…not easy.
Most genres favour episodic, standalone, or generally just less darn ambitious output. Fantasy readers expect multi-book arcs and sprawling character lists. These authors aren’t project managers; they’re creatives. The task of planning years ahead while leaving room for organic story development must become untenable after a point. It’s like an improv jazz pianist trying to build a cathedral.
And it’s not like they can do all this in private. Fantasy fandom is notoriously passionate and vocal. Authors are bombarded with constant questions about plot details, easter eggs, predictions, and release dates. This level of scrutiny can be both motivating and paralyzing. Booker Prize nominees don’t typically face Reddit threads dissecting their every blog post for hints about their work in progress.
The other exception that proves the rule
Or to put it in other words…maybe there isn’t a problem? Fantasy is almost unique in favouring long running sequential installments of books. So if there’s a series arc that’s not getting finished, by default it’s a fantasy one.
And of all the thousands of fantasy books published in any given year, tens of thousands over the decades, only a small handful remain incomplete within a sensible time frame. Percentage-wise, we’re actually very solid on closed-out franchises. It’s not like we’re going to run out of books to read while we’re waiting for one of the mentioned authors to finally click “save as PDF”. Are we overthinking this? Are we too focused on what we haven’t got, rather than the embarrassment of riches that we have?
But if you’re a budding fantasy author, how do you avoid the trap of becoming famous for the fantasy you haven’t written? Never fear, I’ve got your back.
How to finish your fantasy book series: A 10-part guide
Step 1: Don’t get popular. If you’re going to flame out on your fantasy series, at least have the foresight to do it while no one’s reading.
Step 2. Don’t get rich. Again, George RR Martin owns A CINEMA. Not a cinema room. An actual building that is a cinema. Would you finish book six of the series you’ve been writing since 1995 if you owned and managed a cinema? No, you wouldn’t.
Step 3. Don’t do anything. Don’t edit anthologies, don’t produce TV shows, don’t be an ambassador for any philanthropic organisations. If your dear supporters get even a whiff that you’re doing anything outside of cranking out pages, you might end up the subject of a snarky subreddit. And that’s not good for creativity.
Step 4. Don’t talk to anyone. Close the blog, today. Let that domain elapse. Go pencils-down on socials. Politely decline invitations to any conventions, panels, book launches or Q&As. Those pesky supporters will be out in force, demanding an ETA. If you engage them in conversation, you’re only making things worse. In fact if you go on the record saying anything to anyone at any given time, your completely sane and chill fans will clock that up as precious moments you weren’t writing.
Step 5. Don’t get fancy. A young guy is chosen to go get a thing. The thing is far away. Adventures ensue. He makes some friends, grows up a bit. Learns he’s actually a pretty big deal. Gets the thing. That’s the book you’re writing. Don’t suddenly get sophisticated half way through with twists and subplots and whole new extensions to the map or heretofore undiscovered magic systems.They may feel new and exciting when you’re a good two million words in, but you’re going to have to close out those threads and focus on the guy getting the thing sooner or later. Better to exercise restraint in the first place. And one more thing: if the prequel was relevant you would’ve started the story there.
Step 6. Don’t make promises. The temptation to give updates on how the next book’s coming along is clearly too much to resist. Please try. Try hard. If you absolutely have to give an update, err on the side of caution, “I’m passing all my notes on to my favourite grandchild. Looking good for 2050!” should help manage expectations.
Step 7. Don’t sweat it. I’ve got news for you: your first book wasn’t perfect. Neither was the second, or the third. Aside from those particularly fervent fans whose voices ring in your head at night, most readers probably consider your series a perfectly solid diversion. You just rarely hear from them. No one’s finding you at FantasyCon to tell you you’re a half-decent writer (but your female characters are pretty flat – and please stop describing boobs). Stans are gonna stan. Focus on giving the vast majority of your readers something that kills time on the bus.
Step 8. Don’t avoid your doctor. That nasty habit of dying may have been more prevalent a hundred years ago, but unfortunately it’s outlasted tuberculosis. Robert Jordan was beaten by his own Wheel of Time, and Frank Herbert rode the big sandworm in the sky before completing the Dune saga. Let’s be honest, George RR Martin is getting on in years with two whole books to deliver. Let’s hope he’s in league with R’hllor. Or he has a great cardiologist.
Step 9. Don’t avoid your other doctor. Sadly creative genius and mental health struggles tend to go hand-in-hand. If writing your fantasy series whistles over the black dog, go talk it out with a professional. That’s one extracurricular activity your fans probably won’t begrudge you.
Step 10: I just want you to know that I appreciate you all. You’re the reason I keep writing. The final part of this guide will be released Q4 2025. That’s a guarantee!
What’s your take, folks? Am I adding to the problem, or is all fair in love and fantasy? Are you waiting on one of these fabled installments to drop, or have you moved on? If so, what to? What’s your favourite finished series?
FantasyLitGuy 