A Guided Framework for Finishing Someone Else’s Work with Care, Accountability, and Thoughtful Presence
Writing or completing a piece of scholarship after someone has died is not just an academic task. It’s an act of memory, responsibility, and often grief. Whether you’re a long-time collaborator or a colleague stepping in to carry forward a fragment of someone’s work, the process can feel both clarifying and unsettling.
This guide offers a structured, values-based framework to navigate that process, with enough room for discomfort, uncertainty, and care. There’s no perfect way to continue someone else’s voice, but there are ways to hold the work that honour what was, what remains, and what is still possible.
1. Pause With the Weight of the Work
Before beginning any writing or revision, create space to feel what this project now holds. You are not just “finishing something,” you are engaging with the echoes of a collaborator’s intention, curiosity, and unfinished thought.
☑ Consider:
☐ When and how did I last talk with them about this project?
☐ What parts were settled, and what was still fluid or emerging?
☐ Am I emotionally ready to enter this space again?
✍ One thing I’m carrying into this process is ____________________________
✍ What I want to protect, even as things shift, is ____________________________
🟦 Prompt: Let the emotional truth of the moment guide your pacing. You’re allowed to grieve, pause, or ask for help.
2. Clarify What You’re Being Asked to Do
It’s easy to assume you need to “polish” or “complete,” but the real task may be more layered.
☑ Ask yourself or others:
☐ Is the goal to submit or publish this work?
☐ Am I co-writing, editing, or assembling?
☐ What do I know about their consent or hopes for future dissemination?
✍ What’s being asked of me is ____________________________
✍ What I need clarified before proceeding is ____________________________
🟦 Prompt: Don’t take on a task without shared understanding. Ambiguity can compound grief.
3. Make a Plan for Ethical Authorship
Authorship after death requires more than standard guidelines; it calls for transparency, respect, and sometimes, honest complexity.
☑ Consider including:
☐ An authorship note that explains contributions clearly
☐ A sentence or paragraph about the timeline of the work
☐ Joint authorship with an institution, estate, or collective if appropriate
☐ The explicit acknowledgment of limitations or changes posthumously introduced
✍ We’ll credit their authorship by ____________________________
✍ Where authorship decisions feel grey, I’ll seek counsel from ____________________________
🟦 Prompt: Think about how authorship lives not just in names, but in story.
4. Let Absence Be Felt, Not Filled
Gaps in thinking or writing are natural. Don’t rush to close them, especially if doing so overwrites the work’s integrity.
☑ Instead of assuming:
☐ Flag where you’ve made interpretive choices
☐ Leave citations or sections unfinished if speculation would misrepresent them
☐ Use footnotes or author notes to mark what has changed
☐ Avoid mimicry of their tone, let your voice step gently alongside theirs
✍ In this section, we’ve chosen to ____________________________ because ____________________________
✍ This gap will remain visible, and we’ll note it like this: ____________________________
🟦 Prompt: Fidelity doesn’t mean sameness. It means staying close to what’s known.
5. Acknowledge the Emotional and Intellectual Terrain
Readers, reviewers, and co-authors will bring their own relationships to this work, including grief, scepticism, or reverence.
☑ Consider offering:
☐ A preface or epilogue that names the relational stakes
☐ Acknowledgment of unfinished tensions or open-ended themes
☐ A place for others to continue the thread (e.g., a related issue, commentary, or symposium)
✍ We’ll close the paper in a way that honours both completion and continuation by ____________________________
✍ What this work invites others to consider is ____________________________
🟦 Prompt: Writing doesn’t have to tie a bow. Sometimes it lays a path.
Final Reflection: To Write is to Witness
Completing a paper after someone’s death is not just technical; it is an act of remembering, of trusting, of choosing not to let something be lost. You are not replacing them. You are making a decision to carry part of their thought forward, in public, with care.
✍ One thing I’ll carry forward in my own practice, because of this, is ____________________________
You’re always welcome to view Gwenin for a selection of frameworks, or pop over to Spiralmore’s extended PDF collections. In addition, you’re always welcome to explore our more relaxed corner: the informal blog.
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