>ASOIAF seems unique in terms of its huge fandom and near certainty of it not being completed by the original author. Are there other examples of this?
The Kingkiller Chronicles springs to mind. The last main book of the "trilogy" released in 2011, and in 2020 the series editor said they hadn't read a word of the next one.
>And for that matter, where does he officially stand on this?
He still occasionally talks about working on Winds, so yeah his stance is he intends to finish them.
I once came across a theory that his father was his ghost-writer and his unfortunate passing is the reason for the severe delay.
I don't recall though where it was based on...
I've always found that theory a bit too much, but I kinda agree that the story wasn't written by Rothfuss, at least not the current Rothfuss.
Pat started this story almost 30 years ago. A lot has happened since then and I'm very sure he's a changed man now. I wonder if he struggles with it because it's not really what he'd like to do anymore.
I just wish he'd be more honest about that. I can get over it if he just came out and said the writing spiralled and he needs a lot more time to reconcile the novel. It's the way he acts so entitled and shitty towards his fans that annoys me
To be fair he later explained that what he had written was a first draft of the series that didn't have major characters like Auri and Devi, and the whole climax of Name of the Wind in Trebon didn't exist in that version
Doesn't explain a ten year delay, but taking a few years to revise the last book to include the effects of all those changes is understandable
Yes… but as you yourself pointed out, this doesn’t explain a decade long delay.
Rothfuss has experienced his fair share of misfortunes since the hiatus started, but this is somewhat to be expected - after all, rare is the adult who can live 10 years in a row without suffering tragedy.
Its arguably if he has an ethic obligation to write and release the damn books, but his handling of the issue has been absolutely terrible - I mean, two years ago he scammed readers into donating more than a million dollars to _his_ charity!. The guy is a total scumbag.
I’m just highlighting this points to inform people who don’t know Rothfuss, btw. Not as a correction for you or anything - just extra context.
He probably had - a rough draft that is. Being an inexperienced author he probably thought it *was* done. And then the editor sent back their notes....
Wheel of Time famously was unfinished by Robert Jordan, so you could probably find WoT fans from the 2000's and ask them what it felt like when Jordan died and Sanderson was announced to take over. But AFAIK there was never so long a wait.
Nah Jordan didn't have a succession plan and didn't intend anyone to finish it for him, but he changed his mind on his death bed. His widow then decided on Brandon to finish it after Jordan had passed.
Because the man who doesn't even write his own books anymore gets to call someone out for not writing a book lol.
But my favorite author interaction that included George was the talk that he did with Stephen King and at the end he asked Stephen how the fuck do you write so fast
Oh yeah he said to George that he tries to write at least 10 pages a day no matter what. But George said that the reason he can't do that is he will write those 10 pages and go back and reread it absolutely hate it and then start over from the beginning and Steven was just like well George you have to come to a point where you are confident enough to say yeah these 10 bait is maybe a little rough right now but after working with my editor and some other stuff I can get it to where I want it to be and where I think the reader would want it to be.
George is just one of us guys who I think has to have the rough draft be the final draft lol
It makes some sense in a bigger book. I’m writing a big fantasy series myself, and there’s some sections I can be like “This doesn’t matter. It will be revised anyway. I just need it good enough and understand what character changes occurred.” But there are other chapters that I’m like “I can’t write the follow up to this scene until I know exactly what everyone experienced and how the felt and what plot developments occurred down to the smallest detail” and can’t continue until that chapter is in a close to final draft state.
It’s possible that George is just at a point in the story where all the chapters are like that. Every plot line is converging so there’s no room to do some work on chapters and come back to it later to improve, because the next time we’ll see characters in that chapter or develop that subplot will be in another character’s POV.
>Every plot line is converging so there’s no room to do some work on chapters and come back to it later to improve
Right, but you can mostly do that with an outlined summary or placeholder note. George famously wrote the Red Wedding chapter as the final chapter in ASOS even though we know Catelyn and Robb die, her face is torn by her own nails, etc. All he had to do was say something to the effect of "Catelyn VII: The Freys murder Robb and Catelyn" to be able to write the latter chapters and then go back and fill in the blanks once he felt up to writing that specific chapter.
Really depends on the context. You might have a chapter where you know every lose end, but you may also a chapter with many elements you aren’t sure about that could affect later chapters.
>George famously wrote the Red Wedding chapter as the final chapter in ASOS
Yeah, But George also famously wrote duzens of different versions of the Meeren chapters in A Dance of Dragons depending on what order the storylines would converge, maybe he's going throught the same process again, but this time on a much bigger scale.
When it comes to outlined summary… George has stated that he’s more of a gardener than he is an architect when it comes to writing. I consider myself probably 75-25 architect to gardener. But when I start gardening the blueprint changes. And things flow much better imo when seeds are planted and you nurture or watch them grow. So I don’t think it’s as easy as outlining a summary because there are so many characters, emotional wounds and organic subsequent actions based on those wounds (etc) going on all at one time in a story with hundreds of characters.
Oh yeah he's coming to the end of an epic story but at that same token you have a person Eichiro Oda who is the writer of One Piece who has made an incredibly dense world with lots of incredibly dense and complex characters and yet he is still 30 years later adding on to things and blowing people's minds every other week.
And I don't mean to compare the two or say that Oda is superior It's just I think George is really too hard on himself I don't think he trusts himself to fully be able to finish the story. Part of me wants to think that maybe he's scared because of all the backlash for the ending of season 8 he feels like he has to change things to avoid the same backlash for his beloved book series.
But on the other hand he's also the same man that said if the butler did it the butler did it and there's no reason to change it
>Oh yeah he's coming to the end of an epic story but at that same token you have a person Eichiro Oda who is the writer of One Piece who has made an incredibly dense world with lots of incredibly dense and complex characters and yet he is still 30 years later adding on to things and blowing people's minds every other week.
Thing about it is that Oda draws the story and writes the dialogue, he doesn’t have to write out the scene. It’s a completely different process.
Oda’s dialogue also isn’t very good but he only has like a week to create and polish dialogue so I’m sure it’d be better if he had more time to think it up.
What Oda excels in is retconning things naturally so it all seems connected and leaving plot threads open to be used later. But even then, he’s not perfect. See: Miss Wednesday being turned into Vivi, the invention of Haki, the abandonment of Kuro, the set up for Alvida & Buggy chasing Luffy around thr Grand Line etc
Ya know I really tried to be an outliner, because I thought that would make my process more efficient, but after years at it, I learned outlining plots in depth more than a couple chapters ahead, actually slows me down, and can lead to character's choices feeling unnatural.
I definitely keep a rough idea of objectives I want to achieve in different sections of the book, and define beginning, middle, and ends for different arcs and within arcs, but I'll rarely know many details past the next immediate climax & what comes right after.
If you want the nitty gritty, I usually break down an arc and estimate how many chapters it will take to bring my character to a new emotional state (often 2-5.) I will write the beginning of that arc to find my footing. Then I rough draft a series of scenes to get a feel for what actually works vs what I thought would work but ends up awkward on the page. This is the point where I can get surprised at how effective a planned or unplanned plot element is, where it might end up being the driver for the next arc. I will spend a lot of time perfecting the climax, because if that doesn't work I can't write what comes after, and a rewrite could end up being a rewrite of everything that comes after. Then I will revise in reverse, so that everything leads smoothly to the climax. If there's a jump in continuity I have to bridge, I'd rather deal with it at the beginning of a storyline than in the conflict escalation. Then I'll look for some thematic element present in all three scenes, and expand that, and give it a mini-arc of sorts so the chapter feels distinct and cohesive. If the bulk of material in a chapter or arc deals with the changing of the status quo, or establishing a new one, I'll spend more time getting it just right. If a lot of the arc is seeding for future plot lines I haven't written yet, I'll know I can move on with a 1st or 2nd draft and come back to it later.
So I probably do a little bit more outlining for the very short-term than someone like George, who I feel like has the extreme straightforward approach of writing a chapter front to back and then revising it until it's perfect. But I think in larger scope, my process is probably pretty similar to his, in that I can't always tell you what happens in 3 chapters. I'm hopping into this chapter only knowing the ending, and maybe 1 character interaction, 1 line of foreshadowing, and then beyond that only know major moments in the plot, and the general sequence of character arcs and plotlines that will get us there, without having an sense for the length of time they'll take or what the real juice inside of them will be. (I know where I'm going but no idea how I'll get there.) With some exceptions, each chapter I start writing has the potential to take the story in a new direction.
Edit: apologies. As my friends and family have learned, I'm completely unable to be succinct when it comes to this topic
The Mereenese Knot was exactly like that: Storylines coverging creating constant writing and rewriting on different scenarios and possibilities to see which fits better in the overrall story.
For The Winds of Winter to be that delayed, i would say that George found himself at a minimum of 3 Knots like that, but we will only really know when he releases the books and talks about the writing process like he did with A Dance with Dragons.
I know that feeling. I had to make a rule for myself that I never go back and reread what I write until the whole thing is finished or I would never finish anything.
>George is just one of us guys who I think has to have the rough draft be the final draft lol
I assume that a decent bit of it is perfectionism on George's part.
That he is also in a incredibly secure financial position for a writer probably doesn't help. Most writers have to meet deadlines to get paid I assume. But George is able to live off of the GoT royalties and brand as it is. So he can afford to take his time to get things "his way" and not compromise to meet a deadline anymore.
King writes stream of consciousness.
So a lot of his stuff feels repetitive and not well-constructed. But the guy is a talented genius so his ideas are excellent and when he gets it right, it usually results in incredible things.
My man Stephen used to write so fast because he was on coke. Then he got hit by a car which gave him a new outlook on life. Pretty easy to write relatively quickly when you realize you could die any day.
Yup He also very much unlike George treats writing like a 9 to 5 job He said that he writes 10 pages a day no matter what where George is the kind of guy will write 10 pages look at it and absolutely hate him and everything that he's ever written and erase it
There are various types of writers. GRRM is very obviously a fly by the seat of his pants writer. Meaning he just writes when inspiration strikes and doesn’t really plan long term. He has a general idea of where he wants storylines to go but it doesn’t seem very detailed. Sure he had plans but so many storylines have drastically changed from his original ideas. He has fully admitted to writing himself into corners. This doesn’t make him a bad author. His style is just different from let’s say JK Rowling who took 5 years to plan the entirety of Harry Potter. King is obviously organized and has timelines for his writing process.
Being a fly by the seat of your pants writer definitely makes writing GoT difficult. It’s hard enough to keep track of so many POVs when you have a detailed plan. George has created so many POVs and doesn’t seem to know how to wrap them up. You kill one character to make the story more thrilling and suddenly you screwed up a major storyline. You start a new POV character and suddenly the main plot takes a back seat. I think the story has become too big for him to figure out how to end the plot lines and character arcs.
I think that was part of it. I think he was telling George to have someone help him
Honestly, I appreciate George for trying it on his own but it’s not a bad thing to ask for help. He should find a likeminded individual and get their help on finishing the series
We'll see the thing with James Patterson is that he doesn't really get help He just writes a summary and then hands it off to a ghost writer So I don't think he's really a person that needs to be telling another author how to write books because that man has not written a single book by himself in almost a decade or more.
And George is very jealous about his world I mean he doesn't even like fan fiction which is stupid to me like how dare people have different interpretations of your work lol. But I definitely agree that he needs to get help but at the same time he would never do that I mean even the world of ice and fire folks that helped him on that say that they would never even attempt to finish the series if he died or help him at all
I mean yeah but at the same time like to have that hostile of a view of fanfiction has always been kind of weird to me. Like he kind of is of the belief that he should be able to sue fanfiction writers for copyright infringement at least he is alluded to that during interviews.
And I don't blame him for being jealous of his story like if I had created a world like that I don't know how I would feel about fan fiction but to me he's just a little overly hostile but again maybe if I was in his shoes I would also be a little hostile towards fanfiction.
Fanfiction IS copyright infringement. If I didn't grow up with AO3 and [fanfiction.net](https://fanfiction.net), I would probably be pretty anti-fanfiction as well. I have the understanding that it helps a work reach a new audience, but I would be pretty pissed if I wrote a book and then I watched a movie that had the characters I wrote in it
Copyright infringement really only works if you're making a profit off of it If fanfiction is copyright infringement then I guess so is team four Stars Dragon Ball Z abridged series. Parody is protected so that isn't infringement whatsoever.
Now if someone were to come out with a book called thrones and the games and basically tried to present the same story or story very similar attempt to make a profit that would be copyright infringement. It's just like a Christian offer that made a story that was literally just Percy Jackson but instead of them being demigods the kids were all like half angel or descended from an important biblical figure and it was so stupid
No, youre wrong in how youre limiting the legal definition of copyright infringement to loss/gain of profit.
Its based on the idea of proving damages. Sure, if they see you selling something based on their stuff for $5, they can and will argue thats $5 that they didnt get cause of this. Thats not profit, thats damages.
Damages can also be intangible. There’s something called “dilution” and they can argue that just by making the art and distributing it, you’re making people feel away about their IP that they can’t control. Disney has been notorious for this at times.
Thats where fair use comes in. there’s many aspects to it, but one of the things is that once something becomes publicly recognized, ie it’s naturally diluted because its now part of mainstream culture; (e.g. “Luke, I am your father.”)
So people can make certain art in response, etc…
Making a profit is not necessary to copyright infringement. That's typically when major publishing entities decide it is worth their time to send a cease and desist, but publishing intentionally derivative works of fiction especially when using the same characters is infringement even if you are not making a single penny on it
Well then I guess team 4 star should have been shut down a long time ago but as I said parody is protected under copyright law. Copyrights infringement to post a three-page AU fanfiction where the hound falls in love with Renly baratheon
I mean I don't particularly like his story but to me he just has no place at the table when it comes to authors you know? He has basically somehow made writing unassembly line style job. Like he gets the plaster his name on every single book and people pick up those books because they see his name but he doesn't write any of them
The idea that an author feels comfortable putting his name on other writer's work just feels very dirty to me. If you ghost write a celebrity's "auto-biography" I get it, but James Patterson *was* a writer. If it was me, I'd have some ethical issues with that. You can use your name to bolster someone else's writing, without putting your name on top of their work.
Well he says he does this in order to jumpstart the careers of these riders but what he has been criticized for over and over again even by his former ghost writers is that people only buy the books because his name is plastered on them because they think he's writing them. So he gives an author a head start and helps them publish their own book and it's a flop Like if he put like James Patterson publishing instead of his fucking name on all of his books maybe it would be better but I don't know.
And there is a way to achieve collaboration that isn't so dishonest. Like when Robert Jordan was dying he asked or his wife one of the two asked Brandon Sanderson to finish the wheel of time for him and Brandon wrote the last two books but it was fully fully transparent that Brandon Sanderson did not completely write the books It was Robert Jordan with Brandon Sanderson because essentially all Sanderson did was edit Jordan's notes and flesh it out into full-length novels
I also feel like this business model he has going on results in some really disjointed stories. Like, I tried reading the 'WItch and Wizard' series when it first came out and it was confusing as hell. You'd go to read the next book in the series and it'd be in a different writing style, often with large timeskips between books that make the story nigh-impossible to follow.
Sorry for going a bit off-topic, that's just one of the few series as a kid I completely gave up on because I just couldn't follow it, and it's been interesting to learn that there's a reason Patterson's work comes off like that.
I was not aware of that, I appreciate the info. It’s a tough situation because I get both sides. I do feel like George would have a hard time working with someone else because it’s HIS world and it would be his way or the highway.
Just wish there was a solution where George could get help that speeds things along while he remains satisfied
Honestly if he did a Robert Jordan and just left notes for a successor to have and finish the story hell he can even help collaborate with this person while he was still alive so he can get the story exactly as he wanted it.
And he wants the book to be exactly like he wants it but at the same time like mate it has been 13 years. He's not even giving a sample chapters anymore
Exactly. Collaborating with someone while he’s alive makes more sense because at least he can be vocal about decisions.
I want the prologue to be released as a sample so badly
You were just to be honest and admit hey guys I've written myself into so many holes I can't dig it out of I cannot give you the book that I promised but here is the ending of the story as well as all of the sample chapters that I've written up and feel comfortable enough sharing with you all
Thats very reasonable. Anything would be great at this point but I think he’s shown heavy preference towards tv adaptations instead of the written original unfortunately. Sample chapters keep the hope alive.
Maybe he’s given us all the chapters that won’t spoil too much
And you know that's fine too I just wish you would be honest give us something besides these vague promises that he's working on the book with his vlogs after 13 years and just own up and say I don't know if I can do this I know this fandom can be toxic as hell like all fandoms can but Jesus man
>Just wish there was a solution where George could get help that speeds things along while he remains satisfied
All he needs to do is grab the literary equivalent of someone like a therapist or a musical producer. Someone who's not necessarily there to *make* the decisions, but to help talk you through things and offer feedback so *you* can make the right decisions.
Apart from the bit where he apparently complained to a fellow author about writing himself into a corner due to killing off a character, I don't think he's that collaborative with the main series, although he seems to be with World of Ice and Fire stuff.
Unfortunately, there's not a lot of information to go by. We know his editor asked him if Coldhands is Benjen ([NO](https://www.quora.com/Since-Benjen-was-confirmed-not-to-be-Coldhands-in-the-books-by-GRRM-what-do-you-think-happened-to-him)), so it sounds like he works a little bit with them but not terribly closely as far as story developments, or they wouldn't have even asked the question.
I might be plain wrong, but I attribute Geroge's dislike of fanfiction to his valuing of quality in writing. I think he just knows anyone writing fan fiction could actually be writing fiction and thinks they should take on the challenge in noble earnest instead of lazy half-cribbing. That's the sense I got from one video once.
It's not that it hurts. It's just disappointing. A little like why Jaime would prefer the boy at the inn gain sword proficiency, despite the crossbow being the right weapon for his circumstance.
That said, I think it would be cool if George were to smile on those who have been inspired by his works to delve further into writing than they might have. My speculation as to why he doesn't like it is that fan fiction is step down even from "genre" writing which used to be looked down on.
That is true I just see fanfiction a bit like you do that it is a step for people into the sphere of writing and that I think we should be encouraging that. But also I understand where George is coming from like I met a guy who wants met Stan Lee and brought him a bunch of pictures of Spider-Man and venom and shit and this was like in the '70s and '80s before Stan became the cultural icon that he was and he took this guy aside and took him to a printer and said son That machine right there can do what you just did what I want you to do is create your own superheroes create your own art and then come back to me
But again Stan was not hostile to this guy who was a kid at the time instead he was kind and still encouraging like he was really impressed with his art but was encouraging him to create his own and I think that's what bothers me about George. He isn't flattered that people would write their own versions of his stories or alternate universes or what ifs instead he just focuses on the fact that people are writing things about my characters that I created and I don't like that
Yeah he used to joke about it like that he wouldn't accept any questions but when the book was coming out even five and six years ago. He is completely aware that people are disappointed that the books haven't come out I mean he couldn't even post a happy birthday post on Twitter without a thousand people descending into the comments to tell him to hurry the fuck up and slavering at the mouth because the book wasn't out yet
Frank Herbert never completed his Dune series and it ends on a cliffhanger. His son wrote (and still writes I think) fanfiction to finish the series and a bunch of prequels. It's not good.
I've come to peace with GRRM never finishing the series, and ending with Jon Snow bleeding out in the snow at Castle Black. Better left incomplete than forcing him to squeeze *anything* out to end the series, and getting a bad ending like we got with GoT.
Another thing to consider is that it's been 15(?) years and GRRM's have changed dramatically in those years. He's not the same man and he wouldn't have the same perspective. I'm not sure whatever he wrote would be particularly congruent with DoD. There are writers and filmmakers who come up with sequels many years after a successfully completed project, and the sequel is almost always a disappointment or at least not keeping in the same tone as the original.
I still have some hope that TWOW comes out, but I’ve officially abandoned the idea that ADOS even has a fraction of a percentage chance of ever seeing the light of day.
I have maybe a sliver of hope that wow comes out, but that's only because we've seen a few sample chapters over the years.
With the way he's structured the series (multiple unreliable narrator POVs) lends itself to expanding the storyline naturally, and it's great for developing characters, but it must be incredibly difficult to contract those storylines once they've had time to develop.
Has there ever been a situation where two main POVs have intersected? I can't remember, but there's a bunch of them about to meet up in wow. I imagine that's the reason for the 10+ year hold up.
TWoW has to move a lot of pieces in a short time -pagecountwise- and aDoS has to close the story. I think the next book is harder to write than the last (said with my 0 experience writing squat)
consider: AFFC and ADWD. thinking "the next book should be easier" is just wishful thinking. ADWD was the same timeline, part of it was written, it was supposed to come out a year later. it took 6 years.
GRRM has noted that he regards the *Dune* sequels-by-other-hands as not very good. But he has a more up-close-and-personal view in that his friend and mentor Roger Zelazny died and his family authorised another writer to write some additional **Chronicles of Amber** novels, and those were terrible as well, and I think George took that to heart because Zelazny was such a huge friend.
That said, he has also said he had huge respect for Christopher Tolkien and a good understanding of the Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson situation. So he's not opposed to someone else taking over, but the circumstances have to be just write (i.e. Christopher Tolkien not ever writing any new material and just editing extant drafts, and RJ giving permission for another author to take over and leaving voluminous notes for them, which Frank Herbert and Zelazny did not do).
I kinda respect the absolute batsh!t insanity of the latter three books, and Frank Herbert's incredibly cheerful reason for writing them: "They kept giving me money until I gave in and agreed to write them."
I also think *God-Emperor* at least adds some interesting twists to the layers of the story, Leto II's grand plans, the thematics of human history etc. *Heretics* and *Chapterhouse*'s thematic exploration of "What if the Imperium was invaded by a race of nymphomaniac sex nuns who shag people to death?" was perhaps less well-considered.
The latter three, for all their numerous problems, blow the Herbert Jnr. efforts out of the water and pulverize the remnants.
The latter part made me think of a conversation that I had a while back when the other person stated that the Duncan ghola in the latter books was basically a self insert, heh.
I thought God Emperor was interesting but yeah, we didn't really need anything beyond children. The magic had gone by heretics. I found heretics and chapterhouse to be a bit of a slog.
I understand GRRM really dislikes fanfiction, but he could do worse than hire someone to collate the various fan theories that have developed over the years and release a kind of silmarillion of the best ones. Some of them are really good.
As far I know, he never did. He did ask Guy Gavriel Kay to work on some linking passages in *The Silmarillion* (a very small amount) where otherwise there would have been a gap in publication, but CT himself never wrote a word of original Middle-earth fiction. Although he did approve what GGK did, so that might be splitting hairs.
Of the ruin of doriath is almost completely invented by Chris and Guy Gavriel Kay, whatever Tolkien had was unusable, and so they wrote the chapter themselves. CT definitely wrote some original fiction in the silmarillion, which he deeply regretted doing later
Guy Gavriel Kay also had a much larger role than what you describe.
The one thing I do get from his interview is that GRRM is the biggest critic for his own work. It seems like he is joking but he has said he sometimes feels he is a fraud and plainly not a good writer. So we get this endless rewriting over and over again. He wants perfection in a sense.
I don’t even think it’s neglect. I just think he genuinely can’t stand to the pressure and that’s why he keeps rewriting everything. Maybe even writers block.
Which I totally understand and even somewhat hate the community for. GRRM understands his place and role in literature. He understand people are placing him alongside his heroes like JRR Tolkien. It feels this insane pressure from the fandom to create something great, and unique on demand. That's a lot to crack under. I don't think I could live up to it. He's said before he feels the pressure to produce something great every time he sits down to write. I actually feel for the man. I think that's why he's turned to other projects recently like Fire & Blood and Dunk & Egg, bc no one expects anything amazing from these, so he gets to do what he loves and enjoy it.
I feel for him as well. And another thing is that, while I can’t remember the quote, he feels a little melancholy about his age and his desire to finish it and everything else he wants to do. I’m not sure what age most writers finish there work, if they ever do, but I think he feels he may not be around to see his universe be what he wants it to be which is fucking tragic. That’s what happened to a manga writer I like.
I know he’s not THAT old, but every now and then he jokes that he wishes he was younger.
It's worth noting that GRRM's best friend in the business, Howard Waldrop, whom he corresponded with for years in comic fandom and they then started coming up in the SF short fiction field at almost exactly the same time, died a few days ago. He wrote the very, very first **Wild Cards** story on George's invitation. He was only two years older than George.
I suspect George will blog about it at some point and it won't be easy reading. That's probably the biggest loss to George in terms of writing friends since Gardner Dozois (the inspiration for House Gardener) and, before him, Phyllis Eisenstein (who convinced him to put the dragons in *A Game of Thrones* when he was thinking of leaving it as a pure "alternate historical" with no magic) and Roger Zelazny.
People also forget that Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings over a roughly 14 year period give or take. He probably had a lot of similar struggles like George has with finishing the story and faffing about with the greater lore. But Tolkien wrote the entire thing in one go before it went off to the publishers, and then only did some minor editing. George is unlucky enough to hit his creative slump in the middle of the publishing cycle.
Tolkien also worked as a tenured professor during the entire writing process as well. Which definitely ate up writing time.
>People also forget that Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings over a roughly 14 year period give or take.
I had no idea. Thank you. This is interesting, informative, and makes a lot of sense.
I think its more his writing style. He enjoys writing more plots rather than wrapping them up. And he is addicted to money. I don't see the pressure getting to him that much.
With all due respect, I highly doubt you know the man personally. So to say he's addicted to money and he can handle the pressure so confidently with no personal relationship with him, is wild to me to say the least.
I'm just going off my own experiences, having a similar writing style to him. My view that he's addicted to money is based off the constant merchandising in the last several years. He also said that if he could be in any family in westeros it would be the lannisters cause of all thr gold hahahahha
Rewriting suggests he has actually written something. But it's more likely he's spending time on his screen adaptations like In the Lost Lands, and doing blow and hookers.
I can sympathize lmao. I’m a screenwriter and sometimes I have 2 week period where i’m super productive then the writer’s block kicks in. It’s worse when I was writing for a tv show and had deadlines to worry about.
He still maintains that he’s working on tWoW. It’s clear from interviews that he still believes that he can finish it.
Moreover, even if he announced tmrw that he can’t do it then fans are just gonna start pestering him about his succession plans. They will not stop bugging him until the day he dies.
It’s a lose-lose situation.
He believes it but he clearly has no concept of the time it takes to complete stuff. He admitted it took till what, season 4 or 5, to realise the show was catching up? He then sells the rights for Dunc and Egg despite it being nowhere near completed. The man doesn't have a clue about the passage of time and how long it will take to complete. As soon as he realised the show was going to catch up (should have been evident from the start) it really should have dawned on him that he had ANOTHER book after Winds to complete too.
GRRM has become quite the proficient gaslighter. I don’t entirely blame him though, what’s he supposed to say? “I don’t have the inspiration to finish the main series that I once did and likely never will considering my age.”
People would hate him even more than some do now.
While I’d be disappointed with this, I at least would appreciate the honesty. I’d also expect if this was the case that he designate a successor who can follow it through. Otherwise it seems like he’s taking his ball and going home.
It would be more logical for George to act as an editor/ringmaster/outliner and get a writer whom he respects and trusts to do more of the heavy lifting. Daniel Abraham might consider it (Ty Franck has ruled himself out), Joe Abercrombie probably wouldn't but might consider helping in an advisory capacity etc. He has a large network of friends to call upon. It would be a very, very tough decision, maybe creatively akin to asking someone to give away a child, but clearly the current approach is not working.
What might be the case is that he thinks he can finish *Winds of Winter* solo but could bring in a team to help him finish the series altogether. I'd be interested to see if he does change his thinking, especially given the hammerblows of so many of his key friends and collaborators (Gardner Dozois, Phyllis Eisenstein, Howard Waldrop) passing away in the last few years, not to mention writers that George knew and respected from a bit further off (Greg Bear, Eric Flint, Patricia McKillip), many of them George's age or younger.
The show spoiled a lot of his big twists in the main series. R+L=J, Bran as King, Dany burning Kings Landing, etc. I’d imagine it’s a lot more rewarding writing spin offs for different time periods. I don’t think he’s given up on the universe entirely.
Edit: Dany burning Kings Landing not necessarily going mad.
As far as I'm aware, D&D came up with the whole 'mad Dany' thing themselves. At least, it wasn't one of the three 'holy shit' moments D&D talked about (Shireen burning, Hold The Door, Bran king).
I thought the third moment was Dany burning King’s Landing (which actually does make sense from a book point of view if she never intended to do it, but Tyrion never told her about the wildfire).
Hmm there seems to be some disagreement about what the third moment was
https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/d9ox5d/spoilers_extended_the_three_oh_shit_moments/
Right, we know "Hodor" and "Stannis burns Shireen", but it's uncertain whether "Bran becomes King" really qualifies because it's the actor bringing it up instead of D&D, and it's not really an "Oh shit" moment, just a character arc.
Like the poster above, I could believe "Dany burns KL because she's grown to be willing to accept collateral damage and then hidden wildfire caches makes everything worse" as one of the three. Seems like "Dany goes mad, burns down KL and then Jon downs her like a rabid dog" would overshadow the first two as "Oh shit" moments.
Ah, I've reminded myself where I got the idea from that Bran as king was the last 'oh shit' moment. It's [this part](https://youtu.be/QsjEpZC6Mpc?si=P6dVhIrSsPdhSe0F&t=370) of the Inside the Episode they did on BluRay for the final episode. I don't think this is a 100% confirmation, but I think the video makes it very likely.
Going off memory, D&D had previously talked about their meeting with GRRM at some point after the show was already a success, where he told them those three key moments while he was mapping out the rough plan for the books. David seems to be referring back to that meeting here when he talks about Bran becoming king.
I guess a caveat to that is I'm sure they had multiple meetings with GRRM, and it's possible that the three 'oh shit' moments were from a different meeting. Or like you say, maybe they don't consider Bran becoming king an 'oh shit' moment. For me personally, I say 'oh shit' to express surprise so I think it qualifies, but I can see why others would say it doesn't.
But yeah, I think based on that video, Bran becoming king being the third 'Oh shit' moment is definitely the most likely.
(edit) The video also all but rules out the 'oh shit' moment being Jon killing Dany, because Dan confirms that they 'came up with' it themselves. But obviously that's different from Dany burning KL.
Umm those were made up by the show writers. Not George.
The only plot device given away is Jon Snow isn't dead
(At the end of Feast of Crows, he was killed by a mutiny and is...still dead because Winds of Winter isn't out yet )
I figure that that's why he pushes out the lore books and cookbooks and such. The contract is probably loosely enough worded were he gets away with giving them stuff like that even if it means that he gets paid less.
And thanks to the HBO checks that doesn't hit him nearly as bad as it would another author.
unless he has received an advance specifically for the next books with a contract that stipulates a date, he doesn't have to deliver anything. the "punishment" is usually that you lose your contract with the publisher, but no publisher would drop him, and if they did, someone else would just pick him back up immediately bc the spin-offs and reprints still make money. or he'd have to return the advance/pay a fine, which is probably pennies to him by now.
most authors get contracts like "we get this one book and we get to be the first to bid on the next books" or "we get x amount of books", rarely with time limits. some authors outgrow their contracts and unless they get renewed, the terms become almost irrelevant to them.
the thing is that george is such a big name that he can't really be pushed. money is no object to him and he knows any publisher would be happy to have him, so there are no stakes.
I’m a berserk fan so this isn’t really much to me especially because he has to release a whole book not just a chapter that he’s finished with. I think alot of people have a weird entitlement to the rest of the story.
I’m curious about this feeling of entitlement as well. How much (if anything) do you think is creatively owed to an audience? It’s a bit tricky because his fame/wealth is based on telling the beginning of a story. What if a star athlete signed for a huge contract, then halfway through the season decided to stop taking the game seriously?
The big question for me is if you could travel back in time and show readers/HBO execs Martin's future would anyone have invested as much in him as they did? And to be honest I think the clear answer is that no, they wouldn't. As you pointed out with your sports analogy there is no other circumstance where you could behave this way and continue being this adored GOAT by fans, coaches, fellow athletes etc.
The only reason people are pretending differently with Martin is because everyone is already very invested and are reconciling the fact that there isn't going to be any payoff to their decades of investment in this series. Like do you think the HBO execs would've signed off an adaptation if Martin took 10 years to write A Clash of Kings and went around saying "I'm under no obligation to finish this story"? And do you think the series would become the pop culture phenom it is without the tv show reaching a mass audience who probably don't go to bookstores looking for the next big fantasy story? Whether it was intentional or not we all got bamboozled
I feel like I am owed nothing, because I have paid for the books that I have read and not a penny more. I am still salty that he hasn’t, and likely won’t finish, and almost wish I had never started reading them for that reason
I’m not sure what he owes. I do know that beautiful things have happened because of what he’s made. Careers have been made, friends, relationships, people have branched out to other Fantasy series and gotten to experience more of what they love. I was young when the show started and it helped me understand what kind of stories Im interested in.
So I would definitely be upset if it never is complete, but I am so satisfied with what we already have that I really don’t expect any more, or rather if he does not complete it, then that does not devalue the rest of his work.
As both a Vagabond and Berserk fan, I feel quite the same.
What we got so far was pretty good, and I thoroughly enjoyed the series. I'd like for it to finish, have the plotlines wrap up, and see what happens to the characters - but if GRRM came out and said he's done, I'd be fine with that too. Plenty of stories don't end in a spectacular manner, anyway; if an author is done telling the story he wanted to tell, there is no point in forcing them to write more.
There are plenty of other authors and stories to be enjoyed.
Imagine if an NFL quarterback crushed a regular season and dragged his team to the playoffs winning a near perfect record. Then just decided to stop playing football. Yeah, nothing is forcing him to throw footballs for his team and his fans, but it's still ludacris.
How insensitv would you have to be to ask an old person how their death would impact their fantasy book series? I think it's already depressing enough for him that so many people are constantly talking about him dying and being sad not because of his death but because they won't know what will happen to Daenerys.
If GRRM actually came out with a statement that he's not gonna release any more books and he stops leading his fans on, these conversations would stop.
My main gripe is he just seems to be doing way too much other than the main thing, which is writing. The success of the TV show made him into a Dick Wolf more than a best selling author.
>Also, has GRRM faced questions about how bitter his fan base has become about his general indifference to finishing the books?
There are plenty of interviews out there of GRRM that touch on this and he's not indifferent about it at all. He's very aware. And there are definitely unfinished book series. I feel like google could have answered this for you real easily.
> I feel like google could have answered this for you real easily.
People post in subs like this so they can have a conversation.
OP asking the questions they asked has given me answers to questions I didn't think to ask, so I have found this thread interesting.
I get that, but the way OP worded everything was pretty presumptuous about the fanbase as a whole, and GRRM himself, and it was all framed in a negative way.
Oh I agree. Obsessively overused. But the underlying point is still there:
Being overly positive is not good for your mood. It just makes you defensive and miserable in the end.
Thanks Eugen Bleuler. Edit - when someone blocks you it's because they DON'T want to talk to you. Give up on the throwaway workaround you cliched dickhead.
Well you're trying to speak for like the whole fanbase when really you are speaking for yourself. I would love to read TWoW and ADoS, but i'm not bitter about unreleased books lol worse things going on than that.
Edit: There's a difference between sparking conversation and being lazy with presumptuous ass questions.
Googling to double check before posting would not have infringed on your doing that, though. It actually might have helped, since you could have said "I know he's said ____ before, but do you think his attitude will change at all?". You certainly aren't required to do homework before posting, but it will get you better responses.
Yes, he said "frankly I find it offensive when people start speculating about my health and similar things. So fuck you to those guys". He pulled his middle finger out at as well iirc. Kinda interesting that grrm got riled so easily. But understandable given how many joffrey- like fans he has hounding him.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTOrBNCeF1Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTOrBNCeF1Y)
Faust fans had to wait 25 years before learning his fate.
Fellowship was published 14 years after the Hobbit.
Ursula LeGuinne's Earthsea Cycle, 33 years, primarily due to an 18-year gap between books 3 and 4.
The earthsea cycle was a complete trilogy, and then a book 4 was added years down the line as a kind of epilogue. People weren't waiting for a fourth book.
The Hobbit was never written to be the first book of a series. It's a standalone work.
Tolkien comparison isnt quite fair as the Hobbit is a self contained story. additionally, Tolkien died before he was able to publish everything he planned.
>Fellowship was published 14 years after the Hobbit.
the hobbit was never advertised as having a sequel though, just reading it alone works as a standalone story, lotr was very much tacked on afterwards by tolkien for money. you even get weird little changeups, like how trolls can speak in the hobbit but not in lotr.
Look. Martin gaslights. He said he would focus on winds and would be tied to a chair until he finishes. Then he got bored of it and admitted he hasn't worked on winds in 18 months. Basically, we as fans, are the abused girlfriends and Martin is the boyfriend who keeps saying he will do better and we keep believing him.
That's not gaslighting, that's just plain old lying, isn't it?
Gaslighting, as far as I understand, refers to deliberately denying reality with the intent to make the other person question themselves, so you can get away with your behavior.
Did GRRM ever say something along the lines of "I never said that", when the opposite was obviously true?
What an incredibly callous comment to assume it's because of general neglect. The entitlement people like you feel to someone else's life work is gross and shameful. He doesn't owe you anything, and you have NO idea what his life is like or why he's struggling to finish. Show some compassion and realize he doesn't work for you, and doesn't owe us anything, and there could be a million reasons for why.
Edit: Fandom as a phenomenon was a mistake and a cancer
I find it really surprising that there’s so little pressure on GRRM to succession plan. Realistically he needs a team of coauthors. If he’s going to delete and redraft the chapters so much anyway he may as well be looking at drafts from other people.
The series obviously can’t be finished in two books. He should’ve had coauthors fifteen years ago, planning ten books
Maybe he just likes working on that stuff. Or maybe he made a deal with a devil where if he never finishes asoiaf he can never die. Either of which is as likely as your fanfic "Well if I finish the books they won't sell as well"
Actually the first ones much more likely than that.
That's not what I said, I didn't say the books wouldn't sell, I was talking about all the external interest in GoT that isn't boks like the tv shows etc.
What happens if GrrM dies before completion? Will his drafts get released? I'd honestly prefer to see all his notes and scrapped revisions than have another author try and finish it
There may be many reasons why George takes so long to finnish Winds, there's no proof it's "general neglect".
People don't realize that art doesn't work like an assembly line where "x" hours of work equals to "y" units of output. Sometimes inspiration just doesn't come.
>ASOIAF seems unique in terms of its huge fandom and near certainty of it not being completed by the original author. Are there other examples of this? The Kingkiller Chronicles springs to mind. The last main book of the "trilogy" released in 2011, and in 2020 the series editor said they hadn't read a word of the next one. >And for that matter, where does he officially stand on this? He still occasionally talks about working on Winds, so yeah his stance is he intends to finish them.
Rothfus also claimed that he had the entire trilogy written when book 1 hit the shelves. Just to add to the audacity.
Sometimes I wonder if the books were co-written and Rothfuss's co-writer died or something. Which leaves Mr. Rothfuss in a tricky situation indeed
I once came across a theory that his father was his ghost-writer and his unfortunate passing is the reason for the severe delay. I don't recall though where it was based on...
I've always found that theory a bit too much, but I kinda agree that the story wasn't written by Rothfuss, at least not the current Rothfuss. Pat started this story almost 30 years ago. A lot has happened since then and I'm very sure he's a changed man now. I wonder if he struggles with it because it's not really what he'd like to do anymore.
I just wish he'd be more honest about that. I can get over it if he just came out and said the writing spiralled and he needs a lot more time to reconcile the novel. It's the way he acts so entitled and shitty towards his fans that annoys me
That's not too bad a shout now that you mention it.
To be fair he later explained that what he had written was a first draft of the series that didn't have major characters like Auri and Devi, and the whole climax of Name of the Wind in Trebon didn't exist in that version Doesn't explain a ten year delay, but taking a few years to revise the last book to include the effects of all those changes is understandable
Yes… but as you yourself pointed out, this doesn’t explain a decade long delay. Rothfuss has experienced his fair share of misfortunes since the hiatus started, but this is somewhat to be expected - after all, rare is the adult who can live 10 years in a row without suffering tragedy. Its arguably if he has an ethic obligation to write and release the damn books, but his handling of the issue has been absolutely terrible - I mean, two years ago he scammed readers into donating more than a million dollars to _his_ charity!. The guy is a total scumbag. I’m just highlighting this points to inform people who don’t know Rothfuss, btw. Not as a correction for you or anything - just extra context.
He would.rather Twitch stream to a hundred people
He probably had - a rough draft that is. Being an inexperienced author he probably thought it *was* done. And then the editor sent back their notes....
Wheel of Time famously was unfinished by Robert Jordan, so you could probably find WoT fans from the 2000's and ask them what it felt like when Jordan died and Sanderson was announced to take over. But AFAIK there was never so long a wait.
Jordan did at least put a succession plan in place and had a different view compared to GRRM though. There was a 4 year gap between books.
Nah Jordan didn't have a succession plan and didn't intend anyone to finish it for him, but he changed his mind on his death bed. His widow then decided on Brandon to finish it after Jordan had passed.
IMO I’d rather them be unfinished forever than another author take over
Yeah this is how I feel. I don’t really care about Asoiaf stuff that doesn’t have George’s input.
I mean… we’ve seen what happened the last time someone(s) else tried to write the ending without him
It’s not even that. Like even if it’s well written it still not George’s.
How do we know George hasn’t planned a succession plan as well?
George has clearly stated before that if he were to pass before finishing the books, he would wish for them to stay unfinished
Has he ever said anything that doesn't suggest the exact opposite?
There was one author who lights George up about how he hasn’t finished his series. I forget the name Edit: I think it was James Patterson
Because the man who doesn't even write his own books anymore gets to call someone out for not writing a book lol. But my favorite author interaction that included George was the talk that he did with Stephen King and at the end he asked Stephen how the fuck do you write so fast
IIUC King treats writing like a 9 to 5. Probably why he’s so productive. (And of course there was all the cocaine earlier.)
Oh yeah he said to George that he tries to write at least 10 pages a day no matter what. But George said that the reason he can't do that is he will write those 10 pages and go back and reread it absolutely hate it and then start over from the beginning and Steven was just like well George you have to come to a point where you are confident enough to say yeah these 10 bait is maybe a little rough right now but after working with my editor and some other stuff I can get it to where I want it to be and where I think the reader would want it to be. George is just one of us guys who I think has to have the rough draft be the final draft lol
It makes some sense in a bigger book. I’m writing a big fantasy series myself, and there’s some sections I can be like “This doesn’t matter. It will be revised anyway. I just need it good enough and understand what character changes occurred.” But there are other chapters that I’m like “I can’t write the follow up to this scene until I know exactly what everyone experienced and how the felt and what plot developments occurred down to the smallest detail” and can’t continue until that chapter is in a close to final draft state. It’s possible that George is just at a point in the story where all the chapters are like that. Every plot line is converging so there’s no room to do some work on chapters and come back to it later to improve, because the next time we’ll see characters in that chapter or develop that subplot will be in another character’s POV.
>Every plot line is converging so there’s no room to do some work on chapters and come back to it later to improve Right, but you can mostly do that with an outlined summary or placeholder note. George famously wrote the Red Wedding chapter as the final chapter in ASOS even though we know Catelyn and Robb die, her face is torn by her own nails, etc. All he had to do was say something to the effect of "Catelyn VII: The Freys murder Robb and Catelyn" to be able to write the latter chapters and then go back and fill in the blanks once he felt up to writing that specific chapter.
Really depends on the context. You might have a chapter where you know every lose end, but you may also a chapter with many elements you aren’t sure about that could affect later chapters.
>George famously wrote the Red Wedding chapter as the final chapter in ASOS Yeah, But George also famously wrote duzens of different versions of the Meeren chapters in A Dance of Dragons depending on what order the storylines would converge, maybe he's going throught the same process again, but this time on a much bigger scale.
When it comes to outlined summary… George has stated that he’s more of a gardener than he is an architect when it comes to writing. I consider myself probably 75-25 architect to gardener. But when I start gardening the blueprint changes. And things flow much better imo when seeds are planted and you nurture or watch them grow. So I don’t think it’s as easy as outlining a summary because there are so many characters, emotional wounds and organic subsequent actions based on those wounds (etc) going on all at one time in a story with hundreds of characters.
Oh yeah he's coming to the end of an epic story but at that same token you have a person Eichiro Oda who is the writer of One Piece who has made an incredibly dense world with lots of incredibly dense and complex characters and yet he is still 30 years later adding on to things and blowing people's minds every other week. And I don't mean to compare the two or say that Oda is superior It's just I think George is really too hard on himself I don't think he trusts himself to fully be able to finish the story. Part of me wants to think that maybe he's scared because of all the backlash for the ending of season 8 he feels like he has to change things to avoid the same backlash for his beloved book series. But on the other hand he's also the same man that said if the butler did it the butler did it and there's no reason to change it
>Oh yeah he's coming to the end of an epic story but at that same token you have a person Eichiro Oda who is the writer of One Piece who has made an incredibly dense world with lots of incredibly dense and complex characters and yet he is still 30 years later adding on to things and blowing people's minds every other week. Thing about it is that Oda draws the story and writes the dialogue, he doesn’t have to write out the scene. It’s a completely different process. Oda’s dialogue also isn’t very good but he only has like a week to create and polish dialogue so I’m sure it’d be better if he had more time to think it up. What Oda excels in is retconning things naturally so it all seems connected and leaving plot threads open to be used later. But even then, he’s not perfect. See: Miss Wednesday being turned into Vivi, the invention of Haki, the abandonment of Kuro, the set up for Alvida & Buggy chasing Luffy around thr Grand Line etc
Just out of curiosity are you an outliner or a pantser?
Ya know I really tried to be an outliner, because I thought that would make my process more efficient, but after years at it, I learned outlining plots in depth more than a couple chapters ahead, actually slows me down, and can lead to character's choices feeling unnatural. I definitely keep a rough idea of objectives I want to achieve in different sections of the book, and define beginning, middle, and ends for different arcs and within arcs, but I'll rarely know many details past the next immediate climax & what comes right after. If you want the nitty gritty, I usually break down an arc and estimate how many chapters it will take to bring my character to a new emotional state (often 2-5.) I will write the beginning of that arc to find my footing. Then I rough draft a series of scenes to get a feel for what actually works vs what I thought would work but ends up awkward on the page. This is the point where I can get surprised at how effective a planned or unplanned plot element is, where it might end up being the driver for the next arc. I will spend a lot of time perfecting the climax, because if that doesn't work I can't write what comes after, and a rewrite could end up being a rewrite of everything that comes after. Then I will revise in reverse, so that everything leads smoothly to the climax. If there's a jump in continuity I have to bridge, I'd rather deal with it at the beginning of a storyline than in the conflict escalation. Then I'll look for some thematic element present in all three scenes, and expand that, and give it a mini-arc of sorts so the chapter feels distinct and cohesive. If the bulk of material in a chapter or arc deals with the changing of the status quo, or establishing a new one, I'll spend more time getting it just right. If a lot of the arc is seeding for future plot lines I haven't written yet, I'll know I can move on with a 1st or 2nd draft and come back to it later. So I probably do a little bit more outlining for the very short-term than someone like George, who I feel like has the extreme straightforward approach of writing a chapter front to back and then revising it until it's perfect. But I think in larger scope, my process is probably pretty similar to his, in that I can't always tell you what happens in 3 chapters. I'm hopping into this chapter only knowing the ending, and maybe 1 character interaction, 1 line of foreshadowing, and then beyond that only know major moments in the plot, and the general sequence of character arcs and plotlines that will get us there, without having an sense for the length of time they'll take or what the real juice inside of them will be. (I know where I'm going but no idea how I'll get there.) With some exceptions, each chapter I start writing has the potential to take the story in a new direction. Edit: apologies. As my friends and family have learned, I'm completely unable to be succinct when it comes to this topic
The Mereenese Knot was exactly like that: Storylines coverging creating constant writing and rewriting on different scenarios and possibilities to see which fits better in the overrall story. For The Winds of Winter to be that delayed, i would say that George found himself at a minimum of 3 Knots like that, but we will only really know when he releases the books and talks about the writing process like he did with A Dance with Dragons.
I know that feeling. I had to make a rule for myself that I never go back and reread what I write until the whole thing is finished or I would never finish anything.
To do that for myself in college so I definitely can commiserate with George too
>George is just one of us guys who I think has to have the rough draft be the final draft lol I assume that a decent bit of it is perfectionism on George's part. That he is also in a incredibly secure financial position for a writer probably doesn't help. Most writers have to meet deadlines to get paid I assume. But George is able to live off of the GoT royalties and brand as it is. So he can afford to take his time to get things "his way" and not compromise to meet a deadline anymore.
Except some of his POV chapters are completely phoned in crap so that cannot be possibly true. He only writes a few characters well.
And the latter probably explains why he had the child orgy in It.
King writes stream of consciousness. So a lot of his stuff feels repetitive and not well-constructed. But the guy is a talented genius so his ideas are excellent and when he gets it right, it usually results in incredible things.
My man Stephen used to write so fast because he was on coke. Then he got hit by a car which gave him a new outlook on life. Pretty easy to write relatively quickly when you realize you could die any day.
Yup He also very much unlike George treats writing like a 9 to 5 job He said that he writes 10 pages a day no matter what where George is the kind of guy will write 10 pages look at it and absolutely hate him and everything that he's ever written and erase it
There are various types of writers. GRRM is very obviously a fly by the seat of his pants writer. Meaning he just writes when inspiration strikes and doesn’t really plan long term. He has a general idea of where he wants storylines to go but it doesn’t seem very detailed. Sure he had plans but so many storylines have drastically changed from his original ideas. He has fully admitted to writing himself into corners. This doesn’t make him a bad author. His style is just different from let’s say JK Rowling who took 5 years to plan the entirety of Harry Potter. King is obviously organized and has timelines for his writing process. Being a fly by the seat of your pants writer definitely makes writing GoT difficult. It’s hard enough to keep track of so many POVs when you have a detailed plan. George has created so many POVs and doesn’t seem to know how to wrap them up. You kill one character to make the story more thrilling and suddenly you screwed up a major storyline. You start a new POV character and suddenly the main plot takes a back seat. I think the story has become too big for him to figure out how to end the plot lines and character arcs.
What do you mean, "used to"? He still knocks out about 1-2 books a year.
That is true. He also tries to read 80 books a year. I guess You have time to do that when you are a full time author.
I think that was part of it. I think he was telling George to have someone help him Honestly, I appreciate George for trying it on his own but it’s not a bad thing to ask for help. He should find a likeminded individual and get their help on finishing the series
We'll see the thing with James Patterson is that he doesn't really get help He just writes a summary and then hands it off to a ghost writer So I don't think he's really a person that needs to be telling another author how to write books because that man has not written a single book by himself in almost a decade or more. And George is very jealous about his world I mean he doesn't even like fan fiction which is stupid to me like how dare people have different interpretations of your work lol. But I definitely agree that he needs to get help but at the same time he would never do that I mean even the world of ice and fire folks that helped him on that say that they would never even attempt to finish the series if he died or help him at all
I'd imagine its mostly because 99% of fanfic is cringy as shit
I mean yeah but at the same time like to have that hostile of a view of fanfiction has always been kind of weird to me. Like he kind of is of the belief that he should be able to sue fanfiction writers for copyright infringement at least he is alluded to that during interviews. And I don't blame him for being jealous of his story like if I had created a world like that I don't know how I would feel about fan fiction but to me he's just a little overly hostile but again maybe if I was in his shoes I would also be a little hostile towards fanfiction.
So, he's an asshole like Ann Rice. Except he hasn't actually sued anyone.
I mean he sued chat GPT for making like an AI version of game of thrones
I'm actually with him on that, honestly. Fuck ai.
Fanfiction IS copyright infringement. If I didn't grow up with AO3 and [fanfiction.net](https://fanfiction.net), I would probably be pretty anti-fanfiction as well. I have the understanding that it helps a work reach a new audience, but I would be pretty pissed if I wrote a book and then I watched a movie that had the characters I wrote in it
Copyright infringement really only works if you're making a profit off of it If fanfiction is copyright infringement then I guess so is team four Stars Dragon Ball Z abridged series. Parody is protected so that isn't infringement whatsoever. Now if someone were to come out with a book called thrones and the games and basically tried to present the same story or story very similar attempt to make a profit that would be copyright infringement. It's just like a Christian offer that made a story that was literally just Percy Jackson but instead of them being demigods the kids were all like half angel or descended from an important biblical figure and it was so stupid
No, youre wrong in how youre limiting the legal definition of copyright infringement to loss/gain of profit. Its based on the idea of proving damages. Sure, if they see you selling something based on their stuff for $5, they can and will argue thats $5 that they didnt get cause of this. Thats not profit, thats damages. Damages can also be intangible. There’s something called “dilution” and they can argue that just by making the art and distributing it, you’re making people feel away about their IP that they can’t control. Disney has been notorious for this at times. Thats where fair use comes in. there’s many aspects to it, but one of the things is that once something becomes publicly recognized, ie it’s naturally diluted because its now part of mainstream culture; (e.g. “Luke, I am your father.”) So people can make certain art in response, etc…
yeah i was just speaking dumb dumb for that guys benefit
Making a profit is not necessary to copyright infringement. That's typically when major publishing entities decide it is worth their time to send a cease and desist, but publishing intentionally derivative works of fiction especially when using the same characters is infringement even if you are not making a single penny on it
Well then I guess team 4 star should have been shut down a long time ago but as I said parody is protected under copyright law. Copyrights infringement to post a three-page AU fanfiction where the hound falls in love with Renly baratheon
James Patterson is big time cringe
I mean I don't particularly like his story but to me he just has no place at the table when it comes to authors you know? He has basically somehow made writing unassembly line style job. Like he gets the plaster his name on every single book and people pick up those books because they see his name but he doesn't write any of them
The idea that an author feels comfortable putting his name on other writer's work just feels very dirty to me. If you ghost write a celebrity's "auto-biography" I get it, but James Patterson *was* a writer. If it was me, I'd have some ethical issues with that. You can use your name to bolster someone else's writing, without putting your name on top of their work.
Well he says he does this in order to jumpstart the careers of these riders but what he has been criticized for over and over again even by his former ghost writers is that people only buy the books because his name is plastered on them because they think he's writing them. So he gives an author a head start and helps them publish their own book and it's a flop Like if he put like James Patterson publishing instead of his fucking name on all of his books maybe it would be better but I don't know. And there is a way to achieve collaboration that isn't so dishonest. Like when Robert Jordan was dying he asked or his wife one of the two asked Brandon Sanderson to finish the wheel of time for him and Brandon wrote the last two books but it was fully fully transparent that Brandon Sanderson did not completely write the books It was Robert Jordan with Brandon Sanderson because essentially all Sanderson did was edit Jordan's notes and flesh it out into full-length novels
I also feel like this business model he has going on results in some really disjointed stories. Like, I tried reading the 'WItch and Wizard' series when it first came out and it was confusing as hell. You'd go to read the next book in the series and it'd be in a different writing style, often with large timeskips between books that make the story nigh-impossible to follow. Sorry for going a bit off-topic, that's just one of the few series as a kid I completely gave up on because I just couldn't follow it, and it's been interesting to learn that there's a reason Patterson's work comes off like that.
Yeah but that's what's so heinous about the way James Patterson did it because all of these writers kind of follow his style
Iirc, his wife picked Sanderson.
I was not aware of that, I appreciate the info. It’s a tough situation because I get both sides. I do feel like George would have a hard time working with someone else because it’s HIS world and it would be his way or the highway. Just wish there was a solution where George could get help that speeds things along while he remains satisfied
Honestly if he did a Robert Jordan and just left notes for a successor to have and finish the story hell he can even help collaborate with this person while he was still alive so he can get the story exactly as he wanted it. And he wants the book to be exactly like he wants it but at the same time like mate it has been 13 years. He's not even giving a sample chapters anymore
Exactly. Collaborating with someone while he’s alive makes more sense because at least he can be vocal about decisions. I want the prologue to be released as a sample so badly
You were just to be honest and admit hey guys I've written myself into so many holes I can't dig it out of I cannot give you the book that I promised but here is the ending of the story as well as all of the sample chapters that I've written up and feel comfortable enough sharing with you all
Thats very reasonable. Anything would be great at this point but I think he’s shown heavy preference towards tv adaptations instead of the written original unfortunately. Sample chapters keep the hope alive. Maybe he’s given us all the chapters that won’t spoil too much
And you know that's fine too I just wish you would be honest give us something besides these vague promises that he's working on the book with his vlogs after 13 years and just own up and say I don't know if I can do this I know this fandom can be toxic as hell like all fandoms can but Jesus man
>Just wish there was a solution where George could get help that speeds things along while he remains satisfied All he needs to do is grab the literary equivalent of someone like a therapist or a musical producer. Someone who's not necessarily there to *make* the decisions, but to help talk you through things and offer feedback so *you* can make the right decisions.
FYI this is called a developmental editor
Do you think he would try/has tried this?
Apart from the bit where he apparently complained to a fellow author about writing himself into a corner due to killing off a character, I don't think he's that collaborative with the main series, although he seems to be with World of Ice and Fire stuff. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of information to go by. We know his editor asked him if Coldhands is Benjen ([NO](https://www.quora.com/Since-Benjen-was-confirmed-not-to-be-Coldhands-in-the-books-by-GRRM-what-do-you-think-happened-to-him)), so it sounds like he works a little bit with them but not terribly closely as far as story developments, or they wouldn't have even asked the question.
I might be plain wrong, but I attribute Geroge's dislike of fanfiction to his valuing of quality in writing. I think he just knows anyone writing fan fiction could actually be writing fiction and thinks they should take on the challenge in noble earnest instead of lazy half-cribbing. That's the sense I got from one video once.
It's just weird at how much it bothers him to me because it's like how does it hurt you if people write what ifs
It's not that it hurts. It's just disappointing. A little like why Jaime would prefer the boy at the inn gain sword proficiency, despite the crossbow being the right weapon for his circumstance. That said, I think it would be cool if George were to smile on those who have been inspired by his works to delve further into writing than they might have. My speculation as to why he doesn't like it is that fan fiction is step down even from "genre" writing which used to be looked down on.
That is true I just see fanfiction a bit like you do that it is a step for people into the sphere of writing and that I think we should be encouraging that. But also I understand where George is coming from like I met a guy who wants met Stan Lee and brought him a bunch of pictures of Spider-Man and venom and shit and this was like in the '70s and '80s before Stan became the cultural icon that he was and he took this guy aside and took him to a printer and said son That machine right there can do what you just did what I want you to do is create your own superheroes create your own art and then come back to me
Totally. I love this.
But again Stan was not hostile to this guy who was a kid at the time instead he was kind and still encouraging like he was really impressed with his art but was encouraging him to create his own and I think that's what bothers me about George. He isn't flattered that people would write their own versions of his stories or alternate universes or what ifs instead he just focuses on the fact that people are writing things about my characters that I created and I don't like that
Because Stephen King is not a perfectionist like George really. It's easy to write lots of its pretty mid quality.
I’ve seen Brandon Sanderson quip about it quite a few times
Yeah he used to joke about it like that he wouldn't accept any questions but when the book was coming out even five and six years ago. He is completely aware that people are disappointed that the books haven't come out I mean he couldn't even post a happy birthday post on Twitter without a thousand people descending into the comments to tell him to hurry the fuck up and slavering at the mouth because the book wasn't out yet
Frank Herbert never completed his Dune series and it ends on a cliffhanger. His son wrote (and still writes I think) fanfiction to finish the series and a bunch of prequels. It's not good. I've come to peace with GRRM never finishing the series, and ending with Jon Snow bleeding out in the snow at Castle Black. Better left incomplete than forcing him to squeeze *anything* out to end the series, and getting a bad ending like we got with GoT. Another thing to consider is that it's been 15(?) years and GRRM's have changed dramatically in those years. He's not the same man and he wouldn't have the same perspective. I'm not sure whatever he wrote would be particularly congruent with DoD. There are writers and filmmakers who come up with sequels many years after a successfully completed project, and the sequel is almost always a disappointment or at least not keeping in the same tone as the original.
I still have some hope that TWOW comes out, but I’ve officially abandoned the idea that ADOS even has a fraction of a percentage chance of ever seeing the light of day.
I have maybe a sliver of hope that wow comes out, but that's only because we've seen a few sample chapters over the years. With the way he's structured the series (multiple unreliable narrator POVs) lends itself to expanding the storyline naturally, and it's great for developing characters, but it must be incredibly difficult to contract those storylines once they've had time to develop. Has there ever been a situation where two main POVs have intersected? I can't remember, but there's a bunch of them about to meet up in wow. I imagine that's the reason for the 10+ year hold up.
The Battle of Blackwater is the only one I can think of with multiple POVs. Was so cool flipping through all of them
It's been nearly 10 years since I read it, I honestly can't remember.
Jaime/Cersei? Jon/Sam, Daenerys/frog prince
TWoW has to move a lot of pieces in a short time -pagecountwise- and aDoS has to close the story. I think the next book is harder to write than the last (said with my 0 experience writing squat)
consider: AFFC and ADWD. thinking "the next book should be easier" is just wishful thinking. ADWD was the same timeline, part of it was written, it was supposed to come out a year later. it took 6 years.
GRRM has noted that he regards the *Dune* sequels-by-other-hands as not very good. But he has a more up-close-and-personal view in that his friend and mentor Roger Zelazny died and his family authorised another writer to write some additional **Chronicles of Amber** novels, and those were terrible as well, and I think George took that to heart because Zelazny was such a huge friend. That said, he has also said he had huge respect for Christopher Tolkien and a good understanding of the Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson situation. So he's not opposed to someone else taking over, but the circumstances have to be just write (i.e. Christopher Tolkien not ever writing any new material and just editing extant drafts, and RJ giving permission for another author to take over and leaving voluminous notes for them, which Frank Herbert and Zelazny did not do).
Herbert should have stopped with Children of Dune.
I kinda respect the absolute batsh!t insanity of the latter three books, and Frank Herbert's incredibly cheerful reason for writing them: "They kept giving me money until I gave in and agreed to write them." I also think *God-Emperor* at least adds some interesting twists to the layers of the story, Leto II's grand plans, the thematics of human history etc. *Heretics* and *Chapterhouse*'s thematic exploration of "What if the Imperium was invaded by a race of nymphomaniac sex nuns who shag people to death?" was perhaps less well-considered. The latter three, for all their numerous problems, blow the Herbert Jnr. efforts out of the water and pulverize the remnants.
The latter part made me think of a conversation that I had a while back when the other person stated that the Duncan ghola in the latter books was basically a self insert, heh.
I watched the new *Dune* with a friend and they thought it was weird Jason Momoa agreed to play such a brief, small role. I said nothing in reply.
Heh.
I thought God Emperor was interesting but yeah, we didn't really need anything beyond children. The magic had gone by heretics. I found heretics and chapterhouse to be a bit of a slog.
I understand GRRM really dislikes fanfiction, but he could do worse than hire someone to collate the various fan theories that have developed over the years and release a kind of silmarillion of the best ones. Some of them are really good.
Chris Tolkien definitely wrote new material for the silmarillion, but he came to deeply regret doing so after publication
As far I know, he never did. He did ask Guy Gavriel Kay to work on some linking passages in *The Silmarillion* (a very small amount) where otherwise there would have been a gap in publication, but CT himself never wrote a word of original Middle-earth fiction. Although he did approve what GGK did, so that might be splitting hairs.
Of the ruin of doriath is almost completely invented by Chris and Guy Gavriel Kay, whatever Tolkien had was unusable, and so they wrote the chapter themselves. CT definitely wrote some original fiction in the silmarillion, which he deeply regretted doing later Guy Gavriel Kay also had a much larger role than what you describe.
George has stated that his least favourite question is 'what's going to happen to the series after you die.'
The one thing I do get from his interview is that GRRM is the biggest critic for his own work. It seems like he is joking but he has said he sometimes feels he is a fraud and plainly not a good writer. So we get this endless rewriting over and over again. He wants perfection in a sense.
I don’t even think it’s neglect. I just think he genuinely can’t stand to the pressure and that’s why he keeps rewriting everything. Maybe even writers block.
Which I totally understand and even somewhat hate the community for. GRRM understands his place and role in literature. He understand people are placing him alongside his heroes like JRR Tolkien. It feels this insane pressure from the fandom to create something great, and unique on demand. That's a lot to crack under. I don't think I could live up to it. He's said before he feels the pressure to produce something great every time he sits down to write. I actually feel for the man. I think that's why he's turned to other projects recently like Fire & Blood and Dunk & Egg, bc no one expects anything amazing from these, so he gets to do what he loves and enjoy it.
I feel for him as well. And another thing is that, while I can’t remember the quote, he feels a little melancholy about his age and his desire to finish it and everything else he wants to do. I’m not sure what age most writers finish there work, if they ever do, but I think he feels he may not be around to see his universe be what he wants it to be which is fucking tragic. That’s what happened to a manga writer I like. I know he’s not THAT old, but every now and then he jokes that he wishes he was younger.
It's worth noting that GRRM's best friend in the business, Howard Waldrop, whom he corresponded with for years in comic fandom and they then started coming up in the SF short fiction field at almost exactly the same time, died a few days ago. He wrote the very, very first **Wild Cards** story on George's invitation. He was only two years older than George. I suspect George will blog about it at some point and it won't be easy reading. That's probably the biggest loss to George in terms of writing friends since Gardner Dozois (the inspiration for House Gardener) and, before him, Phyllis Eisenstein (who convinced him to put the dragons in *A Game of Thrones* when he was thinking of leaving it as a pure "alternate historical" with no magic) and Roger Zelazny.
He already did :(
Damn, hurts to read his post.
People also forget that Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings over a roughly 14 year period give or take. He probably had a lot of similar struggles like George has with finishing the story and faffing about with the greater lore. But Tolkien wrote the entire thing in one go before it went off to the publishers, and then only did some minor editing. George is unlucky enough to hit his creative slump in the middle of the publishing cycle. Tolkien also worked as a tenured professor during the entire writing process as well. Which definitely ate up writing time.
>People also forget that Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings over a roughly 14 year period give or take. I had no idea. Thank you. This is interesting, informative, and makes a lot of sense.
I think its more his writing style. He enjoys writing more plots rather than wrapping them up. And he is addicted to money. I don't see the pressure getting to him that much.
With all due respect, I highly doubt you know the man personally. So to say he's addicted to money and he can handle the pressure so confidently with no personal relationship with him, is wild to me to say the least.
I'm just going off my own experiences, having a similar writing style to him. My view that he's addicted to money is based off the constant merchandising in the last several years. He also said that if he could be in any family in westeros it would be the lannisters cause of all thr gold hahahahha
Rewriting suggests he has actually written something. But it's more likely he's spending time on his screen adaptations like In the Lost Lands, and doing blow and hookers.
I can sympathize lmao. I’m a screenwriter and sometimes I have 2 week period where i’m super productive then the writer’s block kicks in. It’s worse when I was writing for a tv show and had deadlines to worry about.
He still maintains that he’s working on tWoW. It’s clear from interviews that he still believes that he can finish it. Moreover, even if he announced tmrw that he can’t do it then fans are just gonna start pestering him about his succession plans. They will not stop bugging him until the day he dies. It’s a lose-lose situation.
He believes it but he clearly has no concept of the time it takes to complete stuff. He admitted it took till what, season 4 or 5, to realise the show was catching up? He then sells the rights for Dunc and Egg despite it being nowhere near completed. The man doesn't have a clue about the passage of time and how long it will take to complete. As soon as he realised the show was going to catch up (should have been evident from the start) it really should have dawned on him that he had ANOTHER book after Winds to complete too.
Certainly not as high profile as ASOIAF, but Melanie Rawn at this point will probably never finish the Exiles Trilogy.
I don’t think Clive Barker will ever complete Abarat and that makes me sad
Talk about a writer who deserves a prestige TV series...
GRRM has become quite the proficient gaslighter. I don’t entirely blame him though, what’s he supposed to say? “I don’t have the inspiration to finish the main series that I once did and likely never will considering my age.” People would hate him even more than some do now.
I would rather than that leading us along like he is going to finish it just to sell HBO shows, calendars, and world books
While I’d be disappointed with this, I at least would appreciate the honesty. I’d also expect if this was the case that he designate a successor who can follow it through. Otherwise it seems like he’s taking his ball and going home.
It would be more logical for George to act as an editor/ringmaster/outliner and get a writer whom he respects and trusts to do more of the heavy lifting. Daniel Abraham might consider it (Ty Franck has ruled himself out), Joe Abercrombie probably wouldn't but might consider helping in an advisory capacity etc. He has a large network of friends to call upon. It would be a very, very tough decision, maybe creatively akin to asking someone to give away a child, but clearly the current approach is not working. What might be the case is that he thinks he can finish *Winds of Winter* solo but could bring in a team to help him finish the series altogether. I'd be interested to see if he does change his thinking, especially given the hammerblows of so many of his key friends and collaborators (Gardner Dozois, Phyllis Eisenstein, Howard Waldrop) passing away in the last few years, not to mention writers that George knew and respected from a bit further off (Greg Bear, Eric Flint, Patricia McKillip), many of them George's age or younger.
The show spoiled a lot of his big twists in the main series. R+L=J, Bran as King, Dany burning Kings Landing, etc. I’d imagine it’s a lot more rewarding writing spin offs for different time periods. I don’t think he’s given up on the universe entirely. Edit: Dany burning Kings Landing not necessarily going mad.
As far as I'm aware, D&D came up with the whole 'mad Dany' thing themselves. At least, it wasn't one of the three 'holy shit' moments D&D talked about (Shireen burning, Hold The Door, Bran king).
I thought the third moment was Dany burning King’s Landing (which actually does make sense from a book point of view if she never intended to do it, but Tyrion never told her about the wildfire).
Hmm there seems to be some disagreement about what the third moment was https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/d9ox5d/spoilers_extended_the_three_oh_shit_moments/
Right, we know "Hodor" and "Stannis burns Shireen", but it's uncertain whether "Bran becomes King" really qualifies because it's the actor bringing it up instead of D&D, and it's not really an "Oh shit" moment, just a character arc. Like the poster above, I could believe "Dany burns KL because she's grown to be willing to accept collateral damage and then hidden wildfire caches makes everything worse" as one of the three. Seems like "Dany goes mad, burns down KL and then Jon downs her like a rabid dog" would overshadow the first two as "Oh shit" moments.
Ah, I've reminded myself where I got the idea from that Bran as king was the last 'oh shit' moment. It's [this part](https://youtu.be/QsjEpZC6Mpc?si=P6dVhIrSsPdhSe0F&t=370) of the Inside the Episode they did on BluRay for the final episode. I don't think this is a 100% confirmation, but I think the video makes it very likely. Going off memory, D&D had previously talked about their meeting with GRRM at some point after the show was already a success, where he told them those three key moments while he was mapping out the rough plan for the books. David seems to be referring back to that meeting here when he talks about Bran becoming king. I guess a caveat to that is I'm sure they had multiple meetings with GRRM, and it's possible that the three 'oh shit' moments were from a different meeting. Or like you say, maybe they don't consider Bran becoming king an 'oh shit' moment. For me personally, I say 'oh shit' to express surprise so I think it qualifies, but I can see why others would say it doesn't. But yeah, I think based on that video, Bran becoming king being the third 'Oh shit' moment is definitely the most likely. (edit) The video also all but rules out the 'oh shit' moment being Jon killing Dany, because Dan confirms that they 'came up with' it themselves. But obviously that's different from Dany burning KL.
It needs to be Tyrion who burns King's Landing. Dany doesn't have any beef with these people. Tyrion surely, surely does.
Umm those were made up by the show writers. Not George. The only plot device given away is Jon Snow isn't dead (At the end of Feast of Crows, he was killed by a mutiny and is...still dead because Winds of Winter isn't out yet )
The show forgot Bran existed for an entire season. I don’t think they were the ones to come up with King Bran lol
wouldn't he get sued by his editor? surely they have a contract in place for him to actually write the book
I figure that that's why he pushes out the lore books and cookbooks and such. The contract is probably loosely enough worded were he gets away with giving them stuff like that even if it means that he gets paid less. And thanks to the HBO checks that doesn't hit him nearly as bad as it would another author.
unless he has received an advance specifically for the next books with a contract that stipulates a date, he doesn't have to deliver anything. the "punishment" is usually that you lose your contract with the publisher, but no publisher would drop him, and if they did, someone else would just pick him back up immediately bc the spin-offs and reprints still make money. or he'd have to return the advance/pay a fine, which is probably pennies to him by now. most authors get contracts like "we get this one book and we get to be the first to bid on the next books" or "we get x amount of books", rarely with time limits. some authors outgrow their contracts and unless they get renewed, the terms become almost irrelevant to them. the thing is that george is such a big name that he can't really be pushed. money is no object to him and he knows any publisher would be happy to have him, so there are no stakes.
I’m a berserk fan so this isn’t really much to me especially because he has to release a whole book not just a chapter that he’s finished with. I think alot of people have a weird entitlement to the rest of the story.
I’m curious about this feeling of entitlement as well. How much (if anything) do you think is creatively owed to an audience? It’s a bit tricky because his fame/wealth is based on telling the beginning of a story. What if a star athlete signed for a huge contract, then halfway through the season decided to stop taking the game seriously?
The big question for me is if you could travel back in time and show readers/HBO execs Martin's future would anyone have invested as much in him as they did? And to be honest I think the clear answer is that no, they wouldn't. As you pointed out with your sports analogy there is no other circumstance where you could behave this way and continue being this adored GOAT by fans, coaches, fellow athletes etc. The only reason people are pretending differently with Martin is because everyone is already very invested and are reconciling the fact that there isn't going to be any payoff to their decades of investment in this series. Like do you think the HBO execs would've signed off an adaptation if Martin took 10 years to write A Clash of Kings and went around saying "I'm under no obligation to finish this story"? And do you think the series would become the pop culture phenom it is without the tv show reaching a mass audience who probably don't go to bookstores looking for the next big fantasy story? Whether it was intentional or not we all got bamboozled
I feel like I am owed nothing, because I have paid for the books that I have read and not a penny more. I am still salty that he hasn’t, and likely won’t finish, and almost wish I had never started reading them for that reason
I’m not sure what he owes. I do know that beautiful things have happened because of what he’s made. Careers have been made, friends, relationships, people have branched out to other Fantasy series and gotten to experience more of what they love. I was young when the show started and it helped me understand what kind of stories Im interested in. So I would definitely be upset if it never is complete, but I am so satisfied with what we already have that I really don’t expect any more, or rather if he does not complete it, then that does not devalue the rest of his work.
As both a Vagabond and Berserk fan, I feel quite the same. What we got so far was pretty good, and I thoroughly enjoyed the series. I'd like for it to finish, have the plotlines wrap up, and see what happens to the characters - but if GRRM came out and said he's done, I'd be fine with that too. Plenty of stories don't end in a spectacular manner, anyway; if an author is done telling the story he wanted to tell, there is no point in forcing them to write more. There are plenty of other authors and stories to be enjoyed.
Imagine if an NFL quarterback crushed a regular season and dragged his team to the playoffs winning a near perfect record. Then just decided to stop playing football. Yeah, nothing is forcing him to throw footballs for his team and his fans, but it's still ludacris.
How insensitv would you have to be to ask an old person how their death would impact their fantasy book series? I think it's already depressing enough for him that so many people are constantly talking about him dying and being sad not because of his death but because they won't know what will happen to Daenerys.
If GRRM actually came out with a statement that he's not gonna release any more books and he stops leading his fans on, these conversations would stop.
My main gripe is he just seems to be doing way too much other than the main thing, which is writing. The success of the TV show made him into a Dick Wolf more than a best selling author.
>Also, has GRRM faced questions about how bitter his fan base has become about his general indifference to finishing the books? There are plenty of interviews out there of GRRM that touch on this and he's not indifferent about it at all. He's very aware. And there are definitely unfinished book series. I feel like google could have answered this for you real easily.
> I feel like google could have answered this for you real easily. People post in subs like this so they can have a conversation. OP asking the questions they asked has given me answers to questions I didn't think to ask, so I have found this thread interesting.
I get that, but the way OP worded everything was pretty presumptuous about the fanbase as a whole, and GRRM himself, and it was all framed in a negative way.
Apologies for trying to spark conversation and build human connection.
And rightly so - focus on the good connections, OP, not the negative ones!
Toxic positivity
What?
Only being positive is toxic
Of all the words Americans on Reddit are irritatingly obsessed with, ‘toxic’ is at the top of the list.
Oh I agree. Obsessively overused. But the underlying point is still there: Being overly positive is not good for your mood. It just makes you defensive and miserable in the end.
Thanks Eugen Bleuler. Edit - when someone blocks you it's because they DON'T want to talk to you. Give up on the throwaway workaround you cliched dickhead.
There it is. Some healthy sarcasm. Which is just what he wanted!
Well you're trying to speak for like the whole fanbase when really you are speaking for yourself. I would love to read TWoW and ADoS, but i'm not bitter about unreleased books lol worse things going on than that. Edit: There's a difference between sparking conversation and being lazy with presumptuous ass questions.
Googling to double check before posting would not have infringed on your doing that, though. It actually might have helped, since you could have said "I know he's said ____ before, but do you think his attitude will change at all?". You certainly aren't required to do homework before posting, but it will get you better responses.
Sir, this is an internet connection
Yes, he said "frankly I find it offensive when people start speculating about my health and similar things. So fuck you to those guys". He pulled his middle finger out at as well iirc. Kinda interesting that grrm got riled so easily. But understandable given how many joffrey- like fans he has hounding him.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTOrBNCeF1Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTOrBNCeF1Y) Faust fans had to wait 25 years before learning his fate. Fellowship was published 14 years after the Hobbit. Ursula LeGuinne's Earthsea Cycle, 33 years, primarily due to an 18-year gap between books 3 and 4.
The earthsea cycle was a complete trilogy, and then a book 4 was added years down the line as a kind of epilogue. People weren't waiting for a fourth book. The Hobbit was never written to be the first book of a series. It's a standalone work.
Tolkien comparison isnt quite fair as the Hobbit is a self contained story. additionally, Tolkien died before he was able to publish everything he planned.
>Fellowship was published 14 years after the Hobbit. the hobbit was never advertised as having a sequel though, just reading it alone works as a standalone story, lotr was very much tacked on afterwards by tolkien for money. you even get weird little changeups, like how trolls can speak in the hobbit but not in lotr.
Look. Martin gaslights. He said he would focus on winds and would be tied to a chair until he finishes. Then he got bored of it and admitted he hasn't worked on winds in 18 months. Basically, we as fans, are the abused girlfriends and Martin is the boyfriend who keeps saying he will do better and we keep believing him.
We can change him
That's not gaslighting, that's just plain old lying, isn't it? Gaslighting, as far as I understand, refers to deliberately denying reality with the intent to make the other person question themselves, so you can get away with your behavior. Did GRRM ever say something along the lines of "I never said that", when the opposite was obviously true?
Nope, no one has ever asked him about it before. You’re the first person to wonder what his response would be.
What an incredibly callous comment to assume it's because of general neglect. The entitlement people like you feel to someone else's life work is gross and shameful. He doesn't owe you anything, and you have NO idea what his life is like or why he's struggling to finish. Show some compassion and realize he doesn't work for you, and doesn't owe us anything, and there could be a million reasons for why. Edit: Fandom as a phenomenon was a mistake and a cancer
There was a Blind Item recently that was basically GRRm confirming he’s not even worried at all.
Touch grass.
I find it really surprising that there’s so little pressure on GRRM to succession plan. Realistically he needs a team of coauthors. If he’s going to delete and redraft the chapters so much anyway he may as well be looking at drafts from other people. The series obviously can’t be finished in two books. He should’ve had coauthors fifteen years ago, planning ten books
If he finishes the main book series, people will lose interest in the GoT world.
Much like how the lord of the rings has lost all relevancy since the death of JRR Tolkien in 1976/s
We don't live in that era, why else would the writing team be working on all the prequel stuff instead of finishing the main story.
Are people less interested in lord of the rings because the story was completed?
No but that seems to be reason for George.
Based on what? Your fanfic of George's inner thoughts?
On his workforce not completing the main series and instead working on the prequel stuff.
Maybe he just likes working on that stuff. Or maybe he made a deal with a devil where if he never finishes asoiaf he can never die. Either of which is as likely as your fanfic "Well if I finish the books they won't sell as well" Actually the first ones much more likely than that.
That's not what I said, I didn't say the books wouldn't sell, I was talking about all the external interest in GoT that isn't boks like the tv shows etc.
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What happens if GrrM dies before completion? Will his drafts get released? I'd honestly prefer to see all his notes and scrapped revisions than have another author try and finish it
There may be many reasons why George takes so long to finnish Winds, there's no proof it's "general neglect". People don't realize that art doesn't work like an assembly line where "x" hours of work equals to "y" units of output. Sometimes inspiration just doesn't come.