GRRM's way of doing things

[Bleed Rangers Blue]

This was a special kind of question & hard to give a topic title to because there's so many ways to ask it. So i'll try it this way:

Everytime something BIG happens at 1 POV, GRRM doesnt come back to it for like 300 pages, sometimes not for multiple books later (Theon, House bolton, Daenerys). I understood why he left out Daenerys of AFFC, it made sense. By the time ADWD came out, you have the idea that the 3 dragons are basically grown but why dont we hear from Theon again until 3 books later? And the Red Wedding was awesome but afterwards, I COULDN'T HELP but be interested in House Bolton and kept wondering what they were doing now in the North. Very annoying. They hardly even got a mention after the Red Wedding. Sure, 2 or 3 times, people brought them up but...

Whats YOUR Take?

[Northbound3.0]

A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, occurred at the same time. There is no break between A Storm of Swords and Dance.

[sj4iy]

AFFC and ADWD are concurrent storylines- the dragons didn't "grow" during that time because ADWD happens immediately after ASOS, just like AFFC does.

[Bleed Rangers Blue]

Oh you mean the same timespan, (I thought at first that you meant they came out the same time).That is correct i'm sorry. What about my point though, do you ever feel like a lot of big stuff gets idled? I understand the system that ASOIAF goes by: POV'S.. And many are completely separate from the next. I do like that and by now am used to it, it's just some key things that he drifts away from.

I know there are people who agree with me because long before I agreed with it myself, I saw people talk about it on meme's.

[Northbound3.0]

Cliffhangers are fun? That's the reason he writes that way. Any decent author, will leave you hanging for as much time as possible; until the narrative dictates, that character needs to reappear. Why else would readers fly through pages; if not find out, what happened to this character or that one?

[Lord Sapna]

Some cliffhangers are fun, as are some mysteries but I think it's overdone. I mean what was the point of introducing Lady Stoneheart in the epilogue when she didn't have a significant part in the next book. Then a book later we still don't know about it.

I feel George's style sometimes is a bit too focused on creating cliffhangers. You shouldn't build up to a battle, then not show it, like we had with Mereen and Winterfell. Also the dead characters not really being dead has been done what 12 times now, loses it's edge. I mean a lot more people would think Jon was really killed at the end of ADWD, if they hadn't seen the same trick with Davos, Brienne, Arya, Davos again, Bran and Rickon etc.

Also things take too long to resolve sometimes, especially with the gaps between books. At the first book I really wanted to learn who tried to kill Bran, by the time it was finally revealed (and not even definite at that) I really didn't care any more then I will if Benjen suddenly came back.

[Raving Stark the Mad]

GRRM likes to think of himself as a gardner. I prefer to think of him as a weaver. Sometimes I wonder if he's not just playing dice with his universe.

The key to understanding the story, IMO, is to understand the threads of the story being weaved. Now, there are threads, and there are THREADS. Each POV character is a thread, but the threads in themselves follow EVENTS and main characters.

Asha and Theon are now outside Winterfell. As things currently lie, both Asha and Theon character threads are weaved into a larger thread you can call "Stannis". Now, Stannis doesn't have a POV, but Stannis is the one who is moving things in the North. Stannis is the eye of the storm outside Winterfell. GRRM is not writing about Asha and Theon to tell you about what happens to Asha and Theon. He is using them to tell you about what happens to Stannis and Winterfell. If Stannis were not outside of Winterfell, you would probably still not be hearing from Theon Greyjoy, because Theon Greyjoy is not an eye of a storm. His thread is now weaved into a bigger thread. He WAS a major thread in ACoK. Not anymore.

Let's look at Mereen. You've got SEVERAL POV characters converging on Mereen, thus various threads, thus the Mereenese knot. You have Tyrion, Victarion, Barristan, Quentyn and Dany. They are all centered around Mereen, coming together for a climactic battle, then refractory phase weaving together, resolution, moving forward. The eye of the hurricane is Dany, she is the shaper of events as far as she is able. Barristan and Victarion's threads are strongly tied into her thread and the thread of Mereen. Tyrion is now tied into the Dany/Mereen thread, but he is unique because he is a major character/thread in himself. Quentyn was always tied to Dany. When these characters come together, you can expect to lose the POVs of Victarion and Barristan unless there is something specific GRRM wants to tell from their point of view. They can disappear.

Outside of the major event/eyes threads, there are smaller threads that are kept up with despite the fact that no major events are occuring around them. These are major character threads. Arya is an isolated character, away from all the major happenings of the story. But SHE is a major character. You follow her so you can learn specifically what is happening with HER. GRRM could have let her disappear from the moment she slipped out of KL with Yorick. He could have left the reader wondering for books and books and decades "what happened to Arya?". But he didn't because the story is at the heart the story of 4 children growing up in a tragedy, Arya being one of them. Same thing for Bran. Bran is currently not "moving events", though it is suspected that he will be in the future. His POV is there in the story simply because the story is really about him. All the other POVs are simply there to tell you what is happening AROUND these major characters. These major characters currently being Jon, Sansa, Bran, Dany, and Tyrion. Minor characters that have evolved stories outside the main story include Jaime and Brienne. But as GRRM has shown, he can let Brienne disappear for several inches of book.

What happened in AFFC and ADWD is that GRRM separated major threads to keep the books better organized, easier to read, easier to write. This meant that you sometimes had to wait a long time to find out what was happening somewhere or to someone.

[sj4iy]

I think Martin has grown his story too large and it's making it difficult for him to wrap up the story as he first intended. There are too many POV characters, too many plot lines, too many characters overall, etc.

[Archmaester Drew]

Welcome to the forum! :cheers:

There is an alternate chapter ordering that puts it all in roughly chronological order:

http://boiledleather.com/post/25902554148/a-new-reader-friendly-combined-reading-order-for-a

:)

[TallTyrion]

I think Martin has grown his story too large and it's making it difficult for him to wrap up the story as he first intended. There are too many POV characters, too many plot lines, too many characters overall, etc.

I agree. Specifically the Meereenese knot. I still can't see how that gets settled anytime soon.

I hope TWOW really thins out the story so the final book can have a more focused narrative. I also hold out hope that he will be able to write the last book quicker if the plot gets more streamlined.

[Tynned Lannistark]

That is all a symptom of the larger problem. The larger problem is having too wide a story with too many thread , plotlines and POV which is makes it hard to read and a lot harder to write I suppose,

I don't think cliffangers are the issue. ASOS for example doesn't end with any cliffhanger. All plot lines are resolved to a point that is picked up later. LS apearing is a teaser not a cliffhanger. The RW is a very final setting for several character not a cliffhanger. The thing is you want to know what happened in the future and that took a long time to get.

in AFFC and especially ADWD there is very different feeling of the book being half baked , way too many cliffhangers and a general feeling that the earliest chapter where filler and by the time things actually start moving the book is cut. But thats a specific problem with that book.

I hope TWOW is a lot better in that aspect.

[Eiko Dragonhorn]

I don't see a problem.

GRRM didn't invent multiple PoVs, but he's executed it better than any other series I've read. Every PoV is interesting and almost every individual chapter is interesting/exciting. By having the majority of chapters end with some sort of cliffhanger (often pretty minor but still present) it means I'll be excited when I come back to that PoV.

As a whole that means every time I finish a chapter and want more from that PoV I turn the page and realize I've also been waiting to read more about the PoV in the chapter given to me. Compare that to other series... where often the majority of PoVs are complete garbage filler between the 1 or 2 interesting story lines... it's basically torture and I've found myself flipping forward to see how far away the interesting PoVs are.

So GRRM's method has individually more interesting chapters, and altogether far far more interesting books.