You're GRRM's editor. He gives you his manuscript of A Feast for Crows. There's a red pen in your hand.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Funnily most of these changes are exactly what the show has done

[Daendrew]

"A Feast for Dragons".  Wouldn't that suck for all the poor little shepherd girls?

And green eclectii parrots.

[Butterfreak]

I find most of the complaints against Feast to be pretty exaggerated and I dislike the idea that a lack of "action" makes the book a bad one.  That said, there are definitely places where I'd like change.  Aeron and Victarion a pretty dull POVs imo, and the Iron Islands plot isn't much better.  Dorne is interesting, but I would have rathered to have read the whole thing from Arianne's POV instead of Areo and Arys.  Finally, I think Sam's second chapter is devoid of both any interesting world building or meaningful character exploration and should probably have been cut.

[Richard Writhen]

I would throw that red pen into the wastebasket and shake the man's hand for writing one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read.

[Good Guy Garlan]

I'd say ' look George, these are all nice little stories you are telling here, I'm sure there is room for them in a companion piece, maybe a few short story collectors edition. Like 'what happened to brienne before lady stone heart got her. People would pay to read that. But not in this book G. Let's combine those two books and cut to the chase'

theres loads of good stuff in those books, taken individually. Loved kingsmoot for example. But as part of a series? No. It's filler and it's breaking up the momentum and annoying me.

Re: the kingsmoot, I wouldn't cut it. The problem with the Iron Islands and Dorne, IMO, is simple: the POVs. Ditch Arys, Hotah, Damphair and Victarion, and leave Asha and Arianne as your sole narrators and everything gets better, tighter, more unified, without the jumping around between seemingly random POVs. 

But for the Iron Islands I'd go further: I think GRRM should've included that storyline in Storm for 3 reasons:

1) It fits better with the Storm structure/theme of 3 leeches, 3 dead kings, 3 possible pretenders to take up their crowns, etc. I mean, Balon's death even happened in Storm, so I don't see why GRRM didn't deal with it back then

2) It gives Feast more breathing room by not having to introduce two virtually new kingdoms and families

3) It takes advantage of the Ironborn being fresh in our minds from Clash instead of weirdly ignoring them for one whole book 

[Gustavo Fringed Sleeves]

Short answer: I'd put the pen down and wait for the series to finish before making that kind of judgement. And what's the deal with red pens and stuff? Is it a school test or something? What do you people think editors do? FFS.

Long answer: nah, whatever. A few nips and tucks here and there, and such and such and such and blah blah blah...

[The scourge of westeros]

I would throw that red pen into the wastebasket and shake the man's hand for writing one of the best fantasy novels I've ever read.

 

lol, ok

[Qhorin Halfhand and Yoren]

The problem with the book is that it adds several new characters, and in addition to the old ones, hardly progresses their story sufficiently, and then there are the characters that it doesn't add. A book of many half stories, which actually neglects the main character stories. While Cersei, Brienne and Jaime dominate. Now Jaime is already an important character but one among several.

Additional problem, is that GRRM himself thinks that he might need 8 books to finish this, because things take longer to develop  than he expects. Now WOW will have to provide the battle for Winter and Mereen. Think about it, if Daenerys is to meet the dothraki, develop a relationship with them them, somehow gain them as forces, then we will also have the battle of mereen and winter, then she will have to move her army across the sea and then she will land in westeros and we will presumably have the conflict with Aegon and other players. Considering each book takes 5 years, it makes sense for the competition of the series to not focus on too slow pace, to the detriment of the story and characters moving forward. You can't really fix with editing, the new number of locations or characters and either way you go, there will problems, including my suggestions.

 

Since this is a fantasy scenario and I can get away with things as an editor I could never get away with towards GRRM, I would force him to delay it until he creates a feast for dragons. How it will go?

Cut bloat and a lot of the first half of Brienne's storyline, keep quiet isle, and later. Add an additional Brienne chapter from WOW.

Highly reduce Cersei's chapters and remove the prophecy. Reduce Jaime's chapters and add the Jaime chapter from ADWD.

Add all ADWD Arya chapters in it, and add the mercy chapter as well. Maybe make the original AFFC content move a bit faster.

Add 2-3 more Sansa chapters.

Add a few Tyrion chapters. Have  Tyrrion meet Illyrio and Aegon, but cut the travelling time with Jorah or have it progress much faster. Now Tyrion does not get to do much in Mereen in this book. Maybe it ends with him reaching it or it ends on him being on a ship to reach it and in the next book, the story continues from him reaching Mereen.

Add a couple Jon chapters.

Reduce Samwell's pre travel chapter length, Skip Samwell Tarly's trip to bravos and chapters focusing on whatever shit happens on the ship, except maybe one for Aegon's death.(as much as I love the fat pink mast entering the myrish swamp, they aren't needed)  Add additional content that moves the timeline forward and has us see what is happening in the cilladel. 2 chapters focusing on that would be good. One before it, and one showing us Ironborn assault.

Add a 2-3 Daenerys chapters that focus on the stuff the ADWD Daenerys focused, but move forward a bit faster.

Keep the Dorne POVs. Arys one chapter isn't a big deal. I tend to like having different P.O.V in one location, the problem is the number of locations in the books.

Make the Aeron chapter somewhat less bland and boring and have it less at the beginning of the book. Alternatively, remove it and keep the only P.O.V from the Iron Islands to be Asha and Victarion.

Epilogue is Aegon landing

 

What will the next book have? In short ADWD + TWOW content.

I really enjoyed its northern storylines so I want to retain that.

Theon storyline, continuation of Daenerys storyline, Batle for Mereen. 

Less bloat for Tyrion, Daenerys, perharps move their storyline somewhat forward too. Less chapters on Tyrion on a ship. Have him in the chapter he arrives talk a little about how he went on a ship, or met this guy if he has to.

Bran chapters remain as they are.

Add some Arya and Sansa content, taken from TWOW.

Add some Brienne and Jaime chapters.

Add a few Samwell Tarly, maybe two chapters.

Not sure how to handle Quentin, his chapters are kind of boring, but I liked having a look at what happened in Astapor and after Daenerys disappears it might be important to have eyes on the ground.

Add the Theon chapter released for WOW by GRRM, and the Battle of Winter or part of the battle of winter, perhaps ending on a cliffhanger.

Now for Jon, I am not sure whether the book should add additional content or not that moves his story forward to where it ended. It depends on how long the book ends up being with these changes.

 

In the end both books would be bigger than they were, and perhaps bigger than the other books, a consequence of the world expanding to more locations and characters.  The next book from these two revised editions (a feast of dragons and dragons of winter) could fix some those problems by getting characters closer together and killing some.

 

 

 

 

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

1) Fast forward the "Princess in the Tower" bit.

2) Take out a LOT of the Jaime stuff. I get what GRRM's doing with Jaime's recollections of Rhaegar, etc., and with the Riverlands Knot, but wow, I could do with way less squires and less minor nobles/aunts grousing at Jaime. Just put it in World of Ice & Fire, George, everyone who cares can read it there. Gatehouse Ami & her mom were good, though. Just most everything between Darry and Riverrun can go.

3) Take my red pen and write "hater" on the forehead of everyone who complains about my girl Brienne's page count. Brienne is wonderful, and she & Pod deserve their own spinoff series.