The Complete Winds of Winter Resource v. 2

[Annarkie]

I am sure he is working on Winds he does not have to update his blog to tell us for every sentence he writes in the damn book.

Not only that, but I highly doubt he blogs about things like copyedits or page proofs (Not saying that's what he's been up to, because I have no way of knowing.) That is one tedious, boring process that makes you more inclined to drink and chill out with a movie or a good book between sessions, not blog.

(edited for typo)

[ChillyPolly]

Not only that, but I highly doubt he blogs about things like copyedits or page proofs

Judging from precedent? Yes he does. After he announced a publication date (4+ month pre DANCE); and even after he announced he was done writing (2.5 months pre DANCE) he was blogging about how he was still working on copyediting, etc.

[Annarkie]

Judging from precedent? Yes he does. After he announced a publication date (4+ month pre DANCE); and even after he announced he was done writing (2.5 months pre DANCE) he was blogging about how he was still working on copyediting, etc.

Ah, Ok. Never mind then.

[The King in The Mount]

I am sure he is working on Winds he does not have to update his blog to tell us for every sentence he writes in the damn book.

You must be great at parties

Sorry, this came out a lot more harsher than expected

[sifth]

So this July will be year four of writing TWoW for George. So much for finishing the the final two books quicker than AFFC and ADWD, lol

I often wonder if George just tells people what they wants to hear sometimes. I can't wait to see the book not come out in 2016, lol

[Jonathan N]

shocking isn't it, lol

Yeah they were very long posts, so I pressed ctrl F and typed in 'Winds', it only showed the previous post about reading it at the event :(

Another shocker, I guess: really long posts but 99 percent of them is pure marketing for his movie theatre business.

[zaafsta]

So this July will be year four of writing TWoW for George. So much for finishing the the final two books quicker than AFFC and ADWD, lol

I often wonder if George just tells people what they wants to hear sometimes. I can't wait to see the book not come out in 2016, lol

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that George said he didn't start writing TWOW in 2011, which he wished he did. I guess maybe its cos of the show and the fact that he just finished ADWD in 2011 so.. but about finishing the the final two books quicker than AFFC and ADWD, I had no idea about that haha

[brown ben romney]

he's also said that he wasn't gonna give nearly as many updates about winds because he did that with ADWD and then ended up rewriting a lot of what he had written and he didnt want to get peoples hopes up and let them down or something like that.

[ChillyPolly]

he's also said that he wasn't gonna give nearly as many updates about winds because he did that with ADWD and then ended up rewriting a lot of what he had written and he didn't want to get peoples hopes up and let them down or something like that.

During the 1st three years after FEAST, when he was making little or no progress on DANCE, he promised no more progress on DANCE until it was done. During the last 2 years, when he WAS making significant progress on DANCE, he broke that promise constantly in order to crow about how much progress he was making.

In July 2012, has said that he did not like making PREDICTIONS (but he does them anyway, sort of, most recently to express the hope - not really a prediction - of finishing by season 6).

He has never promised no more, or fewer, progress updates on WINDS.

[sifth]

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that George said he didn't start writing TWOW in 2011, which he wished he did. I guess maybe its cos of the show and the fact that he just finished ADWD in 2011 so.. but about finishing the the final two books quicker than AFFC and ADWD, I had no idea about that haha

well considering 168 pages will be stuff left over from ADWD he sort of did, lol

[FookinLegend]

I'm feeling pretty confident that we will see Winds of Winter drop after Game of Thrones has finished airing. I don't see any other reason for the showmakers to move past ADWD in season 6, because otherwise season 5 would have dragged out AFFC a bit more, Season 6 ADWD and Season 7 TWOW if it dropped before that.

Nah, I think we should be happy if TWOW drops in 2017, but I'm getting the feeling that all the GoT interference is going to push it back to 2018-2020. Haha, it might even be 2025 by the time we get the final book haha.

[ChillyPolly]

Nah, I think we should be happy if TWOW drops in 2017, but I'm getting the feeling that all the GoT interference is going to push it back to 2018-2020. Haha, it might even be 2025 by the time we get the final book haha.

Heh. I thought you were about to say "it might even be 2025 before we get Book 6", which for all I know is actually the case.

But I agree that 2025 is a pretty good guess for book 7, though I do not for a minute believe that book 7 will wrap up the series.

[Werthead]

I often wonder if this is what he did for ADWD, because that entire book seems to be filled with incomplete stories.

The primary problem was space: at 450,000 words or so, the book becomes impossible to bind in one volume without the type going extremely small, so they have to split it. With ADWD being split from AFFC already, he was very keen not to run into that problem, so he sheared off the book at 420,000. ASoS was 425,000 or so. In fact, even at below the split level, the book was still divided into two volumes in the UK for the paperback edition.

Including the extra material he'd written for ADWD that was pushed back to TWoW would likely have taken the book up way past the 450,000 limit, and we'd have gotten "ADWD Part I" and "ADWD Part II" instead, which people may have preferred but Part II would have likely come out months later and delayed work on the rest of what is now TWoW.

[BryndenBFish]

The primary problem was space: at 450,000 words or so, the book becomes impossible to bind in one volume without the type going extremely small, so they have to split it. With ADWD being split from AFFC already, he was very keen not to run into that problem, so he sheared off the book at 420,000. ASoS was 425,000 or so. In fact, even at below the split level, the book was still divided into two volumes in the UK for the paperback edition.

Including the extra material he'd written for ADWD that was pushed back to TWoW would likely have taken the book up way pased the 450,000 limit, and we'd have gotten "ADWD Part I" and "ADWD Part II" instead, which people may have preferred but Part II would have likely come out months later and delayed work on the rest of what is now TWoW.

From Anne Groell's Q/A from back in May 2014 with Suvudu that GRRM wasn't as close to finishing the 2 battle sequences which would have book-ended ADWD. By my reading, he still wasn't done writing the sequences in 2014:

To include the battles… Well, we’d physically not have been able to bind it. We would have had to split it into two books, which would have felt even less satisfying. And it would probably still not be published yet, as he would STILL be writing. So we had to make a call to get the best book possible out of what actually existed at the time, which is what we did. Despite the lack of the battles, I am still really happy with it. And I know a lot of other people were, too. - Suvudu Q/A

I took the "still be writing" bit to mean that GRRM hadn't finished the 3 battles or so that he'll kick Winds off on. So, I'm not sure that it would be a matter of a few months for ADWD Part 2 to come out. That being said, understanding George's pattern in writing from a POV perspective until exhaustion/brick wall and switching perspective, it's possible that he could have limited his POV switch perspective from all of The Winds of Winter to merely the POVs in and around the battles -- Asha/Theon for Winterfell, Barristan/Victarion/Tyrion/Daenerys for Meereen, Jon Connington/Arianne for Storm's End.

[Werthead]

IIRC, Storm's End was going to be entirely offpage. He only decided to include it because of positive fan reception to the Golden Company invading Westeros and taking Griffin's Roost. I took that to mean that whilst the Arianne chapters approaching SE had been written, the actual battle itself had not been, and would happen wholly offpage (which seems to put a stake through the "Aegon dies at Storm's End" theory, as it'd be weird to kill him entirely offpage when a lot of ADWD was spent setting him up).

[BryndenBFish]

IIRC, Storm's End was going to be entirely offpage. He only decided to include it because of positive fan reception to the Golden Company invading Westeros and taking Griffin's Roost. I took that to mean that whilst the Arianne chapters approaching SE had been written, the actual battle itself had not been, and would happen wholly offpage (which seems to put a stake through the "Aegon dies at Storm's End" theory, as it'd be weird to kill him entirely offpage when a lot of ADWD was spent setting him up).

IIRC, you were at Worldcon in 2011 when GRRM read the Arianne II chapter. I'm trying to clarify a small mystery about the early Stormlands sequences in TWOW, and I figure you might be able to shed some light on it. Back in early 2010, GRRM had a comment on his livejournal in which he talked about spending a day in the Rainwoods, writing. A few days later, he mentioned finishing a chapter that required a rewrite of another chapter. A few months later, he mentioned shifting the 2 written Arianne chapters to Winds, another unwritten Arianne chapter and another unnamed POV to Winds.

Given that, I was curious whether GRRM originally intended for Arianne to meet Connington/Aegon in the Rainwood after conquest of Griffin's Roost. But GRRM decided to shift the meeting place up to Storm's End. Also, I'm assuming that the unnamed POV chapter shifted to Winds is a Connington chapter -- would you say that's a fair assessment? If so, mayhaps it's worth an addition to your resource over on the Dance page?

[Werthead]

Nope, the one and only Worldcon I've ever been to was last year in London :)

Yes, all of that is possible but way too speculative to be taken as fact.

[sifth]

The primary problem was space: at 450,000 words or so, the book becomes impossible to bind in one volume without the type going extremely small, so they have to split it. With ADWD being split from AFFC already, he was very keen not to run into that problem, so he sheared off the book at 420,000. ASoS was 425,000 or so. In fact, even at below the split level, the book was still divided into two volumes in the UK for the paperback edition.

Including the extra material he'd written for ADWD that was pushed back to TWoW would likely have taken the book up way past the 450,000 limit, and we'd have gotten "ADWD Part I" and "ADWD Part II" instead, which people may have preferred but Part II would have likely come out months later and delayed work on the rest of what is now TWoW.

My issue is a lot of his ADWD chapters could have be edited out completely or combined with other chapters. Let me give you an example. There's a Jon chapter in the book where he goes into the haunted forest to the weirdwood grove, so the new members of the nights watch can take their vows. To this date I don't understand why this chapter was needed, because the only important thing it adds to the story is the introduction of the giant Wun Wun, a character who could have easily been introduced as a member of Thomard's group. Jon could have also simply reminisced how he took the boys beyond the wall to take their vows and how it reminded him of his own ceremony, but an entire chapter about it just seemed silly and a waste of space.

[clair de lune]

^Leathers, one of my favorite ADWD bit characters, was also a focus of this POV chapter.

[BryndenBFish]

Probably a sensitive subject, but would David Benioff's statement in the making-of featurette of S05E09 that "When George first told us about this, it was one of those moments where I just looked at Dan. It was just like, so horrible, but it was so good. Because it all comes together." confirmation that Shireen will burn in The Winds of Winter?