What do you think caused Martin to loose his grip on the material?

[mushroomshirt]

So no one liked Brienne's chapters in Feast?  I like Brienne's chapters in Feast a lot.  I think they are some of the best in the series.  (Other than Theon's chapters in Dance which are hands-down the best in any of the books).

The mood of those chapters, the speech by Septon Maribald, the way that Brienne basically turns into Jaime at the end (so many oaths!).  I don't know... just really, really good.

The stuff I like least about in Feast are actually Cersei's chapters.  Sure I guess the plot moves forward there, but Cersei is such a horrible person it's hard for me to enjoy those chapters.  I know her POV doesn't start until Feast, but when I read A Game of Thrones, she seems so together.  Almost a different character.  Of course we mostly see her through Ned's eyes who is clearly in way over his head (until he loses it).  So maybe that's why she seems like she knows what she is doing then.

 

[Three-Fingered Pete]

Actually, I like reading Brienne's chapters in AFfC, but I think they would have been better if we had no idea if she would succeed or not (pretty hard given her quest was to find two "main" POV characters who we knew all about). They had a pretty good solution to that in the show when Brienne and Arya had their brief encounter. It gave it that "just missed the brass ring" feel. Given the structure of the books, that was not a feasible solution, so I would've rather had Brienne meet up with Lady Stoneheart earlier and maybe get some insight into that situation, something we have little information on and seems like it could keep for a few years in book time and not mess up the narrative.

[D-Shiznit]

Even if by some miracle TWOW comes out in the next year or two, there is no way he can finish the series in 7 books. There is simply too much story to cover with only 2 books. Dany still has to come to Westeros, Jon has to take over the North, the Faegon storyline has to wrap up, Dany and Jon have to meet, form an alliance, fall in love, battle against the White Walkers, battle for the throne against Cersei. Not to mention the other zillion storyline and characters. No way all that gets wrapped in 2 books. I'm fully expecting an announcement by GRRM within the year that he is unable to finish the series and will pass it on to someone else, or is just letting the show finish his story.

[Cas Stark]

28 minutes ago, D-Shiznit said:

Even if by some miracle TWOW comes out in the next year or two, there is no way he can finish the series in 7 books. There is simply too much story to cover with only 2 books. Dany still has to come to Westeros, Jon has to take over the North, the Faegon storyline has to wrap up, Dany and Jon have to meet, form an alliance, fall in love, battle against the White Walkers, battle for the throne against Cersei. Not to mention the other zillion storyline and characters. No way all that gets wrapped in 2 books. I'm fully expecting an announcement by GRRM within the year that he is unable to finish the series and will pass it on to someone else, or is just letting the show finish his story.

I agree with this, but I don't see the author ever being able to acknowledge that he can't finish the series.  Winds will come out some time and that will be the end...

[Three-Fingered Pete]

I think he could easily get the story done in two more books, that is if he'd just get back the core elements and trim all the fat. I'm pretty sure I could make a lot of those loose threads disappear as easily as Quentyn did in no short order. Most haven't done anything lasting (yet) or significant enough to ruin the over arching plot.

[alienarea]

One thing that gets evident is that there are things that don't fit or add up right from the start, which are masked by the fast paced story. GRRM claims he uses the unreliable narrator technique, one could alternatively say he's sloppy and has a bad editor. 

Looking back the story exploded all over the first three books and he was unable to control it afterwards. It looks like he already lost it then, and the new storylines in AFfC and ADwD (Quentin, Dorne, Asha) didn't help.

[BlackLightning]

I think we can all agree that GRRM just has a bad editor.

Daenerys' first two (or three) chapters and her last two chapters (her very last chapter in Dance is a masterclass) were excellent but the show did a better job of communicating Daenerys' story in Dance than the books and Show!Daenerys' storyline in season 5 was pretty sloppy. Not bad just sloppy.

Tyrion? Tyrion is the worst part about Dance. Actually, Dance has made me develop a strong dislike for Tyrion. Not only the actual material (Tyrion is becoming a villain, people, wake up!) but the structure of everything. The show also did a better job of trimming the fat but again ... they did it so sloppily that they missed out on some great opportunities with Tyrion in season 5.

23 hours ago, Trefayne said:

Actually, I like reading Brienne's chapters in AFfC, but I think they would have been better if we had no idea if she would succeed or not (pretty hard given her quest was to find two "main" POV characters who we knew all about). They had a pretty good solution to that in the show when Brienne and Arya had their brief encounter. It gave it that "just missed the brass ring" feel. Given the structure of the books, that was not a feasible solution, so I would've rather had Brienne meet up with Lady Stoneheart earlier and maybe get some insight into that situation, something we have little information on and seems like it could keep for a few years in book time and not mess up the narrative.

The thing that would've made the Brienne chapters better is if she had more evidence or clues to go off of and/or if she had gotten close to finding Arya. Because finding Sansa was a damn near impossible feat at that point and EVERYONE knew it.

What also hurt Brienne is the fact that the chapters - while well-written - are:

• absolutely depressing, especially because they are juxtaposed against Cersei's mismanagement of the country
• and redundant because we had already wandered around the Riverlands with Arya and because Jaime is also spending a lot of time in Riverlands
• meandering because we all know that the search for Sansa is a fruitless dead-end, the search for Arya is both expensive and difficult and Brienne does nothing but walk around in circles, be depressed and watch other people be depressed

Even if the characters HAD to be depressing, it would've been a lot better if Brienne was wandering around the Vale, the Westerlands or the Stormlands. We had already seen sooooo much of the Riverlands.

Hell, it would've been a stroke of genius if Brienne became a Robin Hood or a Batman character.

[Three-Fingered Pete]

17 minutes ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

I think we can all agree that GRRM just has a bad editor.

 

I'm sure he has proof readers, but does anybody think anyone edits George besides George?

[D-Shiznit]

10 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I agree with this, but I don't see the author ever being able to acknowledge that he can't finish the series.  Winds will come out some time and that will be the end...

At this point I'm not even sure he'll finish TWOW. I think GRRM lost interest in writing the series a long time ago, you can honest tell he'd rather work on the history of his world and create new lore for spinoffs. I can fully see him just coming out and saying he no longer intends to finish this and that life is too short to not focus on things that actually interest you. And to be honest the show has provided him with an out as it is a form of closure to the series.

[D-Shiznit]

10 hours ago, Trefayne said:

I think he could easily get the story done in two more books, that is if he'd just get back the core elements and trim all the fat. I'm pretty sure I could make a lot of those loose threads disappear as easily as Quentyn did in no short order. Most haven't done anything lasting (yet) or significant enough to ruin the over arching plot.

Even if you cut out all the secondary stuff,  there is still so much story left to occur in just two books. Dany has to get her army, fix Mereen, get to Westeros, meet Jon, who has to come back to life, conquer the North, go to Dany, establish a partnership, fall in love and then fight two wars together. And all that is just 2 characters, the Starks still have to finish their journeys and reunite, Cerise has to consolidate power, White Walkers have to be delved into. It's just too much for 2 books.

[Cas Stark]

3 hours ago, D-Shiznit said:

At this point I'm not even sure he'll finish TWOW. I think GRRM lost interest in writing the series a long time ago, you can honest tell he'd rather work on the history of his world and create new lore for spinoffs. I can fully see him just coming out and saying he no longer intends to finish this and that life is too short to not focus on things that actually interest you. And to be honest the show has provided him with an out as it is a form of closure to the series.

This is the same guy who said dance would be out a year after feast, who said the show would not outpace the books, he's not good at admitting the negative.  While I am no longer sure Winds will come out, I do still think odds are that something will come out, it may be much more like Feast where it starts and then just peters out at the end without any rhyme or reason, but I think it will eventually be published in some form.  But then thats all there is, and I also agree that based on what he has said about Winds there is no way to finish the series in a total of 7 books, this may also be a reason that he's taken so long, once he realized that it was Winds + 2 more he totally gave up in his heart.

ETA...as far as Brienne's chapters, they were pretty superfluous, all except the last two.  Her character didn't change or evolve, we didn't learn anything very important, we already knew the impact of the war on the small folk, Brienne having so many wandering around accomplishing nothing chapters is one more symptom of the disaster of the geographic split.  In a better organized book we would only have gotten the last two chapters, because there was no need for all that filler.

[Three-Fingered Pete]

12 hours ago, D-Shiznit said:

Even if you cut out all the secondary stuff,  there is still so much story left to occur in just two books. Dany has to get her army, fix Mereen, get to Westeros, meet Jon, who has to come back to life, conquer the North, go to Dany, establish a partnership, fall in love and then fight two wars together. And all that is just 2 characters, the Starks still have to finish their journeys and reunite, Cerise has to consolidate power, White Walkers have to be delved into. It's just too much for 2 books.

It isn't too much if you really think about it structurally. The characters aren't stuck because of their own foibles and limitations or because of circumstances, it's because the author wants them to be stuck. For most it's just time to poop or get off the privy. Now, both books would probably have to be ADwD size to finish it, but that's OK.

Dorne? - Arianne has it assessed correctly. Doran Martell (or anyone in Dorne) just needs to do something... anything, to get moving. We will probably have to wait for the bad news from Meereen to catch up with them.

The Connington rebellion? - Quash it or corrupt it. Cersi is perfect for this and she will need the mercs later. The only issue is how to pay them.

Arya? - Just get her back to Westeros and she should start to line up well.

Sansa? - Is well positioned. After 3+ books of her just sitting around being tortured and malipulated, her arc is ready to explode.

Sam? - Is the only character who is right where he needs to be.

Jamie and Brienne? - Are positioned to finish their internal arc together with Lady Stoneheart and the Riverlands.

Victarion? - A fleet for Dany after he is brought around to her way of thinking OR eliminate him and seize his ships and other assets.

Pyke? - Is a wildcard.

Tyrion? - Is finally close to where he was supposed to be going, on the doorstep of Meereen. All we need now is...

Dany? - Much like Doran Martell, she just needs to do something and finally is in place to do so. Enough court intrigue and social drama. I think that the show probably did give us a good indication of Dany's path (except the Dany/Jon thing which is a little too pat for my tastes). If George moves too far away from that there will be no way to finish it in two more books.

Jon? - Needs to get resurrected and figure out who the hell he is and try it out for more than a month. I'm being facetious, but he goes from being relatively sharp and aware in the first three books to being stupid and tone deaf in ADwD. It must be a Stark thing. Blind Maester Aemon could have seen that backstabbing coming a mile away.

The North, the Wall and the Others? - Winter is here. The only thing moving events forward is Stannis' stubborness. Most, if not all, of the last book can finish all this.

Now, this is not to say that GRRM will do this. From what we've been given in TWoW samples it seems he is still not moving much at all, but I wouldn't expect the juicier chapters to be released anyway, so there's still hope.

[Cas Stark]

But he already told us that Dany spends 'several' chapters with the Dothraki, which means, in the best case, she will not get to Westeros until the very end of Winds, which is too late, it will mean that another book of place setting has gone by, and then he intends to do the last third of the original trilogy which has grown to 6 books, but finish that in one book?  That would be, unless it's all epilogue, a radical, radical shift in tone and momentum.  It 'could' work, sure if Winds is paced like GOT, instead of Dance, but all indicators are that this is not the case, that he maintains the same glacial pace of Feast and Dance.

[Three-Fingered Pete]

11 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

But he already told us that Dany spends 'several' chapters with the Dothraki, which means, in the best case, she will not get to Westeros until the very end of Winds...

 

Possibly. Not all POVs have equal screen time as it were. If Dany gets a majority of the chapters due to others now being put in neutral for awhile, she can get quite a lot done. Also remember that the goal is to join several POVs together in one place, allowing for some of the lesser players' POVs to be curtailed/dropped for the more prevalent ones (I hope).

[Cas Stark]

16 minutes ago, Trefayne said:

 

Possibly. Not all POVs have equal screen time as it were. If Dany gets a majority of the chapters due to others now being put in neutral for awhile, she can get quite a lot done. Also remember that the goal is to join several POVs together in one place, allowing for some of the lesser players' POVs to be curtailed/dropped for the more prevalent ones (I hope).

Why does she need 'several Dothraki chapters'? I mean, 2 should do it, several sounds like 5 or 6.  This is detail that he could have done in one chapter where Dany simply remembers the highlights...the way we got the details of Robert's rebellion in flashbacks.  Actually bogging her down, point for point with the Dothraki when everyone knows the result is going to be that she gets the Dothraki horde to fight for her is just wasting time.  His time.  Our time.  Answer:  it's not necessary.  Just as Brienne's 8 chapters are about 70% more than is needed.  And you can go down the list of the last two books.  This is what bogged him down.  Too much extraneous detail.  We don't need to read everything as it happens all the way along to everyone.  Especially when the stuff that is happening is also not that interesting or relevant.  It has been kind of a foregone conclusion that Dany would end up with the Dothraki since GOT...why belabor the details.?

[Three-Fingered Pete]

We are still entrenched in the middle game of the cyvasse match. The end game should be quicker once more pieces are removed from the board.

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, Trefayne said:

We are still entrenched in the middle game of the cyvasse match. The end game should be quicker once more pieces are removed from the board.

Everyone said that about Feast and Dance.  "Oh, now that Dance is finished, and he has moved beyond the Meereen knot that caused all those problems and rewrites, it's smooth sailing now" it will be easier and Winds will come out faster...but that was false.  And, me personally, I don't believe he will write another book in the series after Winds of Winter, let alone the 2 that it will take to conclude it.  

[Three-Fingered Pete]

11 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Everyone said that about Feast and Dance.  "Oh, now that Dance is finished, and he has moved beyond the Meereen knot that caused all those problems and rewrites, it's smooth sailing now" it will be easier and Winds will come out faster...but that was false.  And, me personally, I don't believe he will write another book in the series after Winds of Winter, let alone the 2 that it will take to conclude it.  

 

I'm not saying he has done anything. I'm just saying he can. If he really has lost perspective on this, then he really is only letting himself down. He isn't the only good storyteller in the village. I never thought he was going to be fast about it in any case.

[Nevets]

3 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Why does she need 'several Dothraki chapters'? I mean, 2 should do it, several sounds like 5 or 6.

I think several in this case means 3 or 4, which should be easily sufficient.   That would be half or a bit less of her chapters and could get her to Westeros at about the 2/3 point of WOW.   If that happens, and the Others make their move by about the halfway point, there is still hope.  

The big problem is that are so many stories and POVs that it is hard to service all of them.  I figure that 80 chapters is about the max, and with 20 POVs, that doesn't leave a lot of room unless he starts consolidating characters and stories very quickly.

I'm still optimistic, but the longer it takes the more worried I get.

 

[Three-Fingered Pete]

My take on the time lag is a hopeful one.

It's been seven years since Dance was released. He indicated that he had chapters written for Winds at that time. Right around there GoT got rolling along and huge, plus other and newer commitments came along. Between his basking in success and distractions, I'd estimate a good three or so years was lost with no work at all on Winds.

Now here's my conjecture part:

I think that when it became apparent that the show was going to pass the books and that there was no way to forestall this eventuality, GRRM decided just to finish the whole thing at once and not tell anyone. There is a good chance that all the material for Winds is done, but not edited and polished because he is still writing the middle to last parts of ADoS and doesn't want to publish in case he wants to change things from the end of the story back to the start of Winds once he has completed the books.

I really hope this is the case because I can't think of anything else that would excuse such a long gap between books.