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

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

On 6/22/2018 at 9:00 PM, Werthead said:

We've had this discussion 4 million times over the last twenty years, I think people got burned out on talking about it. But to reiterate the general points:

• George took nine years to write the first three books (not four). They were originally planned to be one book and he was effectively forced by his agent to write an outline (albeit loose and quickly-superseded, but still helpful) for them. He also had an unusual planning period for these books where'd work on ideas for them whilst working on a TV pilot, so there was a lot more pre-planning - at least in thinking about them - than for the later books.
• George originally planned to tell the entire ASoIaF story with just the starting characters, minus first Ned and later Catelyn after they were killed off. So Bran, Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Arya and Sansa would basically tell the entire story by themselves, right through to the end of the series. That only changed when he split AGoT and ACoK and realised he needed a character in the Greyjoy camp (so brought in Theon) and another in Stannis's (so brought in Davos). Once freed of that restriction, his go-to solution for any narrative problem was "add another" POV, which worked brilliantly for ACoK and ASoS and then got out of control in AFFC.
• During the writing of ACoK, GRRM created another outline which sketched the rest of ACoK/ASoS in a lot of detail and then featured a blank bit where the story would jump forwards 5 years and rejoin the action much later on. He wrote the rest of ACoK and all of ASoS with this 5-year gap in mind (note that, contrary to some reports, the 5-year gap was not the plan from day one, but was introduced at this point).
• After completing ASoS, he spent 18 months writing Book 4 with the idea of it picking up 5 years later. This didn't work for many of the characters and in the end he junked all of that work and started again from scratch. When he started writing again, he had no pre-planning, outline or real ideas for what he was going to do, meaning that AFFC and the first third or so of ADWD (which was also written at this time) was made up out of thin air on the spot.
• To get around the problem of not having any planning for AFFC, GRRM added a ton of new characters using a new, "super-prologue" format (possibly inspired by Robert Jordan's super-prologues that open every Wheel of Time book, or at least similar to them) that would very quickly touch base with lots of different areas (most notably Dorne) and bring those regions into the story without having to create detailed new storylines for loads of new characters. This didn't work either and GRRM ended up breaking up the prologue into lots of shorter chapters and scattering them between the two books. And this pretty much meant him having to create (off-the-cuff) story-arcs for a large number of new POV characters he hadn't originally planned for (Victarion, Aeron, Asha, Quentyn, Arianne, Areo Hotah, Arys Oakheart etc).
• Having done all of that, he realised he had 1,600 manuscript pages and complete or semi-complete storylines for some characters but not others, so after a chat with his friend Daniel Abraham, he split the book into AFFC and ADWD.
• Completing ADWD and bringing the two stories back in synch and matching up everything and telling a cohesive story that made sense and gave all of the characters their due proved to be monstrously complicated without an outline (and a refusal to write one), and took six years to resolve.
• During this time period sales of ASoIaF shot through the roof, everyone wanted a piece of GRRM and his property and various secondary and side-projects opened up (including the TV show) which GRRM had to spend more time dealing with.
• After ADWD came out, the TV show became the biggest thing on the planet and demands on GRRM's time for other things grew (as well as GRRM himself initiating or agreeing to commitments that in retrospect maybe he shouldn't have).

And that brings us up to where we are now. We'll see when the sixth book arrives if a lot of these key problems (too many POVs, too many storylines, insufficient forward planning) have been resolved that may give us the last book or books in a faster timeframe.

Judging by all this, he never had a grip on the story to begin with.

[Cas Stark]

30 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Judging by all this, he never had a grip on the story to begin with.

Ayep, thats a very reasonable conclusion. IMO, whatever kinda, sorta semi grip he had for the first three books has long since departed, replaced by chaotic seat of the pants writing decisions.

[Werthead]

On 8/9/2018 at 3:37 PM, Quaithe from Asshai said:

It doesn't look like Winds will be out next year after all.... GRRM was asked if he has any scheduled readings in the future and he replied:

If he thinks he might be reading from WINDS next August, that's pretty much scraps my hope that the book is nearly done 

Source: http://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2018/08/06/worldcon-time/

George does read from his already-published work as well, so I suspect it was more of a general comment about doing readings. He has not ruled out a 2019 publication for TWoW yet, although I'd be expecting to be hearing more positive noises around now if a 2019 release was on the cards.

Quote

 

My point still stands. Whenever he says a release date, he lies.

That's why he doesn't give release dates. Under some pressure from fans moaning about him not giving estimates, he's given out estimates whilst noting that's all they are and they might be incredibly off-base and not to take them as promises drawn in blood and virgin's tears. And of course the second he does that, fans start taking it as a promise drawn in blood and virgin's tears, and start yelling when the estimate turns out to be wrong. So then we don't get any more estimates or really any updates at all.

Are we 2 years past the estimate because of health/personal reasons, or has the writing irrevocably broken down in the face of massive structural issues or has he not written anything for years because he's taking daily dips in a swimming pool of money or has he written 3,000 manuscript pages and he doesn't want to hand them in until he's written all the way to the end of the series (note: this is unlikely)? We don't know.

Quote

 

Judging by all this, he never had a grip on the story to begin with.

 

That's a reasonable assessment: he wrote by the seat of his pants for the first few books and he's reached a point where does need a firmer outline to bring the story back under control (he probably reached that point c. 2003 to be honest, and definitely after AFFC came out) but either he doesn't want to do that for writing superstition reasons (the second he uses an outline he loses interest in writing the book; the first 3 books were great because he wrote without a strong outline and he doesn't want to mess with the mojo) or because the situation is such that an outline isn't really helping (or he is using an outline and hasn't told us about it).

[T and A]

On 6/22/2018 at 9:00 PM, Werthead said:

We've had this discussion 4 million times over the last twenty years, I think people got burned out on talking about it. But to reiterate the general points:

• George took nine years to write the first three books (not four). They were originally planned to be one book and he was effectively forced by his agent to write an outline (albeit loose and quickly-superseded, but still helpful) for them. He also had an unusual planning period for these books where'd work on ideas for them whilst working on a TV pilot, so there was a lot more pre-planning - at least in thinking about them - than for the later books.
• George originally planned to tell the entire ASoIaF story with just the starting characters, minus first Ned and later Catelyn after they were killed off. So Bran, Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Arya and Sansa would basically tell the entire story by themselves, right through to the end of the series. That only changed when he split AGoT and ACoK and realised he needed a character in the Greyjoy camp (so brought in Theon) and another in Stannis's (so brought in Davos). Once freed of that restriction, his go-to solution for any narrative problem was "add another" POV, which worked brilliantly for ACoK and ASoS and then got out of control in AFFC.
• During the writing of ACoK, GRRM created another outline which sketched the rest of ACoK/ASoS in a lot of detail and then featured a blank bit where the story would jump forwards 5 years and rejoin the action much later on. He wrote the rest of ACoK and all of ASoS with this 5-year gap in mind (note that, contrary to some reports, the 5-year gap was not the plan from day one, but was introduced at this point).
• After completing ASoS, he spent 18 months writing Book 4 with the idea of it picking up 5 years later. This didn't work for many of the characters and in the end he junked all of that work and started again from scratch. When he started writing again, he had no pre-planning, outline or real ideas for what he was going to do, meaning that AFFC and the first third or so of ADWD (which was also written at this time) was made up out of thin air on the spot.
• To get around the problem of not having any planning for AFFC, GRRM added a ton of new characters using a new, "super-prologue" format (possibly inspired by Robert Jordan's super-prologues that open every Wheel of Time book, or at least similar to them) that would very quickly touch base with lots of different areas (most notably Dorne) and bring those regions into the story without having to create detailed new storylines for loads of new characters. This didn't work either and GRRM ended up breaking up the prologue into lots of shorter chapters and scattering them between the two books. And this pretty much meant him having to create (off-the-cuff) story-arcs for a large number of new POV characters he hadn't originally planned for (Victarion, Aeron, Asha, Quentyn, Arianne, Areo Hotah, Arys Oakheart etc).
• Having done all of that, he realised he had 1,600 manuscript pages and complete or semi-complete storylines for some characters but not others, so after a chat with his friend Daniel Abraham, he split the book into AFFC and ADWD.
• Completing ADWD and bringing the two stories back in synch and matching up everything and telling a cohesive story that made sense and gave all of the characters their due proved to be monstrously complicated without an outline (and a refusal to write one), and took six years to resolve.
• During this time period sales of ASoIaF shot through the roof, everyone wanted a piece of GRRM and his property and various secondary and side-projects opened up (including the TV show) which GRRM had to spend more time dealing with.
• After ADWD came out, the TV show became the biggest thing on the planet and demands on GRRM's time for other things grew (as well as GRRM himself initiating or agreeing to commitments that in retrospect maybe he shouldn't have).

And that brings us up to where we are now. We'll see when the sixth book arrives if a lot of these key problems (too many POVs, too many storylines, insufficient forward planning) have been resolved that may give us the last book or books in a faster timeframe.

So he had no grip on the material from the beginning. What you describe, is basically what the rest of us describes, who criticize GRRM for exactly that. You just use the same arguments as an excuse, while we use those arguements as a claim. Imagine an architect developing a plan for a building. We say he won't finish the building because of this and that reason. While you argue, wait a second, those problems where existent from the beginning. 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

He has not ruled out a 2019 publication for TWoW yet, although I'd be expecting to be hearing more positive noises around now if a 2019 release was on the cards.

That doesn't sound very reassuring. 

[The Coconut God]

15 hours ago, Lady Anna said:

I read your thread that you linked to and it's very interesting! I think it fits and it would be an unexpected ending for a lot of fans, and refreshing. I don't know why but we're always (at least I am) sort of convinced that the climax of the series will take place in the North, at the Wall, that we end up blind to other possiblities.

Thank you! 

The reason it's so hard to entertain this idea is that George himself originally planned the climax to be in Westeros. There is at least one old SSM where he brought up Dany's arrival to Westeros as a main plot line for... Dance, and of course there is the matter of the leaked outline, whose relevance was denied by George, but many still choose to defer to for any hints about the future of the story. A lot of posters here take it as a God-given truth that the endgame is all about Westeros and everything else is filler.

However, they ignore the heavy and protracted restructuring of the story that happened while he was writing Feast and Dance and struggling with the five years gap and the Meereenese knot (the latter is less relevant, I think). If my theory is correct, the Exodus to Essos twist wouldn't have been thought out until this period, when George was done with the Wot5K major arc and had to seriously think how he was going to start a new one. The vast majority of hints and potential plot points pertaining to this theory (if not all of them) come from Feast and Dance, which makes sense considering they would be the set-up portion of the next arc.

I think George would have also realized at this point that the story would feel... lopsided, as you put it, if he tried to shove two more arcs in two volumes when the first arc took him three, so he would have looked at ways to turn his planned three arc series into a two arc series. The fact that the Essos plot lines were expanded - not only in Slaver's Bay, but also weaving back Qarth and weaving in Volantis, Norvos and Pentos - and that Dany no longer reached Westeros in Dance could be hints of this change of plans.

Another notable thing I should add is that ultimately the essence of the main characters' arcs doesn't change that much in the context of an Exodus. I imagine a major theme of a Dany, Queen of Westeros plot line would have been her difficulties as a ruler facing opposition from certain elements of the population which do not accept her legitimacy, which is covered by her plot line in Meereen. Another possible theme, brutal conquest (or brutal consequences of conquest), is also touched upon in Slaver's Bay, and can be expanded in Essos once Dany does get her Dothraki horde.

Similarly, assuming Jon's people would have been pushed beyond the Trident, or in the Vale, in the original plan, the theme of exile, potentiallly permanent loss of the North, parallels with the wildling exodus led by Mance and eventual contact with Dany's story line without taking Dany North would have been similar. An emotionally charged scenario in which Arya has to kill Dany in the name of the Faceless Men after Jon falls in love with her would only be more poignant with Dany actually threatening Braavos, and if Tyrion's bittersweet ending involves Tysha, she could have been anywhere as of the end of ASoS.

So although moving the the focus to Essos instead of the South may seem drastic, the themes, tone and character dynamics between major characters can remain very close to the original plan. Only the setting is adjusted, solving some pacing issues and making the world feel more real and interconnected in the meantime

P.S. Apologies for the wall of text, I do get a bit carried away with my theory....

[BlackLightning]

I don't know. I'm sorry but a mass exodus to Essos strikes me as a little cheap.

It doesn't leave Daenerys any room to become this frightening force of nature. Basically, all she has time to do is just get started and waves of Westerosi people start showing up in the Free Cities.

And where will Aegon go? The whole point of his war with Daenerys will be because Daenerys believes Aegon is a fraud/usurper and the Iron Throne belongs to true Targaryens. Why should they even bother fighting if the Iron Throne and the rest of Westeros is lost and Aegon has to double back to Volantis or Pentos? He has no claim in those places - he'd be just another Viserys and Daenerys would be Drogo¹⁰

It makes no narrative sense. And why set-up a massive Mexican standoff in the Citadel between the Faceless Men, the anti-magic Maesters, the open-minded, willing-to-be-pro-magic Maesters and Euron only to railroad it into Essos.

What about secrets of the Tower of Joy, the mysteries of the song of ice and fire? Howland Reed? The Children of the Forest? You can't tie up those loose ends from another continent; you need to have someone in the area.

And then you have to think about all of the main and side characters to be cooped up in a couple of the Free Cities.

[The Coconut God]

@Jabar of House Titan Dany can become very frightening if Mellario Martell gets Norvos in a fight with her out of vengeance for Quentin's death and she ends up torching the city, tarnishing her image as a benevolent freedom fighter.

Aegon's immediate purpose is to resolve those plot threads on Westeros that would have required Dany's invasion to conclude. Also, a huge war in the south that takes place even as the Others and their growing wight hordes pour into the North and beyond, the two main leaders perhaps not believing the warnings even as they become dire, is thematically poignant and narratively necessary in order to make all of Westeros vulnerable to their threat. After the the war with Cersei, there are multiple possibilities with Aegon, including his death, but more likely he will be forced to abandon Westeros and slip into the Pentos narrative, or bring Myr, Lys and Tyrosh into the story by occupying one or more of them as bases of operations and safe havens for refugees from the Crownlands, Stormlands and Dorne.

Subsequent waves of refugees from the South and the Vale, associated with Aegon and Sansa, would also give weight to Euron as a sea-based villain, so they would certainly tie well into the story. We could see Howland Reed if he seeks refuge in the Vale; Sansa would be an interesting character to find out about Jon's heritage. if that is ever confirmed for the characters and not just left for the reader to know (it's not really narratively necessary for the characters).

The "stay behind and show us the Long Night" crew can be made up of Jaime, Brienne, Bran and the BwB. Maaaaybe Theon, maybe some remaining Night's Watch survivors (ok, just Dolorous Edd). The Last Hero did it with 12 (?) people, so this should be enough.

[BlackLightning]

On 8/13/2018 at 12:20 PM, The Coconut God said:

@Jabar of House Titan Dany can become very frightening if Mellario Martell gets Norvos in a fight with her out of vengeance for Quentin's death and she ends up torching the city, tarnishing her image as a benevolent freedom fighter.

Aegon's immediate purpose is to resolve those plot threads on Westeros that would have required Dany's invasion to conclude. Also, a huge war in the south that takes place even as the Others and their growing wight hordes pour into the North and beyond, the two main leaders perhaps not believing the warnings even as they become dire, is thematically poignant and narratively necessary in order to make all of Westeros vulnerable to their threat. After the the war with Cersei, there are multiple possibilities with Aegon, including his death, but more likely he will be forced to abandon Westeros and slip into the Pentos narrative, or bring Myr, Lys and Tyrosh into the story by occupying one or more of them as bases of operations and safe havens for refugees from the Crownlands, Stormlands and Dorne.

Subsequent waves of refugees from the South and the Vale, associated with Aegon and Sansa, would also give weight to Euron as a sea-based villain, so they would certainly tie well into the story. We could see Howland Reed if he seeks refuge in the Vale; Sansa would be an interesting character to find out about Jon's heritage. if that is ever confirmed for the characters and not just left for the reader to know (it's not really narratively necessary for the characters).

The "stay behind and show us the Long Night" crew can be made up of Jaime, Brienne, Bran and the BwB. Maaaaybe Theon, maybe some remaining Night's Watch survivors (ok, just Dolorous Edd). The Last Hero did it with 12 (?) people, so this should be enough.

But that's something I can only see happening in Dream -- the final 25% of Dream at that.

Even then, why would Euron want to stop them from leaving Westeros? Euron doesn't do anything that won't personally benefit him in his goal of world domination. Why should he care if they leave Westeros? He wants to destroy it all and remake it anyways...there's no running from the Euron threat.

And there are still mysteries about the Children of Forest, the Others, the Tower of Joy and Starfall that need to be uncovered.

[The Coconut God]

1 hour ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

But that's something I can only see happening in Dream -- the final 25% of Dream at that.

Even then, why would Euron want to stop them from leaving Westeros? Euron doesn't do anything that won't personally benefit him in his goal of world domination. Why should he care if they leave Westeros? He wants to destroy it all and remake it anyways...there's no running from the Euron threat.

And there are still mysteries about the Children of Forest, the Others, the Tower of Joy and Starfall that need to be uncovered.

Does Euron want to hold Westeros, or just consume it as a crow would a corpse? I can't see him marching armies anywhere inland, such as Riverrun, Winterfell, the Eyrie, etc. It would gut much of his appeal. Some of the imagery in his chapters certainly hints at a dying Westeros:

Quote

Crow's Eye, you call me. Well, who has a keener eye than the crow? After every battle the crows come in their hundreds and their thousands to feast upon the fallen. A crow can espy death from afar. And I say that all of Westeros is dying. Those who follow me will feast until the end of their days.

Quote

“The bleeding star bespoke the end,” he said to Aeron. “These are the last days, when the world shall be broken and remade. A new god shall be born from the graves and charnel pits.”

If we look more deeply at the Forsaken chapter, Euron seems to want to become a God rather than a King. Less land grabbing (he'd just throw the lands away to his followers anyway) and more shock and awe gestures.

What reason would he have to attack refugee ships? For one, plunder - there would be valuables on those ships, food perhaps, should his crews need it, as well as a lot of women and children to take as thralls. A second possibility would be sacrifice. Westeros is supposed to die, and Euron is doing the work of the Great Other by preventing those marked for death from escaping, hoping to achieve some form of godhood himself by doing so.

Cersei would support him in this because she is unhinged and she would see people who try to abandon her kingdom as vile traitors, North Korea style. I can see them both losing King's Landing to Aegon and then "ruling" from Silence and spitefully attacking refugees once Westeros becomes overwhelmed by the Others. In comes Sansa trying to seduce Euron away from Cersei in a bid to ensure safe passage for the Vale ships; Euron is interested in her because of her warg Stark blood and initially plays along, fulfilling the "younger queen" prophecy and making Victarion the valonquar.

As for the mysteries, many of them don't "have to" be resolved (theorycrafting them would still be fun once the full series is out), and the ones that can be resolved don't really need a huge plot line to do that (after all, we learned a lot about the Children from only two measly Bran chapters). Stuff like Starfall or the God's Eye are really obscure, too... I don't see them becoming meaningful without further set-up, in spite of some of the more crackpot expectations, and setting them up would take more page space than a radical yet entirely feasible move towards Essos.

[tugela]

The problem is that he had too many characters going off on their merry way, and then had to expand on their individual story lines, which resulted in the books becoming exponentially more complicated as the story progressed. If he had kept the story more compact, or at least had the primary characters staying more or less in the same locations, the entire story would have been much more manageable.

At this point I don't see him being able to finish the story, not without killing off a large number of characters in short order, or at least getting them to converge. He needs to cut all of the other nonsense out and converge everything on Kings Landing and Winterfell. Do we really need to know all the nuances of Mereen or Iron Island or Dorne or Vale politics for example?

[Cas Stark]

One of the problems the author created with Feast and Dance and all the stories and povs is that he's now in damned if you do/damned if you don't territory.  If he wraps up these threads quickly, it makes it more obvious they were ill conceived/random/filler...and will also throw off the pacing of the series; if he keeps with even a slightly faster pace and tells a full story for all the secondary arcs, then he can never, ever, never finish the series in 7 books.  In my opinion, and another reason why Feast/Dance mark the point where a barely controlled narrative that continued to balloon went totally out of control.

[D-Shiznit]

The only way he can finish it in 7 books is if he focuses squarely on Dany, the Lannisters, the Starks, and the White Walkers. He needs to kill off the Tyrells and Stannis. And he needs to pretend Faegon, Victarion, and Arianne never even existed. Basically he needs to start adapting what the show did in Season 6 and 7. Otherwise, there is simply no way this story gets finished in 7 books, or 8, or maybe even 9, meaning it never gets done.

[VinAbqrq]

As many here concluded, it really seems that he never had a grip on the story. Since the beginning he had been writing larger books than he intended. And not having this grip did create an awesome story. Now, as many suggested, he needs to let go his gardening style if he wants to get somewhere. Gardening is a great metaphor for it, because a tree that is fed don't necessarily stops growing. Martin has a huge 500 years sequoia at this point, and it will keep growing unless he intends to stop feeding it.

So what I suggest is that he get a grip on the story by letting it go a little. What I really hope it happens is that after the TWOW publication (my heart is saying 2020), is that he releases a note that he will not work in ASOIAF for some time. Honestly, what it seems from his notes and interviews is that he is torturing himself with this saga and putting on hold a lot of other interesting things.

So I hope he dedicates the next years with parallel projects. Go supervise the GOT successor shows, write some scripts, return to his TV career. Go supervise Nightflyers, and help on the pilot of his other A Thousand World shows. Make sure that the Long Night prequel show comes out GREAT. And yes, keep writing, write the next Dunk and Egg and the second part of his Fire and Blood books since people seem to care that much about the Targaryens (I will never understand why). I hope he return participating in cons, comes to Brazil for once, travel to the filming of his show and make cameos as Stan Lee does. I want him to enjoy all of this, all he created.

And then, five years after or so, once he actually miss these characters and had a ton of ideas, and most important, has interest in telling these stories, then he can write it. Stop forcing it. It doesn't seem its doing him any good by locking himself in his office. If he had done it after the ADWD publication, we would have the same amounts of books and a much more satisfying TV Show.

 

Now, here comes the important part. For this to work, however, Winds have to have an appropriate ending. What makes this waiting so much worse is that EVERY plotline that appeared in Dance ended with a cliffhanger. Aside from Sam and Sansa, who didn't showed up since Feast, every other character is at a crucial turning point in the story. And waiting years for these conclusions is agonizing. This next book needs to end as it ended Storm of Swords. The shit hits the fan definitely, and we have our characters contemplating it. Kill a bunch of them too. Kill either Aegon or Cersei, make Euron kill his brothers, give an end to most of the Dorne plot, maybe even Barristan, give a great death for Theon once and for all, end with Stannis and Mel, choose either Brienne or Jaime and kill the other. End Stoneheart. Make this the Infinity War of the books. And end it in a bad note, but end it on a note. Give it an ending for the stories instead of the promise of an ending, as Dance did, and the wait for ADOS will be much more enjoyable.

[Quaithe from Asshai]

5 hours ago, VinAbqrq said:

...after the TWOW publication (my heart is saying 2020)...

Apparently its coming next year not 2020 

https://winteriscoming.net/2018/08/22/chinese-source-claims-winds-of-winter-could-be-released-in-2019/

[mushroomshirt]

7 hours ago, Quaithe from Asshai said:

Apparently its coming next year not 2020 

https://winteriscoming.net/2018/08/22/chinese-source-claims-winds-of-winter-could-be-released-in-2019/

Deja vu?

in 2015 it was coming out in 2016!  Same website even.

https://winteriscoming.net/2015/10/02/polish-translator-drops-hint-about-the-status-of-the-winds-of-winter/

I'll believe it when I read it on George's website.

 

[FreeParking]

11 hours ago, Quaithe from Asshai said:

Apparently its coming next year not 2020 

https://winteriscoming.net/2018/08/22/chinese-source-claims-winds-of-winter-could-be-released-in-2019/

Chinese translator followed up and said it was just their opinion, not anything based on some information.

 

 

[btfu806]

I think his biggest problem was killing Jon. I think he now can't finish the series in two books and I think this is one of the biggest reasons. If he has Jon come back even by the halfway point of the book, I think that's going to feel rushed and I think he knows it. The North of the Wall plot/the wall plot are going to be slowed down A LOT right now because of it. Getting into problems he had with the Meereenese knot. I know people will blame some of the "useless" chapters from AFFC/ADWD, I am holding out that they still have relevance to the future, we just don't know it yet... hopefully...

Also, he has his weird hybrid "gardener" approach and has stated he always knew the path certain characters would take (his main ones). So I think this approach, since apparently the minor characters get more of the gardening treatment, is part of the problem as well. The characters start being flushed out as really neat characters that leap off the pages, and he wants to explore it more and that leads into problems.

I honestly believe he is still writing and still putting effort into the series, I have no reason not to believe that. Maybe does he get more excited for other works and does them first, sure. But I still think he wants to finish ASOIAF. I just think he realizes it can't be done in two books and is figuring out how many books it will be and how to tell us all....

[YouKnowNothingJonSnow]

Feast/Dance is when it really started to come unwound. Regardless of it was ever well wound to begin with.

Jordan lost the Wheel of Time in book 7. Or started to. Things were really unwound by book 10. He got it back together in book 11 but then passed away. 

I think we may be looking at a similar deal here. GRRM has to finish Dance first (I mean, all those cliffhangers were BS). Then he has to get everything back on track from the current unwound, unsynched mess he is in now. 

I think step 1 should be admitting 2 books is not enough. Keep some meat on the bones. Do not cut stuff just to cut stuff. But FFS, finish the arcs within the book. I do not really care if Theon is left hanging, but not Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Sansa, & Arya.

GRRM either has to kill off some POVs or bring a lot of them together. As of now:

Mereen = 4. Dany, Tyrion, Barristan, Victarion (Aeron).

Braavos = 1. Arya.

------------------

The Wall = 2. Jon & Mel.

North of the Wall = 1. Bran

----------------

Winterfell = 2. Theon & Asha.

Riverlands = 2. Jaime & Brienne + Stoneheart.

Stormlands = 2. Jon Con & Arianne.

Kings Landing = 1. Cersei.

The Vale = 1. Sansa

The Citadell = 1. Sam.

Skagos = 1. Davos.

Dorne = 1. Areo Hotah.

 

 

 

[M.Alhazred]

He's gonna have to do some pruning and Martin clearly doesn't wanna do it.I think have to agree with those of you who say George isn't gonna finish this in 2 books if at all.What if? That's been the problem all along,he doesn't know how to tell the publisher's and us that he's gonna need at least 3 more tomes for an even half way decent climax.