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

[T and A]

3 hours ago, Talking Hodor said:

Well, the show definitely defied physics. Gendry, the message raven, and dragons are now officially faster than Santa Claus, which physicists have proven is faster than the speed of light.

You could say that, if you have never watched movies or television before. Or you could say, that they skipped and time jumped the traveling scenes, which is what is usually done in this medium. Except Gendry. That shit does not make any sense. Even if they skipped his way to the wall, Jon&Co. would have never survived on that lake for days without food and at those temperatures.

[Three-Fingered Pete]

On ‎9‎/‎11‎/‎2018 at 7:27 AM, T and A said:

... Except Gendry. That shit does not make any sense. Even if they skipped his way to the wall, Jon&Co. would have never survived on that lake for days without food and at those temperatures.

Days? They wouldn't have survived the night. The lake would have refrozen as soon as the sun went down and the wights would have swarmed.

[Firefae]

7 hours ago, Trefayne said:

Days? They wouldn't have survived the night. The lake would have refrozen as soon as the sun went down and the wights would have swarmed.

Or, y'know, die from hypothermia.

The show doesn't make sense, and it hasn't for a pretty long time now( ever since season 5, and tbh already a bit in season 4).

[SirArthur]

Somebody calculated the travel time for ravens from the Wall to Dragonstone and assumed 2 days in the end.

And that is before we discuss the situation if there is even a raven from Eastwatch to Dragonstone. The winter ravens were already send and there is nothing that suggests there is a need to route Eastwatch to Dragonstone. The route over Castle Black or Winterfell would prob. be enough. 

I guess the Titanic should have also just fast traveled from Queenstown to New York . duhh  

 

[D-Shiznit]

Update on TWoW:

Quote

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, in which Martin was asked about the status of his upcoming book, Martin said, "I'm working on [The Winds of Winter], and I wish I'd been done four years ago, but I'm slow and the book is very complex."

This to me confirms what I have feared, GRRM is sick of writing this series and wished he was done with it. I reiterate that after TWoW is eventually released, he walks away.

[Clegane'sPup]

57 minutes ago, D-Shiznit said:

Update on TWoW:

This to me confirms what I have feared, GRRM is sick of writing this series and wished he was done with it. I reiterate that after TWoW is eventually released, he walks away.

Okay, I hope people will take the time to reference the  @D-Shiznit post above with the Hollywood reporter link. Emmy awards. Sell the product. Tow the line. Feed the minions.

Martin sold his story, He didn't finish his story. Supposedly both the tales are gonna end the same  I don't much care now because HBO is gonna end the story. Thank the old and new gods.

Westeros will continue with some spin offs. Don't care. Not interested. HBO ends GOT and I have an ASOIAF screen adapted version ending. At least it is an ending.

 

[Three-Fingered Pete]

11 hours ago, D-Shiznit said:

Update on TWoW:

This to me confirms what I have feared, GRRM is sick of writing this series and wished he was done with it. I reiterate that after TWoW is eventually released, he walks away.

He may have just been doing the PR at the awards show thing, but in the ET interview linked here:

http://www.westeros.org/GoT/News/Entry/News_Roundup

George says he has another book to complete after TWoW. That doesn't sound like a "walking away" attitude to me. I'm more fearful of a Robert Jordan than him just "giving up".

[Cas Stark]

12 hours ago, D-Shiznit said:

Update on TWoW:

This to me confirms what I have feared, GRRM is sick of writing this series and wished he was done with it. I reiterate that after TWoW is eventually released, he walks away.

I'm not 100% any more that he will even get Winds finished.  I haven't heard anything enthusiastic from him for literally years when it comes to writing the book.  I still lean that some time after 2019 Winds will come out, maybe then, after the HBO/GOT spotlight is gone, he will get back to being a novelist, but I really doubt it.  He hasn't seemed the same since he had to toss 2 years of work when he abandoned the 5 year gap back in the early 2000s.  Now, he's more busy, he set himself an impossible task by adding in so many new stories and characters when he has, imo, less enthusiasm than he ever did.  To me, when you have an author mentioning other unfinished works that are 'still read' as he has done, it's a sign that he's already given up and made peace with himself that he won't finish.

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

Is Werthead going to show up and tell GRRM to stop blaming it on distractions. Because according to him distractions have nothing to do with GRRM's slow pace.

[T and A]

Where are the GRRM fanbois now? Distractions? What distractions?

[Greg B]

On 7/21/2018 at 6:54 PM, alienarea said:

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.

 

On 8/12/2018 at 1:42 PM, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

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

Bless you, children. The issues his "gardening" created in the first three books were plot holes, retcons, and an exploding plot. The pacing was solid -- masterful, even, given the vast scope and ambition. Exploding plots are awesome while they're exploding!

In the subsequent books, his gardening has caused him to completely lose the narrative spine of his saga. It's not that the pacing is poor, it's that there isn't any. The author is literally writing chapters of characters walking around, going nowhere from a narrative perspective (or creating new ones), simply to keep events that do need to happen for the story lined up temporally. It's, like, anti-pacing.

"Gardening" is great for character-driven stories, and characterization/social world-building are where Martin really excels. It's not great for many-thousand-page intricately plotted epics. The two approaches -- plotting and pantsing -- aren't equally sound given his vision and goals for aSoIaF. 

I've been saying for years that tWoW was dicey and that there was essentially no chance of aDoS. For years, I've said he should just move on. Even if we'd known nothing about his experience writing them, it was obvious from the last two books that he was grinding. It must be horrible, and he's fortunate enough that he doesn't need to do it. Life's too short, and he probably has many other wonderful stories to tell.

I'm not angry about it -- I just feel bad for the guy. It's tragic. He had a chance to create a genre masterwork, and it just got away from him. Fortunately, he's still wealthy and talented and has many opportunities, both creatively and in life as a whole. He shouldn't waste it trying to grind his way out of the thicket of weeds he's gardened himself into. Even if the edges are beautiful in the end, there's still going to be a nasty thicket in the middle of it all. Move on. 

[D-Shiznit]

I think the final straw that will break his will to write any further will be the show ending his story. Once it really hits him that the story of Dany, Jon, Tyrion etc has been told in full in one medium, I think it will cripple his will to write any further. You can already tell he hates writing this series, and would rather focus on world building and codexing its history. After an ending is out there, he's just might say "good enough" and drop the figurative pen.

[Rhodan]

On ‎9‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 4:41 AM, Clegane'sPup said:

Okay, I hope people will take the time to reference the  @D-Shiznit post above with the Hollywood reporter link. Emmy awards. Sell the product. Tow the line. Feed the minions.

Martin sold his story, He didn't finish his story. Supposedly both the tales are gonna end the same  I don't much care now because HBO is gonna end the story. Thank the old and new gods.

Westeros will continue with some spin offs. Don't care. Not interested. HBO ends GOT and I have an ASOIAF screen adapted version ending. At least it is an ending.

 

Of course it is going to make one sick if he/she wanted simply more of Martin´s prose...

[BlackLightning]

2 hours ago, Rhodan said:

Of course it is going to make one sick if he/she wanted simply more of Martin´s prose...

It's not just about wanting more of Martin's prose.

It's about wanting climaxes and resolutions for plots, characters, settings and themes that - in the TV show - have either been radically altered, quickly skimmed over or have been completely excluded.

[argonak]

3 hours ago, D-Shiznit said:

I think the final straw that will break his will to write any further will be the show ending his story. Once it really hits him that the story of Dany, Jon, Tyrion etc has been told in full in one medium, I think it will cripple his will to write any further. You can already tell he hates writing this series, and would rather focus on world building and codexing its history. After an ending is out there, he's just might say "good enough" and drop the figurative pen.

For a taste of optimism, it might actually be motivating for him not to have the show to compete with.  right now if he released WoW, everyone would would be comparing it to the television show, for better or worse.  This is a lose-lose situation for Martin.  Either it will make the show less popular because it doesn't match the book that just came out, or else it will make the book less popular because everyone is riding high off the visual splendor of the show and are annoyed because it doesn't line up right.

If I was GRRM, I'd have spent the last 8 years of the television show finishing the whole series without releasing the last two (or however many) books.  Tolkien didn't write The Two Towers after Fellowship was released, he wrote the whole damn thing and then his publisher split the book up into sections (wisely).  Tolkien viewed it as a single epic.  Now, LOTR isn't the same length as ASOIAF, but ASOIAF would have greatly benefited from that same treatment because of its incredible complexity.  GRRM has sometimes complained about writing himself into corners, and its because he can't change what he's already written.  Whereas if Tolkien felt like Sam and Frodo needed a little more time to get to Mordor in ROK, he could have modified TTT as he pleased, since none of it had been released yet.  

So, the tiny speck of optism left in me rests on the idea that GRRM has already essentially finished the next two books, he's just waiting for the show to finish, because he doesn't it them to compete with each other.  And from a publisher's point of view, the absolute best time to release WoW would be just a month or two after the Series Finale.  That would be when people are still riding high, but also starting to want more of ASOIAF.  

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, argonak said:

For a taste of optimism, it might actually be motivating for him not to have the show to compete with.  right now if he released WoW, everyone would would be comparing it to the television show, for better or worse.  This is a lose-lose situation for Martin.  Either it will make the show less popular because it doesn't match the book that just came out, or else it will make the book less popular because everyone is riding high off the visual splendor of the show and are annoyed because it doesn't line up right.

If I was GRRM, I'd have spent the last 8 years of the television show finishing the whole series without releasing the last two (or however many) books.  Tolkien didn't write The Two Towers after Fellowship was released, he wrote the whole damn thing and then his publisher split the book up into sections (wisely).  Tolkien viewed it as a single epic.  Now, LOTR isn't the same length as ASOIAF, but ASOIAF would have greatly benefited from that same treatment because of its incredible complexity.  GRRM has sometimes complained about writing himself into corners, and its because he can't change what he's already written.  Whereas if Tolkien felt like Sam and Frodo needed a little more time to get to Mordor in ROK, he could have modified TTT as he pleased, since none of it had been released yet.  

So, the tiny speck of optism left in me rests on the idea that GRRM has already essentially finished the next two books, he's just waiting for the show to finish, because he doesn't it them to compete with each other.  And from a publisher's point of view, the absolute best time to release WoW would be just a month or two after the Series Finale.  That would be when people are still riding high, but also starting to want more of ASOIAF.  

I understand people want to be optimistic, but all you have to do is read his blog and listen to what he says to see that he is not already finished, he bristles at questions about Winds, he's already made excuses for himself if he didn't finish, so I really really don't see that he has finished Winds, let alone both books.  But then I am extremely pessimistic about GRRM and I don't believe he has been writing in any meaningful way since he missed his self imposed deadline of Jan. 2016.  Plus, when has had had time to write two books given his travel schedule and activities?

The 'best time' to release Winds has already passed, it would have been before season 6, so that he would tell the story of Jon's resurrection, not the show.  

[BlackLightning]

13 minutes ago, argonak said:

For a taste of optimism, it might actually be motivating for him not to have the show to compete with.  right now if he released WoW, everyone would would be comparing it to the television show, for better or worse.  This is a lose-lose situation for Martin.  Either it will make the show less popular because it doesn't match the book that just came out, or else it will make the book less popular because everyone is riding high off the visual splendor of the show and are annoyed because it doesn't line up right.

If I was GRRM, I'd have spent the last 8 years of the television show finishing the whole series without releasing the last two (or however many) books.  Tolkien didn't write The Two Towers after Fellowship was released, he wrote the whole damn thing and then his publisher split the book up into sections (wisely).  Tolkien viewed it as a single epic.  Now, LOTR isn't the same length as ASOIAF, but ASOIAF would have greatly benefited from that same treatment because of its incredible complexity.  GRRM has sometimes complained about writing himself into corners, and its because he can't change what he's already written.  Whereas if Tolkien felt like Sam and Frodo needed a little more time to get to Mordor in ROK, he could have modified TTT as he pleased, since none of it had been released yet.  

So, the tiny speck of optism left in me rests on the idea that GRRM has already essentially finished the next two books, he's just waiting for the show to finish, because he doesn't it them to compete with each other.  And from a publisher's point of view, the absolute best time to release WoW would be just a month or two after the Series Finale.  That would be when people are still riding high, but also starting to want more of ASOIAF.  

All of this is true. And I like it. I really like optimism.

However, operating under this presumption, the "best" time for him to release Winds would have been sometime this year seeing as the TV show has been on a year-long hiatus. Granted, we are still in September so there is still a glimmer of hope for a Christmastime or New Years release.

Dream, true, could have come out after the series finale. But now, we have Winds coming out either around the same time as the series finale or a couple of months after. So, while Winds will benefit from the GoT fervor, Dream is the one that will struggle.

Because - based on what I've gathered about his writing speed and discipline (not too much admittedly) - he probably has not even begun outlining the plot Dream yet. So, that means that we're looking at another few years AFTER the TV show ends before we are getting Dream...which, let's be honest, might start out as a flop because people will not be as interested.

[Rhodan]

13 hours ago, Jabar of House Titan said:

It's not just about wanting more of Martin's prose.

It's about wanting climaxes and resolutions for plots, characters, settings and themes that - in the TV show - have either been radically altered, quickly skimmed over or have been completely excluded.

And that...

[Lady Anna]

I myself have little faith that we will ever see the end of these books and for that reason I've made my peace, if you will. And I have no hard feelings towards Martin or towards these series. I honestly haven't cared about the rest of it for many years. I love it, yes, and I will still read it again, and enjoy it while doing so, but for the past 4/5 years I've been slowly letting it go. And what else is there to do?

If I'm wrong and we get to read the books then great! But if we don't I won't care and I just hope that people don't gang up on Martin because of it. He owns nothing to us and he's entitled not to finish this if he doesn't want to. Watch the show, read something else, read fanfic, make your own ending. I know it's frustrating but it hasn't been months or a year since Dance come out, you know what I mean? A part of me remains optimistic (of course! I love this series, so how could I not be?) but. Shit happens.

[divica]

On ‎9‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 5:17 PM, Cas Stark said:

I understand people want to be optimistic, but all you have to do is read his blog and listen to what he says to see that he is not already finished, he bristles at questions about Winds, he's already made excuses for himself if he didn't finish, so I really really don't see that he has finished Winds, let alone both books.  But then I am extremely pessimistic about GRRM and I don't believe he has been writing in any meaningful way since he missed his self imposed deadline of Jan. 2016.  Plus, when has had had time to write two books given his travel schedule and activities?

The 'best time' to release Winds has already passed, it would have been before season 6, so that he would tell the story of Jon's resurrection, not the show.  

I was of the same opinion until I thought of something.

We actually know that the book plot will be very diferent from the tv show because grrm said that there will be another dance with dragons.

Assuming that D&D told grrm that they didn t want to do it and that their season 6 will be very diferent from his book how should the book publishers and tv producers react?

Would it be good to have winds released and make it clear that the show and books are very diferent or would the tv producers and book publisher get to an agreement to delay the book until it doesn t hurt the show?