Do we think George passed 1500 manuscript pages?

[Lord Varys]

4 minutes ago, Ran said:

I can't recall anything about discussion back then, but I suspect the chapter in question is indeed Drogon in the pit. That chapter in the form that I have it in the pre-AFfC split partial manuscript, did not contain anything to do with an assassination attempt on Dany, her being married, or Dany riding off on Drogon. 

Would the version of the chapter you have there be more or less the way it is described here? There are quite a few deviations from the later setting there, for instance, the Sons of the Harpy are known as 'the Sons of Ghis' in that version.

As I said, the reading this is based on would have ended with Barsena being devoured by Drogon. But since George says in your interview there he has rewritten that chapter so often that it had many different endings, meaning the decision to have her fly out of Meereen may have been a later change.

With Dany's story one can more easily assume that George always continued the story at the point he tried to start it after the gap, with things that would have happened during the gap being rearranged and combined with the story as it continued since Dany was a completely separate plot thread at the time. There would have been little chronological problems there before any other characters showed up unlike, say, with Arya, were the Mercy chapter didn't make it into either AFfC nor ADwD.

And to be true, to our knowledge we don't know how the Dany and Aegon plots worked in the gap scenario and how things went there with Tyrion and all the other people going to Dany.

 

[The Map Guy]

9 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

As I said, the reading this is based on would have ended with Barsena being devoured by Drogon. But since George says in your interview there he has rewritten that chapter so often that it had many different endings, meaning the decision to have her fly out of Meereen may have been a later change.

Agreed

I don't think the original point of Drogon being in the fighting pits was to fly Daenerys out of Meereen.
I think the point was to have Drogon fly off with Daenerys in general.
That was why GRRM didn't mind doing it in the first chapter or second or third ... but he realized it would be more epic if she flew off Drogon for the first time AND didn't return back to Meereen's ground shortly afterwards.
GRRM probably thought it would be better off if Dany and her dragon were heading into a Twilight-Zone-type of adventure in the Dothraki Sea. (IIRC the view of the grass had taken Daenerys' breath away!)
I just think the fighting pit scene is to foreshadow an ADOS event where she & Drogon are spreading out their wings to fly off from the Dragon Pit in King's Landing.

I even think this is one of the things GRRM told D&D ... "Daenerys and Drogon must have an epic wing-spreading moment in the Dragon Pit! Her entire book-character-arc is built up for this epic moment!"
D&D failures:
https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_1%2C$multiply_0.8715%2C$ratio_1.777778%2C$width_918%2C$x_41%2C$y_0/t_crop_custom/q_86%2Cf_auto/55183f0fb26b2518d18005d594e2c2c8c7d665f5
https://giphy.com/gifs/vulture-game-of-thrones-daenerys-dany-dragon-wings-mA7FB3kQ7JEnJEqvc1

Anyways Daenerys IX ADWD was an awesome chapter.
Barsena Blackhair was a nod to blackhaired Robert Baratheon, both killed by a boar. I like how Drogon kills the boar .... perhaps future symbolism.
And during the whole incident, the Meereenese were "howling" and Drogon was roaring!
There was also the f/dragonslayer that failed to kill a dragon.
Perhaps the next dragonslayer must jump off some higher deck, and put ALL their weight shoving the spear to overdrive into the dragon's hide!

[Quaithe from Asshai]

With the new NAB post. I guess the book will be closer to 3,000 than 1,500 (maybe 2,500). So, how many pages do we think are done and how many are left?

Quote

 It’s going to be a huge book, and I still have a long way to go.

My guess 500 are left. 500 is a long way to go. But sorta jells with his statement from 2018:

Quote

Some of my publishers have suggested breaking up WINDS as we did with FEAST and DANCE. I am resisting that notion.

If he had over 1,000 pages (maybe 1,500 pages, but incomplete arcs), and he have managed to add over 500 since, then my guess he finished over 1,500 (maybe 2,000) and 500 or so pages left to go.

[Lord Varys]

10 hours ago, Quaithe from Asshai said:

With the new NAB post. I guess the book will be closer to 3,000 than 1,500 (maybe 2,500). So, how many pages do we think are done and how many are left?

Guys, he might exceed 1,500 a bit to prevent the weird ending of ADwD (battles pushed to the next novel) but that would only be the case if there similarly big climaxes at the end of TWoW (which don't really look that likely, most battles which we can expect should take place early in the book, not at the end).

There is no chance he writes two books without publishing the first half of it if that's a book in its own right. That would be insane.

10 hours ago, Quaithe from Asshai said:

My guess 500 are left. 500 is a long way to go. But sorta jells with his statement from 2018:

If he had over 1,000 pages (maybe 1,500 pages, but incomplete arcs), and he have managed to add over 500 since, then my guess he finished over 1,500 (maybe 2,000) and 500 or so pages left to go.

This statement makes it clear what was going on - that there are enough chapters for a AFfC/ADwD-like split, i.e. some POVs have enough chapters for an entire 1,500 book, others don't. That is what triggered the AFfC/ADwD split. If he had 1,500 completed pages the book would be published - if there were enough from every POV to warrant that.

[Mithras]

Split was a far worse decision that abandoning the 5 year gap. It almost irreparably doomed the series. In hindsight, GRRM should have spent 10 years or more after ASoS while trying to fit the entire AFfC/ADwD into a single volume. He did not do that back then but he is doing it now whether he likes it or not.

[Frey family reunion]

Did anyone read the latest New York Times article on GRRM?  I think it came out a couple of days ago.  I can’t read it because they want me to sign on via google or facebook or some other such nonsense which I refuse to do.

[Caligula_K3]

18 minutes ago, Frey family reunion said:

Did anyone read the latest New York Times article on GRRM?  I think it came out a couple of days ago.  I can’t read it because they want me to sign on via google or facebook or some other such nonsense which I refuse to do.

I just read it. It doesn't say anything you don't get out of the blog post and reading the reddit reaction to the news; basically, the book still isn't coming out soon, fans are getting tired of the wait, etc....

Also, on the topic of the blog post, since the other thread discussing it is locked: the only reaction I had to it was to laugh. I'm well into the acceptance stage of grief by now. Nine years since ADWD, almost fifteen years since I last read a new Sam or Sansa chapter, and still we're always a year away from the next book. What else can you do but laugh?

[QhorinQuarterhand]

1 hour ago, Mithras said:

Split was a far worse decision that abandoning the 5 year gap. It almost irreparably doomed the series. In hindsight, GRRM should have spent 10 years or more after ASoS while trying to fit the entire AFfC/ADwD into a single volume. He did not do that back then but he is doing it now whether he likes it or not.

He should have done what he did the first three times. Cut it off at a spot and publish, then just continue the story into the next book. 

Didn't he do the split and publish AFFC because he was pressured to by his publishers? It would have been better if GRRM resisted long enough to cobble together even 750 MS pages that didn't split the characters.

Edit: I agree abandoning the 5 year gap wasn't nearly as bad as the split. The biggest problem with abandoning the 5 year gap is it has been 20 years in real time since the story has flowed normally like it did AGOT-ASOS. Plot progression has ground to a halt for some characters. Arya has 5 chapters in the last 20 years. Only 2 in the last 15 years. Sansa has 3 in 20 years and ZERO in 15 years. Bran has 3 chapters in 20 years. 

[Kyll.Ing.]

3 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

Did anyone read the latest New York Times article on GRRM?  I think it came out a couple of days ago.  I can’t read it because they want me to sign on via google or facebook or some other such nonsense which I refuse to do.

As a rule of thumb, if there had been any substantial news about the writing process of TWoW there, you wouldn't have to look behind a paywall to find it.

[BalerionTheCat]

5 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

There is no chance he writes two books without publishing the first half of it if that's a book in its own right. That would be insane.

And if he writes one half. Publish it. Then starts the second half and discover he need more than one half to get where he intended. Then another half, and then... Why not decide to release TWoW only when the story reaches a given point? For example Dany in route for Westeros, the Others coming south, and so on. So that he is confident (as much as we can hope) he could finish the story in one book. At this point I believe a little planning ahead would be welcome. If he wants to reach his destination. And so be it if TWoW is the size of 1.5 or 1.9 books. His editor should think of the future sales if the story is never finished.

46 minutes ago, Kyll.Ing. said:

As a rule of thumb, if there had been any substantial news about the writing process of TWoW there, you wouldn't have to look behind a paywall to find it.

Sure. Anyway, he didn't gave interviews. No one has more than what is in his post, except their own speculations.

[Lord Varys]

1 hour ago, BalerionTheCat said:

And if he writes one half. Publish it. Then starts the second half and discover he need more than one half to get where he intended. Then another half, and then... Why not decide to release TWoW only when the story reaches a given point? For example Dany in route for Westeros, the Others coming south, and so on. So that he is confident (as much as we can hope) he could finish the story in one book. At this point I believe a little planning ahead would be welcome. If he wants to reach his destination. And so be it if TWoW is the size of 1.5 or 1.9 books. His editor should think of the future sales if the story is never finished.

You mean like he only published everything in one volume with the story that was supposed to be AGoT - which was everything until the death of Tywin and Lysa?

That isn't happening. It is insane to assume that a book in a series which is now down to a book per decade would be postponed for conceptual reasons.

It is going to be published as soon as they have a full book worth of material - like it was with ADwD.

He may have written ahead for some POVs - which should help write the next book faster (or not, since he already wrote ahead for TWoW when chapters from ADwD were moved into that book yet that didn't help finish that one faster).

[Quaithe from Asshai]

4 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

You mean like he only published everything in one volume with the story that was supposed to be AGoT - which was everything until the death of Tywin and Lysa?

That isn't happening. It is insane to assume that a book in a series which is now down to a book per decade would be postponed for conceptual reasons.

It is going to be published as soon as they have a full book worth of material - like it was with ADwD.

He may have written ahead for some POVs - which should help write the next book faster (or not, since he already wrote ahead for TWoW when chapters from ADwD were moved into that book yet that didn't help finish that one faster).

I hope you are wrong. I hope we get completed arcs rather than a number of pages they can print.

[sifth]

14 minutes ago, Quaithe from Asshai said:

I hope you are wrong. I hope we get completed arcs rather than a number of pages they can print.

Yea, that's the sad truth with AFFC and ADWD, most of the characters don't seem to have complete story arcs. We just get a few days in their lives and that's it.

[Lord Varys]

22 minutes ago, Quaithe from Asshai said:

I hope you are wrong. I hope we get completed arcs rather than a number of pages they can print.

We never got complete arcs in those books since ASoIaF is actually one big novel rather than a series of novels that can, sort of, stand on their own. ACoK isn't, say, 'The Prisoner of Azkaban' or another book in a series you can read without knowing the earlier books.

For some characters some books sort of have an arc, but others don't. What kind of arc had Catelyn and Dany in ACoK? Or Tyrion in AGoT? What kind of arc has Bran throughout the first three book. None, I'd say. And neither does Arya until AFfC and Sansa until ASoS.

We do know that AGoT was basically the first that was cut in half since George just had already written lots of ACoK chapters (Cressen was originally supposed to be a full POV but he killed him, causing him to use Davos as POV for Stannis) when the decision was made to not include all the written chapters in the first novel.

Of course there has to be some plot and sufficient chapters from all the POV to warrant publication, but those books were never written so the author does everything in his power to get to a certain point in a certain book. If he had done that, the books would look a lot different.

Thus we can conclude there might be, say, 2,000 or more pages of finished POV chapters, but that doesn't mean that the 1,500 finished pages making up TWoW are already finished - because then we would have a publication date. And, of course, chapters moved to ADoS will only be truly finished when George finally wraps up that book. If later chapters of ADoS cause a rewrite of those chapters they will be rewritten, etc.

Also, keep in mind, that George would not intentionally try to write ahead a certain POV's story if he had already finished his/her chapters for TWoW at the expense of the chapters he still has to finish to be able to publish TWoW. After all, he doesn't want to delay TWoW unduly. He might still write ahead with other POVs if he has trouble with those missing chapters he still has to write/finish, of course, but that would then be a problem of the writing process, not something he is aiming at intentionally.

51 minutes ago, sifth said:

Yea, that's the sad truth with AFFC and ADWD, most of the characters don't seem to have complete story arcs. We just get a few days in their lives and that's it.

That isn't a characteristic of just those books, but the entire series. And the most superficial is it in AGoT when George really races through the story without much subtlety or complexity, something he thankfully doesn't do in the later volumes.

[BalerionTheCat]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

You mean like he only published everything in one volume with the story that was supposed to be AGoT - which was everything until the death of Tywin and Lysa?

The 1st 3 books came in a relatively quick succession. And it seems he knew exactly where to go and how to write it. So it would have been: waiting 3 years and publish together the 3 books as we know them. Or one book, a big one, but less than the 3 together. Maybe 2 parts. A more compact story than we know. But it would not make sense, because there was no problem to start with.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

That isn't happening. It is insane to assume that a book in a series which is now down to a book per decade would be postponed for conceptual reasons.

It is going to be published as soon as they have a full book worth of material - like it was with ADwD.

The problem is after. He spent years writing the next 2 books. And it seems the story has not really progressed. We're still in the aftermath of ASoS. I like these 2 books as much as the previous. There is plenty to tell and I would not complain. Except he is now running out of time. Rather than spending years fixing and rewriting chapters that were maybe not necessary or better done differently, it seems his time may have been better used drafting... and possibly discarding chapter as soon as he discovers they're not fitting with the rest of the story. Maybe he could have come to less writing in total and it would be finished now.

[Lord Varys]

3 minutes ago, BalerionTheCat said:

The 1st 3 books came in a relatively quick succession. And it seems he knew exactly where to go and how to write it. So it would have been: waiting 3 years and publish together the 3 books as we know them. Or one book, a big one, but less than the 3 together. Maybe 2 parts. A more compact story than we know. But it would not make sense, because there was no problem to start with.

They came out pretty quickly after one another, but George started writing them in 1993, and ASoS only came out in 2000. Faster than later, of course, but not all that fast. And it is much easier to start a story than to finish it.

3 minutes ago, BalerionTheCat said:

The problem is after. He spent years writing the next 2 books. And it seems the story has not really progressed. We're still in the aftermath of ASoS. I like these 2 books as much as the previous. There is plenty to tell and I would not complain. Except he is now running out of time. Rather than spending years fixing and rewriting chapters that were maybe not necessary or better done differently, it seems his time may have been better used drafting... and possibly discarding chapter as soon as he discovers they're not fitting with the rest of the story. Maybe he could have come to less writing in total and it would be finished now.

Oh, we no longer are in the aftermath of ASoS. That ended with the second half of ADwD. Now we have many new stories and some of them will deliver in TWoW, certain things might even be wrapped up for good (the Yunkai'i and the Boltons/Freys might no longer be a thing by the end of TWoW).

But George's writing style was never to stick to a plan. He writes one chapter at a time, and he doesn't have detailed outlines and stuff which he has to write out - ASoIaF doesn't exist as a historical piece written by Gyldayn in some drawer of George's.

George has always been a slow writer, and he needs to rewrite his stuff repeatedly to actually produce good prose. He isn't the kind of writer whose prose and plots and dialogues look good in a first or second draft. That is even the case with his short stories - the best of them, pieces like 'The Skin Trade', he needed a lot of time for.

The thing that best illustrates this is the lousy Dany story you can read in the original outline. That was just horribly simplistic and actually quite bad. It only got meat and depth when he thought about during the writing process. We don't know how much rewriting was necessary there, but it is possible that he needed 2-3 drafts to get to AGoT quality there.

Bottom line is - I don't think (m)any people would like to read a rushed book by George R. R. Martin.

[BalerionTheCat]

20 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

They came out pretty quickly after one another, but George started writing them in 1993, and ASoS only came out in 2000.

So it seems he used a lot of time improving, polishing, his ideas before publishing the 1st 3. He didn't need a lot of time writing and rewriting ACoK and ASoS if he wrote them one after the other. But yes, the story was easier to write then.

22 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Oh, we no longer are in the aftermath of ASoS. That ended with the second half of ADwD.

So AFfC and ADwD were the aftermath. Jon's death, Bran meeting BR are new things. Of course TWoW should see big changes.

27 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But George's writing style was never to stick to a plan.

Yes I know.

27 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

Bottom line is - I don't think (m)any people would like to read a rushed book by George R. R. Martin.

My intent was not to ask for rushing, for changing his process of writing. But to work more efficiently. I believe by writing more before publishing. Yes, he is a gardener, not an architect. The ideas coming with writing. What I hope he is doing with TWoW by writing until he reaches a point in the story rather than a number of pages.

[Lord Varys]

3 minutes ago, BalerionTheCat said:

My intent was not to ask for rushing, for changing his process of writing. But to work more efficiently. I believe by writing more before publishing. Yes, he is a gardener, not an architect. The ideas coming with writing. What I hope he is doing with TWoW by writing until he reaches a point in the story rather than a number of pages.

Were you around for the wait of ADwD? Do you think he reached any point of the story he should have reached in a book named 'A Dance with Dragons'? Which originally was supposed to be about Daenerys Targaryen's invasion of Westeros?

[sifth]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

That isn't a characteristic of just those books, but the entire series. And the most superficial is it in AGoT when George really races through the story without much subtlety or complexity, something he thankfully doesn't do in the later volumes.

I don't agree with that at all, in fact I'd say nearly every character in the first book has a story arc. Jon Snow has one, in regrades to learning to accept his new place in life as a brother of the Nights Watch. Dany has one in regards to gaining the confidence to stand up for herself and be a strong leader. Ned has a tragic arc, which is him failing as Hand of the King, that basically leads to his ruin. Sansa has a story arc, which is coming to accept the real world, outside of stories and songs. I could go on, but it's honestly been a few years since I last read the book, so my memory isn't so great.

My point is, many of GRRM's newer characters don't have story arcs and are just in a certain place, because the plot needs them to be. Take Areo Hotah for example, the guy is basically just a walking camera and only exists to remind us that stuff is going on in Dorne. Same with Aeron Grejoy; the guy only exists to tell us what's happening in the Iron Island and what Euron is up to. Jon Con is pretty much the same as well, a character who's only purpose is to tell us what team Faegon is up to. These are not character driven POV's, these are plot driven ones and you can very easily see the difference in the quality in which they are written.

[Lord Varys]

5 minutes ago, sifth said:

I don't agree with that at all, in fact I'd say nearly every character in the first book has a story arc. Jon Snow has one, in regrades to learning to accept his new place in life as a brother of the Nights Watch. Dany has one in regards to gaining the confidence to stand up for herself and be a strong leader. Ned has a tragic arc, which is him failing as Hand of the King, that basically leads to his ruin. Sansa has a story arc, which is coming to accept the real world, outside of stories and songs. I could go on, but it's honestly been a few years since I last read the book, so my memory isn't so great.

I meant that the style in AGoT is the most superficial because it is the least detailed. We don't get Cat interacting with her daughters, we don't get Ned's last conversation with Jon, we have no idea how Robert feels about his brothers, etc. This is something we definitely would have gotten if AGoT had been written the way AFfC/ADwD or even ASoS were. And that would have made that a much better book.

Jon and Dany definitely have arcs there ... but Tyrion not so much. He stumbles through the stories of other people until his daddy decides he should be Acting Hand. Cat has a similar story, Bran has effectively no story at all in AGoT, being just the camera eye for Robb. Arya has no story of her own, either. And keep in mind that many crucial chapters of the children in the early books are just/mainly showing other plot elements, most notably the chapter where Arya overhears Varys and Illyrio's conversation. And that continues with ACoK for Bran and Arya. Sansa's learns a valuable lesson in AGoT, but I'd not call that an arc, either, nor do I see an arc for her in ACoK and ASoS unless 'continued abuse' is an arc. There are bits and pieces there where she shines, during the Blackwater, for instance, but she doesn't have an arc as such. Her story isn't her own - none of the Stark children have stories of their own until they start their apprenticeship in ASoS/AFfC/ADwD. Sansa with Littlefinger, Arya with the Faceless Men, and Bran with Bloodraven.

Ned fails as Hand, but I'd not consider that an arc, also because we lack crucial details about Ned's past, the history of the war, his siblings, etc.

5 minutes ago, sifth said:

My point is, many of GRRM's newer characters don't have story arcs and are just in a certain place, because the plot needs them to be. Take Areo Hotah for example, the guy is basically just a walking camera and only exists to remind us that stuff is going on in Dorne. Same with Aeron Grejoy; the guy only exists to tell us what's happening in the Iron Island and what Euron is up to. Jon Con is pretty much the same as well, a character who's only purpose is to tell us what team Faegon is up to. These are not character driven POV's, these are plot driven ones and you can very easily see the difference in the quality in which they are written.

That we already have with Davos back in ACoK and even Catelyn and Bran in AGoT (who are basically cameras for Robb).

The difference with the later characters is that they have fewer chapters so far, meaning their own stories are not yet as prominent as those of the other characters. But with Davos you see that - he is not a very deep character in ACoK, but he definitely was a character I like when we meet him on the rock in ASoS.

Areo Hotah doesn't have much depth yet - but we only have two chapters from his POV so far, unless I'm mistaken - but I actually find him a pretty interesting character, our only non-Westerosi POV, a stranger in this land, who might play a pretty big role in TWoW (George has mentioned to have written Areo chapters two times already, quite recently, and then years ago).

Aeron Greyjoy is also a pretty interesting character in his own right - a foil for Mel and Thoros and the High Septon as another pious guy with a conversion story, an abuse survivor, and actually one of my favorite POVs since 'The Foresaken' - I very much hope he is going to survive.

Jon Connington and Barristan Selmy, etc. still have to grow on us, too. But the greyscale thing alone makes him an interesting character - regardless what happens at Aegon's court in general, how Jon is going to deal with his sickness and approaching death is going to be a very interesting thing to read.

In conclusion I'd say that things shift around - at times POVs have their own important and crucial stories, but at other times they are just cameras for others. Tyrion is a great character when he is in charge in ACoK ... but not so much in ASoS when he constantly whines.

One could even ask whether this is a core flaw of the conception of the series - to go with fixed POVs rather than using whatever character is necessary to drive the plot forward or tell the best story. At times George really makes things hard for himself with the limited POVs.