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Do we think George passed 1500 manuscript pages?


Quaithe from Asshai

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It's too late for GRRM. I love him but...it's true. There's no way that the Second Dance of the Dragons and the Second Long Night are not happening at the same time. Unless he wants another book (which he says he doesn't but...), there is no time to have a war between Daenerys and Aegon (and maybe with Jon thrown in there) first and then become immersed in the war against the Others.

Also, this War of the Five Kings part 2? It's either going to continue to escalate and converge with the Second Dance or it will come to a conclusive end with Aegon's ascension to the Iron Throne.

I think that as far as that is concerned:

  • the North will finally secede--either King Aegon VI will allow it or he will be unable to stop it. This time the Riverlands and the North will be joined by the Vale.
  • Tommen and Myrcella will die. The Martells will align with Aegon and the Tyrells will ally with Daenerys as Loras is inconspicuously still on Dragonstone.
  • Cersei and Euron will keep fighting. First as individuals, then as husband and wife until Cersei kicks the bucket
  • Stannis is a coin toss: either he dies in Winds or he "aligns" with the Others to menace the realm in Dream 

So the War of the Five Six Four However-Many Kings, Part 2 becomes:

  • King Jon Stark as the military leader of the North, the Vale and the Riverlands. And he doesn't have to be king to do it: he could be Lord Commander, Prince/Lord Regent, Hand, Warden or whatever. If he's regent or Hand then either Rickon or Bran (once he shows back up) become the king in name only with Jon being the one calling the shots.
  • King Aegon Targaryen who will have control of the Crownlands, Dorne, the Stormlands, most of the Reach and maybe the part of the Riverlands that Lady Catelyn hadn't gotten around to
  • Queen Daenerys Targaryen and her hordes of sellswords, former slaves, Dothraki screamers, Unsullied and Ironborn and who might also have allies in the Tyrells
  • King Euron Greyjoy who will have the Iron Islands and the richer, more temperate parts of the Reach
  • Queen Cersei Lannister as the ruler of the Westerlands (with Jaime Lannister as a co-ruler or whatever if he makes it and decides to recover at Casterly Rock)

Plus the Others

I think it's very possible for one of the Boltons to escape death in The Winds of Winter and fall back on the Dreadfort to make things more difficult for the Northmen and thus spice up the story north of the Wall. They may take the title of king. Stannis Baratheon can survive as well but I only see him as a threat if he willfully aligns himself with the Others or is otherwise forced to join them.

On 12/4/2019 at 10:16 AM, Lord Varys said:

Such a development can only start when Dany interacts with both Moqorro and, especially Archmaester Marwyn. And the latter is not going to be an easy conversation.

Thank you for remembering this!

A lot of people seem to forget that Mirri Maz Duur worked closely with Marwyn and even used him as a proverbial reference in her job interview. Daenerys is going to remember that name. Especially since Jorah Mormont has also attached himself to that name.

 

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On 12/17/2020 at 9:38 PM, BlackLightning said:

Thank you for remembering this!

A lot of people seem to forget that Mirri Maz Duur worked closely with Marwyn and even used him as a proverbial reference in her job interview. Daenerys is going to remember that name. Especially since Jorah Mormont has also attached himself to that name.

If I am not mistaken marwyn is also traveling with aemon's corpse right? In adition there might be an influx of wildling slaves that might reach mereen and be another source of information about the others. If grrm wants he has planted seeds to change danny's path drastically. 

On the other hand grrm dropped the ball on the long night. The north is still completly unprepared to deal with the others and bran still isn t even ready to investigate the past and find things about the others, AA or lightbringer. 

In regards to the second dance, I think it can happen at the same time as the preparations for the long night. After all if the north rebels in preparation for the long night whoever wants to be king would see the north as an enemy... The only way to actually  have the story end in 7 books is to have jon and danny ally (probably marriage) as soon as she gets to westeros. This way we can have a Dance and preparations for the long night happening at the same time.  On the other hand aegon would be the one to deal with the lannisters before the second dance beguins and I have no idea what euron will end up doing...

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14 minutes ago, divica said:

If I am not mistaken marwyn is also traveling with aemon's corpse right?

I don't remember. I have to look that up.

15 minutes ago, divica said:

If grrm wants he has planted seeds to change danny's path drastically. 

On the other hand grrm dropped the ball on the long night. The north is still completly unprepared to deal with the others and bran still isn t even ready to investigate the past and find things about the others, AA or lightbringer. 

In regards to the second dance, I think it can happen at the same time as the preparations for the long night. After all if the north rebels in preparation for the long night whoever wants to be king would see the north as an enemy... The only way to actually  have the story end in 7 books is to have jon and danny ally (probably marriage) as soon as she gets to westeros. This way we can have a Dance and preparations for the long night happening at the same time.  On the other hand aegon would be the one to deal with the lannisters before the second dance beguins and I have no idea what euron will end up doing...

Well, I honestly think Bran is going to do all that investigating and calculating in A Dream of Spring. Well, I (partially) take that back. I think the Azor Ahai and Lightbringer stuff is going to happen in A Dream of Spring. I think Bran will start finding things out about the Others in The Winds of Winter.

But I agree. If you want 7 books, the Second Dance has to take place during the Long Night invasion. Either they are happening at the same exact time or the people in the south are more concerned with the Dance at first because they don't know/understand.

It's going to be very hard to believe that the Wall is broken or has literally fallen over. It's going to be even harder to believe that dead people aren't staying dead anymore and that the Northmen are at war with the Others.

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19 hours ago, divica said:

If I am not mistaken marwyn is also traveling with aemon's corpse right? In adition there might be an influx of wildling slaves that might reach mereen and be another source of information about the others. If grrm wants he has planted seeds to change danny's path drastically. 

He is. Also Marwyn is heading to the Cinnamon Winds while Sam is shown his sleeping cell and walked around - I don't think they will dump Gilly and the baby at some guest-house to wait for Sam who doesn't know where they are. So Gilly and Aemon Steelsong are going to Mereen too. And I'm also quite sure that Marwyn will persuade the captain to not sell the books in Oldtown, but take them with them to the Dragonqueen as well.

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  • 1 month later...
Quote

 

I wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages of THE WINDS OF WINTER in 2020.   The best year I’ve had on WOW since I began it.    Why?  I don’t know.   Maybe the isolation.   Or maybe I just got on a roll.   Sometimes I do get on a roll.

I need to keep rolling, though.   I still have hundreds of more pages to write to bring the novel to a satisfactory conclusion.

 

From GRRM's latest blog post: Reflections on a Bad Year

Any constructive estimates on how many MPs we now think he has completed for TWOW? 

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3 hours ago, The Winged Griffin said:

He has to be at least above the halfway mark, because hundreds and hundreds is more than just hundreds. So it means that he has written more than what he has left to write imo, hence why I personally believe that he's at least above 750 MP (or more if the book ends up being more than 1500 MP long).

 

3 hours ago, The Winged Griffin said:

Any constructive estimates on how many MPs we now think he has completed for TWOW? 

The vague number he gives means nothing when we consider that it has been ten years since the last book came out. He's returned to doing this for almost a year now; which makes me thing he didn't write anything from 2016-2020, when he didn't give any updates. We know virtually nothing about the progress of WINDS except for the 2013 interview where he said he was about a quarter of the way done. I just wish he'd be more clear about things and how far he is.

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From GRRM's Blog today

 

I wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages of THE WINDS OF WINTER in 2020.   The best year I’ve had on WOW since I began it.    Why?  I don’t know.   Maybe the isolation.   Or maybe I just got on a roll.   Sometimes I do get on a roll.

I need to keep rolling, though.   I still have hundreds of more pages to write to bring the novel to a satisfactory conclusion.

That’s what 2021 is for, I hope.

I will make no predictions on when I will finish.   Every time I do, assholes on the internet take that as a “promise,” and then wait eagerly to crucify me when I miss the deadline.   All I will say is that I am hopeful.

I have a zillion other things to do as well, though.   My plate is full to overflowing.   Every time I wrap up one thing, three more things land on me.   

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I was actually surprised by the hundreds of pages because I never expected him to write hundreds and hundreds of pages in one year, and also because I never thought he'd say that. The most subtantial thing we've had in recent years regarding progress update on TWOW is the general "made good progress" or, more recently, a number of chapters completed. But I never expected him to talk about how many pages he wrote, however vague he is. 

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George does occasionally have a writing spree where he completes a lot of stuff in a pretty short amount of time.

My guess - based on pretty much nothing concrete - would be that he should be around 1,000 manuscript pages so far. He already had a couple of hundred pages when he started, and he must have made some progress during the years.

But is is very difficult to guess since George could - and likely did - scrap hundreds of pages on the way because he wasn't happy with how things turned out - or that a lot of the writing he did last years were extensive rewrites of first or second drafts of chapters.

Just because he wrote hundreds of pages doesn't mean those constitute completed chapters.

But in general this looks pretty promising. Assuming he can keep up that pace TWoW could be finished this year, I guess.

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12 hours ago, Jekse said:

 

The vague number he gives means nothing when we consider that it has been ten years since the last book came out. He's returned to doing this for almost a year now; which makes me thing he didn't write anything from 2016-2020, when he didn't give any updates. 

I think it's highly unlikely there was ever a whole year, let alone five years, when he didn't write anything. Whether what he wrote got him any further towards completion is another question. But we've returned to this simple point countless times over the years: just because the book isn't finished, doesn't mean GRRM isn't working on it.

12 hours ago, Jekse said:

We know virtually nothing about the progress of WINDS except for the 2013 interview where he said he was about a quarter of the way done. I just wish he'd be more clear about things and how far he is.

I'm sure he wishes he was able to be. But if we've learned anything from the last two decades, it's that GRRM doesn't really always have a grasp of how far he is himself.

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15 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But is is very difficult to guess since George could - and likely did - scrap hundreds of pages on the way because he wasn't happy with how things turned out - or that a lot of the writing he did last years were extensive rewrites of first or second drafts of chapters.

Does any other author (other than maybe Robert Caro) in the world get indulged by his publisher like Martin does? How many times has the man just completely deleted hundreds (thousands?) of pages of work? He has missed so many deadlines it beggars belief.

Editing and rewriting are part of the process, but c'mon man. Martin takes fastidious writing to the absolute extreme.

His publishers need to stop indulging him and hold his feet to the fire.

Ol' George has fooled us before with these sorts of blog posts. I won't get my hopes up.

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2 hours ago, Lord of Blackhaven said:

His publishers need to stop indulging him and hold his feet to the fire.

Why is it that so many people seem to devoutly believe that some of the largest and most successful publishing firms in the world just have never thought of the possibility of putting pressure on authors when their manuscripts are overdue?

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22 minutes ago, mormont said:

Why is it that so many people seem to devoutly believe that some of the largest and most successful publishing firms in the world just have never thought of the possibility of putting pressure on authors when their manuscripts are overdue?

This is a unique situation.  His publishers have already lost millions in sales due to the fact he failed to get the book(s) out during the run of GOT.  And while I'm sure Winds will still be a bestseller, I can't believe that it wouldn't have been a stratospheric 'best of the decade' level bestseller if he had hit his deadline of Christmas season 2015.  So, possibly more than some strong words was in order here.  

 

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3 hours ago, Lord of Blackhaven said:

Does any other author (other than maybe Robert Caro) in the world get indulged by his publisher like Martin does? How many times has the man just completely deleted hundreds (thousands?) of pages of work? He has missed so many deadlines it beggars belief.

Editing and rewriting are part of the process, but c'mon man. Martin takes fastidious writing to the absolute extreme.

His publishers need to stop indulging him and hold his feet to the fire.

Ol' George has fooled us before with these sorts of blog posts. I won't get my hopes up.

You have no idea how the publishing industry works, do you? You either make a contract on the basis of a couple of chapters and an outline, and if you collect money at that time then you normally also get a deadline you should meet depending on the clauses of the contract. And George did that with the first volume of his series.

Now we are not exactly in a situation where George is dependent on money coming in from TWoW ... nor is it the case that his publishers have any interest in discontinuing the publication of ASoIaF. At least to our knowledge. And that's why they wait.

And if you had seen some drafts of George's or early versions of the chapters - which you can, if you search online - then you also know why constant rewriting is necessary. He isn't the kind of author who delivers great prose in a first or second draft.

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

This is a unique situation.  His publishers have already lost millions in sales due to the fact he failed to get the book(s) out during the run of GOT.  And while I'm sure Winds will still be a bestseller, I can't believe that it wouldn't have been a stratospheric 'best of the decade' level bestseller if he had hit his deadline of Christmas season 2015.  So, possibly more than some strong words was in order here. 

That is a silly argument. They did sell a lot of ASoIaF copies during the entire run of GoT. It greatly expanded the readership, meaning they had five ASoIaF core books - and a lot of other material - to sell to them. TWoW definitely is going to be another bestseller ... but not exactly the bestseller Random House is desperately needs. They would be glad if they got the book as soon as possible, of course, but it is not that they make no money selling George R. R. Martin.

And to be sure - the way GoT tanked chances are very high that TWoW will be a huge success when it is finished because everybody who watched the show - perhaps even a pretty big number of the people who never read the books - are going to want to know whether Martin's story is better or worse than the shit show.

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15 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

And to be sure - the way GoT tanked chances are very high that TWoW will be a huge success when it is finished because everybody who watched the show - perhaps even a pretty big number of the people who never read the books - are going to want to know whether Martin's story is better or worse than the shit show.

I feel the opposite, don't get me wrong, the book will still be a best seller and I'm sure the hardcore fans like us will love it, but I really think that ending destroyed the interest of the series for a lot of casuals. Among my friends, I'm the only one who ever read the books, while many others have an interest in them, however they're reluctant to get started because of GRRM's horrible pacing for this series; they constantly remind me that it's been nearly ten years since he published a novel, whenever I defend the guy. I have one friend who thinks he's just retired and has been strong arming his fans along all this time. 

My point is, most causal fans I know only talk about the series to mock the shows final few seasons these days and few speak of how awesome the books are. Maybe the people in your life are different though.

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6 minutes ago, sifth said:

I feel the opposite, don't get me wrong, the book will still be a best seller and I'm sure the hardcore fans like us will love it, but I really think that ending destroyed the interest of the series for a lot of casuals. Among my friends, I'm the only one who ever read the books, while many others have an interest in them, however they're reluctant to get started because of GRRM's horrible pacing for this series; they constantly remind me that it's been nearly ten years since he published a novel, whenever I defend the guy. I have one friend who thinks he's just retired and has been strong arming his fans along all this time. 

My point is, most causal fans I know only talk about the series to mock the shows final few seasons these days and few speak of how awesome the books are. Maybe the people in your life are different though.

Oh, you have to compare how many people read the books before the show, and how many they know them now. That is a huge difference. Of course, only a portion of the people who watched GoT picked up the books ... but those who did are rather likely to pick up TWoW, too.

And that's just a lot of people compared to how things were before GoT. I mean, I have it from the people who know that here in Germany the first printing of the new edition of ASoIaF I worked on from 2011 on sold more copies than the old edition did from the 1990s to 2010. This is a huge success, and that's just Germany.

TWoW is a safe bet, and the people who didn't read ASoIaF when GoT was still on air wouldn't have bought TWoW when it had come out then. After all, they didn't care about this material as a book series but as a TV show.

And to be sure, there are other shows coming now, starting with HoD, so TWoW will definitely profit from whatever buzz that's going to create.

But, mind you, I certainly also can see some people who didn't like the ending of the show moving on and no longer caring about the books. But then - if you enjoyed George's prose even a casual reader might pick up the book when he realizes a new one is out.

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2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

This is a unique situation.  His publishers have already lost millions in sales due to the fact he failed to get the book(s) out during the run of GOT.  And while I'm sure Winds will still be a bestseller, I can't believe that it wouldn't have been a stratospheric 'best of the decade' level bestseller if he had hit his deadline of Christmas season 2015.  So, possibly more than some strong words was in order here. 

Like what?

You cannot force a writer to write. You just can't. There's no economic pressure on GRRM any more, but his every public utterance for a decade has been that of a man acutely aware of the pressure from fans, and we can safely assume that there is pressure from his editors, his publishers, from everyone with an interest in seeing that book released - which is a lot of people - and that, yes, GRRM is aware of that pressure.

I get it, I really do. It's frustrating that the book isn't done. For all of us, that creates a mental tension. And an easy way to relieve that feeling is to escape into a belief that there is a simple solution. If only GRRM worked harder! If only his publishers put more pressure on him! If only he had a magic typewriter! It simply feels better to believe those things.

But the hard reality is that if there was an easy answer, we'd already be holding TWOW in our hands. Because as much as you or I want that book to be done, GRRM wants it done more than we do, and he is surrounded by people who want it done more than we do, and he and they know much more about how to get a book finished than you or I ever will.

And yet it's still not done. Because there is no easy answer. It's not a popular truth, but it is the truth.

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