Abandoned Storylines?

[King Adrian Storm]

Has Grrm ever mentioned storylines that he was planning on including in the books, but ended up abandoning? I know his idea of the story has changed from the outline he gave to his publishers in the 90s. My question is are there any instances where George was thinking about taking a characters story in a different direction, like cutting out Dany's trip to Asshai? 

When I try to come up with theories, I always think there are 5 different ways a certain storyline could go, and all of them would work. So it's hard to believe he hasn't cut major storylines before. Especially with TWOW taking so long, he probably wrote it once, and then cut a lot of the storylines, and rewrote them.

[Jeeves]

Most of what was in that letter from GM to his publishers and editors will come to fruition in some form.  For example, in the original plan, young Daenerys was supposed to find the dragon eggs.  Instead, she received them as a wedding present.  So she still hatches the dragon eggs even though they came to her possession in a different way.  Another plan was to have Catelyn and her children take refuge at the Wall and it causes a problem with Jon.  They go north in Wildling country.  Catelyn dies in the Riverlands but Bran, Arya, and Rickon have gone on to live among the savages and murderers in order to survive.  Jon breaks his vows in an attempt to help fake Arya.  So the plot goes about in a different way but the results are the same.  Sansa was to betray the Starks to be with Joff.  Well, she did. 

[James Steller]

Frankly, I think I prefer the way it is rather than have Tyrion in a love triangle with Arya and Jon. Or Jaime murdering his way to the Iron Throne, because I don’t know how in all seven hells how he could ever do that, even if he did get away with murder.

[rotting sea cow]

I mean, you cannot say that the ur-letter are abandoned plotlines. It was the original idea with some wide plot strokes. When AGOT was published a lot of it was already wiped out clean.

What was abandoned? Probably a lot that was planed for the five year gap. We know for example that GRRM wrote a chapter with Tyrion meeting the Shrouded Lord.  It's probably that GRRM wanted Dany to go to Asshai and never came around it. Similarly, it's possible that few things have been abandoned during the writing of TWOW, although I don't expect anything so critical as during the five year gap.

 

[King Adrian Storm]

2 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

I mean, you cannot say that the ur-letter are abandoned plotlines. It was the original idea with some wide plot strokes. When AGOT was published a lot of it was already wiped out clean.

What was abandoned? Probably a lot that was planed for the five year gap. We know for example that GRRM wrote a chapter with Tyrion meeting the Shrouded Lord.  It's probably that GRRM wanted Dany to go to Asshai and never came around it. Similarly, it's possible that few things have been abandoned during the writing of TWOW, although I don't expect anything so critical as during the five year gap.

 

I did not mean to call the original outline "abandoned". I just wanted to mention I already knew about it, because most people would have brought that up if I didn't. I just want "fun facts" basically about chapters or plot lines that Grrm left out. Like the Tyrion meeting the the Shrouded Lord one. Thank you. I didn't know about that.

[King Adrian Storm]

I'm actually planning on doing a post on how the original outline relates to the story, and if there's anything else we can predict from it.

[Rose of Red Lake]

I think the backbone of the whole story is there by naming three threats to Westeros, listed by increasing seriousness: (infighting between the Great Houses, Daenerys, the Others). I also think having Starkcest in there is an interesting choice because it makes the Starks just as morally ambiguous as the other Houses. I kinda wish he'd keep that, but I have my doubts.  I think he has just trying to write it so that Jon has a tough choice ahead of him regarding duty, family, love.