Given how big TWOW will be should it be released in two volumes?

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

21 hours ago, Ibbison from Ibben said:

In April 2018, GRRM mentioned in the comments section of NaB that he was getting pressure from his publishers to split Winds into two volumes, which he was resisting. That would indicate he was approaching, or had already surpassed, 1500 MS pages.

According to @Werthead, this pressure came from foreign publishers, who don't actually know how much GRRM has written. That's how I understood it, at least. 

Edited March 13, 2022 by Takiedevushkikakzvezdy

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

According to @Werthead, this pressure came from foreign publishers, who don't actually know how much GRRM has written. That's how I understood it, at least. 

I don't think that was ever confirmed, but I believe some people who were unaware of GRRM's nonlinear writing process (writing Chapters 3, 7, 9 and 42 before 1, 2 and 4 or variations on that) were pushing for that solution assuming it would get the book out faster when that was not the case.

[Cas Stark]

At this point, does it even matter how much he has written?  How could it?  If the thought he was 5 months away from finishing back in whatever year it was, it means either he was wildly unrealistic in how fast he could write the rest, or that he has written and discarded hundreds of pages since then.  Even if he gave a page count now, it would be meaningless, IMO. 

Edited March 13, 2022 by Cas Stark

[Lord Varys]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

At this point, does it even matter how much he has written?  How could it?  If the thought he was 5 months away from finishing back in whatever year it was, it means either he was wildly unrealistic in how fast he could write the rest, or that he has written and discarded hundreds of pages since then.  Even if he gave a page count now, it would be meaningless, IMO. 

Not really. If he said something along the lines of 'I've 1,000+ finished manuscript pages' then the book would be pretty close to completion unless something came up that would cause him rewrite some of the finished chapters.

1,500 manuscript are the margin for a book of about 1,000 manuscript pages but if push came to shove they certainly could also publish a TWoW which had only 700-900 published pages. That would still be a pretty big book.

At this point, though, we have literally no idea how many chapters are finished, although it is pretty clear that he wrote lots and lots of pages in the last decade.

He could have a 1,000 or more finished manuscript pages ... or he could have written and discarded hundreds and hundreds of pages, meaning that, at this point, he might sit only on 500 manuscript of finished material.

We literally have no clue since there is no information available to speculate, unlike with ADwD where we got at least some information on the conundrums he faced.

Insofar as the plot of TWoW is concerned we have literally no clue in what direction it will go after the two battles. With ADwD we knew that lots of characters would go to Daenerys, etc.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

At this point, though, we have literally no idea how many chapters are finished, although it is pretty clear that he wrote lots and lots of pages in the last decade.

Honestly, the only thing he has said over the last few years is that he is "working on it" and "making progress", which is as vague as it gets. There are those who believe that he hasn't written much at all until his big breakthrough in 2020, and while I don't believe it myself, I understand where they're coming from. It's hard to see how he could get any substantial work done, given how much time everything related to the show has taken, let alone all his other projects.

[Lord Varys]

37 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Honestly, the only thing he has said over the last few years is that he is "working on it" and "making progress", which is as vague as it gets. There are those who believe that he hasn't written much at all until his big breakthrough in 2020, and while I don't believe it myself, I understand where they're coming from. It's hard to see how he could get any substantial work done, given how much time everything related to the show has taken, let alone all his other projects.

George can writes lots of pages when he has good days. And he wrote much more pages on ADwD than just the stuff that got published in the end. Many chapters were scrapped, rewritten, changed, etc. He has gone on record that there is enough discarded material of ASoIaF for at least another book, and there were hints that this might be published in the end (more concrete plans seem to be there for the famous 'Shrouded Lord' chapter from ADwD).

This idea that he isn't writing all that much is just weird. The Jaehaerys material for FaB he wrote in a very short amount of time, apparently. Different stuff, of course, but still.

[Rubicante]

Does anyone still seriously believe we will ever get The Winds of Winter?  I’ve completely given up any hope.  I just wish George would come out and say “I don’t have it in me anymore to finish another book in this series”.  At least then I could respect him for being honest, and realistic.  

[SamFromTheBalkans]

There is still hope, I believe. Even if GRRM finished only just one chapter that past year, he is still writing, isn't he?

As for the topic, if spliting of the book was possible, it would have been done already. But I think some viewpoints are terribly behind, both in finished chapters and time frame. 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

13 hours ago, Rubicante said:

Does anyone still seriously believe we will ever get The Winds of Winter?  I’ve completely given up any hope.  I just wish George would come out and say “I don’t have it in me anymore to finish another book in this series”.  At least then I could respect him for being honest, and realistic.  

If he is unable to finish it, then I hope that he, at least, releases whatever he has already written.

Edited March 18, 2022 by Takiedevushkikakzvezdy

[Cas Stark]

On 3/18/2022 at 1:26 AM, Rubicante said:

Does anyone still seriously believe we will ever get The Winds of Winter?  I’ve completely given up any hope.  I just wish George would come out and say “I don’t have it in me anymore to finish another book in this series”.  At least then I could respect him for being honest, and realistic.  

I don't.  There appear to be a lot of people who still think he will get Winds out and even finish the series, which to me is laughable.  He will never admit, to himself or anyone else, that he won't get Winds out or finish the series, I don't believe he means to be dishonest, but he quite clearly has been majorly unrealistic about ASOIAF for the last 22 years.

[Kyll.Ing.]

On 3/18/2022 at 6:26 AM, Rubicante said:

Does anyone still seriously believe we will ever get The Winds of Winter?  I’ve completely given up any hope.  I just wish George would come out and say “I don’t have it in me anymore to finish another book in this series”.  At least then I could respect him for being honest, and realistic.  

I think there is a chance that he at some point gets a burst of inspiration and a burst of not-caring at the same time, and manages to patch together something fit to publish. Mostly by sticking with things he'd otherwise have scrapped and rewritten, and bridging the fragments with a few contrivances. But then none of the resulting pieces of the story would be anywhere near where they should be for A Dream of Spring, never mind the conclusion of the tale, and that's where the series is finally abandoned.

In other words, best case scenario is that he manages to shove Winds out the door (in a state he's not entirely happy with, but it's the best that could be finished) before officially giving up.

Worst case scenario, he continues to care too much to be unhappy with what he writes, and too much to let others finish the story after him.

[$erPounce]

22 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

If he is unable to finish it, then I hope that he, at least, releases whatever he has already written.

It is George's plan anyway to preserve what he wrote (manuscripts and other material) and make it accessible to the public after his eventual death. Should George not be able to complete TWOW and/or ADOS, we will certainly be able to read the chapters he has written.

In a 2007 NotABlog, he wrote the following:

“Someday I will die, and I hope you're right and it's thirty years from now. When that happens, maybe my heirs will decide to publish a book of fragments and deleted chapters, and you'll all get to read about Tyrion's meeting with the Shrouded Lord. It's a swell, spooky, evocative chapter, but you won't read it in DANCE. It took me down a road I decided I did not want to travel, so I went back and ripped it out. So, unless I change my mind again, it's going the way of the draft of LORD OF THE RINGS where Tolkien has Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin reach the Prancing Pony and meet... a weatherbeaten old hobbit ranger named "Trotter."

George R. R. Martin has an archive of manuscripts at the Cushing Library in the Texas A&M University. Much of it is publicly available, but apparently certain collections are temporary not available to the public, such as (for now) the manuscript of A Dance with Dragons, due to potential spoilers. George wrote in May 2011:

Some day, maybe, some student of fantasy literature may want to peruse all of these partial manuscripts, and document how A DANCE WITH DRAGONS changed over the years. Every time I printed out a copy to send to my editors, I made a second and sent it to the Special Collections at Texas A&M University, where my papers are kept. Maybe someone will get a master's thesis out of my struggles with this book. And who knows, maybe in the end he or she will conclude that I was making the book worse and worse all along.

If George is to be believed, they may now also be in possession of material from The Winds of Winter, if he is still sending copies to Texas A&M University now. 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

13 minutes ago, $erPounce said:

If George is to be believed, they may now also be in possession of material from The Winds of Winter, if he is still sending copies to Texas A&M University now. 

When did he talk about it?

Edited March 19, 2022 by Takiedevushkikakzvezdy

[Old Rusty Coin]

Martin won't finish the series. His estate will be party to future contracts to continue the series indefinitely, unless we moderns blow ourselves up before some Westros pyromancer figures out nuclear fission

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

Can't GRRM publish some chapters in a Blood of the Dragon/Arms of the Kraken-type novella? That would still be better than nothing.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Takiedevushkikakzvezdy

[James Arryn]

Can we at least all agree that gardening is a very unreliable form of writing?

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

4 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Can we at least all agree that gardening is a very unreliable form of writing?

I would say that it's high risk/high reward form of writing. Without the gardening style we wouldn't have gotten many (if not most) of the iconic moments in the series. But on the other hand, it can really get you stuck, as GRRM seems to be right now. 

[The Bard of Banefort]

As $er Pounce said, George doesn’t seem to have any problems with his family publishing his notes and unpublished work after he passes, so in that sense I do think we will eventually get to read a version of TWOW, and even a bit of ADOS (it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s written far ahead for some characters, like Tyrion or Arya). Hopefully that won’t be for a long time.

On 3/12/2022 at 10:57 AM, Ibbison from Ibben said:

Another thing to consider is that HBO would probably prefer that Winds and Dream never get published at all. If GRRM's version of ASOIAF ever sees the light of day, the show will look even worse than it already does. For them, keeping George busy working on new stuff for them is a double win.

As to the OP, if it needs to be two volumes, so be it. The two battles plus other chapters that were originally planned for Dance are going to take up around 250 MS pages anyway. GRRM started Winds in the hole by that much from the beginning.

I think HBO would love it if George put out another book. For one, it’s a good way to interest people in the spin-offs, if they read the book and then are in the mood for more ASOIAF. Secondly, if George were to finish the series, then that gives them an excuse to reboot GOT. They’re already looking to reboot a couple of Alan Ball’s shows, I’m sure they’d love another decade of Thrones, this time with the “official” ending.

[James Arryn]

Personally, while I think the last season of the show was mostly terrible, I think one of the many reasons it made GRRM less likely to finish is because it revealed just HOW many different agendas/endings fans were heavily invested in, meaning that any ending is going to disappoint/outrage a huge chunk of the fan base no matter how well done. Like I think the show’s ending was kinda doomed to disappoint anyways, and D&D just put that on steroids. 
 

So I think GRRM saw that and now anticipates something similar with the books. I also think that’s why the books have been progressively less well received since the show exploded the fan base/discussions. 

Edited April 5, 2022 by James Arryn

[The Bard of Banefort]

How active is George online though? Surely he would have known about the backlash through TV/interviews/emails, but would he really know about the overblown reaction to season 8 that we saw online? 

 

One sentiment that I agree with is that FnB and DnE don’t actually take away from him writing Winds because it seems more like the sort of thing he does for fun when he’s having writer’s block. That’s probably why he’s already so far into FnB2.