"Only 500 pages to go" for Winds of Winter

[Cas Stark]

2 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

It has.

He's become a much better writer. A Dance with Dragons is a much better novel than A Storm of Swords in terms of prose and literary skill.

Right but, from his point of view, he is a writer first. Secondly, he wants who wants people to continue reading his material long after both he and all of us are dead and gone. To that end, it needs to be masterfully done.

The show was so bad and it set such a low bar. So simply doing better than the show is hardly an achievement.

I do think that he is doing too much overthinking and overediting, but I understand his desire to make sure he produces the best possible work.

I disagree with this pretty strongly.  Dance is extremely bloated, at least 25% of the text could have been cut,  maybe more with no loss, instead improvement all around.  Dance also doesn't work that well as a novel, in terms of story arc, character development and plot.  A lot of stuff happens, new POVs appear, new stories appear, then it ends abruptly with nothing resolved.  But then GOT is my favorite of the books, with Storm as a close second.   In fact, my opinion is that the skill is inversely proportional to the amount of time spent...Feast and Dance much inferior to the first 3 books.

[Craving Peaches]

At some point it pays to just say 'good enough' and not spend ages agonising over something because nothing is perfect and you're never going to please everyone.

[BlackLightning]

30 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I disagree with this pretty strongly.  Dance is extremely bloated, at least 25% of the text could have been cut,  maybe more with no loss, instead improvement all around.  Dance also doesn't work that well as a novel, in terms of story arc, character development and plot.  A lot of stuff happens, new POVs appear, new stories appear, then it ends abruptly with nothing resolved.  But then GOT is my favorite of the books, with Storm as a close second.   In fact, my opinion is that the skill is inversely proportional to the amount of time spent...Feast and Dance much inferior to the first 3 books.

All the bold is true but I was talking about the prose.

Line-by-line, sentence-by-sentence, Dance is better both than Storm and Game. The settings becomes vivid, and the characters become profound.

For example, you can't find the raw depth of Theon's POV in the early books. And the sheer scale of Planetos is on full display.

Don't believe me: ask other writers, editors and literary critics.

[SeanF]

3 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

It has.

He's become a much better writer. A Dance with Dragons is a much better novel than A Storm of Swords in terms of prose and literary skill.

Right but, from his point of view, he is a writer first. Secondly, he wants who wants people to continue reading his material long after both he and all of us are dead and gone. To that end, it needs to be masterfully done.

The show was so bad and it set such a low bar. So simply doing better than the show is hardly an achievement.

I do think that he is doing too much overthinking and overediting, but I understand his desire to make sure he produces the best possible work.

I never understood why The Meereenese Knot was such a problem.

Maybe he just can’t see the wood for the trees.

[Cas Stark]

49 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I never understood why The Meereenese Knot was such a problem.

Maybe he just can’t see the wood for the trees.

Yes.  So much this.  The Meereen knot being this huge problem was extremely strange, I mean, just decide who comes when and be done with it.

[sifth]

39 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

Yes.  So much this.  The Meereen knot being this huge problem was extremely strange, I mean, just decide who comes when and be done with it.

I often wonder why GRRM wants to show us so much of Essos. It's cool world building, but it all feels so disconnected from the rest of the story.

[BlackLightning]

17 hours ago, sifth said:

I often wonder why GRRM wants to show us so much of Essos. It's cool world building, but it all feels so disconnected from the rest of the story.

I'm pretty sure that GRRM wants the Long Night to be a worldwide event and the Others as a threat to all humanity itself

Dany's entrenchment in Essos, her philosophical belief in that kings and queens are to provide support and protection for those who can't do it for themselves, and the onset of the end of the world as they know it means that Dany's main objective for going to Westeros and fighting the Others will have almost nothing to do with the Iron Throne and everything to do with protecting the people of Essos...particularly the children

Who knows? Westeros might be completely lost and destroyed, and the survivors might need to migrate to Essos.

18 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

Yes.  So much this.  The Meereen knot being this huge problem was extremely strange, I mean, just decide who comes when and be done with it.

Seconded.

While the timing of Drogon's return to the city is fairly important, the timing of the arrival of Quentyn, Tyrion, Victarion, Marwyn never really mattered. And in the end, it didn't matter: the timing of Tyrion's arrival was pointless as he hasn't really done anything, Victarion still isn't there yet (lmfao), and Marwyn has only just left.

GRRM managed that facet of the story pretty poorly. Like, for example, there is no reason why Dany and Tyrion have not yet met yet. They were literally within talking distance of each other.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

On 3/22/2023 at 9:57 PM, Cas Stark said:

Maybe the perfectionism is a result of various roadblocks, struggles and knots, if that makes sense.  When the words were flowing like wine and he was in the zone most of the time, not such a need for rewriting.  When he hasn't been 'feeling it' or the work is a labor, or the various plot points have become too complex, possibly more of an issue of second guessing or not being happy with outcome.

I think it also has to do with how much his fame and reputation has increased over the years. He was dubbed "The American Tolkien" by Time Magazine way back in 2005, and that was before GoT became a giant hit and made him a household name. He surely feels that he has a lot more to live up to now than when he first began writing the series.

Edited March 24, 2023 by Takiedevushkikakzvezdy

[sifth]

3 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

I'm pretty sure that GRRM wants the Long Night to be a worldwide event and the Others as a threat to all humanity itself

 

I want that to be true, but no one in Essos has once mentioned anything about The Others yet or anything that would resemble them. So I just don't see it happening.

[BlackLightning]

4 hours ago, sifth said:

I want that to be true, but no one in Essos has once mentioned anything about The Others yet or anything that would resemble them. So I just don't see it happening.

You should reread "The World of Ice and Fire"

They aren't called the Others in Essos but the stories are very similar.

Melisandre is from Essos and has spent a lot of the story talking about the coming Long Night and the subsequent great war

[Castellan]

On 3/24/2023 at 7:01 AM, Cas Stark said:

I disagree with this pretty strongly.  Dance is extremely bloated, at least 25% of the text could have been cut,  maybe more with no loss, instead improvement all around.  Dance also doesn't work that well as a novel, in terms of story arc, character development and plot.  A lot of stuff happens, new POVs appear, new stories appear, then it ends abruptly with nothing resolved.  But then GOT is my favorite of the books, with Storm as a close second.   In fact, my opinion is that the skill is inversely proportional to the amount of time spent...Feast and Dance much inferior to the first 3 books.

I have to say that I think A Storm of Swords is the best of the novels and A Dance with Dragons so difficult to maintain interest in that I'd rate it last. I may be being unfair, and I'm sure there are great bits in it, but I hope TWOW is more like ASOS than ASWD.

[sifth]

10 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

You should reread "The World of Ice and Fire"

They aren't called the Others in Essos but the stories are very similar.

Melisandre is from Essos and has spent a lot of the story talking about the coming Long Night and the subsequent great war

Yea, but Mel is a nut job, who thinks Stannis is destined to save the world and that murdering a little boy, will let her wake dragons from the Earth. I take the things she says with a massive grain of salt. Also her ADWD chapter pretty much outs her as a fraud in many ways. If what your saying has anything to do with the Five Forts, I really don't see them playing any role in the series; we're literally 5 books in and they've not been mentioned once in ASoIaF. GRRM just doesn't have the page space, to make the Long Night, a massive event that effects Essos. My own guess is, the Five Forts were just put in the series, for the sake of world building.

[Cas Stark]

If he is able to stick to the idea of finishing the series in 2 more books, which I don't believe he will progress the story enough to do, based on the sample Winds chapters and the obvious trouble he still is having with writing, there isn't enough time to show the Long Night affecting Essos in any major way.  We know she has to get out of Mereen and Essos and go to Westeros and will presumably do that during Winds.

If he fails to progress the story sufficiently in Winds to realistically finish in 1 more book,  then he could expand on the Essos long night stuff, but that is really only a philosophical exercise for the fans, since he will be lucky to get Winds out, and the chance of getting Spring or god forbid two more books out after Winds are vanishingly small.

If the covid lockdown and curtailing all of his travel for a significant amount of time did not get the book finished, it may be that nothing will get it finished, whether 500 more pages to go is accurate or not.

 

 

[BlackLightning]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

We know she has to get out of Mereen and Essos and go to Westeros and will presumably do that during Winds.

She is not leaving Essos in The Winds of Winter

There is too much to do and too much ground to cover. She and her massive armies would have to be teleporting travelling hundreds and thousands of miles off-page in order to make that happen...and there still wouldn't be enough time. Not only does she need to spend some time in getting the ships she needs to transport her armies and supplies, but she also has to deal with the cities of Volantis, Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh. She can't move to Westeros with them in the way, they despise her, and she is not going to let them get off so that they can destroy everything she has worked hard for.

And then she has business to attend to in Yunkai, Qarth and Pentos. Then she has to figure out what to do with her sellsword companies.

But before any of that can happen, she has to go back to Vaes Dothrak.

I don't see her actually setting sail for Westeros until the beginning of A Dream of Spring

 

I actually can see GRRM making one of her surviving Essosi allies (Shavepate, Brown Ben Plumm or Daario) or even enemies (Xaro and Illyrio) as POV characters in the last book. Which will be especially important if there is to be a mass exodus from Westeros to Essos.

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

On 3/23/2023 at 9:12 PM, Craving Peaches said:

At some point it pays to just say 'good enough' and not spend ages agonising over something because nothing is perfect and you're never going to please everyone.

I absolutely agree, and I hope someone manages to get it through to him.

[Cas Stark]

49 minutes ago, BlackLightning said:

She is not leaving Essos in The Winds of Winter

There is too much to do and too much ground to cover. She and her massive armies would have to be teleporting travelling hundreds and thousands of miles off-page in order to make that happen...and there still wouldn't be enough time. Not only does she need to spend some time in getting the ships she needs to transport her armies and supplies, but she also has to deal with the cities of Volantis, Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh. She can't move to Westeros with them in the way, they despise her, and she is not going to let them get off so that they can destroy everything she has worked hard for.

And then she has business to attend to in Yunkai, Qarth and Pentos. Then she has to figure out what to do with her sellsword companies.

But before any of that can happen, she has to go back to Vaes Dothrak.

I don't see her actually setting sail for Westeros until the beginning of A Dream of Spring

 

I actually can see GRRM making one of her surviving Essosi allies (Shavepate, Brown Ben Plumm or Daario) or even enemies (Xaro and Illyrio) as POV characters in the last book. Which will be especially important if there is to be a mass exodus from Westeros to Essos.

I hope not.  I already turned against Dany as a result of too much Essos going too badly. Reading what felt like 300 chapters of Dany trying to rule and failing was not only boring but it turned me against her character.  I once really wanted her to retake the Iron Throne, but no more, she's not up to it.

If the show is anything to go by, and I think it is, she will burn it all down, leaving chaos and a smoking ruin, which is pretty much what her actions so far have already done, telling herself it will all be different in Westeros.  That shouldn't take a whole book.  It could be done in 3 or 4 chapters, or it could have been done in 3-4 chapters by 1990s GRRM.  2020s GRRM, maybe not.

Certainly if you are correct and all of Winds takes place still in Essos, then he will never finish in two more books total and finishing the series itself will be impossible.

My guess is she gets to Westeros somewhere toward the last half/third of Winds, if it ever gets finished and comes out.

[BlackLightning]

13 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I hope not.  I already turned against Dany as a result of too much Essos going too badly. Reading what felt like 300 chapters of Dany trying to rule and failing was not only boring but it turned me against her character.  I once really wanted her to retake the Iron Throne, but no more, she's not up to it.

If the show is anything to go by, and I think it is, she will burn it all down, leaving chaos and a smoking ruin, which is pretty much what her actions so far have already done, telling herself it will all be different in Westeros.  That shouldn't take a whole book.  It could be done in 3 or 4 chapters, or it could have been done in 3-4 chapters by 1990s GRRM.  2020s GRRM, maybe not.

Certainly if you are correct and all of Winds takes place still in Essos, then he will never finish in two more books total and finishing the series itself will be impossible.

My guess is she gets to Westeros somewhere toward the last half/third of Winds, if it ever gets finished and comes out.

I strongly disagree that the show is anything to go by in this matter.

Your bias against Dany and approval of the show's insanity is making you delusional. There is no way all Essos can burn and she can leave for Westeros in 3-4 chapters. And it could never have been done.

• It took 1990s GRRM 5 chapters to move Dany and her followers from the Dothraki Sea to Qarth (a large distance) and for her situation in Qarth to deteriorate. And that was just one city.
• Keep in mind that it also took 1990s GRRM 2 chapters to move Dany and Drogo's khalasar from Pentos to Vaes Dothrak. Similar distances will have to be accounted. Dany may be able to fly now but her followers cannot. Even if she flies, she cannot travel these vast distances within the span of one chapter.
• The fall of Astapor, Yunkai and Meereen took 2000s GRRM 6 chapters. This occurred at a breakneck speed, largely due to the fact that Astapor, Yunkai and Meereen (unlike a lot of the other places that Dany needs to attend to) are all close together. Even so, it took 3 chapters for Dany to even figure out what is she going to do and how is she going to do it.

Plus, that story would be poorly written, repetitive, and even more boring than what you claimed to have seen.

1. Chapter one: travel to Vaes Dothrak and fuck it all up
2. Chapter two: travel to Meereen, think about how she burned Qarth and burn Meereen down
3. Chapter three: travel to Volantis and tell the slaves to burn it down after having done the same in New Ghis, Elyria and Mantarys offpage
4. Chapter four: travel upriver and eastwards to Pentos where she will give Illyrio a piece of her mind and burn the city down
5. Chapter five: arrive on Dragonstone
6. etc.

That's stupid. And it's rushing the story.

Even so, it doesn't rectify the established problem of the triplet cities of Lys, Myr and Tyrosh and Braavos appears to be preparing to take action against Dany and/or the dragons. So you're advocating for a bunch of subplots to be dropped so that the next chapter of the story can begin

It seems like you are biased. You hate this part of the story and want things to end as quickly as possible at the cost of damaging the entire story.

[Cas Stark]

Oh I am biased, I freely admit it.  I disliked the Dany Dance chapters that did the same thing again and again and I disliked the Dance Tyrion chapters for the same reason, which I  have already said could have been cut by 25% or more, for those particular POVs we could have gotten the same place with half the words.  I hated the pointless waste of time that was the Quentyn chapters and while I found the Vic chapters to be more entertaining, they are also probably unnecessary.  According to me, the rambling, stay in place, long Essos chapters have already damaged the story.  

1) Dany goes to Vaes Dothrak, gets made Khaleesi of all the Dothraki, gets some reports that help set up the battle, kills some Khals

2) Battle of Meereen/burns it down

3) A look back chapter after the battle and after whatever happens to the rest of her Essos enemies, burned it all down, or maybe make that two chapters. We don't need to see it in real time, condense the story and do it as Dany reflects on how it all happened.   This could be told partly with Tyrion and Selmy and even Vic chapters adding some additional background.

4) Update on whatever else happened and Dany sails for Westeros.

 

[sifth]

4 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

I actually can see GRRM making one of her surviving Essosi allies (Shavepate, Brown Ben Plumm or Daario) or even enemies (Xaro and Illyrio) as POV characters in the last book. Which will be especially important if there is to be a mass exodus from Westeros to Essos.

I know GRRM lies all the time about this, but he mentioned that he doesn't want to add any new POV characters.

[Rubicante]

On 3/23/2023 at 2:37 PM, BlackLightning said:

All the bold is true but I was talking about the prose.

Line-by-line, sentence-by-sentence, Dance is better both than Storm and Game. The settings becomes vivid, and the characters become profound.

For example, you can't find the raw depth of Theon's POV in the early books. And the sheer scale of Planetos is on full display.

Don't believe me: ask other writers, editors and literary critics.

The Theon chapters in ADWD were absolutely incredible.  I was actually skipping over other chapters to read them.

But that speaks to the overall book, which really isn’t memorable at all.  Davos’ speech at White Harbour was the only other chapter I can think of.  Oh, I suppose the Dany chapter where she tames Drogan with the whip. Cersei’s walk? What  else is there?

The book leads to a lot of major events that just do not happen, which despite it’s size, makes the book feel unfinished.  Jon’s stabbing seems like it was thrown in to make it seem like something major happened, even though it doesn’t make any sense chronologically.  There is a sample Winds chapter with Theon before the Winterfell battle, but that Pink Letter means that battle has already passed. Is Bran making time non-linear?