aDwD - Only Five Chapters To Go?

[Rimmer]

We all know how long it takes to write a book. Every. Last. One. Of. Us. The answer is that the time "varies depending on multiple factors." However, lets not pretend that the author has absolutely no control over those factors. Some he does, some he clearly does not (ie: one of his pets died between books).

Not an exact quote, but in Stephen King's excellent On Writing he says something like, 'if you take more than 3 years to write any book, you're just dicking around'. Not sure if he would apply it to a thousand-page middle of an epic fantasy series, but it's still an interesting view, from somebody who does know a thing or two about writing books.

[Ran]

Are you sure it was King, or at least that it was in On Writing? In that book, he basically says the only reason he got The Stand done was a sudden, gift-wrapped flash of inspiration while taking a long walk after weeks of not getting anywhere. I find the idea that one has to depend on a kind of mental serendipity on occasion at odds with the idea that you can readily set a time limit on how long something should take.

[Werthead]

Not an exact quote, but in Stephen King's excellent On Writing he says something like, 'if you take more than 3 years to write any book, you're just dicking around'.

Odd, coming from an appreciator of The Lord of the Rings, which took 17 ;)

[Red Hermit]

Well now that we know that the total page count including these last 5 chapters will be about 1600 pages let's try and guess how many chapters each PoV will get. I'm guessing the average chapter length is somewhere between 20-25 manuscript pages so about 64-80 chapters total.

Just my guesstimates:

Prologue/Epilogue 2(duh)

Daenerys 13-16

Jon 9-12

Tyrion 7-10

Bran 3-5

Davos 3-5(depends on whether or not he lives)

Theon 3-6(our eye on the Boltons)

Asha 2-4

Melisandre 2-6(hard to guess)

Quentyn 2-3

Knot Slasher 3-6(another hard to guess)

Arya 2

Cersei 2

Victarion 0-2

Brienne 0-2(if she is dead we will probably learn it from the epilogue or a Jaime chapter)

Jaime 0-2

Samwell 0-2

[Humble Asskicker]

Odd, coming from an appreciator of The Lord of the Rings, which took 17 ;)

Well, JRR Tolkien was just dicking around. It was a hobby for him, after all. Not his primary career choice.

GRRM is one of the very rare authors who took 5 years and counting to write a book "almost done", and being written as the primary focus in his writing regiment. Other incidents of books that took that long almost always were because the author was dicking around for much of it.

[Myrddin]

As far as I'm concerned, this book should be titled "Rumor of Spring". :smoking:

Whether it comes out in March or November of next year, I'm still not in any hurry to read it. I'll be glad it's done, because that means book 6 is being started.

Hell, I might just peek at a spoiler thread here to find out what the damned word Briene blurted and the just leave DwD on my shelf until WoW is about due.

So, yeah, it's good news that he's down to the last five chapters, but he still has another 100 to go until the series wraps. Assuming he's still looking at a 7 book series.

[Demon In Me]

I'm guessing the average chapter length is somewhere between 20-25 manuscript pages so about 64-80 chapters total.

It actually may be shorter than that. I'm working on getting an estimate of each Chapter length in each of the four books published as I re-read the series. So far I only have AGoT done, but the average chapter length in that book is 9-10 pages in the US paperback version.

- The Demon

[jurble]

So, yeah, it's good news that he's down to the last five chapters, but he still has another 100 to go until the series wraps. Assuming he's still looking at a 7 book series.

Bah 7 isn't enough! I want Jon Snow and the Prisoner of Azkaban!

[jefe91]

I just don't see this epic ending in 7 books I think it'll take 8 to ten

[Rhaegar]

It actually may be shorter than that. I'm working on getting an estimate of each Chapter length in each of the four books published as I re-read the series. So far I only have AGoT done, but the average chapter length in that book is 9-10 pages in the US paperback version.

The average chapter lenght has been growing with every book. AGoT had the shortest chapters by far.

[OverHill]

Well, JRR Tolkien was just dicking around. It was a hobby for him, after all. Not his primary career choice.

GRRM is one of the very rare authors who took 5 years and counting to write a book "almost done", and being written as the primary focus in his writing regiment. Other incidents of books that took that long almost always were because the author was dicking around for much of it.

Sadly, I believe this to be true. After the HBO deal, there have been no real presure on GRRM to actually finish ADWD.

- His publishers know his old (and future) books will be a gold mine. Push Martin to hard, and he leaves for another publisher.

- The fans are mostly appeased by the promise of ADWD (((soon))) and the show.

- There is no financial motivation, as GRRM probably have more money than he ever will need.

On the other hand there are many reasons for taking his time with ADWD.

- A published ADWD with a bad reception will harm both the book series and the HBO show. The fall-out if ADWD isn't up there with the first 3 books in quality will be terrible.

- It allows him to work on the show in addition to his other side projects.

I will be very surprised if we get ADWD before the future of the HBO show is decided.

[Werthead]

Well, JRR Tolkien was just dicking around. It was a hobby for him, after all. Not his primary career choice.

Yes and no. The publishers pushed him to write 'The Hobbit II' when he was not originally inclined to do so and was under a (very loose and informal by modern standards) contract for it. The time requirements of his day job, teaching at Oxford, dramatically decreased between September 1939 and September 1945 for reasons that may be self-evident. Of course, we know he dicked around a lot and, worse still, lied about it (telling his publishers at one point he'd been working hard on the book when he'd not touched it for a year), but then he was under comparatively little pressure, aside from the encouragement of CS Lewis and his son Christopher to hurry up and finish it.

GRRM is one of the very rare authors who took 5 years and counting to write a book "almost done", and being written as the primary focus in his writing regiment. Other incidents of books that took that long almost always were because the author was dicking around for much of it.

Entirely possible, and it would be interesting to get feedback from other authors who take that long or longer over a book (Connie Willis has taken that long at least twice, Pat Rothfuss is not far off and so on).

Although saying AFFC was 'almost done' in 2005 is of course a colossal exaggeration. In fact, the infamous note at the back of AFFC specifically says that the book 'wasn't nearly done'. And we know now that GRRM has written almost 1,200 manuscript pages since 2005 (postulating another <100 MS pages to finish ADWD plus the 100 MS pages that have gone into TWoW), not even counting the 500 pages left over from AFFC that have been thoroughly reworked. That's a somewhat more notable amount of work than the 'half a novel' people have been disparagingly saying since then, although of course modest compared to what other authors have produced in the meantime (Brandon Sanderson, for example, has produced about twice as much, Erikson far more).

[Rimmer]

Are you sure it was King, or at least that it was in On Writing?

Sorry - just searched for the quote I meant, and it was King, but from another non-fiction book of his, Danse Macabre. I got it a bit wrong too:

"You're not a writer at all," an interviewer once told me in slightly wounded tones. "You're a goddamn industry. How do you expect people to take you seriously if you keep turning out a book a year?" Well, in point of fact, I'm not "a goddamn industry" (unless it's a cottage industry); I work steadily, that's all. Any writer who only produces a book every seven years is not thinking Deep Thoughts; even a long book takes at most three years to think and write. No, a writer who only produces one book every seven years is simply dicking off.

So I'm not sure GRRM would fall into the 'dicking off' category - a five-year wait, with all his other projects. I take it that King does advocate taking time off writing to get through rough periods, but that the full writing process should not take this sort of time.

Of course though, if Stephen King got really stuck on a story, he always has the option of just ditching it and moving on to something else. Poor old GRRM is committed to the series, whether he's in the mood for it on any given day or not.

... and I prefer ASOIAF's regularity to The Dark Tower's, overall :)

[Ran]

Yeah, in On Writing, after weeks of getting nowhere on The Stand, he was about to go on to something else. Handy thing to be able to do without anyone knowing or caring that there's some massive book in your desk drawer (virtual or otherwise).

[Mickey2093]

LOL @ dolorouseddwasright and jack sparrow - i needed a good laugh this morning, and you two gave it to me - thanks :)

[Mickey2093]

I've been reading the back and forth (kinda) on dicking around, and I have to say that reading grrms not-a-blog, i'm not convinced that he hasn't been dicking around - a fair amount. sure - the conventions are part and parcel of being a writer - you kinda need to go to at least some of them, but to my mind, he's spent a lot more time away - on both ends of the conventions - he goes typically very early, and stays typically long after they're over... he talks an awful lot about his other projects - including the inevitable pushing of them...

now - i don't particularly blame him for any of this, but i do recognize that with all of the time spent on the other things, it doesn't leave much for adwd... being a realist, as i said, it doesn't surprise me and i don't blame him, but i try to acknowledge it as a fact of life, and the wait for adwd is what it is - and nothing we say, think, or feel is going to change it. i will be very happy when it's finally out, but i won't believe anything, including the '5 chapters left' giving us any hope of a release any time soon, until he himself says it's done, and i don't hold out a lot of hope in hearing that soon - if i did, i'd be setting my self up for disappointment...

[Lord Varys]

The LotR took about 12 years to write, not 17. It was only published completely in 1955, but it was actually already finished 1949. Tolkien had a fallout with Allen & Unwin and intended to let another company publish the book. When that failed, he went back to A&E, and they forced the stupid split-up into three books on him, as they were not really sure about a success.

[Rockroi]

"You're not a writer at all," an interviewer once told me in slightly wounded tones. "You're a goddamn industry. How do you expect people to take you seriously if you keep turning out a book a year?" Well, in point of fact, I'm not "a goddamn industry" (unless it's a cottage industry); I work steadily, that's all. Any writer who only produces a book every seven years is not thinking Deep Thoughts; even a long book takes at most three years to think and write. No, a writer who only produces one book every seven years is simply dicking off.

What I like about the King quote is that he is responding to criticism leveled at him for being TOO productive. And I have to agree with him- if after 7 years of writing, if you haven't actually produced the book you are writing on, you are dicking off. Solid observation.

I've been reading the back and forth (kinda) on dicking around, and I have to say that reading grrms not-a-blog, i'm not convinced that he hasn't been dicking around - a fair amount.

We said.

now - i don't particularly blame him for any of this, but i do recognize that with all of the time spent on the other things, it doesn't leave much for adwd... being a realist, as i said, it doesn't surprise me and i don't blame him, but i try to acknowledge it as a fact of life, and the wait for adwd is what it is - and nothing we say, think, or feel is going to change it.

Exactly. This is very much my opinion: I do not begrudge the man his time, his joys, his energies; he should do with them all what he pleases, at all times. I may not love waiting around for the latest book, but that's what I am doing. If he wants to take time off to travel, to write another book, to work on the HBO series, to go to conventions, that is his choice and he should do what fulfills him. Life is too short otherwise.

But don't try to convince me that he has "constantly" been working on the books; the record beguiles that description. He has been living a life for the last 5.5 years and ADwD is not finished. The focus has been elsewhere.

i will be very happy when it's finally out, but i won't believe anything, including the '5 chapters left' giving us any hope of a release any time soon, until he himself says it's done, and i don't hold out a lot of hope in hearing that soon - if i did, i'd be setting my self up for disappointment...

Wert:

Although saying AFFC was 'almost done' in 2005 is of course a colossal exaggeration. In fact, the infamous note at the back of AFFC specifically says that the book 'wasn't nearly done'.

Yeah, I call 'bullshit", Wert.

He did say that as he was writing he noticed that he had a book that was too big to publish in a single volume and that he "wasn't close to finished yet." In the context, Martin made it seem like THIS PORTION of the story was not finished being told so he HAD to split it, and that he was "going to have to cut the book in half" making people believe that he was doing just that... and HEAVILY implying that the other "half" was almost finished and that all he needed to do was get it into a book form...

... and then he says IN THE SAME section ... "all the rest of the characters you love or love to hate will be along (I swear he wrote this) next year (that would have been by June, 2006... I SWEAR TO GOD HE WROTE THAT! )". So, Martin was off by a factor of only 5.5.

Yeah, that was the moment I stopped believing anything Martin says about predicting the pace of his work.

[Ran]

Uhm ... he didn't write "at would have been by June, 2006... I SWEAR TO GOD HE WROTE THAT!" in the parenthetical, he wrote "I devoutly hope".... ;) This was when he figured the Meereenese Knot would be solved in short order now that he had room to do it. He was wrong. He was indicating even then he might be wrong about it.

George has never stopped working on AFfC as a project. It's neither a done project nor an abandoned one. But it's a very difficult work for him, as is obviously true, and yes, it seems he has at times eased it back in his priorities to percolate a bit while flexing creative muscles elsewhere, doubtless out of a belief that approaching the work indirectly would help him keep from burning out or perhaps regroup to tackle it again. And maybe it has, or maybe it hasn't, but there's no one in a position to judge this. Not even George can really say whether the choices he made were for the best or not. But no one, certainly, is more competent to make those choices than George. Just as no one is more competent to decide if Rockroi or I are going to post about this topic than he and I are. ;)

Maybe sitting and staring at a blank screen and refusing to do anything else until the words came out would have led to GRRM climbing the Empire State Building with a beautiful blonde woman under his arm and roaring defiance at biplanes. Or maybe he really would have abandoned the project, deciding it wasn't in him to finish it. Or, who knows, maybe he would have had a gift-wrapped epiphany out of the blue that laid out the solution for him, and it would all be so easy after that.

But we don't know. We'll never know. What we do know is that GRRM's been working for five+ years on it, most of the time as his primary project, occasionally as a secondary project, all in an effort to get this recalcitrant beast of a book done in the best way he can.

Can't really ask more from someone than to do their best. If their best isn't good enough for someone, there's any number of options available, some better than others, but there's no one more competent than to decide which option to take than you yourself are, much as no one is more competent to decide how best to write a book than the author himself.

[Mickey2093]

On another note, however, since i have no idea when adwd is going to come, i have spread my time among the other authors i tend towards, including Feist and Donaldson. Feist comes out fairly regularly with books (waiting til march or so for the next one), and donaldson is also fairly regular - about 3 years per book. With donaldson, the next book comes out - tuesday! yay! it's the 3rd book in 'the last chronicles of thomas covenant', called 'against all things ending', and i've been waiting - you guessed it - 3 years (since the previous book was published). for those waiting on martin, with nothing else going on, i'd suggest reading donaldsons series - the first chronicles (simply 'the chronicles of thomas covenant, the unbeliever', consisting of 'lord fouls bane', 'the illearth war', and 'the power that preserves'. after that, 'the second chronicles of thomas covenant', consisting of 'the wounded land', 'the one tree', and 'white gold wielder'. now, in 'the last chronicles of thomas covenant', 25 years after having finished the second chronicles (he explains this delay on his website - stephenrdonaldson.com - mostly having to do with wanting to improve his skills before tackling it), we have already in print 'the runes of the earth' and 'fatal revenant', and tuesday comes the aforementioned title 'against all things ending'. it's not the same style or type of fantasy as martin, but it's good, entertaining, and well developed. this, along with the re-reads of the previous sets, and my endless re-reads of feist and martin, will surely keep me busy until adwd comes around...