The Winds of Winter publishing date guesses?

[philzilla]

That is very much churning them out considering the size of the books. Since 1995 - one year before A Game of Thrones came out - Hobb has published 19 novels (several of them almost 1,000 pages long in paperback) and two short story collections.

I sometimes get disturbed at how quickly people think authors can write. People like Hobb, Brandon Sanderson, Dan Abnett and Steven Erikson are very much outliers. Most authors manage to get one average-sized novel (300-400 pages, or maybe 100,000 words) out every year to eighteen months.

Actually, from the info you provided, seems like GRRM is the outlier.

 

[MWagner]

Actually, from the info you provided, seems like GRRM is the outlier.

Yes, most successful genre authors turn out a novel a year (hard to earn a living otherwise). Other writers who manage the trick are Bernard Cornwell, Daniel Abraham, Louis McMaster Bujold, C.J. Cherryh, and Joe Abercrombie. Novel a year, 350 to 550 pages.

 

[Werthead]

The average length of a novel is 80-100,000 words, produced every year to a year and a half. SFF tends to go slightly longer, but the real monsters (400,000+ words) are still very rare and do take a long time to write: Brandon Sanderson, the poster lad for speed-writing, will have taken three and a half years to write the 450,000+ word Oathbringer by the time the book comes out, which is impressive (especially as he wrote two shorter novels at the start of that process) but then it has to be considered that he is an in-depth, detailed outliner and has had the Stormlight series mapped out in advance for years (plus he is 30 years younger than GRRM). Even he appears to be worried about how slow that is (as it puts the Stormlight series' completion on the far side of 2040) and he might have to reconsider his plans for the series to get it done more quickly.

Martin produces a 420,000-word novel in approximately six to seven years. Slightly slower than the average. Not really slower when the amount of junked material, blind alleys and extensive rewrites are considered. Martin's key weakness as a writer is his process of not using any kind of outline, which means he spends weeks or months pursuing story arcs that are later ejected from the book altogether. If he outlined in detail, those kind of alleys would be avoided in a few hours or days of planning. For example, ADWD had a sequence with Tyrion getting lost in Chroyane and meeting the mysterious Shrouded Lord (after he gets knocked in the river). George spent weeks writing that sequence and then realised he had to cut it when the book got too long. In an outline that would be much more obvious from the start.

 

[svalbard]

Luckily enough so he ditched that episode because the book was bloated enough as it was.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Phew, here I am nearly two hours after starting reading from the first post in this thread!

I have a far deeper understanding of all the issues around this GOT phenomena now - I've not read any of the books, and will not as it's not my 'thing' - but I must say I feel sympathy towards the author and the fans. What a horrible position to be in. I suppose the butterfly effect that made so many of the earlier books - and therefore the series - so compelling has come back to haunt all parties.

Most of all I hope he is not disenchanted with his world. I know from a writer's perspective what this is like and it's a horrid place to be emotionally and mentally.

As a viewer, I've enjoyed the latter series on TV and count my blessings in that regard. I'm thankful that I had no interest in the Dark Tower books until well after they were finished; I am an impatient cuss so would be tortured if I was reading this series.

Funnily enough, (apart from BSG) I always wait until a TV series is complete before I start it. I learnt that lesson years ago with Farscape...What that means is I get to mainline entire series' like Breaking Bad, Fringe, AHS and so on without worrying they've been cancelled.

This post is probably redundant amongst all you experts but after reading all the posts I wanted to chime in. Oh, and although I recognise a few names here from the Writers' Forum, I wondered how many of you here are writers yourselves and how that has coloured your opinion of GRRM.

pH

 

[svalbard]

Phew, here I am nearly two hours after starting reading from the first post in this thread!

I have a far deeper understanding of all the issues around this GOT phenomena now - I've not read any of the books, and will not as it's not my 'thing' - but I must say I feel sympathy towards the author and the fans. What a horrible position to be in. I suppose the butterfly effect that made so many of the earlier books - and therefore the series - so compelling has come back to haunt all parties.

Most of all I hope he is not disenchanted with his world. I know from a writer's perspective what this is like and it's a horrid place to be emotionally and mentally.

As a viewer, I've enjoyed the latter series on TV and count my blessings in that regard. I'm thankful that I had no interest in the Dark Tower books until well after they were finished; I am an impatient cuss so would be tortured if I was reading this series.

Funnily enough, (apart from BSG) I always wait until a TV series is complete before I start it. I learnt that lesson years ago with Farscape...What that means is I get to mainline entire series' like Breaking Bad, Fringe, AHS and so on without worrying they've been cancelled.

This post is probably redundant amongst all you experts but after reading all the posts I wanted to chime in. Oh, and although I recognise a few names here from the Writers' Forum, I wondered how many of you here are writers yourselves and how that has coloured your opinion of GRRM.

pH

Hi pH,

I write, rather poorly, although I have had a short story printed in the traditional way, I am still writing my magnum opus. Which gets me to Martin. A brilliant writer. Wow can he descripe a scene. Yet he can also wallow in this.

The 3rd book in the series which had The Red Wedding(open to be corrected) as it's killer moment was not even the end of that book, was without a doubt THE BEST FANTASY BOOK EVER WRITTEN. Not for the the afore mentioned nuptials, but the seeming redemption of a certain character who will play a major role in the outcome of the whole story.

AFFC is a much underated novel, but ADWD is pants for far too many reasons to get involved with here.

My belief is that Martin has done himself and his fans a disservice by allowing the TV series take over HIS written word.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Indeed, the joy of writing is in the discovery of the story. It must be terribly frustrating if that feels like it's already been told.

 

[MWagner]

Indeed, the joy of writing is in the discovery of the story. It must be terribly frustrating if that feels like it's already been told.

But the story the show-runners are presenting is the not the same story Martin is writing. They end up at the same place, but how they get there has been diverging for years already. Martin is still telling his own story.

I just think Martin has let the narrative get so tangled and weighted down with subplots that sitting down to write has been an unpleasant ordeal for a long time. Somewhere in A Feast For Crows the story became impossible to bring to a satisfying conclusion. He really is the poster child for the perils of not outlining. It's okay to improvise a single novel. But a 4+ book epic series with hundreds of characters? For a work of that scope, making it up as you go along is a recipe for disaster. I can't think of a single example in the English language of anyone pulling it off.

 

[Mister_Oy]

^^^^ exactly!

By the way...

Where's Gendry?

 

[Werthead]

For a work of that scope, making it up as you go along is a recipe for disaster. I can't think of a single example in the English language of anyone pulling it off.

J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan and Stephen King. Although of course they don't all work for everyone, but each of those series was started with the author not having a clue where it was going to end up except for the vaguest of notions.

 

[MWagner]

I haven't read Jordan, but neither Lord of the Rings nor the Dark Tower series are anywhere near A Song of Ice and Fire in scope. It's not the page count that makes ASoIaF so epic, it's the number of characters and plots. Martin can't even keep them all straight himself.

It's also worth remembering that in King's first attempt at improvising an epic - the Stand - he got the story so tangled up that he had to ***SPOILER *** literally blow up half the characters ***END SPOILER *** in order to get the story resolution back on track.

 

[Judderman]

He really needs to get killing off characters faster than introducing new ones, particularly a few viewpoint characters. Simplicity will soon come through. By the stage of Winds of Winter he should just be culling the herd. Red Weddings and fires are good for that.
We will hear a few rants about the bloodthirsty Martin then

 

[StuartBurchell]

GRRM has said there will be no new POV characters except for the prologue and epilogue characters, who don't tend to survive them, just ask Pate the pig boy.

As the characters start congregating, I suspect a few of them won't survive that, either.

 

[philzilla]

J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan and Stephen King. Although of course they don't all work for everyone, but each of those series was started with the author not having a clue where it was going to end up except for the vaguest of notions.

Tolkien's dead and he still publishes.

 

[Vaz]

I definitely feel like GRRM is bored with Westeros. I don't think there's anything more crushing as a writer and creator of a world you once loved than falling out of love with that place and it's characters.

Be good if he could finish it. Personally, I'd prefer him to go back to his sci-fi worlds from his Dreamsongs Anthologies.

v

 

[Dan Jones]

Funnily enough, (apart from BSG) I always wait until a TV series is complete before I start it.

What about Twin Peaks?

 

[Phyrebrat]

I know. Twin Peaks is sacred and must be downloaded instantly.

And there's been a fortnight break between ep 8 and 9 so I'm jonesin.

pH

 

[Judderman]

There was a Time interview yesterday and one thing he mentions is that the TV series has a budget. A huge budget, but still a budget. So they can't keep adding characters but he can to the novels. Someone should have given George a character budget!
He also mentions he has an obligation to readers to finish the series.

There is a couple of spoilers below if you aren't up to date (as of 2016 season) on the show or haven't read Feast of Crows yet.

George R. R. Martin on the One 'Game of Thrones' Change He 'Argued Against'

 

[Brian G Turner]

There is a couple of spoilers below if you aren't up to date (as of 2016 season) on the show or haven't read Feast of Crows yet.

George R. R. Martin on the One 'Game of Thrones' Change He 'Argued Against'

Interesting interview - cheers for the link!

This part especially stood out for me:

Spoiler: book spoiler:

And Jon Snow, too, is drained by the experience of coming back from the dead on the show.

Right. And poor Beric Dondarrion, who was set up as the foreshadowing of all this, every time he’s a little less Beric. His memories are fading, he’s got all these scars, he’s becoming more and more physically hideous, because he’s not a living human being anymore. His heart isn’t beating, his blood isn’t flowing in his veins, he’s a wight, but a wight animated by fire instead of by ice, now we’re getting back to the whole fire and ice thing.

 

[Ursa major]

Someone should have given George a character budget!

And have him kill even more beloved characters...?! (After all, he's never going to stop creating new ones, is he?)