The original aSoIaF synopsis

[Anushka Mokosh]

If the sun rises in the west (and the seas go dry and the mountains blow in the wind and Dany gives birth), then Drogo will return. I don't know what this means.

Doesn't it go: sun rises at the east and sets at west? Because that's Quentyn yo.

 

[Boaz]

I literally take it to mean... Since it is impossible for the sun to rise in the west and mountains to blow in the wind (it will be impossible for Dany to conceive) and thus it will be impossible for Drogo to rise from the dead... especially since he's burnt to ashes. I take it all to to mean that Dany will never bear a child. And so one of the other riders must be a female to be a surrogate mother.

But like everyone else, I keep thinking that GRRM will somehow work around this.... make mountains fly and the sun rise in the west...

Edit: Missed your last post. Sure the Martells have a sun on their banner, but Quentyn was not the brightest of the Martells.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

A sun little less bright is still sun nonetheless. ;p

 

[Koopa]

The sun rising in the west and mountains blowing in the wind, sounds a bit like a dragon.
At the time of Maz Duur words, he dragons where still stuck in their eggs no?

 

[Werthead]

One point not mentioned in this letter is the five year gap. I first heard of the five year gap after ASOS was published. GRRM has planned to let five years pass between ASOS and AFFC. This was to allow the Stark children time to grow up a bit. I imagine this to have been especially designed for Bran's mental development and Arya's physical development to put them in their mid to late teens, young adulthood. But it also would give time for Dany to consolidate her plans and gain experience ruling.

The five-year gap was conceived by GRRM whilst writing ACoK/ASoS. Originally, more time was supposed to pass between chapters but that didn't work so he brought in the gap.

For all the gap is talked about, it was only in GRRM's plan for the series from around 1997/98 through to September 2001, when it was abandoned. He didn't have it in mind when writing AGoT, but he did when writing ASoS, which is why the book ends with the storylines plateaued:

Originally, there was not supposed to be any gap. There was just supposed to be a passage of time, as the book went forward. My original concept back in 1991 was, I would start with these characters as children, and they would get older. If you pick up Arya at eight, the second chapter would be a couple months later, and she would be eight and a half and [then] she'd be nine. [This would happen] all within the space of a book.

But when I actually got into writing them, the events have a certain momentum. So you write a chapter and then in your next chapter, it can't be six months later, because something's going to happen the next day. So you have to write what happens the next day, and then you have to write what happens the week after that. And the news gets to some other place.

And pretty soon, you've written hundreds of pages and a week has passed, instead of the six months, or the year, that you wanted to pass. So you end a book, and you've had a tremendous amount of events — but they've taken place over a short time frame and the eight-year-old kid is still eight years old.

So that really took hold of me for the first three books. When it became apparent that that had taken hold of me, I came up with the idea of the five-year gap. "Time is not passing here as I want it to pass, so I will jump forward five years in time." And I will come back to these characters when they're a little more grown up. And that is what I tried to do when I started writing Feast for Crows. So [the gap] would have come after A Storm of Swords and before Feast for Crows.

But what I soon discovered — and I struggled with this for a year — [the gap] worked well with some characters like Arya — who at end the of Storm of Swords has taken off for Braavos. You can come back five years later, and she has had five years of training and all that. Or Bran, who was taken in by the Children of the Forest and the green ceremony, [so you could] come back to him five years later. That’s good. Works for him.

Other characters, it didn’t work at all. I'm writing the Cersei chapters in King's Landing, and saying, "Well yeah, in five years, six different guys have served as Hand and there was this conspiracy four years ago, and this thing happened three years ago." And I'm presenting all of this in flashbacks, and that wasn't working. The other alternative was [that] nothing happened in those five years, which seemed anticlimactic.

The Jon Snow stuff was even worse, because at the end of Storm he gets elected Lord Commander. I'm picking up there, and writing "Well five years ago, I was elected Lord Commander. Nothing much has happened since then, but now things are starting to happen again." I finally, after a year, said "I can't make this work."

 

[Boaz]

Thanks again, Wert. I very much appreciate this information... and the other tidbits, morsels, and sometimes full entrees that you give us. Can you confirm if Tyrion was a dwarf when the first thirteen chapters were given to Martin's agent? Or was that a later development?

A coworker asked me, on Friday, if Tyrion's character and life have altered from GRRM's original plan. I told him I didn't know, but that I suspect that every character and every plot have changed. Reading Unfinished Tales, The Book of Lost Tales, and other books published by Christopher Tolkien regarding original manuscripts, rewrites, outlines, and notes of JRRT's works leads me to believe that the story will invariably morph if given time. J.K. Rowling has stated over the last few years that Dumbledore had a homosexual relationship with Grindelwald and that Harry and Hermione should have been romantically linked. This makes me really want more than GRRM's brief synopsis to his agent... I'd love to see GRRM's notes, genealogies, and first drafts from 1991-92.

 

[MWagner]

Fascinating stuff. I enjoy seeing how the creative process evolves.

However, reading Martin's explanation of the gap that was posted by Werthead is painful. It's like reading the account of someone planning an expedition into terra incognita that you know will result in starvation and madness. Setting up supply depots is forsaken as too labourious. The native guides are dismissed. And the original goal of mapping the length of the river is defered to explore enticing mountains, bywaters, and fauna along the way.

And pretty soon, you've written hundreds of pages and a week has passed, instead of the six months, or the year, that you wanted to pass. So you end a book, and you've had a tremendous amount of events — but they've taken place over a short time frame and the eight-year-old kid is still eight years old.

Okay, at this point, it should have dawned on Martin that his writing style was not well suited to a saga that would take place over many years. To stick to his original conception of an epic saga, he needed to find a way to fit significant temporal gaps between scenes and chapters. That likely meant cutting scenes and resorting to exposition to move things along.

Furthermore, knowing that he wasn't suited to driving the narrative ahead by leaps of time, it should have been clear to Martin that digressions were folly. Because if he has to lead each storyline by the hand, step-by-step, every new storyline slows the momentum that much more.

Other characters, it didn’t work at all. I'm writing the Cersei chapters in King's Landing, and saying, "Well yeah, in five years, six different guys have served as Hand and there was this conspiracy four years ago, and this thing happened three years ago." And I'm presenting all of this in flashbacks, and that wasn't working. The other alternative was [that] nothing happened in those five years, which seemed anticlimactic.

Yes, I can see how that would be tough. Tough, but not impossible. And look at how the alternative turned out - close to a couple thousand pages (and eleven years) of filler to pad out that time. Surely in this case the medicine, bitter as it tasted, would have been preferable in the long run to the creeping disease that ennervated the life out of the story.

As I said in the GRRM - honest thoughts? thread, writing slowly and allowing yourself to be led wherever your muse leads you is not a crippling handicap for every writer. But it is for someone trying to write a multi-volume epic fantasy series with hundreds of characters.

 

[soulsinging]

I suddenly woke last night, with a bran type moment. thinking sansa.

Yes, i am obsessed.

Sansa will marry Jon Snow!

Not for me. She will marry the Hound and be queen of the North, taking vengeance on Baelish, the Freys, and the Boltons and uniting the Eyrie, Winterfell, the Riverlands, and Casterly Rock.

 

[soulsinging]

Yes, I can see how that would be tough. Tough, but not impossible. And look at how the alternative turned out - close to a couple thousand pages (and eleven years) of filler to pad out that time. Surely in this case the medicine, bitter as it tasted, would have been preferable in the long run to the creeping disease that ennervated the life out of the story.

I had the same thought. Sure there were a bunch of Hands and the rise of the Faith, but did that much REALLY happen that was necessary? I think it would have been awesome to flash forward 5 years and find Cersei in jail and go "WHAT?" and find out how it happened. On top of that... I love Brienne but she spent basically 400 pages of AFFC looking for Arya and NOT finding her before accidentally stumbling onto her sister and NOT finding her either. Did we need to read every day and week of that? I honestly cannot even remember anything that happened in Dorne. And do we really need to read a blow by blow account of Dany subduing a bunch of lands that AREN'T Westeros? Would it not have been just as fun to have started book 4 with Dany's army massing across the water on the verge of invasion and lead by BFS, while you hear some of her struggles in flashback instead of as-they-happen muddled romantic pinings? What he says makes sense on some level, but it does really give cause for concern that his style is not suited to what he wants here. I almost begin to wonder if he'd have been better off doing serialized novels in this world...

 

[Koopa]

Yes we did need Brienne, Jaime needed to find a conscience to turn on cersei and his family, and now he's probably gonna need her getting away from whatever trap he's walked into offscene. She's Jaime personal deux ex machina.

 

[Koopa]

Also we need more Velaryons.

 

[Perpertual Bran]

lol so Sansa didn't even exist at the beginning? No wonder she's so boring in aGoT.

I'm glad Tyrion wasn't the one to burn Winterfell. Now though, I find that much of my expectations and the "clues" that back them up were from this plan, so if it changed, maybe some of these things aren't clues anymore, or rather, were discarded as such.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

I wouldn't call Sansa boring at any point. In AGoT, I'd call her naive, shallow, stupid, and annoying, but hardly boring. After all, she offers a great mirror of how a perfectly raised young lady is completely unprepared for the actual world they live in.

 

[Perpertual Bran]

Yeah, but that's true only by contrast to aCoK after she starts changing. When I was reading in the beginning, Arya and Littlefinger were puting more life in her chapters than her. Like, the only remotely exciting thing she did is pit Ned and Cersei against each other unknowingly. I found her thought process much more entertaining after she started hating Jofferey.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

With contrast with later chapters, it gets obvious. But with just comparing her to people around her, it is pretty much there already. They definitely shine in rereads once you notice how much of an applier she is.

 

[Boaz]

In my opinion, Sansa is not an inspiring person in AGOT or ACOK, but her chapters provide us great insight into Joffrey, Cersei, Middlefinger, and the real game. Her POV is there to make sure we don't miss the comparisons between Catelyn and Sansa and the juxtaposition of her with every other princess, queen, and woman of power. It's easy for male readers (the vast majority of fantasy readers) to miss indirect comparisons and contrasts between female characters. The the life of a rich, educated, and wealthy woman in a patriarchal society is fraught with dangers. To me, Sansa becomes more and more interesting the more she is taught by Baelish.