Right!
I'll try and put down what I remember (and had time to scribble down) when I spoke to GRRM. Unfortunately red_temple, by the time I saw your questions, I was back home!
Duff's questions:
1 + 6) As they were related, I asked this as 1 question. He was a little cagey about it, but he pointed to the planned '5 year gap' between ASoS & AFFC (books 3 & 4 for the layman!
) as an example of where fan's opinions - as well as his own efforts, pushed him into changing his storyline slightly. He made the point that his overall story hasn't changed but certainly elements of the sideline stories have become more fleshed out than he'd originally intended. Thats about as much as he went into on that one.
2) GRRM writes each person's POV story in isolation and then weaves/edits them into 1 piece. So if he gets stuck on, say an Arya chapter, he changes to writing Tyrion stuff and then goes back later.
3) Sorry - got a bit sidelined on this question and digressed to Magic & Gods in Westeros. More about that later.
4) On this one, he said that a lot of the male characters got it pretty rough too - Robb losing his dad, thinking he'd lost his brothers + Arya and then dying. But he said that at least in the short term, it's going to get darker.
Ladyfel's questions:
1) Pretty much covered above, but basically he knows how he'll play out the main story, but the smaller stories/characters are a bit more than he'd originally envisaged.
2) He says he's stopped doing this for that reason! Well not really, but he doesn't change storylines because people have guessed where its going. He just hopes his work doesn't get that predictable!
We chatted about lots of other stuff - his work on Beauty & the Beast, Wildcards series and other stuff, but feel free to PM me if you wanna hear about that. I'll just tell you some of the answers I got to my questions on ASoIF.
Q: Magic has steadily increased throughout your novels from pretty much non-existant in book 1 to rising prevalence by book 3. Will this trend continue in future books?
A: "That's a fairly safe assumption, yes".
Good news for you magic fans out there
I briefly discussed the role of Gods in the magic of Westeros. R'hllor etc. He has ruled out any appearances of 'demigods' or direct involvement from the Gods in Westeros though.
Q: Will there be life after "A Song of Ice & Fire"? In other words we will see any more stories set in Westeros?
A: Yes. He's already working on another Dunk & Egg story and plans to continue to putting these out whilst writing his new ASoIF books. Interestingly one of his fans (not GRRM himself) pointed out that he'd mentioned to GRRM that as Dunk ends up as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard and each short story so far has been 'a step up' (Hedge Knight, Sworn Sword etc) will he continue making the title of each story another 'level'. Apparently he's considering it, but hasn't decided yet.
To continue in the same view he has comprehensively ruled out ever doing a 'prequel' novel on Robert's Rebellion. Some ideas he has for future Westeros stories are (and again I stress he has
not confirmed yet that he will do these) a novel on Aegon IV "The UnWorthy" from his POV and also a story set in Bravos (sp?) and the free cities - possibly some kind of murder mystery type thing.
For potential future topics, GRRM is quite keen on doing a novel set in a Roman-era fantasy world.
Phew - I think that's pretty much all I can remember! Hope that's been helpful.
