0:03 why is the Winds of Winter taking so
0:06 long it's been 12 years now
0:08 hi everyone this is Robert welcome to in
0:10 deep geek on this channel we cover A
0:12 Song of Ice and Fire in nerdy depth as
0:14 well as the best in other fantasy worlds
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0:22 your screen
0:23 at the time of recording this video
0:25 George RR Martin has been writing the
0:28 Winds of Winter for over 12 years so
0:31 what's been taking so long I should
0:34 start by saying that this isn't a moan
0:36 about how long it's taking nor is it me
0:38 trying to defend him for taking as long
0:41 as he has so if you're after either of
0:42 those things this probably isn't the
0:45 video for you personally as Keen as I am
0:48 to see that book and believe me I am
0:50 Keen I want him to take as long as he
0:52 needs to get it right I'd rather it be
0:55 good than rushed I fully subscribe to
0:57 Neil gaiman's response when fans were
0:59 putting pressure on George RR Martin to
1:01 finish the book he simply reminded us
1:05 that George RR Martin is not your
1:08 quite now what I'm trying to do here is
1:10 as objectively as possible based on what
1:13 he has already told us it simply to
1:16 explain why it is taking so long
1:18 let's start with the obvious truth that
1:20 George RR Martin has never been a fast
1:22 writer A Dance with Dragons took six
1:24 years and A Feast for Crows took five
1:27 years he was never slow but he's also
1:29 never been able to churn out massive
1:31 tomes every year like Stephen King or
1:34 Brandon Sanderson do for example and as
1:36 he is aged he has slowed down
1:39 understandably he's 74 at the time of
1:40 writing this video
1:43 and the Winds of Winter is proving to be
1:45 the biggest most complicated book he has
1:47 ever written when he last gave updates
1:50 on his progress in late 2022 he said
1:54 that he was about 1 200 pages in and
1:56 roughly 75 percent finished so the final
1:59 product will be somewhere around 1600
2:03 Pages that's massive of course it will
2:04 take time
2:06 what is stretching that time
2:08 requirements even further is that the
2:10 Winds of Winter is not the only thing
2:12 that he has been writing or has written
2:15 since A Dance with Dragons during these
2:17 last 12 years he has come to embrace the
2:19 fact that this creation of the world of
2:22 Ice and Fire as a whole is his lasting
2:24 Legacy and he has taken it as his
2:27 personal mission to expand the universe
2:29 out from just that one story of A Song
2:31 of Ice and Fire to a fully imagined
2:34 world with histories and legends and
2:37 depth in particular since A Dance with
2:39 Dragons he has produced three novellas
2:41 The Princess and the Queen the Rogue
2:42 Prince and the sons of the Dragon
2:45 expanding the history of House Targaryen
2:48 and then built them into two massive
2:50 World building books the world of Ice
2:53 and Fire and Fire and Blood Fire and
2:56 Blood alone comes in at over 700 pages
2:59 with the world of Ice and Fire over 300
3:02 more and then we get to the TV shows he
3:04 wrote one episode for each of the first
3:06 four seasons of Game of Thrones and
3:08 although he was not involved in the last
3:11 four seasons he has been very engaged in
3:13 the development of the spin-off shows
3:16 and when I say very I mean very in his
3:17 own words
3:19 I have seen some comments out there
3:22 questioning how much I'm involved in
3:26 these new series the answer is a lot his
3:29 emphasis deeply heavily involved in
3:32 every one of the new shows
3:34 this is not just a matter of him casting
3:36 his eyes over a script every now and
3:39 then this is weeks months even or years
3:41 of involvement in every project and
3:43 every project is not just House of the
3:46 Dragon it's the Duncan egg show which
3:48 has been green lit plus the other shows
3:50 that are still in pre-production and may
3:52 or may not go ahead you'll have heard of
3:55 some of these the Jon Snow show ten
3:57 thousand ships the nymeria show nine
4:00 voyages the coolest valerion show a Yeti
4:03 based anime he has hinted that there are
4:05 up to nine in various stages of
4:07 development there's also the Tony at
4:09 harrenhal stage play that's in
4:11 development while he may not be
4:13 technically writing any of these things
4:17 he is involved heavily and deeply in his
4:19 interview last year with history of
4:21 Westeros he was very clear that he sees
4:24 it as his personal role to make sure
4:26 that each of these spin-offs sticks as
4:29 closely as possible to book Canon that's
4:31 a massive undertaking and of course
4:33 there are his other writing related
4:35 commitments he remains the editor of the
4:38 annual wildcards Anthology writer of the
4:40 nightflyer stories which were adapted
4:43 into a TV show in 2018 co-editor of
4:45 various cross-genre anthologies of
4:48 regular contributor to worldcon and much
4:51 more besides added to that yes he is a
4:54 man with many other interests he owns a
4:56 Bookshop a cinema a railroad company
4:59 through all this time George RR Martin
5:03 has continually emphasized that he has
5:05 been working on the Winds of Winter and
5:07 I believe him I believe he is now over
5:11 75 of the way through but he is also
5:14 working on other things so the time he
5:16 has to devote to The Winds of Winter is
5:19 squeeze the way he puts it is that
5:21 although we may want him to have only
5:25 one priority he has many priorities all
5:27 of which goes to explain how he has had
5:29 less time than he might have thought to
5:31 focus in on the Winds of Winter but
5:35 still 1200 pages over 12 years is just a
5:37 hundred per year and even less than that
5:38 when you factor in that he had already
5:40 written several chapters of the Winds of
5:42 Winter by the time he had published A
5:44 Dance with Dragons the Theon chapter for
5:46 example which was added on as a bonus to
5:49 some editions of dance so being busy
5:52 with other projects seems not to be the
5:54 only reason for the delay to The Winds
5:56 of Winter and given the fact that he has
5:57 written quite a lot of other things in
6:00 the time neither is him simply slowing
6:03 down with age has he as some people ask
6:05 got writing block
6:07 this is quite a sensitive subject for
6:09 writers so let's tread carefully here
6:12 George R Martin has retrospectively
6:14 admitted that he did feel the pressure
6:16 of trying to keep up with the TV show
6:19 which affected his ability to write and
6:20 we should probably acknowledge his
6:23 honesty in that he was in a unique
6:24 situation for a writer having the
6:27 world's biggest TV show relentlessly
6:29 moving forward while he still hadn't
6:31 finished the source material but I do
6:34 wonder whether the real issue here is
6:36 not writer's block per se as the
6:38 combination of the complexity of the
6:41 story we now have and his writing style
6:43 let me explain what I mean by that
6:46 George RR Martin has repeatedly stressed
6:49 that he is what he calls a gardener
6:51 writer as opposed to an architect writer
6:54 this is how he describes it
6:58 my stories grow and evolve and change as
7:00 I write them I generally know where I am
7:03 going sure the final destinations the
7:05 big set pieces they have been in my head
7:07 for years for decades in the case of A
7:09 Song of Ice and Fire there are lots of
7:11 devils in the detail though and
7:14 sometimes the ground changes under my
7:17 feet as the words pour forth
7:20 that I'm sure works well for him when
7:22 writing short stories or at the
7:23 beginning of A Song of Ice and Fire if
7:25 something strikes his Muse he can simply
7:27 follow it and let the story go that way
7:30 instead a quick look at his original
7:31 proposal to his agent about the series
7:34 shows how far he has allowed himself to
7:38 stray already simply put he doesn't have
7:41 a story plan for A Song of Ice and Fire
7:43 the problem comes when you have a
7:45 complex story already with lots of
7:48 characters and then you decide to change
7:50 tack anytime you follow your rightly
7:53 spirit in a new direction will impact on
7:55 all those other characters and plot
7:58 lines some may need to be Rewritten some
8:00 future storylines may need to be
8:01 rethought because a character
8:04 unexpectedly dies or goes somewhere else
8:07 or forms an alliance with someone the
8:09 person they say form an alliance with
8:12 will change what they are doing going
8:13 forward in the story which will impact
8:15 on other characters and plot lines and
8:18 so on and so forth the bigger and more
8:20 complicated the story is to start with
8:22 the more each change will have Butterfly
8:25 Effects elsewhere and A Song of Ice and
8:29 Fire is already very complex this isn't
8:32 just me speculating this has already
8:34 happened to George RR Martin in this
8:37 very story he's writing when explaining
8:39 the six-year Wait For A Dance with
8:40 Dragons several years ago he just he
8:43 described the problems he had as various
8:45 characters and plot lines converged on
8:48 Marine in this way
8:51 now I can explain things it was a
8:54 Confluence of Many Many Factors let's
8:56 start with the offer from zaro to give
8:58 Danny ships the refusal of which then
9:01 leads to kath's declaration of war then
9:03 there's the marriage of Daenerys to
9:05 pacify the city then there's the arrival
9:07 of the youngish army at the gates of
9:09 marine there's the order of arrival of
9:12 various people going her way Tyrion
9:15 Quentin victarion aegon marwin Etc then
9:18 there's dalio this dangerous sell Sword
9:20 and the question of whether Danny really
9:22 wants him or not there's the plague
9:25 there's drogon's return to Marine all of
9:28 these things were Bulls I had thrown up
9:30 into the air and they're all linked and
9:33 chronologically entwined the return of
9:35 drogon to the city was something I
9:38 explored as happening at different times
9:40 for example I wrote three different
9:43 versions of Quentin's arrival at meereen
9:45 one where he had arrived long before
9:47 Danny's marriage one where he arrived
9:49 much later and one where he arrived just
9:51 the day before the marriage which is how
9:53 it ended up being in the novel and I had
9:55 to write all three versions to be able
9:57 to compare and see how these different
9:59 arrival points affected the stories of
10:02 other characters including the story of
10:04 a character who actually hasn't arrived yet
10:05 yet
10:07 he called this mess of plots and
10:09 characters the miranese knot and
10:11 acknowledged that it had been the cause
10:13 of the delay to a dance with the dragons
10:16 being finished might something like that
10:19 have happened again are there any points
10:21 in the story where there are multiple
10:23 storylines all coming together at the
10:25 same time and that different characters
10:27 meeting each other in different orders
10:29 might drastically change where the story
10:34 goes well yes lots to pick just one
10:36 example that will definitely feature in
10:39 The Winds of Winter the riverlands there
10:40 are lots of moving Parts in the
10:43 riverlands Jamie Brienne lady stoneheart
10:45 and the Brotherhood without banners Jane
10:47 westerling the Blackfish the River Run
10:49 Garrison the remains of the bloody
10:52 Mummers probably sandor Clegane perhaps
10:54 even Arya returning from braavos
10:57 nymeria's Super PAC of wolves the list
10:59 goes on how the story develops in the
11:02 riverlands depends on who interacts with
11:05 who and in which order it if Jaime
11:07 discovers the Hound on the quiet aisle
11:09 first it will make for a very different
11:12 story to if the bloody Mummers do
11:15 when George RR Martin had a similar
11:16 issue when writing A Dance with Dragons
11:19 he took to writing different versions of
11:22 the same story depending on which order
11:24 people met in and discarding the ones he
11:26 didn't like if he's doing the same here
11:28 that would explain a lot he's not just
11:31 writing one story he's writing lots of
11:33 different possibilities at once
11:36 but even if that isn't what is happening
11:39 this is what it boils down to the Winds
11:42 of Winter is not an easy book to write
11:45 it's massive and complicated it has lots
11:48 of moving parts and the story is now at
11:50 its largest with significant plot lines
11:52 happening north of the wall at Castle
11:55 black Winterfell the riverlands Old Town
11:58 the veil King's Landing Storm's end Dawn
12:01 braavos vase dothrak and Marine by my
12:03 count we now have 20 different living
12:07 POV characters and hundreds more non-pov
12:10 characters the audiobooks actually hold
12:12 the world record for the most number of
12:14 different characters a narrator has to
12:16 voice so hats off to reuteries for that
12:19 added to which foreshadowing prophecies
12:22 and symbolism in the early books needs
12:24 to start paying off in the later books
12:26 as much as George RR Martin is a
12:28 gardener writer he knows that a
12:30 satisfying ending must build on the
12:33 seeds he sowed earlier in the story
12:37 and expectation is Sky High I struggle
12:39 to think of a more anticipated book
12:41 anywhere in the world right now when it
12:44 comes out it will be the literary event
12:46 of the Year perhaps even the decade
12:49 experts pundits and Casual fans will be
12:51 lining up to critique it and compare it
12:54 to the earlier books and the TV shows
12:57 the pressure must be immense right now I
12:59 actually don't envy George or Martin at
13:02 all in this the first five books were so
13:04 good and the TV show so massive that
13:07 anything other than a home run will be
13:09 pounced on with Glee by many
13:12 George RR Martin is making progress
13:14 albeit slower than many of his readers
13:16 would like and he is very aware of that
13:19 but the reasons are actually quite
13:21 straightforward this is going to be a
13:23 big book bigger than anything he has
13:26 written before and he is a busy man with
13:28 lots of priorities and the writing
13:31 process here is undeniably complex
13:33 for when we will get it
13:35 sorry to disappoint you but I gave up
13:37 speculating on that years ago he's
13:39 clearly much closer to the end than the
13:41 beginning which gives me some hope but
13:44 beyond that it's his book and only he
13:46 can decide when it's finished feel free
13:47 to speculate in the comments section
13:50 below if you wish but to round off let
13:53 me just issue a rallying call for
13:55 understanding I genuinely believe that
13:57 people will still be reading these books
13:59 and marveling at them for decades to
14:01 come perhaps even longer we may be
14:04 frustrated now at the apparent lack of
14:06 progress but that's just because we want
14:08 it so much we want to know what happens
14:11 next and I can think of No Greater
14:13 compliment to the author but I think we
14:15 need to respect the creative process
14:18 here The Winds of Winter will blow chill
14:21 across the pages of this story and then
14:24 we will all be dreaming of spring
14:26 if you'd like to see more videos about A
14:28 Song of Ice and Fire there's a link to
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14:38 of your screen now that's all for this
14:40 time thanks for watching I'll see you
