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