The Winds of Winter publishing date guesses?

[MWagner]

He introduced far too many irrelevant POV's in AFFC and ADWD. It's his own fault and lack of strong editor that's put him in this position

Yes, AFFC does seem to be where everything started to go pear-shaped. Faced with a knotty narrative issue in the main plot-line, Martin let himself get diverted into a morass of secondary characters and storylines. I still enjoy his writing and the characters he brings to life on the page. But I think the likelihood that the core story would ever be satisfactorily completed has been remote ever since that fateful decision. The perils of a writer who doesn't outline embarking on such an enormously complex narrative.

 

[Koopa]

Actually aside from Quentin, I think ADWD brought things back together nicely after a lot of political meandering in AFFC. All the pieces seemed to be in place to start wrapping stuff up at the end of that book. Not in 2 books as he got planned, but i think 3 books would have worked.

Dany got her mature dragons and part of the iron fleet. Tyrion is floating around there somewhere as well. And her story arc has brought back the Dothraki. So she is close to ready to getting to westeros. Kevan is dead and FAegon, Cersei, and the Tyrells are basically ready to bring each other serious damage. Euron also has the opportunity to wreak havoc on the Tyrells and eventually ally himself with Cersei. Dorne can go a couple of ways. (Partly) Join FAegon, Eventually join Dany, ... . All depending what you need for the story and their further involvement. Sam has reached the citadel possible discovering imprtant stuff on how to help fight the Others, or ... whatever GRRM has in store for him. Jon has been killed and (hopefully) ready to get ressurected and get bastardbowl underway. Skagos and Rickon ready to give him some extra manpower (possible). Sansa, Petyr, Sweetrobin, and Harrold are ready to decide what happens to their respective characters and the Vale further involvement. Only Arya is possibly still a problem depending on her current location in the books. Still training in Braavos, part of the little birds that killed Kevan as an assignment... not really sure.

 

[Judderman]

If he had his ending planned already it seems odd he would have added additional characters in if he didn't know how to resolve their own arcs. Maybe he just kept changing his mind and didn't like his early plans for much of the story and various characters. Or he is just finding the many details hard to write.

 

[Koopa]

He probably knew A and B but not exactly which road to take to get him there.

 

[Overread]

I think also his style and scope of story telling requires a certain number of characters in certain positions in order to achieve a display of information and status to the reader so that major story arcs can be completed without feeling like certain elements are being pulled out of the air to advance the story or because they are convenient.

It's a restriction on perspective story telling that narrator style can avoid (because the narrator can go and show anywhere and anything). For GRRM its a further problem because his style is one of established characters. Each character he introduces is a small story unto itself; so he can't just introduce a handful of others who appear only to fill in story elements.

I think this is where he has problems because suddenly he doubles the number of minor stories he's telling and has to find way to either pull them together or whittle them down. Trying to get more established characters doing more things to cover more of the story themselves or trying to introduce and then "remove" minor characters; however against that I think he also doesn't just want to introduce and kill off characters too fast.

 

[HareBrain]

If he had his ending planned already it seems odd he would have added additional characters in if he didn't know how to resolve their own arcs.

I can see from my own experience how this can happen. You have the main characters' endings roughly plotted, but then you introduce a minor character, not intending them to be important, but something about them charms you into wanting to explore them further and give them a bigger role and then you get sprawling chaos.

 

[svalbard]

He has admitted that the TV series has forced him into rewrites. We are now(as I feared) in the situation where the TV series will influence the written word and not the other way round. I would be highly pessimistic that we will see a final book from Mr. Martin. For many of the reasons mentioned in posts above.

 

[HareBrain]

He has admitted that the TV series has forced him into rewrites.

I think that's a shame, as it isn't necessary. The manga Fullmetal Alchemist was made into a TV show when only part-way through. The TV producers made up their own ending, but it didn't affect the direction of the manga one jot -- it wildly diverged from it.

 

[Toby Frost]

As someone writing multiple protagonists, I can certainly vouch for how difficult that is.

You're right: it is extremely difficult and getting all the characters into the right place at the right time is almost a skill in itself. It's very easy to get your characters into danger and threaten the existence of the whole world, and much harder to convincingly get them out of it.

 

[Ursa major]

The TV producers made up their own ending, but it didn't affect the direction of the manga one jot -- it wildly diverged from it.

The two situations are not really the same: GoT's show runners, Benioff and Weiss, know what the ending of ASoIaF is and are heading towards it, albeit on a parallel, narrower route to the one GRRM is taking.

GRRM's problem is that he doesn't want those parts of the books that are very similar to what appears on the screen to seem like excerpts of "the book of the show". Given the difficulty of writing a multi-threaded text in terms of how much work (and time) is involved, this problem can only get worse: as the show forges ahead, more and more of the unpublished work will be opened up to being seen in that light.

 

[MWagner]

If he had his ending planned already it seems odd he would have added additional characters in if he didn't know how to resolve their own arcs. Maybe he just kept changing his mind and didn't like his early plans for much of the story and various characters. Or he is just finding the many details hard to write.

The original outline for the series he gave to his publisher didn't survive the halfway point of Game of Thrones. It seems about the only thing he knew from the outset was a handful of core characters, and the ultimate fate of Westeros. He's been improvising everything else as he goes, and has let the story get out of hand to the extent that there are now dozens of story questions left unanswered. I doubt Martin knew the answers to most of these questions when he raised them in the story, and I suspect he still doesn't know the answer to a great many of them.

So how does a writer who doesn't outline, who feels it ruins the pleasure in writing, tie together all these plot lines? Combine that with the anxiety he has over fans guessing the answers to the mysteries he does know, or the TV show runners beating him to the punch and fostering assumptions in the fans, and it's an almost impossible task he's facing. I give it 50-50 odds the Winds of Winter is ever finished by Martin, and less than 10 per cent any subsequent novel is finished (or even seriously undertaken in the first place).

 

[Overread]

He doesn't actually have to resolve every single character's storyline.

He can very easily give some form of ultimate closure to the story itself whilst having some more minor characters still at large. Indeed if you look at any real world story or event it never actually ends. Sure the main character might die; but their children or those affected by them will live on and continue. A story never can end barring the end of the world so in theory a realistic ending would have some strings left untied at the end.

The key would be to end the primary story lines and the main battle for the Throne as well as the fate of the Kingdoms. Essentially most stories work this by bringing forth a state of peace within the factions of the world; or at least a lasting truce or cessation of hostilities.

Of course its a balancing act to end with questions without also ending on a cliffhanger.

 

[Werthead]

He has admitted that the TV series has forced him into rewrites.

No, he has not.

The TV show hasn't really impacted the novels apart from one very minor area: he always had difficulty pinning down the (very minor) character of Osha and was pondering what direction to take her in. When he saw Natalia Tena's performance, that gave him some ideas on where to go with the character. And that's in a completely different direction to the TV show, where she was killed off for no real reason in Season 6 when in the books she's in a completely different place doing different things.

 

[svalbard]

No, he has not.

The TV show hasn't really impacted the novels apart from one very minor area: he always had difficulty pinning down the (very minor) character of Osha and was pondering what direction to take her in. When he saw Natalia Tena's performance, that gave him some ideas on where to go with the character. And that's in a completely different direction to the TV show, where she was killed off for no real reason in Season 6 when in the books she's in a completely different place doing different things.

I cannot find the article where I came across that information.. Which means I misinterpreted what I was reading or had imbibed too much vino ☺ My intent was not to mislead.

That said I do believe it would be naive to think that the tv series has not or will not influence Martin's writer. This is not a criticism just human nature. It will definitely effect the reader who is a fan of both the written and visual format. For example and Spoiler Here.

The Hodor reveal. I do wish I had read that before I watched it on TV.

 

[Pedro Del Mar]

Spoiler Here.

The Hodor reveal. I do wish I had read that before I watched it on TV.

Me too.

 

[The Imp]

I cannot find the article where I came across that information.. Which means I misinterpreted what I was reading or had imbibed too much vino ☺ My intent was not to mislead.

That said I do believe it would be naive to think that the tv series has not or will not influence Martin's writer. This is not a criticism just human nature. It will definitely effect the reader who is a fan of both the written and visual format. For example and Spoiler Here.

The Hodor reveal. I do wish I had read that before I watched it on TV.

At this point, the show will spoil parts of the book just as the books have "spoiled" much of the show for book readers. Even if both were on an even pace with each other would be to forgo one or the other completely, and since many book readers watch the show, we are denticed to endure spoilers , especially when watching the show. What keeps it interesting is how certain storylines have diverged.

 

[svalbard]

Came across a story yesterday that said Martin has just set up a Film Studio and my first thought was FFS... I do wish him all the success in the world and he does deserve it. But what of that little thing called The Winds of Winter?

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

Came across a story yesterday that said Martin has just set up a Film Studio and my first thought was FFS... I do wish him all the success in the world and he does deserve it. But what of that little thing called The Winds of Winter?

Fake news.

Bad Journalism

 

[svalbard]

Well that is good news.

 

[Anushka Mokosh]

Well that is good news.

Indeed.