The Winds of Winter publishing date guesses?

[MWagner]

Quite interesting that in a blog comment reply George said his publishers wanted him to split WoW into two. Though he has resisted the temptation. Clearly they were getting exasperated. Hopefully that was something they suggested long ago and not based on him still having lots to write.
He also confirmed he had done nothing on a Dream of Spring. And also mentioned various famous authors who left some novels unfinished.

Link?

 

[Judderman]

This link goes through many of the points. Or you can sift through his blog comments.

https://winteriscoming.net/2018/05/01/george-r-r-martin-talks-more-about-the-winds-of-winter/

 

[Brunhildax]

Hi all,

I know it's incredibly early but do we have any expectation or estimation of when The Winds of Winter will be published?

Has GRRM given any clues? Is he writing right now? Or is he having a break since ADWD was published?

Cheers
Crooksy

It's so frustrating to see that this thread was started in Feb. 2012. I find the show to be lovely and well cast, but I very much prefer the detail and story lines of the books. Ugh, George. Come on, buddy. Please?

 

[Titus Groan]

Boy, this thread has not aged well.
From a craft perspective, I don't think its reasonable for any of us to simply shrug our shoulders and say, hey George, where's the discipline?

Sure, some authors stick to a daily or weekly routine, with a set word count involved. But for others its simply not going to work. I suspect if Martin pushed himself in this way, he wouldn't have as much love or care available to make GoT the sprawling, passionate thing that it is. It might seem kind of ridiculous to NOT have that kind of schedule when the books you're writing are above 1000 pages in every instance, but some writers just don't tick that way.

In the words of Arundhati Roy: 'Fiction takes its time.'

In the meantime, there is an abundance of other books to enjoy! I've recently started the Earthsea series by Le Guin, and its simplicity is very refreshing after immersing yourself in GoT. Do recommend.

 

[Narkalui]

These are both good points, but the same points have been made many times already in this thread, hence why none of us have responded. So, apologies to you both, and please don't think of us as ignorant!

 

[StuartBurchell]

I think GRRM is waiting the series to end before releasing it, i think he was disheartened by how much the series has deviated from the books.

 

[soulsinging]

Not to pour salt in anyone's wounds, but this thread makes me feel a little happy and vindicated that I bailed after AFFC, where it seemed clear to me he'd gotten Jordan syndrome and couldn't control his story anymore.

 

[Narkalui]

Not to pour salt in anyone's wounds, but this thread makes me feel a little happy and vindicated that I bailed after AFFC, where it seemed clear to me he'd gotten Jordan syndrome and couldn't control his story anymore.

But I bet you'll still read it once it's finished

 

[Titus Groan]

Not to pour salt in anyone's wounds, but this thread makes me feel a little happy and vindicated that I bailed after AFFC, where it seemed clear to me he'd gotten Jordan syndrome and couldn't control his story anymore.

Apologies for being an ignoramus, but could you go into more depth about 'Jordan syndrome?'. I am curious. I assume you are referring to Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (of which I have read the first book, and then swiftly forgotten about it on account of it being, well, forgettable). It seems to have a pretty big following, though. How did it go off the rails? I know a lot of people think his naming of characters stinks.

 

[Titus Groan]

These are both good points, but the same points have been made many times already in this thread, hence why none of us have responded. So, apologies to you both, and please don't think of us as ignorant!

None needed, my bad for not reading through the thread!

 

[Narkalui]

None needed, my bad for not reading through the thread!

I don't think anyone would expect you to read through 28 pages of posts...

 

[Overread]

Also in fairness at this stage there isn't really much more to be said - its a game of waiting.

 

[MWagner]

Apologies for being an ignoramus, but could you go into more depth about 'Jordan syndrome?'

Something you should keep in mind is that Martin did not outline this series. He's not a planner. In interviews and blog postings, he admits he let's the story go wherever it takes him. Even the brief summary he presented to his publisher when he was pitching the story was completely rubbished by a third of the way through A Game of Thrones.

Then consider that with each of the first four books the scope - the number of sub-plots, characters, locations - grew. The story grew so complex, in fact, that Martin hired an assistant just to try to keep it all straight. And remember, he isn't planning any of this stuff, just letting the story grow and sprawl of its own accord.

By A Feast of Crows he was famously blocked. The story had become so tangled that he didn't know how to untangle it. So he broke up the narrative into two separate books, based on characters. And he continued to add even more POV characters, sub-plots, locations, etc. In interviews Martin also spoke of the series being an enormous monkey on his back.

It was at that point that some fans began to have doubts he would ever finish. That it wasn't simply the slow pace of writing that was the problem, but the staggering complexity of a series that was still growing when it should have at least begun to narrow towards a climax. Many readers suspect that Martin has lost control of the narrative, doesn't know how to bring the dozens of threads together again, and dreads sitting down to work on the books.

 

[soulsinging]

Apologies for being an ignoramus, but could you go into more depth about 'Jordan syndrome?'. I am curious. I assume you are referring to Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (of which I have read the first book, and then swiftly forgotten about it on account of it being, well, forgettable). It seems to have a pretty big following, though. How did it go off the rails? I know a lot of people think his naming of characters stinks.

I don't know if it's a real thing, but it's what I call it. Jordan wrote 3 pretty solid books to start his series, and the third had a sort of plateau ending. Not everything was resolved, but several main characters had a satisfactory arc come to some sort of closure. The story could go on, but it would be a new age/era for most characters. I felt much the same about ASoS.

Cue book 4, where those threads are dropped to focus on some entirely new conflict complete with entirely new civilizations. Jordan dropped his cosmic conflict to start telling stories of political horse trading among the aes sedai, seanchen, and desert people. He spent the next 8 books writing unending soap operas about these political squabbles before dying with the series unfinished. They had to bring in someone else to write 3 MORE books tying up his loose ends and finally delivering an epic final battle.

Cue GRRM who after book 3 hit a wall and after years only managed to turn out a book 4 focusing on the political scheme's of b-characters. We abandon the Stark's and Lannisters and dragons and other contenders for the throne to instead learn about internal dynastic drama among the sea people, desert people and maesters, all while Breanne goes nowhere to accomplish nothing. By all accounts, book 5 brought things scarcely closer to any conclusions.

It's my shorthand term for when an author has an exciting and engaging start, but has no idea how to end the story and no editor to stop them from chasing down every side plot to avoid/stall the ending.

It applies to Patrick rothfuss as well. No way does he wrap up the kingkiller "trilogy" in the third book.

 

[Overread]

I think it stands as a very strong lesson for budding authors on the dangers of writing and publishing a series as you go instead of planning, writing and then publishing.

Writing a single book that expands into a long series is something many can fall into; esp since if that book sells it makes sense to follow it up (when you look at famous authors its amazing how many are known as famous for perhaps only one or two of their series ever). But the more you build and publish the less control you've got over the series. You can't just drop in and change earlier things without pulling apart the story and world. Most readers will accept some marginal changes but big wholesale changes or mistakes are going to weaken later writing.

 

[sozme]

I don't know if it's a real thing, but it's what I call it. Jordan wrote 3 pretty solid books to start his series, and the third had a sort of plateau ending. Not everything was resolved, but several main characters had a satisfactory arc come to some sort of closure. The story could go on, but it would be a new age/era for most characters. I felt much the same about ASoS.

Cue book 4, where those threads are dropped to focus on some entirely new conflict complete with entirely new civilizations. Jordan dropped his cosmic conflict to start telling stories of political horse trading among the aes sedai, seanchen, and desert people. He spent the next 8 books writing unending soap operas about these political squabbles before dying with the series unfinished. They had to bring in someone else to write 3 MORE books tying up his loose ends and finally delivering an epic final battle.

Cue GRRM who after book 3 hit a wall and after years only managed to turn out a book 4 focusing on the political scheme's of b-characters. We abandon the Stark's and Lannisters and dragons and other contenders for the throne to instead learn about internal dynastic drama among the sea people, desert people and maesters, all while Breanne goes nowhere to accomplish nothing. By all accounts, book 5 brought things scarcely closer to any conclusions.

It's my shorthand term for when an author has an exciting and engaging start, but has no idea how to end the story and no editor to stop them from chasing down every side plot to avoid/stall the ending.

It applies to Patrick rothfuss as well. No way does he wrap up the kingkiller "trilogy" in the third book.

Say you are writer whose story encompasses multiple installments with the same number of PoVs at GOT. What do you do to keep it all together?

 

[Titus Groan]

Say you are writer whose story encompasses multiple installments with the same number of PoVs at GOT. What do you do to keep it all together?

My unsolicited suggestion would be to bear in mind the 'main hook' or the 'umbrella/overarching hook' of the narrative, in GoTs case "Who will win the Iron Throne?", then clarify what the smaller hooks are and how they will resolve, ie, in Aryas' case in GoT "What kind of adult will she become/ what kind of assassin will she become/ who will she kill and will she get to kill them?" or in Cersei's case "How long can she hold power/how much grief can she take?", while also bearing in mind how and when these hooks will weave together in big events with lots of the cast involved, like the Red Wedding or the seige of Kings Landing. When two or more characters with different hooks are interacting, consider how this can add to or in some way answer the questions those characters carry.

The trick with GoT is that we are given the distinct impression that every hook, no matter how minute, counts towards the overarching hook "Who will win the throne", which is why we are willing to emotionally invest in characters as frivolous as Pork Pie and follow Brienne around as she takes A Grand Tour of Old Places and Doesn't Do Terribly Much. The magicians trick here is that everything counts, but it also sort of doesn't. That's why GoT reads like a historical novel -- the same is true of our existence! It all is sort of important, but on a cosmic scale, not really.

I think a lot of authors mistake resolving the big, huge, overarching question without fully nourishing all the smaller seeds they have planted. You ideally want to track each hook and ensure it resolves in one way or another. This is very, very IDEAL though. Some things will end up on the wayside no matter how you approach it.

 

[soulsinging]

Say you are writer whose story encompasses multiple installments with the same number of PoVs at GOT. What do you do to keep it all together?

Maybe use an outline? Maybe stick with the many POV's started with, instead of dropping 10 new ones into book 4 because you can't figure out what you want to do with the originals? I'm just spitballing. It's his series and he can do as he likes with it, I don't have to solve his writer's block for him.

 

[soulsinging]

My unsolicited suggestion would be to bear in mind the 'main hook' or the 'umbrella/overarching hook' of the narrative, in GoTs case "Who will win the Iron Throne?", then clarify what the smaller hooks are and how they will resolve, ie, in Aryas' case in GoT "What kind of adult will she become/ what kind of assassin will she become/ who will she kill and will she get to kill them?" or in Cersei's case "How long can she hold power/how much grief can she take?", while also bearing in mind how and when these hooks will weave together in big events with lots of the cast involved, like the Red Wedding or the seige of Kings Landing. When two or more characters with different hooks are interacting, consider how this can add to or in some way answer the questions those characters carry.

The trick with GoT is that we are given the distinct impression that every hook, no matter how minute, counts towards the overarching hook "Who will win the throne",

My hook was that super creepy prologue with the Others, but since 4 books later they'd had exactly 2 minor encounters with them and STILL hadn't come to the obvious realization that dragonglass can be used against them, I figured that conflict was never getting resolved.

 

[Ursa major]

It applies to Patrick rothfuss as well.

Not to mention David Weber....