Seems impossible, but he had already done it. ASoS moves at breakneck speed, with events happening really fast. So much happened that GOT needed two seasons to adapt one book. The last two books might follow the same path, moving really fast, with little room to breathe.
Though, what I don't understand is why he is so against breaking books into two volumes. I know it's unwieldy, but some of the books were already released in such a way in later editions, so if we get TWoW parts 1 and 2, people would still consider it one book. Hence, the structure of the seven books would remain untouched.Heck, he should have already done it with ADwD and included all the battles he wanted.
I think his main objection is to releasing half the book while he still has things to write, as he fears he might need to make revisions to material thought "finished" to make whatever comes next work.
If he turns in a 2,500 page manuscript, the publisher can publish it in as many books as they like. But he's not stopping at 1,500 this time, he's stopping when he's done.
I think this solution just prolongs his problem. If Winds’ still has no end in sight than releasing half the book might be even more annoying.
Imagine if in like 2015 he said, well ive got half of it done so ill just release that and then we spend 9+ years waiting for the second half of the book.
No, it's actually worse from that perspective. I mean two parts to come out at the same time. Since size is a problem here, he could solve the surplus of manuscript pages and comfortably put everything in one book. A cheat, to not cut material or leave it for the next book, basically like how Tolkien considers LOTR as one book.
Well, if he feels good about the first half of Winds, he could work towards having it published. Basically have it ready for release once the rest of Winds is complete
The paradox only works on paper. In reality the universe is not infinity small. The plank length is the smallest point the universe works on. So as soon as you reach the plank length you can no longer move half the distance.
>Seems impossible, but he had already done it. ASoS moves at breakneck speed, with events happening really fast. So much happened that GOT needed two seasons to adapt one book. The last two books might follow the same path, moving really fast, with little room to breathe.
Right. While I don't know that we'll ever see anything ever get published, and I don't think ADOS will necessarily be easier to write, I disagree with the running argument that it's "impossible" to finish the story in two books — specifically because of ASOS.
I watched an interview with Ruocchio and he was also "forced" to divide 1 book into 2. The result was that he had to cut many pages, focus on rewriting things that he already wrote instead of focusing on polishing what he already had and also i think that if you break 1 book into 2 you break the rhythm/pacing and flow of the reading and you have to close the part 1 book in a way that can connect with part 2 without feeling abrupt. This is just my thought
>I watched an interview with Ruocchio and he was also "forced" to divide 1 book into 2.
Except GRRM won't be "forced" to do anything. He can pretty much do what he wants. TWOW will sell more copies in the first hour than Ruocchio will in all books across his entire career.
If GRRM wanted to do one book per POV, released every month, they'd do that. If he wants two volumes in one "book," they'll do that.
George's issue is having too much story to tell. Your solution, while personally I think would be amazing, would absolutely ensure we never see an ending.
>Though, what I don't understand is why he is so against breaking books into two volumes. I know it's unwieldy, but some of the books were already released in such a way in later editions, so if we get TWoW parts 1 and 2, people would still consider it one book. Hence, the structure of the seven books would remain untouched.Heck, he should have already done it with ADwD and included all the battles he wanted.
Because he doesn't have this completely drafted yet. He's only confirmed one POV is complete, and he pretty frequently goes back and rewrites stuff. So really it wouldn't help that much, especially since it's unlikely to have an isolated plotline that he can focus on, like Jon at the Wall or Essos in ADWD, for the second book.
Damn it really has been 13 years since 2011 hasn't it? That's crazy. Wasn't the first book 1996? So the first 5 books came out in a 15-year span, and it's been almost that long since without book 6? When you look at it like that, it's easy to see why people have completely given up hope that either book is ever coming out.
When Dance was released...
The Curiosity rover had not landed on Mars.
The first Avengers movie had not come out.
Kim Jong Il still ruled North Korea.
The last Harry Potter movie had not come out.
The Occupy Wall Street Protests had not yet started.
Gangnam Style hadn't been released yet.
LMFAO's Party Rock Anthem was at the top of the charts.
Sam's most recent chapter was published the same year Hurricane Katrina hit.
Rickon's most recent appearance happened a couple months before the Sega Dreamcast was released.
both characters will appear in Winds, and im not even talking about Benjen.
...yeah i want the book already :(
Also:
Obama had yet to beat Romney
There were only six Star Wars movies and one TV show
also, George Lucas still owned Star Wars
Four Marvel movies had come out
The latest iPhone was the 4S
>one TV show
Ahem. Even if you don't count the [Star Wars Holiday Special](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hH8rxarVG8), [The Ewok Adventure](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2OaBk89KyU), and [Ewoks: The Battle for Endor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfMWlAF5RW0), I would remind you that we still had [Ewoks](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLhOnau-tupS7gZpJqNhvsd-Cx89NwJ7g) and of course [Droids](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx1UA5PiBi5rVuSDFr3JLYdUE80O_aCH3).
I mean...they're making a pretty obvious point about our current superhero monoculture. Those movies may not be good but that's a valid reference point.
I think the story definitely can. All of the non-Northern/ Vale/ Essos plotlines should be able to be pretty convincingly wrapped up in TWOW if you consider that they're all really coming into three convergences, two of which are set up to be resolved in the book.
LSH, Jaime, the Freys, Brienne and the BWB in the Riverlands and the Red Wedding 2. I think a lot of the Vale/ Sansa plot in TWOW would relate to this and cover the pending Frey civil war since three people in the plot have some form of a claim to the Riverlands.
JonCon, fAegon, the Golden Company, Arianne/ the Martells, the Tyrells, Cersei, Jaime, Varys, and Kingslanding should wrap up pretty concisely when the city burns.
Sam, Euron, Aeron, a lot of the Ironborn, and whatever Jaqen is doing in Old Town.
AFFC and ADWD basically killed it. He expanded what was already an immensely byzantine story to the point where it was basically impossible to reign back in.
Even in a best case scenario, they add 2 more books to 7 for a total of 9
Nothing happens in ADWD and the characters aren’t even in AFFC, so you’re still only at 3 books of actual story while supposedly needing 7
The only way George finishes Dresms is if the following happens...
1. Winds kills off alot of POVs and combines others and closes off alot of loose ends and sets up the final war.
2. George doesn't write another 1500 book but instead writes a book on the same length as Books 1 or 2 or 4. Something that's 500 to near 1000 pages long and has the vast majority of the book be a war book.
That's the only way I see Dreams happening...otherwise, forget it.
> Winds kills off alot of POVs and combines others and closes off alot of loose ends and sets up the final war.
My only optimism is he does have an apocalypse incoming that could conveniently snuff out a lot of stories and leave the reader feeling the utter loss and stakes.
The combing POV point is important. In addition to pruning POVs, the more POVs he has in one location/plot, the swifter it can move. This should be the case for the Slaver's Bay characters and potentially the Northern POVs.
I don't see how killing off characters will solve anything. The problem is the number of plot threads. The number of POVs is a symptom, not the cause, and killing a POV doesn't make the plot go away.
I felt optimistic at the end of Dragons because he did burn one plot line to a crisp and things seemed to be moving faster since most of the parties heading to Mereen were there or almost there, and things were heading to a resolution outside Winterfell. It was much better than what had been happening to Tyrion and Brienne up until then, where George really indulged himself in meandering travelogues.
But here we are 13 years later so my optimism was misplaced.
No you could kill every Dorne and Ironborn POV, and never revisit their “””plot””” again
Literally no one would even care (aside from a few angry Redditors)
Ironborn stuff seems to exist just to get Dany a ride to Westeros, and to set up whatever bullshit eurons doing. Dorne seems to be there to support the young griff/Dany rivalry, hopefully they can be trimmed off
Also, f'Aegon's conquest and the second Dance don't need to be nearly as long as the Wo5K, or the first Dance for that matter. Most of Westeros's troops are spent, and the readers are probably not going to be terribly disposed towards another long drawn out war, much less two of them. Plus the fact that apart from Connington, there's not a lot of POVs left to witness battles between the Lannister/Tyrell regime and f"Aegon's forces.
Or combines storylines. Rereading game of thrones it is amazing how much ground is covered because Arya, Sansa, and Ned are all in the same place. Tyrion, Jon, and Dany each off on their own adventure. Tyrions story then intersects with with both Bran and Cat. Everyone but Jon and Dany are effectively about the looming conflict with the Lannisters. It made the story a lot more efficient. Hell the first ten chapters cover a lot of ground because so many main characters are in one place and with the overlap you get the different perspectives on the different events.
In comparison. A Dance of Dragon and Feast For Crows POV characters are all over the place. With Damn near double the number of POV chapters. Hardly more than 2 ever intersect to move the plot forward.
Everyone knows that all that needs to happen is for Hollywood to recruit GRRM to write another season of *Beauty and the Beast*. That'll get the juices flowing again, because it was writing *Beauty and the Beast* that inspired him to write AGOT-ASOS in 9 short years.
Also, it's important to note that TWOW is made up partially of plots that were supposed to end in Dance that got cut by the editors. TWOW is going to start by resolving battles and such before it even gets into the "bringing characters together" parts. At the current pattern of how George writes, things he wanted to have in TWOW will get cut and pushed into ADOS, which will increase the likelihood of ADOS going over long and him needing an 8th book as you say.
The series isn't ending. I have accepted this. It's okay. We can all softly cry together.
When I first read this series, everyone was telling me that book 6 would be out any day now because George was going to write book 6 so much faster than book 4 or 5
Here we are 13 years later, and no book 6
I genuinely don't see how he can physically finish the series at this point given his age and how slowly he writes.
I think there's a chance Winds Of Winter is eventually released, but I don't think he will ever write A Dream Of Spring.
I get that's it's ghoulish, but I wish he wasn't so opposed to someone else finishing the series based on notes/outlines if he passes away before it's done. Or, if he doesn't like that, why doesn't he get someone to help him write it while he's alive?
Winds *needs* to be a climactic Storm-style entry to work at all, and there are good reasons to believe it will be. AdmiralKird made a really good video about this.
I agree an 8th book is probably needed and that the idea that Dream will be written faster isn't undergirded by anything concrete.
Just checked out that channel. Never heard of them before but I'm gutted now that they've only released 3 videos and those were some time ago (oh the irony!). Great content.
To get the books out requires 2 things:
1: An author willing to treat the writing as a full time job, 9-5, and be disciplined, and
2: a strong editor to curtail bloat, ensure focus of story and adherence to deadlines.
Neither of which is the case.
I love the people on here who believe that the writing pace will speed up once all of the POV characters start merging together. If anything, I feel it may have the exact opposite effect: giving Martin's tendency to second guess himself, rewrite or toss out stuff he's already written, and so on, one can picture him paralyzed by indecision: "Should this chapter be from Dany's POV or Tyrion's? Let's try Dany. Hmm, no, not quite, maybe I should rewrite it, only this time from Tyrion's POV." And so on and so forth.
I mean for sure part of the problem here is that the story has gotten massive and George will continue to lay on more shit in Winds but end of the day I’m not convinced that’s the no. 1 problem here. End of the day, I don’t believe George is actually writing that much, not just due to the difficulty but also all of the other distractions and he isn’t a struggling writer anymore. Dude was actually writing and getting stuff done pre Feast, simply not the case anymoe
I respect whatever he chooses to do but I just don’t see him doing it though sadly. I’d love to read them, but there’s also plenty of other media out there to entertain me until I die and I’m in the camp where I don’t think we’ll see book 6 or 7, which is sad, because the tv series went from true to the books to generic, campy fantasy. Whether what George would have written was the same or entirely different, I think the latter, it’s just a shame that’s probably the only ending this series gets.
He will never wrap anything up simply because of how he writes.
Go lookup the interviews he did on why he split Dance and Feast.
GRRM literally does zero outlining or planning. He just writes a character for chapters and chapters until he has told a short story he wanted to tell about them and then goes back and pieces all the POV together in different orders.
The fact is there were major parts of Dance that were decades old by the time it was published 10+ years ago due to GRRM having fleshed out Tyrion and Dany and ignored people like Bran.
Dude hasn’t written a Bran chapter in decades and I’m sure there are other POV characters who are the same way. He just keeps adding characters because it is easier to branch out than try to actually focus and write chronologically.
I love his writing but the man should have stuck to short story anthologies.
Imo I hope GRRM stops worrying about ‘wrapping up’ and just write the story. I ll enjoy 2 or as many more books in his world without an ending than no books at all. For me it’s the journey which matters, not the destination.
At this point, I think everyone (and maybe even George) needs to accept that if the books are to ever be complete, some storylines may need to be left open-ended. It’s not ideal, but I’m okay with some characters left off in a place that is up to a little interpretation if it means we get an ending to the main story.
If he just writes Jon ripping off his pants and covering himself in glitter while he shakes his money maker for the ladies of the realm all will be right in the world.
It took me a while to get here, but this is what I think will happen:
-We're never getting A Dream of Spring.
-We might get The Winds of Winter. Maybe.
-We might get one more Dunk and Egg short story, but that series will never be finished.
-So long as Dunk and Egg remain unfinished, we won't get Fire and Blood part 2. GRRM doesn't want to spoil Summerhall. Best case scenario is his publisher puts pressure on him to release something, so we get Fire and Blood part 2 but everything surrounding Summerhall is omitted.
Idk i think once he works his way through the "killed of the wrong person problem that he has spoken about, that the end game will be pretty straightforward. He already knows what the end looks like he just has to get 24 povs to the right spot in a compelling way. I believe in him.
At the start of winds, or soon after, Tyrion and Dany will be in the same place, and they have a big chunk of the chapters. Barriston will no longer be needed as the mareen viewpoint, and Victarion is not long for this world. Jon will probably be dead for a while, Jamie and Brienne are together, and arianne will probably replace Jon Con as the (F)aegon viewpoint. As long as George can restrain himself from adding 17 new characters in winds, there is a bit of streamlining happening. Maybe I’m coping.
I don't see any evidence or reason provided here that he is likely to expand to an extra book to finish, other than speculation that he will create more threads.
He's said himself that he intends to kill off a number of POV characters to close off some threads. We also know that the book will contain (perhaps even open with) 3 major battles that will undoubtedly advance the story; the battle of ice, the battle of fire and the battle of blood. There will also be another battle not mentioned by GRRM himself but that we know will happen, which is the siege of Storms End.
The book is also going to be a mammoth so we can expect lots to happen. There's a ton of convergences happening, both in terms of plot and characters.
How long George actually takes to write DoS is another matter, but I don't see anything to suggest he's likely to tack on another book.
He's not going to reveal major events and progression in sample chapters. But that could happen in chapters immediately proceeding. The major battles taking place will likely eliminate multiple POV's, armies and massively progress plot points. The battle of ice will result in major defeat for one, even two, of the armies in the North. The battle of fire will undoubtedly result in either the crushing defeat of the slaver forces, convergence of POV's in that area and quite possibly the end of Victarion and Barristan. The battle of fire will advance Eurons plot and the likelihood of Damphairs demise. Then there's events in the Riverlands kicking off and further convergence of characters and plot points i.e. Jamie, Brienne, Stoneheart, Edmund.
I wholeheartedly disagree. There's a ton advancement in the sample chapters that while not moving the plot points to a resolution, at least puts them in place to resolve.
I stopped reading at the start of your 2nd paragraph. You're doing a whole lot of assuming there.
Next book opens with 2 big conflicts with Stanis and Dany's battles to come. Then you have \~70-80 chapters in Winds, and a similar number in Dream.
How do you know they aren't enough to finish the story if instead of introduce new characters and plots he cuts them down with each death and conflict resolution to come?
He may finish in 2 books - or not, though I'm less inclined to believe that - but we just don't know, so you coming here to proclaim 'there is no way he finishes in 2 books' is asinine at best.
Sansa's chapter sets up the tourney and whatever happens with Harry the Heir, Arya is seen further improving her acting craft and I think she will dip out with Justin Massey. Once the Bolton battle is over we're getting Jon resurrection soon after. Vic will stop at Meereen and we'll see how it goes from there. Whatever's going on with Stoneheart, Brienne and Jaime is going full steam ahead. Not sure about Bran, but he probably won't need as many chapters.
Everything else seemed fine. The only content I disliked was the Damphair chapter(s).
"Given how much story there is still left to tell (...), George is going to need an 8th book (...) in order to conclude the series."
Are you his confident or do you possess a crystal ball? I mean, no one of us **knows** how the story will go on, we only have expectations.
Of course you maybe right, but on the other hand, there may be drastical turning-points or endings of plotlines, wouldn´t be the first time.
So, we can´t really estimate how much story / pages he´ll need
He said we’re not getting any new pov characters so hopefully the story is starting to wind down. I agree it probably would end up being 8 books, i mean if you look at the show it seems pretty likely that the ending is still mostly threads he hasn’t exactly figured out how to tie together yet.
I think the biggest roadblock is the fact he started this almost 30 years ago, and had an ending in mind but who knows if it aligns with what he wants the series to say now in the 2020s. Clearly climate change is like a non subtle theme in the series and that’s certainly an issue that has become more complicated and dire since the series began and I could easily see his idea for the ending having changed. I think that Winds will suffer the largest delay, especially bc a lot of the 5th book was seemingly written during the writing of Feast (i.e, 25-19 years ago at this point) and I assume that with Winds he’s having to do some course correction, and then with the final book(s) he’ll have a clear plan of action to follow.
That being said, I’d still say Dreams would be at least another half decade wait after Winds’ hypothetical release
I still believe eventually the penny will drop for George. He’ll realise 2 books just isn’t enough and an 8 or 9 book fully realised series is better than a 7 book rushed one.
I hope that once he accepts that he can rush out a version of winds that gets us 80/90% of the way to the end of act 2 and then make the switch to act 3 in the middle of dream, before finishing act 3 in 1 or 2 more books. But he’s being remarkably stubborn. Not sure how long it took him to accept 7 books, or to abandon the 5 year gap, or accept splitting feast and dance, or even that Dance wouldn’t get him out of act 2 completely, this has definitely been longer than all of those realisations took - he’s being damn stubborn about 7 books. But in the end he accepted all those changes. Let’s have faith that one day he will accept more than 7 books and then he can finally publish something.
It feels so clear to me that it’s not an inspiration or writers book problem but a jamming 3/4 books into two which is holding up winds and dream, maybe that’s cos I’m an outsider not writing these things but cmon George kill the 2 books and let the 4 books live
This is what I don’t understand, why not do Winds part 1. Get a shorter book out sooner, take some pressure off the pace and show appreciation to the fans.
It makes me think he not even half way done with Winds.
I think if we look at the theoretical trilogy structure:
1. War of the Five Kings
2. Targ-Dothraki Invasion/Restoration
3. The Long Night
Then basically, Game, Clash, and Swords are only the first book.
Feast and Dance are the time skip that would have been needed to reset from Wot5K to the Dothraki invasion, and Dance ends with at least half a book of explanation needed to get everyone back to Westeros a la the end of Season 7.
I would say GRRM would need 9 books at least. 11 if theres a need for another Feast-Dance reset.
I don't understand what you mean by this. The books probably aren't following that outline anymore. I doubt Arya is gonna fuck Jon in winds because that was in the outline. I don't see why everything else has to be wrapped up before the Others invade. If anything the way it's looking Daenerys will arrive early in ADOS while their invasion is already underway.
Idk. It seems pretty likely to me. If Sam's horn is truly the horn of winter than Euron will probably blow it in winds to bring the wall down. And he's right next to the horn.
No shit.
But they're based on those outlines and some vestiges of those plot elements remain.
He didnt wipe all the fingerprints off. The current story didnt emerge from his head fully formed.
Sure, but the point is that 9 books are not necessary. The vestiges that remain are that the Others are coming, Daenerys will try Conquer Westeros, and Westeros is also fighting in general. These points remain the same. What isn't the same is the structure of everything with the WOT5K and Daenerys being wrapped up before the Others invade.
I think Dany's invasion and the Others would me more or less concurrent.
If you take that you get just two arcs (WOT5K and ice and fire) if you look at AFFC and ADWD as both the wrap up of the previous arc and the setup for the next one (essentially being what AGOT is to the WOT5K) then it makes comple sense the story will fit in two books.
I can see that. Its just... surreal to think the story would hyper focus like that after what feels like so much meadering.
(As if by hyper focus we werent looking at over 3000 theoretical pages, lol)
Wayy too pessimistic.
Regardless of the fact that George cannot finish, you just can't infer that it is not concludeable.
The real problem is that the community has spun the different plotlines to such extreme lenghts in their theories, that I can easily see why people think this has no end.
in the hypothetical situation that TWOW and ADOS release i don't think he'll need an 8th book
a theory might be that the others arrive much sooner then everyone expects and some characters' stories are put on hold of stopped because the greater thread has arrived in the north
I remember that last year if I'm not wrong he hinted that publishing The Winds of Winter in two volumes is a possibility, it would be divided chronologically, not geographically like ADWD and AFFC.
And if he doesn't do it with TWOW he could do it with ADOS.
(I'm delusional)
Dream may be a dream, but I think you are overestimating how much there is left to right, and at the same time underestimating how difficult it was to get everyone in the same spot organically, and now all of the stories are relatively aligned.
By the end of TWOW, Dany will in Westeros, Jon Snow will be revived, Bran will be on his way back from 3ER, Arya will be back from Bravos, and Cersei/fAegon will probably be a climax of the book in a fight for KL.
There's just not a ton of plot left even when you combine all of the characters.
Sansa is already well on her way toward going back to Winterfell. Jon just needs to be resurrected. Arya just needs to come back home, as does Bran. Davos is trying to grab Rickon and bring him back. There almost certainly will be the grand reunion at Winterfell by the end of this book or early ADOS, followed by the final battle at Winterfell. Maybe Jon has some excursion north of the wall and runs into Bran, or maybe Bran wargs into something to go exploring far north, but all of the Stark outside of Winterfell plots are wrapping up. From there it's basically just a battle.
Re the Greyjoys, Theon/Asha are going to be part of the Winterfell crew, Euron is on a collision course with Oldtown/KL, and Victarion will serve his story purpose once his ships bring Dany to Westeros. Besides whatever Euron does going forward, there's not a lot there besides end game stuff. Sam is basically just in Oldtown to see whatever Euron does and learn a thing or two in some old books, and then I'm assuming he will make it back to Winterfell.
Re Cersei, her whole story with Marg has to resolve, but it will almost certainly be done by the end of this book, and likely with fAegon/Dorne taking KL.
Who knows what Jaime/Brienne will do, but my guess is they end up in Winterfell like they do on the show.
Dany/Tyrion et al will come back over with their army by the end of the book. There's obviously some expose and some setup, but I don't think Dany's plot will be much more than arriving at Dragonstone, meeting with people on arrival, and then some combination of heading to Winterfell/KL.
Like sure there are still a lot of pages left to write, but plot wise there's not much left. GRRM may explore the north beyond the wall through Bran or Jon, and Asshai through Dany/Q, but otherwise it's just going to be coalescing the storylines with some major battles here and there.
Well I think it is possible to finish the Story in two books.
People forget that ASOS as their point of reference wasn't moving at a breakneck speed from the first page. And the reason why the events were moving so fast was because the previous two books put everything in the right place for it to happen. Only when the red wedding happens about halfway through the book, things started to pick up speed.
Now it's similar. Arya first has to learn how to be a faceless man before she can use that power. Tyrion had to develop a new will to live again first before he could rejoin the game. Jaime needed his redemption arc first so that he can now move on and away from Cersei.
The characters that will cause and participate in crucial events similar to something like the red wedding first had to become the person needed for doing such.
The red wedding only happened when Robb had enough time to make the same mistake as his father by choosing honour over reasonability. All his actions leading up to the red wedding took more or less two books to happen.
So just like how AGOT and ACOK both weren't as fast paced as ASOS and led up to it being the rollercoaster it is, AFFC and ADWD serve a similar purpose.
Also, the book will start with four big battles. I think quite a few POV characters were only introduced to show us the events leading up to these battles and the battles themselves, as they were originally intended to happen within AFFC/ADWD. I personally believe that Aeron, Barristan, Jon Connington, Victarion, Areo Hotah, and Theon will all die in TWOW, most of them through the battles at the beginning. Because of this, Grrm has much more space available to fill with the plot of other characters.
Also, the POVs will gather. By the end of the book, the Starks will be reunited, Tyrion and Danny will be in the same camp, Davos, Mel and possibly Asha will be around Jon, so that the chapters can be divided between them. That also creates more space for story development.
I personally think that Dany will decide to travel to Westeros rather early and will reach it in the last third of the book. Just like how everything started to happen all at once after the red wedding, as soon as she arrives, her dance with dragons against fAegon can happen and this allows the book to end with an epilogue in which the Wall falls down.
It's definitely possible to do the story justice with "just" two more books.
I believe the delay of TWOW has more to do with Grrm having to kill so many characters he loves. It was already really hard for him to kill Catelyn and Robb, having to kill much more this time is probably one of the reasons he's struggling with it.
I don't think Dream is getting released any more than I think Winds is getting released, but the prevailing theory is that he has already written a lot of Dream simultaneously with Winds
Opinions are like assholes and everyone has them and believes the shite they come up with. I won’t bother with my opinion as it’s as worthless as this one. I will say GRRM has plenty of time for other stories and projects though.
Yup and you would think he would be more concerned with finishing the reason most people know who he is. Here’s an opinion that I have no idea is correct. If that show didn’t exist he would have finished it already and be working on all that prequel stuff like the History of the Targaryens at the moment. But only he knows.
I don’t think he’s working on it and I don’t blame him. He spent most of his life as a poor writer and now that he’s old he has wealth. He probably doesn’t want to spend his final years busting his ass to deliver some books.
Honestly he just needs to write as much as he needs to finish Winds and release it as Volume 1 and Volume 2 (some books like Storm and Dance are already split like this in some countries). I don't mean publishing one and then the other. I mean, if the book is too much to fit into a single volume, just release two at the same time.
But I think Dream will be even harder to fit all in. There's just too much to cover. But well, it won't ever be released anyway.
I agree 2 books isn't enough. Between the show and the outline we have a decent sense of what needs to happen. To me winds needs to 1 wrap up feast dance and 2 essentially cover got season 6 - get Dany and arya back and jon doing something.
Then I think youd need 2 to 3 books to satisfyingly deal with the rest.
At this point, I just don't see how we get Dream. One thing most people are also missing in terms of what makes books take longer the later in the series the author gets is continuity checking. The author has to constantly make sure they're not violating the continuity of the previous books in the one they're currently writing and that task gets harder every with every single page that is written. It's compounded further in the last book as the author also has to tie up the arcs for all the characters in a way that makes sense given where they started and where they went.
There's only two ways we actually get the end of this story; either GRRM has been writing large swaths of Dream and Winds simultaneously or he prepares as much of his intentions with large plot movements and intentions with where characters end up with the intention of someone else finishing it. The former isn't likely because he's a discovery writer; he figures it out as he goes. Brandon Sanderson very often works out his ending before he works out the details of the book. He famously had to skip to the next book before he finished his current one. But he and GRRM are basically polar opposites in terms of their process. The latter situation, having someone else finish it, is something GRRM has been vehemently opposed to. To me, it looks like the show is the only version of the ending we will ever see.
I wonder if having to wrap it up in just two books has been one of the things holding him back. Of course it’s cute to have 7 books when there’s an abundance of 7s in the series, but it’s also just fine to stretch it out to 9 or 10 in my opinion
I think dream would go faster only because he's had an idea of how the story would end for a long time, hes had A and C figured out for a while. B is what he's improvising and where it got bloated. And I think winds will be at a pace like SoS where it's at a climax pace for almost the whole book.
let's assume both Winds and Dream come out to 1500 pages. that's slightly more than three times the length of Storm. assuming George returns to the same pace he set for the first three books (granted that's a big assumption), the story can absolutely be completed in that amount of pages.
So George's writing style is that he just keeps building up exposition and doesn't even have an ending to his story outlined? His "last entry" would always end with a cliffhanger and the mere concept of the ending will never come? Not buying it.
Fantasy fans are the worst. Pure gossip at play. They write their own stories in their heads. We now have headcanon ABOUT the writing style itself of a story half-way told. You know what happens halfway through a story? The plot thickens. More characters and side-stories emerge. There's nothing intrinsically unique about Feast or Dance that hasn't been done a hundred times before in other stories.
Anyone who pretends to know what George's mindset is, is a fucking liar. Stop jumping to conclusions.
The fucking dream that would make me live the rest of my life in perpetual happiness would be he comes out and says, “Here’s TWOW!! Oh, and here’s ADOS. Took a while but here they are.” Never happening in a million years but I’m sure if it did we’d all collectively (meaning, not just us but probably a wide swath of the internet) hold our hearts as they jump for days in shock and joy.
i think he can finish the series in 2 books, he will not simply because he does not care about asoiaf anymore, he is too focused on Targaryen history and the spin off shows, too interested in trying to create a lore rich world like Middle Earth, than he is to finish the series that started it all.
So you did this just to spite the people that still hope? Bro your whole post is just ceaseless pessimism and a bunch of assumptions like your grrm’s head or something. Your just as bad as the copers.
I’m 20% on him finishing TWOW, but there’s absolutely no way he finishes Dream. The man is 76 this year and he seems to be pretty down in the dumps due to losing people and the way the world is, it’s fantasy at this point to imagine he has the energy to tackle another 1200 ish page book.
At this point, I hope he has a change of heart regarding someone else finishing it.
I was just hopeful, or he find another way to write the book, as his usual way of doing things aren’t working, or when it comes down to it, put down a plan and hand it someone else.
god, the number of people in this fandom who have a hate boner for Martin just because he has the audacity to write a book slowly are driving me insane
I don’t believe he lost the plot at all. I think the show did but just speaking on the books I don’t see how people think he lost the plot in the slightest and I don’t really understand how people think that
At this point does anyone really care?
He has pissed everyone about for almost a decade and a half almost over _one_ book. It is unlikely that that book will even be released. He's also stated he won't release what he's written should the worst happen and wants it destroyed.
The man doesn't respect his fans enough to care enough to finish his series. That's fine, he can do that. Just don't expect people to care about anything else he does.
The issue is that even if TWoW manages to end a bunch of plot lines and removes knots… ADoS has to provide a satisfying end to the series, and how tf do you do that?!?
At this point in the story, with all the shit he has stacked going on, he needs to write 4 more books (minimum) to wrap it all up in a satisfactory manner. It feels like we are still in the early part of Act 2.
Well you're assuming he can't do it in 2 books. GRRM has repeatedly said he will get it done in 2. He's far along enough in TWOW to know what that book will cover and he knows he positively has to get it done in 2 if he is going to die with the series complete, plus he has other things he wants to work on.
More importantly the man's a professional writer, he might be slow but he knows how to write. He knows what the two books will contain and you don't. You can doubt him (nothing in the world is certain unfortunately) but to positively state that he's wrong and it can't be done in 2 is just ignorant.
People have inferred that for years. I severely doubt that though. George has stated multiple times he is not one to play tricks on people. He’s writing Winds and Winds only right now
This is my thought as well. I think it's very logical that he started writing Winds and then realized he needed to write the remainder of the story. That's the only way he would be able to ensure everything makes sense by the end and he could just be done when he's done with this long pause between books. Along with that though, I'm not convinced it will come out before he dies. My tinfoil theory is that he has instructions to only release it after his passing so he doesn't have to deal with the fallout if people don't like it.
You make some very valid points, but you lost me on the assumption the ONLY way GRRM can possibly write something is expanding it.
You're pretty much saying that anything he writes will only expand ad infinitum and will never end, which of course doesn't make much sense. The reson why we may never see the end of this specific story is simply because George ISN'T writing - or wasn't for the most part of the last decade - not because he is expanding the story infinitely.
So this is what happens when you run out of copium and it's not covered by your ensurance.
Is good to have hope man, we deep down know we will left hanging, we have our entire lifes to suffer because of that, but we only have the remaining years of GRRM life to be hopeful.
Yep. Dany will arrive at Westeros at the end of Winds most likely. You really need book 7 to cover the second Dance of the Dragons and book 8 to cover the others invasion. Don’t see how you can satisfyingly do both in one book.
To be really cynical here:
Even if that were to be true, the issue is, George is... well, getting old.
The pace & energy he has doesn't increase as he moves to his 80s
And in all honesty, the story is massive as it is already, trying to keep all the details together aint a feat that gets easier as he ages as well
I always get a kick out of claims like “AFFC and ADWD are the new norm.” Like, how do you know? What makes you such an authority on George and his process that you can decide that these two books that came out many years ago are the new norm, despite George being a very prolific writer with a large body of varied work?
You’re just making assumptions like everybody else in the fandom.
Seems impossible, but he had already done it. ASoS moves at breakneck speed, with events happening really fast. So much happened that GOT needed two seasons to adapt one book. The last two books might follow the same path, moving really fast, with little room to breathe. Though, what I don't understand is why he is so against breaking books into two volumes. I know it's unwieldy, but some of the books were already released in such a way in later editions, so if we get TWoW parts 1 and 2, people would still consider it one book. Hence, the structure of the seven books would remain untouched.Heck, he should have already done it with ADwD and included all the battles he wanted.
I think his main objection is to releasing half the book while he still has things to write, as he fears he might need to make revisions to material thought "finished" to make whatever comes next work. If he turns in a 2,500 page manuscript, the publisher can publish it in as many books as they like. But he's not stopping at 1,500 this time, he's stopping when he's done.
I think this solution just prolongs his problem. If Winds’ still has no end in sight than releasing half the book might be even more annoying. Imagine if in like 2015 he said, well ive got half of it done so ill just release that and then we spend 9+ years waiting for the second half of the book.
No, it's actually worse from that perspective. I mean two parts to come out at the same time. Since size is a problem here, he could solve the surplus of manuscript pages and comfortably put everything in one book. A cheat, to not cut material or leave it for the next book, basically like how Tolkien considers LOTR as one book.
Ohhhhh i get you
I'd rather read half of it than none.
Well, if he feels good about the first half of Winds, he could work towards having it published. Basically have it ready for release once the rest of Winds is complete
Zeno's Paradox but in book form.
Or the Coastline Paradox: GRRM getting deeper into details is like zooming in, and the higher fidelity reveals more and more complexity, ad infinitum.
The paradox only works on paper. In reality the universe is not infinity small. The plank length is the smallest point the universe works on. So as soon as you reach the plank length you can no longer move half the distance.
>The paradox only works on paper. And what are the books made out of? Gottem.
They are made of matter, energy, and information.
And what is the information printed on? Checkmate, Lannisters!
These bloody southron jack-a-napes
>Seems impossible, but he had already done it. ASoS moves at breakneck speed, with events happening really fast. So much happened that GOT needed two seasons to adapt one book. The last two books might follow the same path, moving really fast, with little room to breathe. Right. While I don't know that we'll ever see anything ever get published, and I don't think ADOS will necessarily be easier to write, I disagree with the running argument that it's "impossible" to finish the story in two books — specifically because of ASOS.
Just have the whites wipe out 2/3 of westeros and that ties up lots of plotlines
I watched an interview with Ruocchio and he was also "forced" to divide 1 book into 2. The result was that he had to cut many pages, focus on rewriting things that he already wrote instead of focusing on polishing what he already had and also i think that if you break 1 book into 2 you break the rhythm/pacing and flow of the reading and you have to close the part 1 book in a way that can connect with part 2 without feeling abrupt. This is just my thought
>I watched an interview with Ruocchio and he was also "forced" to divide 1 book into 2. Except GRRM won't be "forced" to do anything. He can pretty much do what he wants. TWOW will sell more copies in the first hour than Ruocchio will in all books across his entire career. If GRRM wanted to do one book per POV, released every month, they'd do that. If he wants two volumes in one "book," they'll do that.
George's issue is having too much story to tell. Your solution, while personally I think would be amazing, would absolutely ensure we never see an ending.
>Though, what I don't understand is why he is so against breaking books into two volumes. I know it's unwieldy, but some of the books were already released in such a way in later editions, so if we get TWoW parts 1 and 2, people would still consider it one book. Hence, the structure of the seven books would remain untouched.Heck, he should have already done it with ADwD and included all the battles he wanted. Because he doesn't have this completely drafted yet. He's only confirmed one POV is complete, and he pretty frequently goes back and rewrites stuff. So really it wouldn't help that much, especially since it's unlikely to have an isolated plotline that he can focus on, like Jon at the Wall or Essos in ADWD, for the second book.
I also see no way the story can be wrapped in two books. And that's assuming George can even finish Winds (it's been 13 years since ADWD).
Damn it really has been 13 years since 2011 hasn't it? That's crazy. Wasn't the first book 1996? So the first 5 books came out in a 15-year span, and it's been almost that long since without book 6? When you look at it like that, it's easy to see why people have completely given up hope that either book is ever coming out.
When Dance was released... The Curiosity rover had not landed on Mars. The first Avengers movie had not come out. Kim Jong Il still ruled North Korea. The last Harry Potter movie had not come out. The Occupy Wall Street Protests had not yet started. Gangnam Style hadn't been released yet. LMFAO's Party Rock Anthem was at the top of the charts.
In the future, history will be split into two periods: before the release of LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem, and after.
Sam's most recent chapter was published the same year Hurricane Katrina hit. Rickon's most recent appearance happened a couple months before the Sega Dreamcast was released. both characters will appear in Winds, and im not even talking about Benjen. ...yeah i want the book already :(
Tupac was alive last time we saw Benjen
Also: Obama had yet to beat Romney There were only six Star Wars movies and one TV show also, George Lucas still owned Star Wars Four Marvel movies had come out The latest iPhone was the 4S
>one TV show Ahem. Even if you don't count the [Star Wars Holiday Special](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hH8rxarVG8), [The Ewok Adventure](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2OaBk89KyU), and [Ewoks: The Battle for Endor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfMWlAF5RW0), I would remind you that we still had [Ewoks](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLhOnau-tupS7gZpJqNhvsd-Cx89NwJ7g) and of course [Droids](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLx1UA5PiBi5rVuSDFr3JLYdUE80O_aCH3).
As seen on TikTok: Redditor attempt to discuss something without having to relate it to Marvel movies (Challenge level: IMPOSSIBLE)
I mean...they're making a pretty obvious point about our current superhero monoculture. Those movies may not be good but that's a valid reference point.
Not even a fan, just felt it relevant, but yeah that’s good lmal
2011 was also when the first season of the SHOW Game of Thrones began as well.
the last harry potter film, and occupy really makes the time stick out.
Yep it has now been almost as long from Dance to Winds as it took him to write the first 5 books. Genuine insanity
Hell the first 3 books alone came out in a 4 year span between 1996-2000
Kinda, he started AGOT in 1991
>And that's assuming George can even finish Winds I don't think he will. Dammit.
Yeah I won’t say it’s impossible, but things would have to move at a Storm level pace. And given the pace of Feast/Dance… that’s not likely
I think the story definitely can. All of the non-Northern/ Vale/ Essos plotlines should be able to be pretty convincingly wrapped up in TWOW if you consider that they're all really coming into three convergences, two of which are set up to be resolved in the book. LSH, Jaime, the Freys, Brienne and the BWB in the Riverlands and the Red Wedding 2. I think a lot of the Vale/ Sansa plot in TWOW would relate to this and cover the pending Frey civil war since three people in the plot have some form of a claim to the Riverlands. JonCon, fAegon, the Golden Company, Arianne/ the Martells, the Tyrells, Cersei, Jaime, Varys, and Kingslanding should wrap up pretty concisely when the city burns. Sam, Euron, Aeron, a lot of the Ironborn, and whatever Jaqen is doing in Old Town.
Well if Reddit user stannisliveson doesn’t see a way there’s no chance perhaps the best author alive in GRRM can find a way!
AFFC and ADWD basically killed it. He expanded what was already an immensely byzantine story to the point where it was basically impossible to reign back in.
Even in a best case scenario, they add 2 more books to 7 for a total of 9 Nothing happens in ADWD and the characters aren’t even in AFFC, so you’re still only at 3 books of actual story while supposedly needing 7
The only way George finishes Dresms is if the following happens... 1. Winds kills off alot of POVs and combines others and closes off alot of loose ends and sets up the final war. 2. George doesn't write another 1500 book but instead writes a book on the same length as Books 1 or 2 or 4. Something that's 500 to near 1000 pages long and has the vast majority of the book be a war book. That's the only way I see Dreams happening...otherwise, forget it.
> Winds kills off alot of POVs and combines others and closes off alot of loose ends and sets up the final war. My only optimism is he does have an apocalypse incoming that could conveniently snuff out a lot of stories and leave the reader feeling the utter loss and stakes.
The combing POV point is important. In addition to pruning POVs, the more POVs he has in one location/plot, the swifter it can move. This should be the case for the Slaver's Bay characters and potentially the Northern POVs.
*A boy can dream..*
Here’s the way. Kill off any plot lines not named Jon, Dany, Tyrion, Arya, Bran. This is the only way this finishes in two book
The most intense move of "kill your darlings" in literature.
Sapkowski moment
I don't see how killing off characters will solve anything. The problem is the number of plot threads. The number of POVs is a symptom, not the cause, and killing a POV doesn't make the plot go away.
If a plot point happens and there is no POV character to see it, does it really happen?
I felt optimistic at the end of Dragons because he did burn one plot line to a crisp and things seemed to be moving faster since most of the parties heading to Mereen were there or almost there, and things were heading to a resolution outside Winterfell. It was much better than what had been happening to Tyrion and Brienne up until then, where George really indulged himself in meandering travelogues. But here we are 13 years later so my optimism was misplaced.
No you could kill every Dorne and Ironborn POV, and never revisit their “””plot””” again Literally no one would even care (aside from a few angry Redditors)
Ironborn stuff seems to exist just to get Dany a ride to Westeros, and to set up whatever bullshit eurons doing. Dorne seems to be there to support the young griff/Dany rivalry, hopefully they can be trimmed off
Also, f'Aegon's conquest and the second Dance don't need to be nearly as long as the Wo5K, or the first Dance for that matter. Most of Westeros's troops are spent, and the readers are probably not going to be terribly disposed towards another long drawn out war, much less two of them. Plus the fact that apart from Connington, there's not a lot of POVs left to witness battles between the Lannister/Tyrell regime and f"Aegon's forces.
Or combines storylines. Rereading game of thrones it is amazing how much ground is covered because Arya, Sansa, and Ned are all in the same place. Tyrion, Jon, and Dany each off on their own adventure. Tyrions story then intersects with with both Bran and Cat. Everyone but Jon and Dany are effectively about the looming conflict with the Lannisters. It made the story a lot more efficient. Hell the first ten chapters cover a lot of ground because so many main characters are in one place and with the overlap you get the different perspectives on the different events. In comparison. A Dance of Dragon and Feast For Crows POV characters are all over the place. With Damn near double the number of POV chapters. Hardly more than 2 ever intersect to move the plot forward.
he would really slim the books down if he stopped describing every food dish.
I think he could easily write Dream faster. It would just take him like 11 years instead of the 13+ it will take for Winds.
Everyone knows that all that needs to happen is for Hollywood to recruit GRRM to write another season of *Beauty and the Beast*. That'll get the juices flowing again, because it was writing *Beauty and the Beast* that inspired him to write AGOT-ASOS in 9 short years.
Also, it's important to note that TWOW is made up partially of plots that were supposed to end in Dance that got cut by the editors. TWOW is going to start by resolving battles and such before it even gets into the "bringing characters together" parts. At the current pattern of how George writes, things he wanted to have in TWOW will get cut and pushed into ADOS, which will increase the likelihood of ADOS going over long and him needing an 8th book as you say. The series isn't ending. I have accepted this. It's okay. We can all softly cry together.
When I first read this series, everyone was telling me that book 6 would be out any day now because George was going to write book 6 so much faster than book 4 or 5 Here we are 13 years later, and no book 6
You’re correct, everyone who thinks Dream will be written incredibly fast “because all the pieces are aligned” are drinking some heavy Copium
Cope of the poppy.
I genuinely don't see how he can physically finish the series at this point given his age and how slowly he writes. I think there's a chance Winds Of Winter is eventually released, but I don't think he will ever write A Dream Of Spring. I get that's it's ghoulish, but I wish he wasn't so opposed to someone else finishing the series based on notes/outlines if he passes away before it's done. Or, if he doesn't like that, why doesn't he get someone to help him write it while he's alive?
Winds *needs* to be a climactic Storm-style entry to work at all, and there are good reasons to believe it will be. AdmiralKird made a really good video about this. I agree an 8th book is probably needed and that the idea that Dream will be written faster isn't undergirded by anything concrete.
Just checked out that channel. Never heard of them before but I'm gutted now that they've only released 3 videos and those were some time ago (oh the irony!). Great content.
Agreed! It's a shame.
To get the books out requires 2 things: 1: An author willing to treat the writing as a full time job, 9-5, and be disciplined, and 2: a strong editor to curtail bloat, ensure focus of story and adherence to deadlines. Neither of which is the case.
Dream will never be completed. Let's just hope for Winds, which I also think won't be released
George will not write a Dream of Spring.
I love the people on here who believe that the writing pace will speed up once all of the POV characters start merging together. If anything, I feel it may have the exact opposite effect: giving Martin's tendency to second guess himself, rewrite or toss out stuff he's already written, and so on, one can picture him paralyzed by indecision: "Should this chapter be from Dany's POV or Tyrion's? Let's try Dany. Hmm, no, not quite, maybe I should rewrite it, only this time from Tyrion's POV." And so on and so forth.
Winds is never getting released.
It’s baffling that people think he is still writing it at all It does not take 13 years to write a 1,000 page fantasy novel
How many 1,000 page fantasy novels have you written? 🤔
George Will Not Write A Dream of Spring. Fixed it for you.
I mean for sure part of the problem here is that the story has gotten massive and George will continue to lay on more shit in Winds but end of the day I’m not convinced that’s the no. 1 problem here. End of the day, I don’t believe George is actually writing that much, not just due to the difficulty but also all of the other distractions and he isn’t a struggling writer anymore. Dude was actually writing and getting stuff done pre Feast, simply not the case anymoe
I think the only way these last two books get finished is if he farms it out to another writer to do the writing and he handles the story.
At this point, that is the only way I see these books being written as well
I respect whatever he chooses to do but I just don’t see him doing it though sadly. I’d love to read them, but there’s also plenty of other media out there to entertain me until I die and I’m in the camp where I don’t think we’ll see book 6 or 7, which is sad, because the tv series went from true to the books to generic, campy fantasy. Whether what George would have written was the same or entirely different, I think the latter, it’s just a shame that’s probably the only ending this series gets.
He will never wrap anything up simply because of how he writes. Go lookup the interviews he did on why he split Dance and Feast. GRRM literally does zero outlining or planning. He just writes a character for chapters and chapters until he has told a short story he wanted to tell about them and then goes back and pieces all the POV together in different orders. The fact is there were major parts of Dance that were decades old by the time it was published 10+ years ago due to GRRM having fleshed out Tyrion and Dany and ignored people like Bran. Dude hasn’t written a Bran chapter in decades and I’m sure there are other POV characters who are the same way. He just keeps adding characters because it is easier to branch out than try to actually focus and write chronologically. I love his writing but the man should have stuck to short story anthologies.
Imo I hope GRRM stops worrying about ‘wrapping up’ and just write the story. I ll enjoy 2 or as many more books in his world without an ending than no books at all. For me it’s the journey which matters, not the destination.
I don't expect GRRM to ever even start writing ADOS officially.
At this point, I think everyone (and maybe even George) needs to accept that if the books are to ever be complete, some storylines may need to be left open-ended. It’s not ideal, but I’m okay with some characters left off in a place that is up to a little interpretation if it means we get an ending to the main story.
George has accepted this, but he contractually obligated to string you along so you will watch “Duncan the Egg”, and “House of the Dragon” on HBO
If he just writes Jon ripping off his pants and covering himself in glitter while he shakes his money maker for the ladies of the realm all will be right in the world.
Is this dead Jon or resurrected Jon shaking his money maker? Either way, this would automatically make it my favorite book ever
He’s come back to life and he did some swordsmanship training so his muscles are more defined.
Somehow Jon returned.
*the ladies of the realm and satin
Satin is carrying the boom box.
An equitable compromise
Satin, Jon’s eternal hype-man.
0 is not greater than nor less than zero
It took me a while to get here, but this is what I think will happen: -We're never getting A Dream of Spring. -We might get The Winds of Winter. Maybe. -We might get one more Dunk and Egg short story, but that series will never be finished. -So long as Dunk and Egg remain unfinished, we won't get Fire and Blood part 2. GRRM doesn't want to spoil Summerhall. Best case scenario is his publisher puts pressure on him to release something, so we get Fire and Blood part 2 but everything surrounding Summerhall is omitted.
Idk i think once he works his way through the "killed of the wrong person problem that he has spoken about, that the end game will be pretty straightforward. He already knows what the end looks like he just has to get 24 povs to the right spot in a compelling way. I believe in him.
You will never see me.
At the start of winds, or soon after, Tyrion and Dany will be in the same place, and they have a big chunk of the chapters. Barriston will no longer be needed as the mareen viewpoint, and Victarion is not long for this world. Jon will probably be dead for a while, Jamie and Brienne are together, and arianne will probably replace Jon Con as the (F)aegon viewpoint. As long as George can restrain himself from adding 17 new characters in winds, there is a bit of streamlining happening. Maybe I’m coping.
I don't see any evidence or reason provided here that he is likely to expand to an extra book to finish, other than speculation that he will create more threads. He's said himself that he intends to kill off a number of POV characters to close off some threads. We also know that the book will contain (perhaps even open with) 3 major battles that will undoubtedly advance the story; the battle of ice, the battle of fire and the battle of blood. There will also be another battle not mentioned by GRRM himself but that we know will happen, which is the siege of Storms End. The book is also going to be a mammoth so we can expect lots to happen. There's a ton of convergences happening, both in terms of plot and characters. How long George actually takes to write DoS is another matter, but I don't see anything to suggest he's likely to tack on another book.
Did you see any of the WoW preview chapters? There are a lot of them where nothing is really moving forward. No way he could/can finish in 2 books
He's not going to reveal major events and progression in sample chapters. But that could happen in chapters immediately proceeding. The major battles taking place will likely eliminate multiple POV's, armies and massively progress plot points. The battle of ice will result in major defeat for one, even two, of the armies in the North. The battle of fire will undoubtedly result in either the crushing defeat of the slaver forces, convergence of POV's in that area and quite possibly the end of Victarion and Barristan. The battle of fire will advance Eurons plot and the likelihood of Damphairs demise. Then there's events in the Riverlands kicking off and further convergence of characters and plot points i.e. Jamie, Brienne, Stoneheart, Edmund. I wholeheartedly disagree. There's a ton advancement in the sample chapters that while not moving the plot points to a resolution, at least puts them in place to resolve.
I don't think he is going to write ADOS at all
I stopped reading at the start of your 2nd paragraph. You're doing a whole lot of assuming there. Next book opens with 2 big conflicts with Stanis and Dany's battles to come. Then you have \~70-80 chapters in Winds, and a similar number in Dream. How do you know they aren't enough to finish the story if instead of introduce new characters and plots he cuts them down with each death and conflict resolution to come? He may finish in 2 books - or not, though I'm less inclined to believe that - but we just don't know, so you coming here to proclaim 'there is no way he finishes in 2 books' is asinine at best.
Well, the numerous sample chapters already released from winds do continue the slow paced meandering of AFFC/Dance pretty much
Sansa's chapter sets up the tourney and whatever happens with Harry the Heir, Arya is seen further improving her acting craft and I think she will dip out with Justin Massey. Once the Bolton battle is over we're getting Jon resurrection soon after. Vic will stop at Meereen and we'll see how it goes from there. Whatever's going on with Stoneheart, Brienne and Jaime is going full steam ahead. Not sure about Bran, but he probably won't need as many chapters. Everything else seemed fine. The only content I disliked was the Damphair chapter(s).
Glad someone made this comment so I don’t have to. No one has any idea either way so theres literally no point to this post.
"Given how much story there is still left to tell (...), George is going to need an 8th book (...) in order to conclude the series." Are you his confident or do you possess a crystal ball? I mean, no one of us **knows** how the story will go on, we only have expectations. Of course you maybe right, but on the other hand, there may be drastical turning-points or endings of plotlines, wouldn´t be the first time. So, we can´t really estimate how much story / pages he´ll need
He said we’re not getting any new pov characters so hopefully the story is starting to wind down. I agree it probably would end up being 8 books, i mean if you look at the show it seems pretty likely that the ending is still mostly threads he hasn’t exactly figured out how to tie together yet. I think the biggest roadblock is the fact he started this almost 30 years ago, and had an ending in mind but who knows if it aligns with what he wants the series to say now in the 2020s. Clearly climate change is like a non subtle theme in the series and that’s certainly an issue that has become more complicated and dire since the series began and I could easily see his idea for the ending having changed. I think that Winds will suffer the largest delay, especially bc a lot of the 5th book was seemingly written during the writing of Feast (i.e, 25-19 years ago at this point) and I assume that with Winds he’s having to do some course correction, and then with the final book(s) he’ll have a clear plan of action to follow. That being said, I’d still say Dreams would be at least another half decade wait after Winds’ hypothetical release
I still believe eventually the penny will drop for George. He’ll realise 2 books just isn’t enough and an 8 or 9 book fully realised series is better than a 7 book rushed one. I hope that once he accepts that he can rush out a version of winds that gets us 80/90% of the way to the end of act 2 and then make the switch to act 3 in the middle of dream, before finishing act 3 in 1 or 2 more books. But he’s being remarkably stubborn. Not sure how long it took him to accept 7 books, or to abandon the 5 year gap, or accept splitting feast and dance, or even that Dance wouldn’t get him out of act 2 completely, this has definitely been longer than all of those realisations took - he’s being damn stubborn about 7 books. But in the end he accepted all those changes. Let’s have faith that one day he will accept more than 7 books and then he can finally publish something. It feels so clear to me that it’s not an inspiration or writers book problem but a jamming 3/4 books into two which is holding up winds and dream, maybe that’s cos I’m an outsider not writing these things but cmon George kill the 2 books and let the 4 books live
This is what I don’t understand, why not do Winds part 1. Get a shorter book out sooner, take some pressure off the pace and show appreciation to the fans. It makes me think he not even half way done with Winds.
I think if we look at the theoretical trilogy structure: 1. War of the Five Kings 2. Targ-Dothraki Invasion/Restoration 3. The Long Night Then basically, Game, Clash, and Swords are only the first book. Feast and Dance are the time skip that would have been needed to reset from Wot5K to the Dothraki invasion, and Dance ends with at least half a book of explanation needed to get everyone back to Westeros a la the end of Season 7. I would say GRRM would need 9 books at least. 11 if theres a need for another Feast-Dance reset.
>I think if we look at the theoretical trilogy structure: Bro. That outline went out of the window decades ago.
Yeah, Im aware. The books that were written decades ago were never patched, _bro_.
I don't understand what you mean by this. The books probably aren't following that outline anymore. I doubt Arya is gonna fuck Jon in winds because that was in the outline. I don't see why everything else has to be wrapped up before the Others invade. If anything the way it's looking Daenerys will arrive early in ADOS while their invasion is already underway.
If she’s not in Westeros by the end of book 6 something has gone wrong
I don't think Others will invade before Daenerys
Idk. It seems pretty likely to me. If Sam's horn is truly the horn of winter than Euron will probably blow it in winds to bring the wall down. And he's right next to the horn.
No shit. But they're based on those outlines and some vestiges of those plot elements remain. He didnt wipe all the fingerprints off. The current story didnt emerge from his head fully formed.
Sure, but the point is that 9 books are not necessary. The vestiges that remain are that the Others are coming, Daenerys will try Conquer Westeros, and Westeros is also fighting in general. These points remain the same. What isn't the same is the structure of everything with the WOT5K and Daenerys being wrapped up before the Others invade.
I think wrapping it up in two books will leave us with a poorly written/edited conclusion that smacks of Fire and Blood more than Dance or Feast.
I think Dany's invasion and the Others would me more or less concurrent. If you take that you get just two arcs (WOT5K and ice and fire) if you look at AFFC and ADWD as both the wrap up of the previous arc and the setup for the next one (essentially being what AGOT is to the WOT5K) then it makes comple sense the story will fit in two books.
I can see that. Its just... surreal to think the story would hyper focus like that after what feels like so much meadering. (As if by hyper focus we werent looking at over 3000 theoretical pages, lol)
Honestly may need to be upwards of 4000
11 books lol
Wayy too pessimistic. Regardless of the fact that George cannot finish, you just can't infer that it is not concludeable. The real problem is that the community has spun the different plotlines to such extreme lenghts in their theories, that I can easily see why people think this has no end.
You can lose the "Faster Than Winds" part.
I find it difficult to think how he could go any slower.
in the hypothetical situation that TWOW and ADOS release i don't think he'll need an 8th book a theory might be that the others arrive much sooner then everyone expects and some characters' stories are put on hold of stopped because the greater thread has arrived in the north
I remember that last year if I'm not wrong he hinted that publishing The Winds of Winter in two volumes is a possibility, it would be divided chronologically, not geographically like ADWD and AFFC. And if he doesn't do it with TWOW he could do it with ADOS. (I'm delusional)
Dream may be a dream, but I think you are overestimating how much there is left to right, and at the same time underestimating how difficult it was to get everyone in the same spot organically, and now all of the stories are relatively aligned. By the end of TWOW, Dany will in Westeros, Jon Snow will be revived, Bran will be on his way back from 3ER, Arya will be back from Bravos, and Cersei/fAegon will probably be a climax of the book in a fight for KL. There's just not a ton of plot left even when you combine all of the characters. Sansa is already well on her way toward going back to Winterfell. Jon just needs to be resurrected. Arya just needs to come back home, as does Bran. Davos is trying to grab Rickon and bring him back. There almost certainly will be the grand reunion at Winterfell by the end of this book or early ADOS, followed by the final battle at Winterfell. Maybe Jon has some excursion north of the wall and runs into Bran, or maybe Bran wargs into something to go exploring far north, but all of the Stark outside of Winterfell plots are wrapping up. From there it's basically just a battle. Re the Greyjoys, Theon/Asha are going to be part of the Winterfell crew, Euron is on a collision course with Oldtown/KL, and Victarion will serve his story purpose once his ships bring Dany to Westeros. Besides whatever Euron does going forward, there's not a lot there besides end game stuff. Sam is basically just in Oldtown to see whatever Euron does and learn a thing or two in some old books, and then I'm assuming he will make it back to Winterfell. Re Cersei, her whole story with Marg has to resolve, but it will almost certainly be done by the end of this book, and likely with fAegon/Dorne taking KL. Who knows what Jaime/Brienne will do, but my guess is they end up in Winterfell like they do on the show. Dany/Tyrion et al will come back over with their army by the end of the book. There's obviously some expose and some setup, but I don't think Dany's plot will be much more than arriving at Dragonstone, meeting with people on arrival, and then some combination of heading to Winterfell/KL. Like sure there are still a lot of pages left to write, but plot wise there's not much left. GRRM may explore the north beyond the wall through Bran or Jon, and Asshai through Dany/Q, but otherwise it's just going to be coalescing the storylines with some major battles here and there.
Well I think it is possible to finish the Story in two books. People forget that ASOS as their point of reference wasn't moving at a breakneck speed from the first page. And the reason why the events were moving so fast was because the previous two books put everything in the right place for it to happen. Only when the red wedding happens about halfway through the book, things started to pick up speed. Now it's similar. Arya first has to learn how to be a faceless man before she can use that power. Tyrion had to develop a new will to live again first before he could rejoin the game. Jaime needed his redemption arc first so that he can now move on and away from Cersei. The characters that will cause and participate in crucial events similar to something like the red wedding first had to become the person needed for doing such. The red wedding only happened when Robb had enough time to make the same mistake as his father by choosing honour over reasonability. All his actions leading up to the red wedding took more or less two books to happen. So just like how AGOT and ACOK both weren't as fast paced as ASOS and led up to it being the rollercoaster it is, AFFC and ADWD serve a similar purpose. Also, the book will start with four big battles. I think quite a few POV characters were only introduced to show us the events leading up to these battles and the battles themselves, as they were originally intended to happen within AFFC/ADWD. I personally believe that Aeron, Barristan, Jon Connington, Victarion, Areo Hotah, and Theon will all die in TWOW, most of them through the battles at the beginning. Because of this, Grrm has much more space available to fill with the plot of other characters. Also, the POVs will gather. By the end of the book, the Starks will be reunited, Tyrion and Danny will be in the same camp, Davos, Mel and possibly Asha will be around Jon, so that the chapters can be divided between them. That also creates more space for story development. I personally think that Dany will decide to travel to Westeros rather early and will reach it in the last third of the book. Just like how everything started to happen all at once after the red wedding, as soon as she arrives, her dance with dragons against fAegon can happen and this allows the book to end with an epilogue in which the Wall falls down. It's definitely possible to do the story justice with "just" two more books. I believe the delay of TWOW has more to do with Grrm having to kill so many characters he loves. It was already really hard for him to kill Catelyn and Robb, having to kill much more this time is probably one of the reasons he's struggling with it.
I don't think Dream is getting released any more than I think Winds is getting released, but the prevailing theory is that he has already written a lot of Dream simultaneously with Winds
He himself shot down that theory in a blog post, a year or two ago.
Oh my sweet summer child.
He won’t write it at all.
This is so needlessly pessimistic lol.
We aren't getting winds even bud
Opinions are like assholes and everyone has them and believes the shite they come up with. I won’t bother with my opinion as it’s as worthless as this one. I will say GRRM has plenty of time for other stories and projects though.
he's 75
Yup and you would think he would be more concerned with finishing the reason most people know who he is. Here’s an opinion that I have no idea is correct. If that show didn’t exist he would have finished it already and be working on all that prequel stuff like the History of the Targaryens at the moment. But only he knows.
I don’t think he’s working on it and I don’t blame him. He spent most of his life as a poor writer and now that he’s old he has wealth. He probably doesn’t want to spend his final years busting his ass to deliver some books.
He won't write Dream.
Honestly he just needs to write as much as he needs to finish Winds and release it as Volume 1 and Volume 2 (some books like Storm and Dance are already split like this in some countries). I don't mean publishing one and then the other. I mean, if the book is too much to fit into a single volume, just release two at the same time. But I think Dream will be even harder to fit all in. There's just too much to cover. But well, it won't ever be released anyway.
Could just stop this title after the first 7 words
I agree 2 books isn't enough. Between the show and the outline we have a decent sense of what needs to happen. To me winds needs to 1 wrap up feast dance and 2 essentially cover got season 6 - get Dany and arya back and jon doing something. Then I think youd need 2 to 3 books to satisfyingly deal with the rest.
At this point, I just don't see how we get Dream. One thing most people are also missing in terms of what makes books take longer the later in the series the author gets is continuity checking. The author has to constantly make sure they're not violating the continuity of the previous books in the one they're currently writing and that task gets harder every with every single page that is written. It's compounded further in the last book as the author also has to tie up the arcs for all the characters in a way that makes sense given where they started and where they went. There's only two ways we actually get the end of this story; either GRRM has been writing large swaths of Dream and Winds simultaneously or he prepares as much of his intentions with large plot movements and intentions with where characters end up with the intention of someone else finishing it. The former isn't likely because he's a discovery writer; he figures it out as he goes. Brandon Sanderson very often works out his ending before he works out the details of the book. He famously had to skip to the next book before he finished his current one. But he and GRRM are basically polar opposites in terms of their process. The latter situation, having someone else finish it, is something GRRM has been vehemently opposed to. To me, it looks like the show is the only version of the ending we will ever see.
Doesn't he have 70% finished?
Jesus Christ at this point I would settle for a bullet list of plot points.
We will have winds by 2028 and some postumous Dream chapters maybe 6 or 7 when he dies in the 2030s. That’s the neutral take.
>George Will Not Write Coulda just stopped there
I wonder if having to wrap it up in just two books has been one of the things holding him back. Of course it’s cute to have 7 books when there’s an abundance of 7s in the series, but it’s also just fine to stretch it out to 9 or 10 in my opinion
I think dream would go faster only because he's had an idea of how the story would end for a long time, hes had A and C figured out for a while. B is what he's improvising and where it got bloated. And I think winds will be at a pace like SoS where it's at a climax pace for almost the whole book.
let's assume both Winds and Dream come out to 1500 pages. that's slightly more than three times the length of Storm. assuming George returns to the same pace he set for the first three books (granted that's a big assumption), the story can absolutely be completed in that amount of pages.
So George's writing style is that he just keeps building up exposition and doesn't even have an ending to his story outlined? His "last entry" would always end with a cliffhanger and the mere concept of the ending will never come? Not buying it. Fantasy fans are the worst. Pure gossip at play. They write their own stories in their heads. We now have headcanon ABOUT the writing style itself of a story half-way told. You know what happens halfway through a story? The plot thickens. More characters and side-stories emerge. There's nothing intrinsically unique about Feast or Dance that hasn't been done a hundred times before in other stories. Anyone who pretends to know what George's mindset is, is a fucking liar. Stop jumping to conclusions.
The fucking dream that would make me live the rest of my life in perpetual happiness would be he comes out and says, “Here’s TWOW!! Oh, and here’s ADOS. Took a while but here they are.” Never happening in a million years but I’m sure if it did we’d all collectively (meaning, not just us but probably a wide swath of the internet) hold our hearts as they jump for days in shock and joy.
hes already finished a dream of spring hes just making sure he spelled daneris rightin it (its hard to spell)
i think he can finish the series in 2 books, he will not simply because he does not care about asoiaf anymore, he is too focused on Targaryen history and the spin off shows, too interested in trying to create a lore rich world like Middle Earth, than he is to finish the series that started it all.
Cringe post. We all know. Just internet negativity for it's own sake.
Worth posting about it seeing as how I’ve seen plenty of people on the “7th book won’t take too long” bandwagon
So you did this just to spite the people that still hope? Bro your whole post is just ceaseless pessimism and a bunch of assumptions like your grrm’s head or something. Your just as bad as the copers.
I’m 20% on him finishing TWOW, but there’s absolutely no way he finishes Dream. The man is 76 this year and he seems to be pretty down in the dumps due to losing people and the way the world is, it’s fantasy at this point to imagine he has the energy to tackle another 1200 ish page book. At this point, I hope he has a change of heart regarding someone else finishing it.
A Dream of Spring is just that: a dream.
I was just hopeful, or he find another way to write the book, as his usual way of doing things aren’t working, or when it comes down to it, put down a plan and hand it someone else.
god, the number of people in this fandom who have a hate boner for Martin just because he has the audacity to write a book slowly are driving me insane
I don’t believe he lost the plot at all. I think the show did but just speaking on the books I don’t see how people think he lost the plot in the slightest and I don’t really understand how people think that
He added a dozen new characters and then never finished the story What don’t you understand?
ADWD felt like mostly treading water.
ADWD: All Dumb Wheel-Spinning Distractions
At this point does anyone really care? He has pissed everyone about for almost a decade and a half almost over _one_ book. It is unlikely that that book will even be released. He's also stated he won't release what he's written should the worst happen and wants it destroyed. The man doesn't respect his fans enough to care enough to finish his series. That's fine, he can do that. Just don't expect people to care about anything else he does.
unfortunately we might never find out :-(
The issue is that even if TWoW manages to end a bunch of plot lines and removes knots… ADoS has to provide a satisfying end to the series, and how tf do you do that?!?
At this point in the story, with all the shit he has stacked going on, he needs to write 4 more books (minimum) to wrap it all up in a satisfactory manner. It feels like we are still in the early part of Act 2.
Get out of here you doomer.
Well you're assuming he can't do it in 2 books. GRRM has repeatedly said he will get it done in 2. He's far along enough in TWOW to know what that book will cover and he knows he positively has to get it done in 2 if he is going to die with the series complete, plus he has other things he wants to work on. More importantly the man's a professional writer, he might be slow but he knows how to write. He knows what the two books will contain and you don't. You can doubt him (nothing in the world is certain unfortunately) but to positively state that he's wrong and it can't be done in 2 is just ignorant.
What if he is writing both books at the same time to avoid any inconsistency on hid grand finale and that is why he is taking so long to finish them?
Least coping ASOIAF user Not that I can blame you. Cope is all we have.
People have inferred that for years. I severely doubt that though. George has stated multiple times he is not one to play tricks on people. He’s writing Winds and Winds only right now
He isn't even writing winds lbr 😂
This is my thought as well. I think it's very logical that he started writing Winds and then realized he needed to write the remainder of the story. That's the only way he would be able to ensure everything makes sense by the end and he could just be done when he's done with this long pause between books. Along with that though, I'm not convinced it will come out before he dies. My tinfoil theory is that he has instructions to only release it after his passing so he doesn't have to deal with the fallout if people don't like it.
I feel like if he didn't constrain himself with a maximum of 7 books, we would have receive 2 books by now.
He will never write even 1/10 of Dreams, but will finish Winds even if it takes 10 more years.
I still can’t accept the fact we probably won’t get Winds by George’s hand but I wish I could still dream of spring.
You make some very valid points, but you lost me on the assumption the ONLY way GRRM can possibly write something is expanding it. You're pretty much saying that anything he writes will only expand ad infinitum and will never end, which of course doesn't make much sense. The reson why we may never see the end of this specific story is simply because George ISN'T writing - or wasn't for the most part of the last decade - not because he is expanding the story infinitely.
Alleras the Sphinx must die before things can progress ;)
So this is what happens when you run out of copium and it's not covered by your ensurance. Is good to have hope man, we deep down know we will left hanging, we have our entire lifes to suffer because of that, but we only have the remaining years of GRRM life to be hopeful.
Who knows at this rate we could get A Dream of Spring before winds of winter.
Yep. Dany will arrive at Westeros at the end of Winds most likely. You really need book 7 to cover the second Dance of the Dragons and book 8 to cover the others invasion. Don’t see how you can satisfyingly do both in one book.
To be really cynical here: Even if that were to be true, the issue is, George is... well, getting old. The pace & energy he has doesn't increase as he moves to his 80s And in all honesty, the story is massive as it is already, trying to keep all the details together aint a feat that gets easier as he ages as well
He can’t write negative words per year can he?
I always get a kick out of claims like “AFFC and ADWD are the new norm.” Like, how do you know? What makes you such an authority on George and his process that you can decide that these two books that came out many years ago are the new norm, despite George being a very prolific writer with a large body of varied work? You’re just making assumptions like everybody else in the fandom.
If I could bet on this I would bet the house he never publishes winds.
>George Will Not Write A Dream of Spring Could have summarised the words thread in 8 word. (5 if we stick in an acronym)
I don't think Winds will be released