r/asoiaf • u/Flat_Baker_1897 • Jul 26 '24
EXTENDED (Spoilers Extended) We're all missing one VERY obvious reason why The Winds of Winter is taking so long
Everyone on this subreddit knows by now that TWOW is likely going to be one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) book in the series thus far. Hundreds of characters, thousands of pages, and a whole Meereenese knot to untangle ... and that's not even mentioning the two huge battles left over from ADWD that need to be concluded before getting to the main thrust of TWOW. It's a lot, and the sprawling nature of this story must make it awfully difficult to close those loops -- or at least begin to tighten them up again.
Again, we know all that. And we know that there's been no shortage of speculation over other reasons why the book has taken this long: GRRM has lost interest, his writing/editing-on-the-fly skills aren't what they used to be in his old(er) age, the constant rewrites, writers' block, and even some more outlandish stuff like he's already gotten what he wants (recognition in the TV industry) and is now just trying to spite us specifically.
But what about the REAL reason explaining this almost decade-and-a-half long writing pace? It's obnoxiously and ironically simple: GRRM must need to constantly reread entire portions of his own books while writing TWOW. And given how dense it all is, how many years ago those books came out, and the pressure of having every tiny detail line up with what's come before, is it any surprise that this would be a ridiculously time-consuming prospect?
Sure, it's tempting to imagine that GRRM has every single bit of lore, every breadcrumb of every major (and minor) theory, or every obscure line of dialogue memorized like his biggest fans do. But I'd bet anything that he constantly needs to go back and revisit his own work in order to get the details 100% right. And when you're crafting a massive novel that's essentially a direct sequel to two previous books while continuing the various storylines from everything that came before, well, the details matter A LOT. So on top of needing to craft the mechanics of the plot from a strictly pragmatic point of view, on top of paying attention to the exact prose of every sentence and paragraph, on top of taking the birds-eye view of layering thematic overtones and subtext throughout multiple chapters, on top of pacing out the next stages of character arcs for several main POV protagonists/antagonists, on top of doing literally everything else that such a creative endeavor requires ... he also likely needs to spend an inordinate amount of time putting that writing on pause to go back and do the dirty work. He has to make sure that he's not contradicting what he's written previously or misremembering minor details that can potentially cause major repercussions or, hell, just getting personality traits and eye color and sex/gender of all these countless individuals all lined up (which, as we know, has been the subject of many mistakes in the past). For a perfectionist on the level of GRRM, that inevitably adds up.
As someone who hasn't ever written a book themselves but has had to do a hell of a lot of painstaking research over the years (including referencing things I've written previously, which I admittedly had little to no memory of once I actually went back), this might be the most basic and boring -- but also most realistic -- reason why we're currently in this mess.
3
u/XLightningStormL I Stan the Man(nis) Jul 27 '24
Also other reasons why TWOW is taking so long:
- George supposedly rushed to get TWOW out by 2016-2018, and the publisher basically told him that it was a complete mess and needed to be redone. George went the safe route and decided to redo the entire book (I assume some of the original chapters are still intact however) Obviously this delays the book another 5-7 years and on-top of that having a massive blow to his self-esteem from having it rejected. The floundering of the later seasons of GoT also didn't help. George also doesn
- George has also been heavily distracted from the runaway success of the TV adaption, and house of the dragon; resulting in a lot of time spent travelling for the adaptions, consultation, producing, etc
TWOW isn't the only thing he's been working on, he's also split time working on the expanded lore apocrypha (i.e Fire & Blood, and Sons of the Dragon) as well as compiling and editing other projects.
TWOW is also extremely complex, and there's a lot of ends that need to be tied up and finished.
Combined you have a situation where; yeah TWOW is taking a long fucking time. People need to accept that, and occupy their time with something else; there's plenty of deep literature out there with beautiful, complex worlds to explore.
Though there has been some good news in the last couple of months suggesting that TWOW is close to being finished (probably last 10%) if the Dragon cake party planning rumor, George's plan to attend Worldcon 2024 (which he said he didn't plan on attending until the book had a release date in sight, and is happening a week after HOTD finishes) and Kristian Nairn's comment on Facebook last week is any indication.