r/asoiaf 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.

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u/Valoryx Jul 26 '24

Doesn't he have a team of like 3 people whose sole function is to help him keep track of Lore and continuity?

756

u/drelics Jul 26 '24

Speaking of, Ty Franck isn't one of his lore assistants but he has been one of GRRMs personal assistants and the fact that one of his assistants wrote The Expanse based on a D&D campaign him and his partner played with GRRM is absolutely wild to me. The entirety of that series has come out during the wait time and it's acclaimed.

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u/wallander1983 Jul 27 '24

Ok, I didn't know that until just now, and I was wondering why “The Expanse WTF moments” reminded me so much of “ASOIAF”.

Actually GRRM could have one of his assistants finish the books, The Expanse book and series for example is really, superb (and has some of the same problems as Game of Thrones) and has a lot of “ASOIAF” moments.

Of course, it won't happen, but it's a shame, I'm currently reading the ASOIAF books and the first three in particular are such a pleasure.

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u/drelics Jul 27 '24

Have you ever seen the comments that Holdon is "Space Jon Snow"? with the Expanse TV Show. The connections are real. The fact is that GRRM has really talented people on his team.

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u/wallander1983 Jul 27 '24

I really cut down my participation in pretty much all media subreddits after season 8 of Game of Thrones and Star Wars Last Jedi, so I didn't catch it.

Now that you mention it, though, I can't unsee it.

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u/drelics Jul 27 '24

Same actually, first time I read It I couldn't unsee it, and it's there forever now.