Now that it’s pretty clear that Winds of Winter will never come out, despite George R.R Martin’s claims (which I do not believe one bit), I thought that the “book community” should try to make the best out of this shitty situation and learn from the author’s mistakes.
Before we go on, I feel the need to say that this post is meant for constructive critcism and not for slandering Martin, because slandering wouldn’t really accomplish, but I’m not going to sugarcoat it either. Georges R.R Martin **HAS FUCKED UP**, he has **FUCKED UP BIG TIMES**, and I believe that the amount of fuck up is so great that it will eventually cost him the finish of the book, now matter how hard he tries.
I believe that he has commited the following fatal mistakes :
* Not Planning : I have personally always been skeptical about that whole “gardener thing” when I heard him talk about it roughly ten years ago. While I could picture “improvisational writing” working for say a short sotry, I could not imagine how you could ever do it for a big serie where each volumes is a worth thousand pages. And it turns out that indeed you can’t because now Martin has to find a way to arrange this forest of a garden in a way that gives a satisfying conclusion, a problem he wouldn’t have had if he had plotted and prepared more.
* Taking too much time/lack of focus : Frankly, I don’t think Martin is as lazy as others might say, but he sure is a procrastinator when a project doesn’t meet his dopamine needs. It’s only natural for such a large and complex book as Winds of Winter to take time, but taking too much time is never good when you’re making art, because let’s face it, you don’t need 12 years to write any kind of book, not even winds of winter. Martin is the worst kind of author that you could ever get for a project this long, because how many times do you think he has changed his mind about what he wants to write for the book ? The problem is not effort, but lack of focus, (a focus he would have had if he had plotted his story), and the problem will only get worse as more time goes on.
* Persisting in error : The author has failed to realize that his methodology needed to evolve in order to write the Winds of Winter. Despite the fact that so far, Winds of Winter is an utter failure and has been so for a decade, Martin did no effort to make the situation better. He has continued to pursue side projects, he has not tried to seek help in any way (be it with ghost writers or assistants). I don’t deny him his right to work on others things than a Song of Ice and fire, it’s only natural after all, but I will say that he’s not fooling anybody by claiming that “Winds of Winter is his top priority”.
So that’s about it. I believe that in general, as long as you don’t do these mistakes while writing your own big fantasy/science fiction epic you’re pretty much good to go (if you don’t forget to write a good book that is).
by N0v4kD3ad
20 Comments
Is it frustrating that it’s not out yet? Absolutely! However, I don’t think you can say it’s a failure until it actually comes out or not. Maybe George is just legitimately unsure of how to finish the book and, given how poorly the last season of the show was received, can you blame him? The onus is on him to not only continue a well loved series with a fanatical following but also somehow dispel the bad taste the show left in most everyone’s mouth. That kind of pressure could give anyone writer’s block.
Regardless of his reasons/excuses, justifiable or not, there are a multitude of other books to enjoy in the meantime.
to not make promises all the time and fail to deliver.
The main lesson is not to promise when or how many books it will take to finish a series. Martin promised he would wrap it up in 2 more books, and unless he releases two 5,000 page books, he is going to have to half-ass an ending, or just kill everyone. The show did a little bit of both, but it kept the story more streamlined. The book has too many plots that going on, most of which aren’t anywhere near resolved. I’m pretty sure he’s written a ton of stuff, and he is just getting further and further from a resolution.
Ok.
He’s still the best though.
I don’t think standard QA is applicable here, as the outcome that is undesirable is only from a fan’s perspective.
Don’t sell the TV rights until you’re done or *very close to being done.*
I’ve learned my lesson and will not start a book series that isn’t completed. GRRM has screwed new authors.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the gardener approach to writing, but as in the metaphor, you’re supposed to plant the seeds and see what grows. Because he already knew how he wanted things to turn out, when the garden grew in a different direction now he’s trying to reconcile things. The problem isn’t that he’s a gardener. It’s that he’s a shitty architect whose plans weren’t structurally sound.
He also should *never* have sold the TV rights before finishing. Besides the distraction of working on it, he got to see a preview of how the ending was received. That’s still fundamentally *his* ending. The ending he’s so desperately trying to wrangle his garden back towards sucked.
Also, IMO, his writing just isn’t very good. Interesting world building for sure, but his narrative is just absolute trash.
I haven’t followed this closely at all, but I suspect he saw how badly the ending of the TV show went over and now he struggles to find his way to a different more satisfying ending to the books that doesn’t contradict what’s published already.
Eventually Martin will die and then some hack will finish the series, quality be damned.
I think the gardener approach works, but the thing about gardens is, they just _are_.
There is no end goal, if everything reaches balance the garden is happy.
It’s on the gardener to start aggressively pruning and commit to a look once its time for the Summer Garden Contest.
If you have too many plot threads, it’s not going to solve itself in a grand epiphany. You have to do the work of making it work.
Don’t sign on to do a multimillion dollar tv show before your book series is finished. Oh wait… maybe that’s fine. 🤣
Seriously though. Just relax. Be patient. He’s been busy. You try working on a tv show while trying to finish a book series and see how you do.
Unless he dies before it’s done, I’m not sure how you can say it’s a failure. Just read something else to distract yourself.
He’s one of the best known and probably richest authors in the world, and he is working consistently, just not on that particular series. I don’t think Martin or that series can be seen as a failure by any metric other than being unfinished. And that can happen for a multitude of reasons.
This is the first post on the winds of winter I’ve seen in this sub
I’d hardly call a man who made a 9 figure fortune off the back of an unfinished book series a failure.
>What lessons should authors learn
Don’t give the time of day to angry fanboys.
The only lesson others should learn is to not string along fans by saying that they are working on the series when they have clearly given up on it.
It’s not a failure to abandon a series. The failure is not being truthful about abandoning it.
I think the biggest thing that authors have learned is that they should do what they need to. If they have debilitating diseases, physical or otherwise, or family tragedies that affect them and prevent their writing for a while, or are busy with 10 other things including other books and tv deals and scripts, they should give themselves a break and fans should too. Some of these writers went from poor to wealthy and should get to enjoy their lives now that they can, before it’s too late.
Can’t say I give too many fucks if a series with so much sexual violence is finished or not. Way better subjects to expend this kind of analysis on.
The whole Winds of Winter publication debacle has taught me to *never* talk about a project, writing or otherwise, until I’m 95% complete.
The sheer level of whining, fan boy entitlement oozing from this post is almost unbearable.
Is it disappointing? Sure, but no author owes you or me a thing.
The lesson authors should learn is to write what they want to write and not listen to crap like this.
In the end, I’d rather a book an author is happy with then something forced to appease the likes of you.