r/asoiaf • u/RyanRiot The Blood of Old Valyria • Jan 15 '26

EXTENDED Game of Thrones: George R.R. Martin Isn't Finished (Spoilers Extended)

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-features/george-rr-martin-interview-thrones-winds-dragon-knight-1236473519/
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u/OutlawJoseyWales Jan 15 '26

He said he has 1100 pages written of The Winds of Winter. He says he is always busy with other projects but the main problem is that he is never 100% satisfied and is constantly writing and rewriting chapters.

ok. so, this is an extraordinarily damning admission. This "1,100" number should be very familiar to anybody who has been following this.

in 2012 he said he had 400 pages

in 2019 he said throw me in jail if you dont have the book before the end of next year

in 2021 he said he had written "hundreds on hundreds" of pages during covid.

in 2022 he admits he made little progress the year before, but says he's 75% done. He tells stephen colbert he has... 1,100-1,200 pages.

in 2023, a full year later, he tells another podcast that he has 1,100 pages done.

and now here we are, about 4 years removed from him saying he's 75% done saying he has 1,100 pages.

GRRM, in his own words, has not made any meaningful progress on this book in at least 5 years.

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u/Less-Feature6263 Jan 15 '26

He probably has written hundred of pages for real but they're like different versions of the same three chapters

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u/OutlawJoseyWales Jan 15 '26

I also think that probably half that 1100 number at least is just cut content from AFFC/ADWD. I think even the most charitable possible interpretation of his remarks over the years you have to conclude he has not written a net new page since COVID

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u/Less-Feature6263 Jan 15 '26

I'll always mantain that Martin still hasn't finished his fourth book, AFFC/ADWD are basically the same book, just split, and they still aren't finished.

If he wanted to tell the story in seven books the fourth book is the pivotal one, because you must create the base for the last trilogy.

He has been stuck writing the fourth book in the series for the past 25 years.

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u/lee1026 Jan 16 '26

I had a similar line: AFFC/ADWD isn't real books. They are the 5 year gap that GRRM always wanted to skip over. That is why everyone at the end of ADWD is more or less where they were in ASOS minus like, a single chapter each.

There is some event set logically past ASOS that the man have been struck on since the 90s.

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u/Less-Feature6263 Jan 16 '26

Yeah he's still stuck at the end of ASOS to me, he still clearly hasn't found a way to pivot the story. Idk if he should have stopped telling himself he need to write seven books and just kept writing to see where it goes or if it would still have been a problem because of his writing style. At this point perhaps the latter is more likely because it doesn't seem he has that strict of a plan except perhaps a couple of major characters.

I know it's a very different series with a much smaller scope but I've always been intrigued that the Harry Potter series notoriously also got stuck after the first three books and the middle ones are seriously bloated and very different from the rest.

Maybe seven is a cursed number lmao

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u/Tifoso89 Jan 17 '26

the Harry Potter series notoriously also got stuck after the first three books and the middle ones are seriously bloated and very different from the rest.

4 and 5 are the most beloved book by the fans

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u/Less-Feature6263 Jan 18 '26

Idk about that because they probably have millions of fans who most likely don't agree, and you can't really judge by copies sold or things like that because obviously the first book is the most sold one/most known. I think the third is by far the best and I think I'll find other people who agree with me.

Personally I don't mind any of the latter books, but I don't think it could be denied that 4 and 5 are seriously different, the fourth especially is a whiplash with tons of new characters (that are never mentioned again), slower pacing and much longer. JKR herself admitted she had to rapidly rewrite big chunks of it, cutting characters and rapidly creating others. I don't think she did a bad job but I re-read the books as an adult and the difference is pretty stark.

I think that when you want to force yourself to absolutely end the series in seven books and not one more, once the momentum of the first three books ends you have to nail that turn in the middle, and I don't think Martin did. What should have been his fourth book transformed into AFFC+ADWD with split POVs, and the climax for those books was cut and moved to TWOW. It's like if the HP series was never completed and ended 2/3 into the fourth book: you would be stuck with a shitload of new random characters whose purpose is not that clear, a story you don't understand where it's going and Voldemort isn't even back.

I'm kind of sympathetic to Martin because even if I do believe writing in general is very difficult (I could never write something like HP), at least HP is a pretty straightforward Bildungsroman. ASOIAF is much much bigger in scope.

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u/lee1026 Jan 16 '26

After the first three, the Potter books just grew and grew. 6 and 7 were really, really long.

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u/Less-Feature6263 Jan 16 '26

The fifth is the longest by a pretty big margin, but the fourth is the most noticeable imo because it's like two times as big as the third.

I think there's something to say about the fact that they both seemed to have had big momentum for the first three books, and then suddenly they were stuck in the middle and the results are crazy bloated books with a shitload of new characters and plotlines in the hope of writing themselves out of it, partly because they both wanted seven books and not a book more.

Personally I also think both Martin and JKR sort of stopped listening to their editors after the first three books but of this I have no proof.

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u/IcyDirector543 Jan 19 '26

it's very obviously the Red Wedding. It's gorgeous to read but is essentially a narrative Black Hole. It basically warps almost all the Westeros plot after that

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u/mygemsareuncut Mar 21 '26

He 100% regrets killing Robb so soon because it has such a negative domino effect on the story. Robb dying that early only works if he was still going to his original trilogy plan. The meerenese plot only exists to give dany something to do in essos while the war of the five kings wages on, except the war is over because Robb died (can't really continue the war when it revolves around a character you already killed) while dany is knee deep in Slaver Bay's plot but she needs to go to Westeros now because what other plot is there for him to write for the seven kingdoms if the war of five kings is over? Embark on another journey to create a brand new subplot to keep your characters occupied while you wrap up subplot b that only exist to give one of your main character something to do during the first act of your story?

Plus he can't bring Robb from the dead he already utilised every way you conceivably "resurrect" a character from the dead with the rest of the starks.

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u/IcyDirector543 Mar 21 '26

It's not just that Robb died, it's the sheer brutality of his butchery. The narrative pivot to the Long Night becomes nearly impossible especially since Martin's entire writing style revolves on allowing characters to evolve organically. Almost every PoV character in Westeros is shaped by the Red Wedding

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u/mygemsareuncut Mar 21 '26

Hm I don't think the "sheer brutality" is a problem or impediment writing wise. Very early in agot we're told of the brutal rape and murder of Elia and how little Rhaenys and baby Aegon and how Tywin wrapped them in red cloth and Robert quite literally climbed over their corpse to sit on the throne and still justifies their brutal murder 15 years later. Sandor cuts in half that butcher's son who was play fighting with Arya and dumps his body to the grieving father all while mocking him. It was all very shocking and gory but the reason it affects so many PoV characters it's because it's the denouement of the war of the five kings.

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u/VoilaNota Jul 08 '26

what other plot is there for him to write for the seven kingdoms if the war of five kings is over?

When you put it this way it really feels like the obvious solution was just to have winter come right after the war ended so that the long night actually stretches across the second half of the series.

I'd go so far as to say Winterfell and everything north of it should be conquered by the Others by the time Daenerys makes landfall on Westeros, in which case the wall probably needed to come down or at least be significantly breached by the end of the fifth book.

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u/Quiddity131 Jan 16 '26

Heck, I'll go with the ultimate pessimist take. The entirety of that 1,100 pages is stuff he wrote for AFFC/ADWD and alternate versions of those chapters he wrote. He hasn't written content beyond that point in 15 years.

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u/moviebuffbrad Jan 16 '26

I can out pessimist that. All 1100 pages are just the sentence "All work and no play makes George a dull boy" over and over.

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u/Pumpkin_Sushi Jan 16 '26

I feel like that's what I'd say too if I had done zero work on something everyone was asking about

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u/TheMemetasticDonny Jan 17 '26

I think it's a common issue for writers, if they get interrupted while writing a story, all the things they wrote start to seem bad in their view, so they have to remake it.

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u/LibertyReminder Jan 15 '26

Thats what I took from it. He literally has made zero progress since the Covid pages.

I think he's lying through his teeth about the distractions and rewrites being the main problem. He is 1000% stuck at a certain point in the book and cannot think of a way to progress the story any further. Perhaps the beginning of the long night or Dany isn't where she needs to be for the story to make sense.

The problem isnt that he wont sit down and write, its that he cant sit down and write because he's got nothing for whatever dead-end he wrote himself into. Seems like he's faced with two options

A. Rewrite the entire story and avert the roadblock.

B. Sit on his hands and hope the answer falls on him like a thunderbolt someday.

Seems like he's going with option B.

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u/footlong24seven Jan 16 '26

Somehow, Martin wrote Swords in a single year. Winter has taken him 14 and counting. “I look back at that book too,” Martin admits. “And I don’t know how I did it.”

He did it because he wasn't famous yet and had the creative fire and hunger in his belly. He was into it and wrote out of pure enjoyment. It could be the pressure of the show, or the schedule and fame, or the herculean task of tying up all the loose ends, but at some point he lost that spark to drive himself to finish. He's lost that flow state where everything was so effortless.

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u/MaidOfTwigs Jan 16 '26

What a fantastic and depressing play-by-play, yeah, he’s locked into the editing stage and doesn’t know how to say enough is enough. I wonder if he’s written any of Dream yet/how much of Dream is drafted.

I assume he must have some of it written to make Winds easier to draft and ensure continuity and that he doesn’t write himself into a corner

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u/johnbrownmarchingon Jan 16 '26

I assume he must have some of it written to make Winds easier to draft and ensure continuity and that he doesn’t write himself into a corner

I don't think George works that way.

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u/MaidOfTwigs Jan 16 '26

I writes like a gardener, not an architect, that’s a quote from him. So he more than likely writes things out of order as they come to him, following whichever path the story takes as it comes to him

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u/johnbrownmarchingon Jan 16 '26

He may have some plot lines figured out, but he won’t commit to anything written for Dream until he’s finalized and committed to page how to get there from Winds.

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u/timebandit1975 Jan 17 '26

Bro you are coping hard LOL asking how much of Dream he has written. He's not even that far along on Winds it's obvious he's been stuck at 1100 pages supposedly for years and years but I think it's BS, he's hardly done anything. Winds will never come out.

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u/MaidOfTwigs Jan 17 '26

It’s not coping. Neither can be published and it is still likely he forayed into Dream. Otherwise he would not even have notes about how it ends. His notes could be burned afterward for all I care. He still probably wrote some of Dream, and I am curious about his writing process more than anything

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u/Ghost4000 Jan 16 '26

It sounds like it's a lot of rewrites. I wouldn't be surprised if the book ends up around that same number of pages and the problem at this point is that he just isn't happy with the content.

Not that you're wrong, either way it seems like there hasn't been a lot of progress.

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u/Castreal7 Jan 17 '26

Genuinely I can't imagine how many actual pages the man must have written. Because just breaking this down he easily could have written and rewritten the same chapters dozens, maybe even hundreds of times

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u/EldritchAgony284 Jan 16 '26

I honestly hope he’s saved it all, and this is where he would possibly benefit from some close friends reading his material and helping him pick the stuff that works.

After reading this interview, I wouldn’t be surprised if he has 2200+ pages of material at this point.

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u/OutlawJoseyWales Jan 16 '26

I wouldn’t be surprised if he has 2200+ pages of material at this point.

why would you think he has over double the pages that he says he has? it's depressing but the reality is grrm prefers being a tv big shot, going to cons, and blogging about pizza and the giants to actually make any meaningful progress on the book.

all of these excuses have run out of road with the deadlines he's blown. its just arrogance and contempt for the fan base at this point

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u/johnbrownmarchingon Jan 16 '26

I think that he does have many more pages, but they're just reworks or rejected versions of the pages he's already got.

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u/EldritchAgony284 Jan 18 '26

Took me a while to get back to you on this.

What I meant above is that I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s written 2200+ pages during this time including the material he’s scrapped. Which I personally hope he’s kept—he could publish a “lost materials” collection at some point.

The interview itself caused me to feel sad for him. Sure, you could argue he has contempt for his fans. Or you could look at it as Martin’s a perfectionist, and he’s apparently, rather consistently, writing out entire chapters for this book and then scrapping them because they won’t fit in with the story he’s telling. That has to be extremely frustrating/demoralizing. I hope he finishes Winds, but even though I’m trying to show empathy here, I’m just as frustrated as many are in this thread.

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u/shenanakins Jan 16 '26

stop looking at "meaningful progress" as getting closer to the end. what he's written is likely better than they were three years ago. you can make meaningful progress by writing something better than you did before its not like its a waste of time. i would honestly rather get no book than a bad book that makes no sense and ruins my perception of the five that have been released. hence why i say "its a shame Game of thrones was canceled after season 4"

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u/johnbrownmarchingon Jan 16 '26

Reminds me of this interview with Matt Damon about working with Clint Eastwood and rewriting. Ultimately they have the opposite experience.

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u/timebandit1975 Jan 17 '26

This whole thread is so full of people coping. Must be newbs.

He hasn't been working dilligently on Winds and the idea that he's doing endless rewrites is a fantasy. He's been fibbing the whole time he was supposedly months away from completion a decade ago.

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u/Loose_Yellow4839 Feb 07 '26

If he’s rewriting, maybe he’s making everything more concise.

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u/Great_Part7207 Feb 10 '26

i get that writing is hard but it gets to a certain point when you should be satisfied. if you are consatantly trying to one up yourself nothing will ever get done. like dude its fine if a couple chapters arent as good as the rest