George R.R. Martin discussed the challenge of completing the long-long-awaited The Winds of Winter novel, admitting he’s struggled with it for some time now. In many ways, that struggle has taken on a life of its own, as while television fans eagerly await the final season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, after enduring a lengthy delay (in television time, anyway) from season 7 to season 8, those who’ve been loyal readers of Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels have TV watchers beat by several years.
The rate at which Martin has moved to bring the latest novel in his epic fantasy series to readers has slowed considerably since the first novel was published back in 1996. The author maintained a steady pace with the first few installments in the series, but as the narrative grew in complexity and popularity — up to and including it being adapted into the most popular show on television for the past few years — Martin has seemingly found it difficult to complete the latest novel, much less the series itself.
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In a recent interview with The Guardian, Martin discussed his approach to the series, to the novels and his career as a writer. It’s a fascinating read, even for those who seemingly know his work inside and out. But what will likely catch the eye of many is Martin’s admission that The Winds of Winter is proving to be a significant challenge. In particular, it sounds as though the breadth of the work itself is causing him the most difficulty. Martin said:
Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels are what you might call tomes. The shortest in the series, A Game of Thrones, comes in at nearly 700 pages, a weighty page count for any novel. And the novels just keep getting longer from there. The most recent installment, A Dance with Dragons, took over a 1,000 pages to tell its story. Needless to say, as the battle for the Iron Throne wages on, the narrative has clearly gotten larger in scope than even its author might have foreseen. And while D.B. Weiss and David Benioff found they needed to cut down the episode count of the final two seasons of the television series, it appears Martin has no intention to do the same. Though this interview doesn’t get eager readers any closer to having The Winds of Winter in their hands, it does at least give them some insight into the effort Martin is putting into his eagerly awaited novel.
“I’ve been struggling with it for a few years. The Winds of Winter is not so much a novel as a dozen novels, each with a different protagonist, each having a different cast of supporting players and antagonists and allies and lovers around them, and all of these weaving together in an extremely complex fashion. So it’s very, very challenging. Fire and Blood by contrast was very simple. Not that it’s easy, it still took me years to put together, but it is easier.”
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Screen Rant will update you with more news on The Winds of Winter as it is made available.
Source: The Guardian
