If George R. R. Martin writes a new book and it is out before the new TV season

Gerry Rio

Given how slow the author is at writing these things I realise this scenario is very unlikely for the next TV season, but what about future books and TV seasons?

HBO arent going to wait around for him so will we see a major difference between the books and the show in the future? Has Martin got "final cut" written into his contract to have the last word on what they do with his baby?

Nody

The long and short answer is yes; HBO has been given a general outline of the plot and the end goal by him already. HBO have also confirmed (esp. as seen in season 5) decided to short cut a lot of the plots to save screen time or add new once but they are due to end up in the same end more or less but with different routes there.

ArmaniJeanss

Gerry Rio wrote: »

Has Martin got "final cut" written into his contract to have the last word on what they do with his baby?

I doubt he has any say or veto on any plot, HBO could have it go in any direction they wanted and GRRM could do nothing about it. Unlikely to happen as everyone seems cordial and on roughly the same page for the main plots.
Though would be fairly comical if everyone fell out and George decided that Shireen and Patchface Targaryen should be the ones to win the Iron Throne in the books.

bur

Gerry Rio wrote: »

Given how slow the author is at writing these things I realise this scenario is very unlikely for the next TV season, but what about future books and TV seasons?

HBO arent going to wait around for him so will we see a major difference between the books and the show in the future? Has Martin got "final cut" written into his contract to have the last word on what they do with his baby?

No, don't think so. He didn't write a script in season 5 and i don't think is writing one for season 6. He signed everything over as far as I know, they can do whatever they want with it, HBO even own the merchandising rights.

How much collaboration is even going on at present?

Books will be unrecognisable from the show if we ever get to read them. Winds is probably two years away still, the show will be wrapping it's final season by then.

Sleepy

I'm actually confident that TWOW will be out before Season 6 but yes, as everyone else has says, it and the series will have dramatically different stories from here on.

Ant695

bur wrote: »

No, don't think so. He didn't write a script in season 5 and i don't think is writing one for season 6. He signed everything over as far as I know, they can do whatever they want with it, HBO even own the merchandising rights.

How much collaboration is even going on at present?

Books will be unrecognisable from the show if we ever get to read them. Winds is probably two years away still, the show will be wrapping it's final season by then.

The reason he didn't write a script this season was due the time it would take away from him finishing the winds of winter. The same reason that he has cut down on making appearances at various events because when he's travelling he's not writing.

clark nova

From what he was saying they might diverge to an ending that would better suit the TV show, which would keep the events of the last couple of books a surprise for the readers.

ixoy

Sleepy wrote: »

I'm actually confident that TWOW will be out before Season 6

Are you? I've a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like to sell you.

Daith

ixoy wrote: »

Are you? I've a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like to sell you.

I'm slightly optimistic but either way the TV show will finish before the books.

MrWalsh

ixoy wrote: »

Are you? I've a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like to sell you.

George himself quite recently announced it would be. So how much for the bridge???

Sleepy

ixoy wrote: »

Are you? I've a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like to sell you.

Apparently 100 (manuscript) pages were bumped at a late staged in the editing of ADWD to TWOW which is projected to be over 1500 pages. Given the late stage they were moved, these should have been in something close to their final format so conservatively when he finished ADWD in May 2011, he had a decent chunk of TWOW already written.

We know he took a break from writing ASOIAF before starting TWOW in approximately January 2012 (which he's since says he regrets as he was "on a roll" at the time he finished ADWD).

At the Season 3 trailer in April 2013 he was saying he was about a quarter of the way done.

He's said that he doesn't expect this book to take as long as the past two as, AFFC was virtually written twice due to the decision to eliminate the 5 year jump forward. The remaining repercussions of this, chiefly the plotting of getting characters to where they're supposed to be for their arcs to begin to converge was finished with in ADWD (the infamous Meerenese Knot).

His initial estimate was that he could finish TWOW in about 3 years but he acknowledged himself that it was an optimistic target. On that estimate TWOW is already late (i.e. we should have seen it January 2015).

I think that may be why he's cancelling cons, interviews etc. to knuckle down to write, he as good as says so in this recent article where he says he's still hopeful he can get it out before Season 6.

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/04/03/george-rr-martin-winds-date

Given his publishers statements that it's not in their schedule for 2015, it would seem like the best we could hope for would early 2016. Then again, they're under orders not to schedule the release until they have his final manuscript and ADWD went from his initial anouncement that he'd finished in the 27th of April 2011 to final draft approval by May 19th and hit bookshelves less than 3 months later on July 12th so were he to hand over a final manuscript in the next few months, it could be out by Christmas.

That seems unlikely given his blog post cancelling his appearance at the San Diego Comicon this month and World Fantasy Convention in November of this year. He does mention in the post-script that, should he have TWOW delivered by the time either of these come around that he reserved the right to change his mind which would signify, to me at least, that completing TWOW by November wasn't outside the realms of possibility.

All things considered, I think we're going to get an announcement that the book is finished around Christmas which would just about give them the time to release the novel before Season 6 started. That would mean a writing time of about 4 years which isn't actually too bad when you think about it. TWOW was predicted to be around the same length as ADWD (which had a wordcount of 442k) and, if you contrast that to the 3 years it took JK Rowling to write Order of the Phoenix (a wordcount of 257k).

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

From reading interviews with him it's actually gotten to the point where any time he does comic-con and the like he gets so much shít for not having the book finished it's not that enjoyable for him anymore, plus he gets hate mail and stuff. He was doing a considerable amount of celebrity-ing around the place when the series came out but it's hard to begrudge the man a bit of time in the spotlight.

I'd take any definite due-date from him with a pinch of salt though. Presumably his publishers are pretty bloody keen to get this out, it's the first one released since the show started (isn't it?) so they're going to make a mint. I just hope that a) scaling back public appearances etc. is just a book thing and not anything health-related and b) that the whole thing isn't soured for him by the pressure and downright abuse he's getting over how slow he's going. You'd have to be fond of him, the big nerdy head on him. There were books of his short fiction released at some point with intros from him throughout, he comes across very well I think.

Mormegil

MrWalsh wrote: »

George himself quite recently announced it would be. So how much for the bridge???

No, he said he wants to get it out before Season 6.

Big difference.



Do you recall the afterword of AFFC where he hoped ADWD would be out in a year (he was only five years off with that one)?

MrWalsh

Mormegil wrote: »

No, he said he wants to get it out before Season 6.

Big difference.



Do you recall the afterword of AFFC where he hoped ADWD would be out in a year (he was only five years off with that one)?

So you're one of those glass half full types eh?

Anyway, I'm still waiting on a price for that bridge

Mr Freeze

I hope he does get the book out before season 6.

I don't plan on watching season 6 until I have read that book.

Just on a side note, he didn't write an episode for season 5 and the episodes he writes are normally brilliant. Probably one more reason why s5 wasn't great.

He has cancelled loads of appearances/shows to get time to finish the book, but on a post on his blog lately he posted a list of all the stuff he is working on, TWOW is just one of many projects, I don't know where he gets the time to work on it!

Thargor

Wonder once all the mess has been sorted out if A Dream of Spring could be a straightforward write-up for him or will it be 2020+ before we see it? Im seriously considering skipping WOW and just waiting then reading the whole series from start to finish whenever that time comes.

Ant695

Thargor wrote: »

Wonder once all the mess has been sorted out if A Dream of Spring could be a straightforward write-up for him or will it be 2020+ before we see it? Im seriously considering skipping WOW and just waiting then reading the whole series from start to finish whenever that time comes.

Iirc he is working on a dream of spring at the same time as winds of winter so hopefully there won't be a huge gap between them especially if he wants to finish before the show but knowing George RR Martin it could be the 30's before we get to the end.

December2012

Mr Freeze wrote: »

Just on a side note, he didn't write an episode for season 5 and the episodes he writes are normally brilliant. Probably one more reason why s5 wasn't great

You could be onto something there!

Didn't he write the Lion and the Rose?

Mr Freeze

December2012 wrote: »

Didn't he write the Lion and the Rose?

I believe so.