George R. R. Martin confirms he's not working on finishing GoT series.

[GoblinCampFollower]

I previously posted I didn't think he'd finish.... I think he knows on some level he wrote himself into a web of crap he can't dig himself out of.

He didn't quite say it directly, but I'm betting heavily he's not going to finish.

https://www.ign.com/articles/george-r-r-martin-tells-game-of-thrones-fans-who-are-pissed-off-hes-doing-things-other-than-writing-winds-of-winter-you-have-given-up-on-me

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

As a writer of a number of complicated stories, it just takes time and a bit of boredom to unstick the gears.

 

[Casey Pelous]

He may be having trouble finding the typewriter under the colossal piles of money.

 

[Free]

So basically, Martin is not going Hodor anymore?

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

As a writer of a number of complicated stories, it just takes time and a bit of boredom to unstick the gears.

I like to write too. I get it... writing is hard.... But it seems like Martin is quite busy with more fun projects than finishing his old one... haha.

 

[Soen Eber]

All has to do is hand over his story bible and a few basics. Publishers have no problem assigning work out, like Howard Tailor for the Wheel of Time books

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

All has to do is hand over his story bible and a few basics. Publishers have no problem assigning work out, like Howard Tailor for the Wheel of Time books

I suspect he's too proud to use a ghost writer. And I bet many fans would notice.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

So long as they keep introducing characters who have some hint of redeeming qualities so they can either die horribly or get corrupted into absolute bastards they can spin the series off forever.

 

[Free]

So long as they keep introducing characters who have some hint of redeeming qualities so they can either die horribly or get corrupted into absolute bastards they can spin the series off forever.

GAME OF THRONES IN SPACE!

 

[Noodles]

I suspect he's too proud to use a ghost writer. And I bet many fans would notice.

I thought he already had assistants/Ghost writers with those dudes who wrote The Expanse.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_S._A._Corey

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

He may be having trouble finding the typewriter under the colossal piles of money.

He uses a DOS version of WordStar, as has been discussed here before, the 4.0 version not the 7.0 version writer Robert Sawyer was able to find and release for DOSBOX. And hey, it takes time for him to roll all those dice for all those characters in his books.

More seriously he complained that no one cares about Wild Cards. Well duh, most of his fanbase came to him through ASOIAF and GoT, they don't know about Wild Cards. And when was the last Wild Cards book? Wasn't there supposed to be a Wild Cards TV show decades ago?

I understand he works on other projects to help prevent him from burning out, but perhaps he should have been less grandiose in his vision for ASOIAF so he could have been finished by now and wouldn't have to keep working on it. There's plenty of examples of authors who never finished their grand narrative opus, notably Tolkien himself and Jordan with the Wheel of Time....did it really need to be 14 books. GRRM is a tabletop gamer, he should have known that going to grandiose on a setting becomes a massive time sink for the DM and can lead to burn out. And lead to spending time on minuscule details of some NPC's beard wax that players won't ever deal with.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

I thought he already had assistants/Ghost writers with those dudes who wrote The Expanse.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_S._A._Corey

not sure he used any for his main series? Maybe for TV shows and such. I'd think that if he was going to use a ghost writer for Winds of Winter it would be done by now...

 

[Free]

I thought he already had assistants/Ghost writers with those dudes who wrote The Expanse.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_S._A._Corey

That's been pretty much ruled out, years back (unless you've heard something newer?).

 

[Caete]

I suspect he's too proud to use a ghost writer. And I bet many fans would notice.

I'm a fan of Kenneth Robeson's works (the pen name used by Lester Dent and others) but even he used ghost writers and it is noticable despite the editors trying to make it fit the format and flow. A reader can notice the patterns and see when it changes slightly that indicate a new writer is in play. Dent wrote 182 Doc Savage stories amd Martin has what, 115 to his name? So yeah, fans would notice.

 

[Casey Pelous]

...All has to do is hand over his story bible

He may not have that to hand over -- not all novelists work the same way. I heard Lee Child talking about when he was writing the Reacher novels (he is now in the process of handing over the franchise to his brother, "Andrew Child") and he said that each time he started a new one he had no idea what was going to happen. No outline, certainly no story bible; nothing but a blank page. Unless Andrew has created it, there's no long-term plan for Reacher. (It does, however, seem to be a pretty safe bet that he will beat the holy bejabbers out of an unlikely number of people.)

Todd McCafrey, who took over the Dragons of Perm franchise from his mom, Anne, spent tons of time talking with her and re-reading the series to develop the "rules" for himself. (I met and worked briefly with Todd, who is a gentle soul and a thoroughly delightful human.)

As we know, deviation from canon is a huge no-no in the fantasy sci-fi world -- I can imagine someone just not wanting to bother with some established franchise. Who needs 1,000 angry online comments because you misspelled a minor character's name who last appeared seven novels earlier? ("It's P''tah, not P'tah you hopeless ignorant moron!!!!!111!!!")

 

[Noodles]

And lead to spending time on minuscule details of some NPC's beard wax that players won't ever deal with.

That's when you make. That wax a necesarry thing to kill the big bad.

Then the group just spends all their time trying something else anyway.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

As we know, deviation from canon is a huge no-no in the fantasy sci-fi world

Unless you're John Varley who said he couldn't face re-reading his Ophiuchi Hotline stories before rebooting the series, apologized in advance if he got the date of the invention of the null-suit wrong, and proceeded to stomp canon into the ground with Sparky Valentine's fancy space boots.