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georgescitadel · 11 hours

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George R.R. Martin on the process of creating A Game Of Thrones (1/3)

You hold in your hands the second volume of A Song of Ice and Fire… but not the second volume as originally intended. Although I wrote the opening of A Game of Thrones back in the summer of 1991, as related in my introduction to the Meisha Merlin edition of that volume, it was not until October of 1993 that I drew up a proposal for my agents to take to publishers. There is no mention of any book titled A Clash of Kings in that proposal. In 1993, I was under the impression that I was writing a trilogy.

Trilogies had been the dominant form in epic fantasy ever since J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings had been broken apart by publishers and released in three volumes. And the story that I wanted to tell divided quite naturally into three parts; much more so, in fact, than The Lord of the Rings, which is actually one fairly seamless narrative, and not a trilogy at all. I planned to title the books A Game of Thrones, A Dance with Dragons, and The Winds of Winter. I knew right from the start that they would all be large books. Huge books, even. But there were to be only three of them, and…and none were to be called A Clash of Kings. Sometimes the author is the last to know.

As I write this, I am halfway through the writing of A Feast for Crows, the fourth volume of my ‘trilogy.’ There is no mention of that title in my 1993 proposal either. These days, when pressed, I confidently assert that A Song of Ice and Fire will ultimately run to six books… but behind my back I know my lady Parris is smiling knowingly and holding up seven fingers. She may be right. Though I may dream of six books, plan for six books, work toward six books, the only thing that truly matters is the story. And the story needs to be as long as the story needs to be.

In Hollywood, the suits will tell you how long that is. A television show has to fit within its allotted time slot, of course, and you cannot beg, borrow, or steal an extra minute, no matter how much the story needs it. Running times are somewhat more flexible for films, though not as much as one might think. For the most part, the studios still want movies to run about two hours, so they look for screenplays of 120 pages or less, and demand cuts in any scripts that come in longer. My own screenplays and teleplays were almost always too long and too expensive in first draft, so in my later drafts, along with addressing the inevitable notes from studio, network, and producers, I was constantly trimming. In the end, I would deliver a shooting script that was the right length and under budget, but it was never a happy process… and I often went away feeling that the earlier drafts were the better ones.

The size of A Song of Ice and Fire was in no small part a reaction to ten years of trimming. I wanted to do something epic in scale, something at once grand and sprawling and complex and subtle, with a cast of thousands, huge battles, mighty castles, gorgeous costume, lavish feast, great rivers, towering mountains, vast fields… all the things I could not do in television. In short. I wanted to make a world. And for that you need a bit of room.

In my original proposal, I estimated that each volume of the trilogy might run as long as 800 pages in manuscript. The novels that I had written during the 70's and 80's, before Hollywood, had generally come in at 400 or 500 pages or thereabouts, so an 800 pages book seemed very lengthy indeed. The three books of the trilogy would be structured around the long, slow seasons of Westeros. A Game of Thrones would be summer’s book, A Dance with Dragons would take us through autumn, and The Winds of Winter… well, the title says it all. Even in the Seven Kingdoms, where a season can last for years, 800 pages ought to give me enough room to reach the end of summer and conclude the part of my tale, I reasoned.

‘Twas a lovely plan of battle… but no plan of battle ever survives contact with the enemy, it has been said. Writers know the truth of that as well as any general, though our wars are fought on blank white sheets of paper and empty computer screens. For the map is not the territory, the blueprint is not the house, the recipe is not the dinner… and the outline is never ever the book.

- George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings Limited Edition Introduction (2002)

#Ned Stark #Catelyn Stark #Sansa Stark #Arya Stark #Bran Stark #Jon Snow #Tyrion Lannister #Daenerys Targaryen #The Outline #A Game Of Thrones #George R.R. Martin #ValyrianScrolls #ASOIAF

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stay-close · 3 months

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Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.

George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

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thoughtkick · 5 months

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You were made to be kissed, often and well.

George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

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thehopefulquotes · 6 months

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Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.

George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

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perfectquote · 5 months

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You were made to be kissed, often and well.

George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

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shisasan · 5 months

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December is a bewitching month. The grey of cold teeters on the edge of becoming the most enchanting blue.

George R.R. Martin

#december #quote #george r.r. martin #literature #words #dark academia #academia #quotes #lit #books #books and libraries #reading #quote of the day #bookworm #book quotes #booklr #bibliophile #excerpt #q

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gloriousgwendolinechristie · 2 years

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>>Neil Gaiman and George R.R. Martin mention their shared love of Gwendoline Christie (Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones and Lucifer Morningstar in The Sandman).<<

#gwendoline christie #the sandman #lucifer #neil gaiman #game of thrones #brienne of tarth #grrm #george r.r. martin #lucifer morningstar #asoiaf

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quotemadness · 1 year

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You were made to be kissed, often and well.

George R.R. Martin

#George R.R. Martin #quotes #quote #lit #literature

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tronodiferro · 5 months

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The Wall is mine

By Elenya.

Sound the horns!

#Elenya #Twitter comics #Jon Snow #Stannis Baratheon #The Wall #Night's Watch #ASOIAF #A Song of Ice and Fire #Game Of Thrones #GoT #George R.R. Martin #GRRM #Eddard Stark #The North #Westeros #Castle Black

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surqrised · 2 months

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You were made to be kissed, often and well.

George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

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resqectable · 2 months

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Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.

George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

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georgescitadel · 2 months

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Interviewer: Do you think it's possible to have a dragon and live a benevolent life? Or would you inherently get pulled into using that power?

George: That's an interesting question… It's often been said that the dragons are the nuclear weapons of my imaginary world. They are the most devastating weapon and they cause great destruction and massive loss of life… This is part of Dany's storyline in the original novels. Dany has three dragons, but that doesn't mean she can necessarily rule cities like Meereen, where she finds herself Queen, easily, without destroying them… I'm a baby boomer, born in 1948, and, growing up in the 50’s, there was always the spectre of nuclear war. I lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis and Khrushchev and saber-rattling and there were all these books about the nuclear Holocaust or about Armageddon... We were worried about that, but these nuclear weapons have only been used twice in all of history on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Afterwards there was a long period where only America had nuclear weapons, nobody else in the world had them, and there were always these concerns about “well, we can win any of these wars”. MacArthur and some other people wanted to use the atomic bomb in the Korean War. When China invaded, the thought process was “why are we letting them do that? We could win the war!”… Barry Goldwater, in the 1964 election, also thought “Why are we fighting this war in Vietnam? Let's just drop a nuke on Hanoi.”… But we never did it, we always refrained. We were the dragon riders that would only use our dragons to intimidate… but now as more and more countries have that, I think the danger becomes greater and greater and someday someone is going to use them. Right now the danger is very high, if Putin starts losing the war in Ukraine is he going to resort to nukes? And then the question becomes “if Putin does resort to nukes, does America unleash it’s dragons or do we not and let him get away with it?”. These are profound questions, we could debate this for an hour with a panel of political scientists, but there’s not an easy answer.

- George R.R. Martin, A Conversation with George R R Martin

#Dragons #Daenerys Targaryen #House Targaryen #Ruling #George R.R. Martin #ValyrianScrolls #ASOIAF

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stay-close · 4 months

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She wanted a storm to match her rage.

George R.R. Martin, A Feast for Crows

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thoughtkick · 7 months

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Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.

George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

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thehopefulquotes · 4 months

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You were made to be kissed, often and well.

George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

486 notes · View notes

perfectquote · 2 months

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The past remains the past. We can learn from it, but we cannot change it.

George R.R. Martin

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