Dave Hill takes fans inside the Game of Thrones writers’ room

There are four men on the writing staff for Game of Thrones — pretty much everyone knows bosses David Benioff and Dan Weiss, so fewer may be aware of Bryan Cogman and Dave Hill, both of whom have penned multiple episodes.

Hill, who started as an assistant in season 2 before writing his first episode in season 5. (“Sons of the Harpy,” aka the one where Barristan Selmy dies.) He chatted with Buzzfeed about the process, starting with how it’s changed now that the show has gone beyond the books on which it’s based.

"David and Dan have spent a decade driving toward these upcoming seasons, and also met with George years ago to discuss ending the series. A lot of the big stuff has been figured out for a while. And even from the pilot, the show has been evolving differently than the books due to everything from production concerns to casting wins to the demands of adaptation and the television medium. The seams between the books and the show were minute at first, but have grown larger with every passing season. But if you’re thinking it’s now easier for me to squeeze a big musical number into GoT since we’re off book…the answer is still definitively, ‘No, Dave, stop drinking in the room.’"

So no musical number. After Ed Sheeran’s appearance we were wondering if they were building to that.

Hill mentioned a couple of specific instances where he and the other writers had to alter the lore of the Song of Ice and Fire novels to fit with the demands of a TV show, such as “changing Asha Greyjoy’s name to Yara and that dragonglass also kills wights, as we saw in 605.”

By “605,” Hill means “The Door,” the one where Hodor died defending Bran and Meera from the Night King and his army of wights. Honestly, I don’t remember a wight getting killed by dragonglass in that episode (although I remember Meera killing a White Walker like a boss), but that’s probably a good fact to keep in our back pockets.

Anyway, speaking of the army of the dead, Hill said that people would probably be surprised by how much time on set is spent of figuring out how they — and how other fantasy creatures like the Children of the Forest — “walk and move through space.” And also how long it takes to decide on portion sizes on plates for meals and feasts and stuff. Movie magic!

Although credited as a writer, Hill is also on set making sure everything goes smoothly. (His first time on set was for the scene in “Sons of the Harpy” where Stannis and Shireen bond.) “GoT production is all hands on deck, whether or not it’s your episode,” he said. “We writers are there the whole shoot because we usually have multiple units shooting at the same time. Divide and conquer.”

Hill says that writing a first draft for an episode usually takes around three weeks. But if the Game of Thrones writers’ room is like other writers’ rooms, there’s a lot that gets done before a single word is written. These guys likely spend a lot of time working out the twists and turns of the plot before making a detailed outline and assigning the episodes. When they’re breaking the story, they discuss everything from character to theme to tone and mood, as Hill details:

"We break everything at the same time: character arcs, episodes, our heads. We have to, given the complicated nature of the show and how interrelated events and characters are. At the risk of stating the obvious, we do try to vary the tone and mood within each episode because nothing sinks a fantasy show like unbroken self-seriousness. And if you’re going to do nonstop fantasy comedy, you better be Monty Python. If you’re not, welcome to the world of us mortals."

That’s the way of Game of Thrones — it’s all seriousness and death until Tyrion starts making light of his drinking problem.

Next: Valar Morghulis: Who's most likely to die in 'Stormborn'?

One more for the road: who’s the hardest character to write? “They’re all hard, because I want to give our actors and actresses scenes that match their high level of talent.” Good hedging, there.

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