George R.R. Martin explains how Game of Thrones affected his writing speed

A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin is currently on something of a tour of the British Isles, attending cons and giving interviews. Speaking to The Guardian, he got more candid than he has in a long while about hot-button topics, such as how HBO’s Game of Thrones affected his writing process and whether the ending to the show will alter the way he writes his novels.

So far as his writing process goes, the big takeaway it slowed down while the show was on, something any fan who’s been waiting for The Winds of Winter since 2011 probably won’t be surprised to hear. “I need more hours in the day and more days in the week and more months in the year because the time does seem to go very fast,” he said.

"There were a couple of years where, if I could have finished the book, I could have stayed ahead of the show for another couple of years, and the stress was enormous. I don’t think it was very good for me, because the very thing that should have speeded me up actually slowed me down. Every day I sat down to write and even if I had a good day – and a good day for me is three or four pages – I’d feel terrible because I’d be thinking: ‘My God, I have to finish the book. I’ve only written four pages when I should have written 40.’ But having the show finish is freeing, because I’m at my own pace now. I have good days and I have bad days and the stress is far less, although it’s still there… I’m sure that when I finish A Dream of Spring you’ll have to tether me to the Earth."

Now, I wouldn’t take this as an indication that the books are going to be along any quicker, but if stress was slowing things down, I’m glad it’s abated a little.

WESTWOOD, CALIFORNIA – MAY 08: George R. R. Martin attends the LA Special Screening of Fox Searchlight Pictures’ “Tolkien” at Regency Village Theatre on May 08, 2019 in Westwood, California. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

Still, as an enormously successful author, Martin is never going to be free of audience expectation. Enormous success has its benefits, of course, but Martin is a little wistful for a time when the Song of Ice and Fire fandom wasn’t as huge as it is now. “I mean, I can’t go into a bookstore any more, and that used to be my favourite thing to do in the world. To go in and wander from stack to stack, take down some books, read a little, leave with a big stack of things I’d never heard of when I came in. Now when I go to a bookstore, I get recognized within 10 minutes and then there’s a crowd around me.”

And it’s not just public spaces where Martin doesn’t feel as free as he used to. He learned pretty early on that it wasn’t a good idea to interact with fans on the internet too much:

"At first I was very flattered and I’d go on message boards and think: ‘Oh, this is cool, they’re all really excited.’ But then I began to think: ‘No, I should really steer clear. I don’t like the fact that some people have figured things out that are correct, and I don’t like the fact that other people have figured out things that are wrong but that could influence me too.’ So I took myself out of all that and let fans have their theories, some of which are right and some of which are wrong. They’ll find out which when I finish."

He contrasts these thoughts with a story of a time before HBO’s Game of Thrones came on air, when he and his wife Parris had dinner with some Spanish A Song of Ice and Fire fans who broke into a Spanish-language version of “The Bear and the Maiden Fair.” “They were pounding the table and singing, and they all knew the lyrics. It was amazing. I loved that experience.”

And indeed, Martin loves that people feel strongly about his creations — he loved all the reactions to the Red Wedding episode back in the day, for example — but I guess you can always have too much of a good thing. “I’m glad of the emotional reactions, whether to the books or the television show, because that’s what fiction is all about – emotion,” he said. “If you want to make an intellectual argument or persuade someone, then write an essay or a piece of journalism, write nonfiction. Fiction… should feel as if you’re living these things when you read or watch them. If you’re so distanced by it that a character dies and you don’t care, then to an extent the author has failed.”

Speaking of the show, Martin didn’t comment directly on the final season, but did remind us that nothing about it will change what he’s planning for the ending of his books. “As Rick Nelson says in Garden Party, one of my favourite songs, you can’t please everybody, so you’ve got to please yourself,” he said. Please away.

To Martin, the show and the books are “not the same thing, although they are very closely related to each other.” And as the progenitor of the original series, he has an even better sense of their differences than fans at home. “For the average viewer, and I recognize this, Tyrion Lannister will always be Peter Dinklage from this point forward,” he mused. “But it did not work that way for me. I started writing these books in 1991 and [by the time the series started] I’d been with these characters for 20 years. I had them fixed in my mind.”

I don’t expect A Song of Ice and Fire to play out exactly as Game of Thrones, although I think the broad brush strokes will be the same. Hopefully with some of that stress relieved, we’ll all find out the full truth sooner rather than later.

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