“My main focus has got to be the books”: Game of Thrones Author George R.R. Martin Needs to Believe His Own Reason for Preferring the Books Over the Show

SUMMARY

• George R.R. Martin is perhaps the most famous literary figure of modern times.
• However, he is notoriously infamous for his slow writing speed.
• His 'The Winds of Winter' novel is 13 years in the making.

Show More▼

One of the greatest works of fiction of modern times has to be George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series. The Fire & Blood author, who is often considered modern-day Tolkien, gave birth to characters we have come to love on TV, through shows such as Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon.

George R. R. Martin | Image by Gage Skidmore licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

However, despite his worldwide fame and undeniable talent, the writer is infamous for his one habit – his extremely slow writing speed. Fans have been waiting for his sixth novel in the ASOIAF series, The Winds of Winter, for over a decade now, and the wait doesn’t seem to be ending any time soon.

George R. R. Martin only considers book lore canon

Credits: Kit Harington in Game of Thrones / HBO

Very often, we see on-screen adaptations of written material take a completely different route than originally intended. This oftentimes creates a divide between show-only fans and those who are familiar with the original source, as we saw in the case of Game of Thrones, and House of the Dragon.

In an old interview with Time, George R. R. Martin was asked if the show’s storyline affected his novels, which he is still writing. He said:

I don’t consider it in those terms. The show is the show and it’s developed a life of its own at this point. I am involved in the show, of course, and have been since the beginning, but my main focus has got to be the books. You have to remember that I started writing this story in 1991 and I first met David and Dan [showrunners Benioff and Weiss] in 2007.

I was living with these characters and this world for 16 years before we even started working on the show. They’re pretty fixed in my mind and I’m not going to change anything because of the show, or reaction to the show, or what fans think. I’m just still writing the story that I set out to write in the early 1990s.

And it seems like Martin needs some encouragement from his old self in order to finish his highly-anticipated book.

Fans beg George R. R. Martin to finish The Winds of Winter

After the recent House of the Dragon controversy stirred by Martin himself, fans have been both supporting him as well as throwing shade at him for taking so long to finish one book.

Some of them took to X and said:

It has been 13 years since his last A Song of Ice and Fire novel came out, and there’s no indication if he will complete it any time soon. We can only hope that he finds his motivation to write soon, so we can get the real ending to A Song of Ice and Fire, which might heal the burns caused by the botched Game of Thrones finale.

Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon are streaming on Max.

Written by Sayantan Choudhary

Articles Published: 97

Sayantan is an editor for FandomWire/Animated Times. He has previously worked with reputed websites like Wiki Of Thrones and Collider over the past 4 years, and is deeply passionate about TV shows, films, anime, gaming, and everything pop culture.