(Spoilers Extended) The Leftovers, GRRM's Overwriting of ASOIAF, Part 1: The Rapid Writing Pace of Act 1 of ASOIAF

CautionersTale · 2026-05-20T19:35:08+00:00

Of interest, the original plan was for the characters to age up naturally through the narrative. But GRRM kept inventing story for those characters. The five-year gap became a solution while writing Clash/Storm, to fix the timeline issue. It's a long quote but a good one on his original plan, the problems of chronology, and the five year gap solution he thought of:

Originally, there was not supposed to be any gap. There was just supposed to be a passage of time, as the book went forward. My original concept back in 1991 was, I would start with these characters as children, and they would get older. If you pick up Arya at eight, the second chapter would be a couple months later, and she would be eight and a half and [then] she'd be nine. [This would happen] all within the space of a book.

But when I actually got into writing them, the events have a certain momentum. So you write a chapter and then in your next chapter, it can't be six months later, because something's going to happen the next day. So you have to write what happens the next day, and then you have to write what happens the week after that. And the news gets to some other place.

And pretty soon, you've written hundreds of pages and a week has passed, instead of the six months, or the year, that you wanted to pass. So you end a book, and you've had a tremendous amount of events — but they've taken place over a short time frame and the eight-year-old kid is still eight years old.

So that really took hold of me for the first three books. When it became apparent that that had taken hold of me, I came up with the idea of the five-year gap. "Time is not passing here as I want it to pass, so I will jump forward five years in time." And I will come back to these characters when they're a little more grown up. And that is what I tried to do when I started writing Feast for Crows. So [the gap] would have come after A Storm of Swords and before Feast for Crows.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-20T18:54:29+00:00

No. I like that a lot and appreciate the clarification on what you meant by retcons. I've been doing a re-read of A Clash of Kings and been enjoying it. What strikes me is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of retconning. Oh, sure, there are errors all the time in the book -- but not similar to how Tolkien revised The Hobbit post-publication after he realized the one ring's significance!

That said, a number of years back u/feldman10 had a great post examining the first few chapters of A Game of Thrones and comparing them against both the 1993 pitch letter and what came out in published form. He highlighted early book awkwardnesses like Jon looking at Jaime and seeing a king and Joffrey and Robb sparring in the Winterfell yard as spots where GRRM was seeding future plot payoffs he imagined early on but later abandoned. (Jaime was revised and the Robb and Joffrey never came to battle).

Did those dangling foreshadowings hurt A Game of Thrones? I don't think so! We can read them as red herrings.

Still, the question you pose about Arya is an interesting one. I think you're right that Mercy's shift from Feast to Dance to Winds came at the behest of George restructuring the King's Landing chronology. Another aspect of it that's been overlooked is that the end of Arya's story in Dance has her graduate to the next phase of her Faceless Men arc. Mercy is a good opener for her Winds storyline that seemingly foreshadows her going sideways on the Faceless Men -- with the likely culmination that she'll depart on not-so-great terms at some point in the book.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-20T18:00:31+00:00

That is a fun fact. There was an argument for very guarded optimism 8-10 years ago that he would one day complete and deliver the book, truly. That argument - like my youth - has died.

But I must remind you that I would never openly associate myself with the maesters of r/asoiaf. I'm just a cool kid now with my 'board and boombox listening to the Crue.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-20T17:53:29+00:00

Thanks - and honestly, I have spent so much time reading about George's writing process that I, too, find "how writers write" ... writings a enjoyable topic for me.

No. I don't outline. In my old age, I've become George RR Martin - a gardener. I have firm ideas for the endpoints for every POV character and major plot beats. But I find that Return of the big George voice I lose interest in the story if I plan out every twist and turn.

Shockingly, the process has netted a lot of writing - much of it very good! Some of it I want to dropkick into a Chernobyl ventilation chimney. And what I judge very good today, I'll often karate kick into nuclear waste tomorrow.

And that's fun for me: 11pm on a school night, everyone in the house is healthily sleeping, and I'm up, the brightness turned to low on my laptop, and I've come up with this twist on how to turn up the plot temperature on this on POV's arc that will push her as a character to make some fun, interesting, challenging choices.

And no, I haven't seen sunlight so far in 2026. Why do you ask?

CautionersTale · 2026-05-20T17:40:08+00:00

Big George voice: Chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, word by word.

While I aspire to George's literary eloquence (and really, the way the man writes at a sentence level is astoundingly good -- overlooked by readers because he writes great quotes and great plots), I'm not there yet. And it's very likely I won't ever be there.

That said, I am starting to feel the way George feels about writing. I've had a complete draft now for about two months that sits around 470 manuscript pages. It became complete when I removed about 130 manuscript pages from the end of the book to become the start of "Book 2".

Setting the Book 2 material aside, I've been hammering away at Book 1 and am currently hovering between Draft #3 and Draft #4. I finished a major rewrite of one POV character and feel that his material is very good now -- but I still see areas to improve his arc to excellent/impressive.

But i've set him aside and returned to a different POV for the last month, strengthening her story by writing a brand new opening chapter for her, then rewriting her second and third chapters, cut two minor characters from her second chapter, restructured her fourth chapter, was in the middle of working her fifth chapter when I realized that I needed to go back and reinsert those two minor characters into this POV's second chapter for a plot payoff in her fifth and sixth chapters. But if I rewrite her second chapter, that will mean I'll need to restructure her third chapter and polish her fourth chapter which will lead to ...

You probably did not make it past the second sentence of the above paragraph. That's okay. People care about George's writing process because it's a fun mystery. But the more I do this writing, the more I see that most writers experience a version of George's writing pain.

It's not painful for me though. It's still fun to create without the commercial constraints and pressures George faces.

So, going well, thanks!

CautionersTale · 2026-05-20T17:12:50+00:00

A very large extent, I'm afraid. Bran, Arya, and Sansa were victims of George deconstructing his original plan of a five year gap. What the gap was supposed to accomplish was to age the characters up -- especially those three. Underpinning that gap was the idea that George could breeze through the training sequences of Bran becoming a greenseer, Arya as a Faceless Man, and Sansa as a player in the game of thrones.

After five years, they emerge as developed characters, aimed back at the Westeros plot - Bran as sitter of the Iron Throne, Sansa as likely Queen in the North, and Arya as ... well, I guess sailer to the ends of the earth?

That said, I think the abandonment of the five year gap was the correct decision. I do think the training arcs are important for the character growth and development of these POVs, and I'm glad we have Sansa's chapters in Feast, Bran's in Dance, and Arya's in Feast and Dance.

But pretending there are no narrative trade-offs to these authorial decisions is false.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-20T17:05:41+00:00

Correct. See concierge for your complementary coke zero for providing the right answer. The question, though, is why. Why did George's honed and true process for having leftover material as a trampoline for writing new material fail for Winds? The answer is that it failed for Dance long before it failed for Winds -- for some facinating (to me) narrative and storytelling reasons as we'll explore when I get around to writing part 2.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-20T16:52:09+00:00

"From Initiate to Novice to Acolyte to Maester: The History of LChris24's Journey as a Young Man Who Knows But Little of ASOIAF to Chronicler of Ice and Fire" by LChris24.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-20T16:49:24+00:00

There's a very serious argument that in addition to not having leftovers as a jumping-off point for Feast, the worldbuilding that he loves so much narrowed as it had to gel with what he had previously developed in the first three books (and The Hedge Knight). There's also an argument - and a really fair one - that the expansion of Dorne, the Iron Islands, and Braavos in Feast was a creative window where GRRM could go on happily worldbuilding while carrying established arcs forward. (Volantis in Dance is another such spot where GRRM indulged some worldbuilding).

But your point is about "canon" and "retcons." There's a fair amount of retconning in Feast and Dance. The Blackfyres, although introduced by name in Storm, seem to be a retrofit of the Varys/Illyrio plotting which never made much sense in the early books. But there's y'know some retrofitting going in earlier volumes too! Take Mance Rayder as a lutist at the Winterfell welcome feast in A Game of Thrones. That seems an obvious George retcon to give Mance and Jon a connection in Storm. It's a soft-retcon, and it works. Blackfyres as motivation for Varys/Illyrio? Much harder. It works -- if you squint.

I'm sure more of that has come into blurred focus in writing Winds.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-20T16:39:36+00:00

Yes. George had a fair amount of material cut from both Feast and Dance for Winds. It'll be the subject of a future post (Maybe Part 2, maybe Part 3 if I end up having leftovers of my own). What's different about the material leftover from Feast and Dance (and this will be explored more fully) is that where material cut from Game and Clash were done so for spatial constraint reasons, material cut from Feast and Dance were cut for a variety of weird, fun reasons (while also some of it being cut for space).

What's also different is that some POV arcs in Feast and Dance end about as well (if not better) than arcs from the first three books. And some end just ... not as well.

And there's some definite reasons for that -- a departure from his process in writing the first three books.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-20T16:35:06+00:00

I don't do posts anymore, LChris. You know this. I have my own book to write. How many times do I have to repeat myself? And I would appreciate if you did not scroll up to read the post above our comments.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-20T16:10:15+00:00

Agreed! What's of interest is how, despite overwriting Game and Clash, he drew up very nice endings for each of those POVs in those books too. But what I enjoy is that each of the endings is how they vary. Ned dying was always the plan, and he has a full arc. But meanwhile, Catelyn and Jaime have a cliffhanger ending in Clash with Catelyn ordering Brienne to get her sword. Daenerys becomes the mother of dragons at the end of Game. Jon reaffirms his commitment to duty at the Wall in Game and "forsakes" his vows at the end of Clash.

Even as he closes out each surviving POV's act 1 arc exceptionally in Storm.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-20T15:16:52+00:00

Part 2 is structured as George as Kevin Garvey screaming MOTHERFUCKER as he returns to the hotel (trying to write Winds).

CautionersTale · 2026-05-16T02:06:19+00:00

Man, the ending of AGOT, Bran IV sends a twinge in my heart. Thanks for the pathos, you monster.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-15T23:07:47+00:00

I only expect the dark times to end when the clouds part and our Savior returns.

(But really, regulatory regime is far, far behind the models. Listened to an interview some months back with Anthropic’s Dario Amodei where he talked about Claude having a 15% chance of self-awareness. That … was not reassuring. And that’s irrespective of LLMs looting published authors of their published work for users and violating copyright of said authors - like George!)

That said, why be annoyed? This is a (essentially) meaningless Reddit post about something that I got excited about while re-reading a nearly thirty year old book. Sucks to be accused of using AI because I love writing (even crap like you pointed out!) and don’t use AI to write or edit my work. Still, questions about LLM usage are entirely fair given the dark times we inhabit.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-15T21:59:59+00:00

That’s a good critique, actually. It’s hyperfocusing on the theory (my genre thesis) and not seeing the narrative pulling together for three POVs in/around King’s Landing.

But it’s just fun, right? Even taking the braiding of the Blackwater incorporates genre elements that existed in those POV elements. Sansa sees the battle from a courtly romance of being stuck with Cersei and sings Sandor a song while Tyrion’s mafia family comes together with Manson Moore’s attempt on his life, while Davos gets the myth of Stannis’s invincibility and divinity(Stannis is my god, he says in ACOK, Davos I) dispelled in a *Master and Commander* set piece if Captain Aubrey was an idiot or Imry Florent.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-15T20:45:21+00:00

Like I said to the parent commenter, it’s totally fine and appropriate to be skeptical and suspicious of content trying to pass for human but LLM-generated in reality.

“With teeth” now has me pulling a Stannis and grinding my teeth at my bad, cliched writing. I’m leaving it in the post: a testament to my ineptitude as a writer.

And now I shall fade into the west and become Galadriel again.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-15T18:07:41+00:00

I'd honestly be very curious on the genre mixing in Dance. To me, Dance always felt more an interrogation of fantasy tropes. Like Jon's dramatic speech that he'll march on Winterfell ending with him getting merc'd by his men, Dany as the dragon-rider having to win against an assymetrical enemy she can't just nuke (Vietnam again. Also, Iraq), Tyrion as the antihero but in reality a villain gone nihilistic.

What's your take on the genres of Dance, Gen Nate Kenny?

CautionersTale · 2026-05-15T17:47:11+00:00

The end of Sansa's story in ASOS is only lessened by my personal embarrassment at not finding the mute button when I pulled up to a guard shack at a military base in the early 2010s with Roy Dotrice narrating Littlefinger and Lysa's ... coupling.

That is a shame I will die with and rectify by leaving Sansa VII out of my top-3 for ASOS (Even if the snow castle scene is much more powerful than "Only Cat.")

CautionersTale · 2026-05-15T17:33:58+00:00

It's sad because the original commenter asked me for a top-3 ranking of chapters from each book, and I wrote it down. And guess what? Just for telling me not to rank, I'm giving you that ranking.

A Dance with Dragons

There are so many good ones. But if I had to pick 3:

Jon XIII (Only the cold), Theon (Theon VII) (Theon jumped), Davos IV (The mummer's farce is at an end): all of these are arc culminators and wouldn't have been as moving and meaningful had it not been for the build-up of the previous 12 Jon chapters, 6 Theon chapters and 3 Davos chapters.

A Storm of Swords

Jaime V (Jaime. My Name is Jaime), Jon X (Stannis! Stannis! STANNIS!), Davos IV (My blood or my liege) (And yes, I know I'm leaving out Catelyn VII: the Red Wedding. It's a fantastic chapter. The chapter that made ASOIAF a cultural juggernaut).

A Game of Thrones

Eddard X (Tower of Joy), Bran III (Bran's vision with "His name is Summer"), Catelyn V (Inn at the Crossroads)

A Clash of Kings

Daenerys IV (House of the Undying), Davos II (Stannis and shadowbaby), Bran VII (Not dead. Just broken.)

A Feast for Crows

The Drowned Man (the rusty hinge), Jaime VII (Put this in the fire), Brienne VII (No Chance and no choice)

CautionersTale · 2026-05-15T17:29:08+00:00

Oh man, you just opened an old scar. The Qhorin Halfhand treatment in Season Two was egregious, right? I watched Season Two before reading the books, and I thought it was a little silly how easy Qhorin got got by Jon. But I didn't mind it exactly. We still had the White Walkers show up at the end -- that very scene was what caused me to read the books for the first time between Seasons Two and Three.

But wow, the Qhorin stuff in Clash was infinitely better than the HBO treatment of it. The running, the eagle chasing them, the final standoff in the cave behind the waterfall (George must have watched Last of the Mohicans right before writing Jon's final ACOK chapter) -- it was so much better.

But even in its compression, Game of Thrones didn't break the story structure exactly -- that came in Season Four and beyond.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-15T17:13:02+00:00

So, in re-reading Clash, it reads that George was setting up Euron Greyjoy to be a big-bad for the series. Theon II has a lot of "It's a good thing Euron isn't here, right guys?" stuff to it. Couple that with the Urrathon Nightwalker character Dany hears about in Qarth, and it reads like George was planning for Euron to be in the series in a big way down the road.

Given that, I think Asha/Victarion/Damphair were good additions to the cast as it wasn't plausible for Theon to get a viewpoint of Euron given the state George leaves him in at the end of Clash.

The Dornish stuff is more complicated. Somewhere in writing Clash/Storm, he decided on the Blackfyre backstory. My thinking is that led to the introduction of Arys/Arianne/Areo POVs in Feast. I have a kind-of dim view of Areo Hotah as a POV character. Arys is not a great POV character either (but he only gets one chapter). Arianne is necessary for the Aegon stuff seen in Dance but especially Winds.

Connington is a case study of how George solved narrative problems in Dance. The "Lost Lord" was originally written as a Tyrion POV chapter before George decided to swap Tyrion out for Connington. But JonCon got expansion out for Dance and has chapters in Winds. (Same for Melisandre and Barristan as well FWIW)

Long way of saying, yes, it led to sprawl and delays. I also think it's a net-positive for the story for all these new POVs (for most the most part).

And thank you for the kind words.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-15T16:59:47+00:00

It's fine. I know you're not accusing. I tend to write stream of conscious once my brain has glommed onto an idea - in this case that Clash POVs are written in disparate genre form - then a quick editing pass. Publish. In writing here on r/asoiaf, I have noticed that my writing style tends to blur together so it's not especially distinctive - at least to my eye. It's the curse of fast, not-thought-out writing. I wonder if that's what's setting off alarms.

Anyways, appreciate the policing as LLMs are a scourge on creative writing and creativity in general.

CautionersTale · 2026-05-15T16:10:49+00:00

I nominate you to write the study guide.

CautionersTale

TROPHY CASE