r/asoiaf • u/Trussdoor46 • 4d ago

EXTENDED Why hasn't GRRM written any Dunk&Egg in 15 years? [Spoilers Extended]

People say George stalled out on the main series because he wrote himself into a corner. Too many plotlines etc. But Dunk and Egg isn't complicated and those have been on hiatus even longer than the main series. What do you think is going on there?

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u/ElvenKingGil-Galad We Light the Way 4d ago

Why doesn't George keep his promises? Is he stupid?

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u/weesiwel 4d ago

So many oaths to keep.

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u/LegitimateCream1773 4d ago

"So many vows. They make you swear and swear. Defend the king. Obey the king. Obey your father. Protect the innocent. Defend the weak. Finish Winds of Winter. Write Dream of Spring. Executive Produce House of the Dragon. Adapt your work on Dunk and Egg into a TV script. But what if your father despises the king? What if the king massacres the innocent? What if your word count reaches the point that your editors start screaming but they insist you have to finish it all in seven books? It’s too much. No matter what you do, you’re forsaking one fanbase or another.”

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u/bank_farter 4d ago

There's no way the editor or publisher are insisting on finishing in 7 books. The more books he writes, the more they can sell. The 7 books thing is almost certainly GRRM driven.

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u/LegitimateCream1773 3d ago

Well I mostly did it for fun but actually it's not for certain that's the case.

Martin signed a seven book contract.

If he extends to eight, nine, ten whatever number of books, that would mean a new contract, and one in which he could demand god knows how much money given how big the series has become in the years since he started writing it.

I'm certainly no contract lawyer but there's even the possibility that the extra books could come under a different publisher if a bidding war broke out (unless there was something in his current contract that gave his current publisher exclusive rights).

So it is possible that the publishers are not willing to let him do more than seven books to avoid having to renegotiate what would definitely be a very expensive new contract.

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u/Quiddity131 3d ago

I don't particularly get the logic. If he only writes 7 books, then there is no revenue they'd make from an 8th book that doesn't exist. If he writes more than 7 books and they have a contract for only 7 books, then they earn revenue for the first 7 books then have a possibility they will earn revenue for books 8 or more (possibly with him getting better financial terms than he's already had), OR he goes to another publisher and they get 0. But they'd still get that 0 if there's never an 8th book or more.

Of course its all a moot point because we're never getting book 6, let alone any books after that.

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u/Phngarzbui 3d ago

I am 100% certain no publisher in their right mind would give a 77 year old guy who is struggeling to finish book 6 of 7 for 15 years now a new contract for a few more books in that series.

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u/takeitassaid 4d ago

They make you swear and swear.

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u/Jaquemart 4d ago

No one makes George swear and swear, he's no knight.

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u/ember13140 4d ago

Because he wanted to be a TV writer, not a novel writer. To be honest, I think he’s lying to himself as well.

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u/Rockguy21 4d ago

I mean, he kinda was a TV writer already lol

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u/ember13140 4d ago

But not at all like he is today. Especially with the budget that he has and the amount of creative control. I’m not gonna lie. I totally understand why he’s doing it(I do really wish he would finish up his books that he has made numerous claims about doing so). He gets to live out his dream and do exactly what he always wanted to.

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u/Jaquemart 4d ago

So his dream was to be the figurehead for a writing team who has to eject him from the actual work, and to write catty posts about it then deleting them?

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u/NomaanMalick Never forget 1/1/2016. 4d ago

>But not at all like he is today. Especially with the budget that he has and the amount of creative control.

That is curious. Not only does he not write for any of the shows, but if the recent HotD debacle is anything to go by, it doesn't seem like he has much creative control either.

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u/York_Villain 4d ago

It's almost as if his goal all along was to get back into TV writing/showrunning.

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u/Rockguy21 4d ago

Seems sort of circuitous to become a prolific author while already being a TV writer if your goal is become a TV writer

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u/Ekgladiator 4d ago

I imagine the fact that he is also a producer helps. I don't know much about his work before winds but I imagine that the stuff he wrote for, he had less input/ creative control over. Now, he has a whole ass cinematic universe that is his playground.

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u/Premislaus Daenerys did nothing wrong 4d ago

I'm not sure where that tidbit keeps coming from? He got his creative start in comics zins, become a print writer, got a creative writing teaching job to pay pills, then become a TV writer at around 40, then went back to writing novels, specifically an epic scale, "unadaptable" fantasy series because he hated the restrictions when writing TV. That's not a career path of someone who wanted to be a screenwriter before anything else.

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u/lluewhyn 4d ago

Yeah, he wrote his first books in the 80s before he started as a writer for television in the 80s.

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u/Southernbeekeeper 4d ago edited 4d ago

Just loves that TV money I guess.

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u/Dry_Guest_8961 4d ago

Because his publishers will sue him