A First-Person Look on How George R. R. Martin Writes Game of Thrones

[Esmeralda Portillo]

A First-Person Look on How George R. R. Martin Writes Game of Thrones

A first-person rendition of what it's like in George R. R. Martin's head when writing his books for A Song of Ice and Fire.

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Have you ever wondered about the creative writing process George R. R. Martin goes through when writing Game of Thrones, or more broadly, his A Song of Ice and Fire series?

I've always pictured several printed drafts laying on the floor, post-it notes stuck on each page with details on the vast lore of Westeros and beyond. He carefully and meticulously rereads his ideas, nitpicking his work down to the names he gives his secondary characters, all to create the best stories he can muster.

Or if we're to believe YouTuber Mr.TVCow [https://www.youtube.com/user/mrtvcowEN/], it's just him finding new ways to kill characters off instead of giving them a happily ever after. In his latest video, gamer and VFX editor Michael creates a first-person game of what it's like to be novelist George R. R. Martin.

The video contains spoilers if you haven't read the third book or seen the first half of season 4.

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/how-george-r-r-martin-sees-game-of-thrones-1596589080]

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[Talvrae]

Really not what i expected, still kinda funny

 

[Baresark]

I'll tell you how his creative process works.

1. Look at what other people have done.
2. Write a worse version of that same thing but include lots of needless killing, tits, and fucking (and weeners, if South Park is to be believed).
3. Kill all your characters that even come close to being the "hero" of the story.
5. Profit.

Well, got that out of my system.

Also, I'm mostly joking. I don't particularly care for his writing, don't get me wrong. But don't waste your time questioning my very personal opinion on the matter, it's a dead end road. It's not based off of anything objective, just like if you love his writing. It's just how I feel about it.

 

[Rad Party God]

It made me laugh, but I lost it when he just wrote Hodor xD

Pretty funny stuff, I liked it

 

[Fox12]

Ewww, I don't want to watch Martin pull things out of his ass.

Okay, troll bait aside, this was pretty funny. Hopefully we'll get the sixth book soon, where we discover that Hodor is the lost heir to the Targaryens, and the only one capable of sitting the iron throne.

 

[Quazimofo]

I had to do a double take at 0:12 to make sure that wasn't another tab's advertisement or something popping up.

Funny stuff. Didn't expect the ending to do quite like it did, but that's not a bad thing.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I'll tell you how his creative process works.

1. Look at what other people have done.
2. Write a worse version of that same thing but include lots of needless killing, tits, and fucking (and weeners, if South Park is to be believed).
3. Kill all your characters that even come close to being the "hero" of the story.
5. Profit.

Well, got that out of my system.

Also, I'm mostly joking. I don't particularly care for his writing, don't get me wrong. But don't waste your time questioning my very personal opinion on the matter, it's a dead end road. It's not based off of anything objective, just like if you love his writing. It's just how I feel about it.

I haven't watched it, just that number 3 seems to be the IT thing in storytelling these days and I'm not sure why.

I mean sure one can argue people die all the time so in a way it's more realistic, but at the same time if no hero ever lives who is there to relate to?

I've been watching Attack on Titans on Adult Swim (No spoilers please) and the first like 6 episodes are just that. Getting close to characters then seeing them die horrifically. You start to feel like your watching the first half of the movie Roots, you just want to hang yourself.

 

[Reaper195]

"The win is a'ightHODOR!"

Fuckin' glorious.

 

[RedDeadFred]

I'll tell you how his creative process works.

1. Look at what other people have done.
2. Write a worse version of that same thing but include lots of needless killing, tits, and fucking (and weeners, if South Park is to be believed).
3. Kill all your characters that even come close to being the "hero" of the story.
5. Profit.

Well, got that out of my system.

Also, I'm mostly joking. I don't particularly care for his writing, don't get me wrong. But don't waste your time questioning my very personal opinion on the matter, it's a dead end road. It's not based off of anything objective, just like if you love his writing. It's just how I feel about it.

I haven't watched it, just that number 3 seems to be the IT thing in storytelling these days and I'm not sure why.

I mean sure one can argue people die all the time so in a way it's more realistic, but at the same time if no hero ever lives who is there to relate to?

Honestly, he doesn't kill off as many main characters as people say. I'm pretty sure he's only killed of two major POV characters. Yes some other major, and depressing deaths have occurred, but it's not as bad as people make it seem. It's not senseless slaughtering like some people believe, he is merely illustrating that in his world, there are consequences for your actions (or inaction).

OT: This was pretty funny. Him putting on his signature hat to write made me smirk a little.

 

[gridsleep]

I was expecting a video of a green CRT screen showing WordStar being used in DOS (one suspects that Martin has the better taste to use PC-DOS rather than the mundane MS variety; I used DR-DOS for a very long time.)

 

[Baresark]

I'll tell you how his creative process works.

1. Look at what other people have done.
2. Write a worse version of that same thing but include lots of needless killing, tits, and fucking (and weeners, if South Park is to be believed).
3. Kill all your characters that even come close to being the "hero" of the story.
5. Profit.

Well, got that out of my system.

Also, I'm mostly joking. I don't particularly care for his writing, don't get me wrong. But don't waste your time questioning my very personal opinion on the matter, it's a dead end road. It's not based off of anything objective, just like if you love his writing. It's just how I feel about it.

I haven't watched it, just that number 3 seems to be the IT thing in storytelling these days and I'm not sure why.

I mean sure one can argue people die all the time so in a way it's more realistic, but at the same time if no hero ever lives who is there to relate to?

I've been watching Attack on Titans on Adult Swim (No spoilers please) and the first like 6 episodes are just that. Getting close to characters then seeing them die horrifically. You start to feel like your watching the first half of the movie Roots, you just want to hang yourself.

I agree. The worst thing about GoT and Attack on Titan is that the deaths are, for the most part, completely meaningless. They are seemingly to just get rid of characters.

I hope you enjoy Attack on Titan. I think that it was over hyped a bit, and it suffers from some pretty bad pacing at points, but it was a pretty good show in the end. Good enough for me to want to see the second season.

 

[V TheSystem V]

I just imagine a dartboard with every the names of major player and minor character of any worth on it, and Martin killing off those whose names are pierced by the dart. But then again, that's probably what JK Rowling did for Deathly Hallows, but threw one of the darts again because she didn't want to kill off Harry.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

I'll tell you how his creative process works.

1. Look at what other people have done.
2. Write a worse version of that same thing but include lots of needless killing, tits, and fucking (and weeners, if South Park is to be believed).
3. Kill all your characters that even come close to being the "hero" of the story.
5. Profit.

Well, got that out of my system.

Also, I'm mostly joking. I don't particularly care for his writing, don't get me wrong. But don't waste your time questioning my very personal opinion on the matter, it's a dead end road. It's not based off of anything objective, just like if you love his writing. It's just how I feel about it.

I haven't watched it, just that number 3 seems to be the IT thing in storytelling these days and I'm not sure why.

I mean sure one can argue people die all the time so in a way it's more realistic, but at the same time if no hero ever lives who is there to relate to?

I've been watching Attack on Titans on Adult Swim (No spoilers please) and the first like 6 episodes are just that. Getting close to characters then seeing them die horrifically. You start to feel like your watching the first half of the movie Roots, you just want to hang yourself.

I agree. The worst thing about GoT and Attack on Titan is that the deaths are, for the most part, completely meaningless. They are seemingly to just get rid of characters.

I hope you enjoy Attack on Titan. I think that it was over hyped a bit, and it suffers from some pretty bad pacing at points, but it was a pretty good show in the end. Good enough for me to want to see the second season.

I love the premise of it, but the thing that keeps me watching is I want to know where the Titans came from and what they are.

I really hope the cause is science run amok and not something stupid like magic.