Game of Thrones…books vs. HBO show

So the big news a couple of days ago for Game of Thrones (novel and/or HBO show) fans was the admission by the show’s front runners that the HBO series will more than likely end well before the final two George R. R. Martin books are released.  Therefore, naturally, the TV show will become a giant SPOILER for what’s to come in those still unpublished and unfinished novels.

http://io9.com/game-of-thrones-finally-admits-the-show-will-spoil-the-1693101904

I have yet to see a full episode of Game of Thrones.  For that matter, I haven’t watched but two or so episodes of The Walking Dead.  These two shows are arguably the most popular TV series out there today but I’m not following either of them.

It’s not snobbishness on my part.  I followed The Walking Dead comic books quite religiously and enjoyed the hell out of the series…that is, until the resolution of the prison storyline.  It was at that point I felt author Robert Kirkman was going for shock more than powerful storytelling and was so turned off by that resolution that I left the book.  When the TV show subsequently came around, I didn’t want to relive the storylines I’d already read and get to that awful (IMHO) point again.  I know the show has deviated from the comic book series, but I just couldn’t follow it because of that bad taste left behind from the prison resolution.

As for Game of Thrones, I was interested in seeing the series but because I didn’t have HBO couldn’t see it on its first run.  I was planning to catch it once that first season was released on BluRay but, unfortunately, so many spoilers started flying on the internet that it was tough to avoid accidentally (much less on purpose!) hearing about things going on in that show.  So much was spoiled that I gave up on seeing the show even before I had the chance to “catch up” on it.

Having said all this, I feel sorry for author George R. R. Martin.  Not for his success and certainly not for his fame and the money I’m sure he’s making for this incredibly successful TV/book series.

What I feel bad about is that the series has proven so successful and his writing of the last two novels of the series has slowed so much that he’s put in this untenable position of releasing his last novels with (perhaps) many of the final surprises/resolutions already well known to the public at large.

As an author, though one with a far smaller bank account that Mr. Martin’s, I have faced the prospect of writing books that have taken me a frustratingly long time to finish.  My fifth Corrosive Knights novel, Ghost of the Argus, took two full years for me to finish off.  Going into that book, I knew it would take more effort to write it than the previous four books in the series.  It was the novel that tied all the others together, and I wanted it to do so in a logical, comfortable way…a tough thing to do considering the books have a history that stretches out thousands of years.

The amount of work experienced producing this novel was easily far more than any of the previous ones.  It got to the point where I woke up thinking about Ghost of the Argus, had breakfast with the novel on my mind, did a few hours of work on the novel, headed off to my other job with the novel on my mind (and the gears in my head whirling on what I had just written), got back home with the book on my mind (and if I had the energy, spent some more time working on it then), and finally went to sleep thinking about what I’d do the next day with it.

Author Lester Dent, best known for his many, many Doc Savage pulp novels, famously had a nervous breakdown during the time he was working so hard on that series.  The Doc Savage pulp magazine was published monthly from 1933 to 1949 and of the 181 stories written, Mr. Dent was personally responsible for approximately 161 of them.  During Mr. Dent’s breakdown, he supposedly was found “talking” to his fictional Doc Savage characters.

While I could not keep up the pace Mr. Dent had to endure, I can sympathize with that feeling of being so overwhelmed by your creations that they threaten to take up your entire life.

The Game of Thrones universe that Mr. Martin has created is an incredibly complex and rich one and I know it must be very difficult to spend each day writing this work while keeping all your characters and situations in their proper context.  I’m certain that if Mr. Martin could wave a magic wand and have the final books be ready for release, he’d take that opportunity is a heartbeat.  It is incredibly difficult to write books and be hard enough on yourself as an author to hold back their release until you feel that particular work is “ready” to be released.

If I had been less demanding of myself and my works, I would have released Ghost of the Argus after a year’s time, like my other works.  But whatever I would have released wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good as I wanted it to be.  Like Mr. Martin, I have an endgame for the series and have already written a (very) rough draft for the final novel in the series, though I’m not certain if it will be book 8 or if I’ll want to release another couple of books before finally wrapping the series up (I’m currently on book 6 and have book 7 roughly plotted).

In Mr. Martin’s case, while I’m sure he has a relatively detailed endgame, I suspect he’s not all that different from me in the sense that there may be things he wants to explore, things that even the people behind the TV series are unaware of.  For writing, in my experience, is often an organic thing.  You plant your seeds and sometimes they grow this way and that, surprising and delighting you with their twists and turns.

Mr. Martin, I’m sure, is under tremendous pressure to try to release his books before the TV show is done.  He probably will not hit that mark and its too bad his success has put him in such a high pressure situation.