George R. R. Martin
George R. R. Martin
George Raymond Richard Martin, often referred to as GRRM, is an American novelist and short-story writer in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres, a screenwriter, and television producer. He is best known for his international bestselling series of epic fantasy novels, A Song of Ice and Fire, which was later adapted into the HBO dramatic series Game of Thrones...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth20 September 1948
CountryUnited States of America
hate book writing
I hate outlines. I have a broad sense of where the story is going; I know the end, I know the end of the principal characters, and I know the major turning points and events from the books, the climaxes for each book, but I don't necessarily know each twist and turn along the way. That's something I discover in the course of writing and that's what makes writing enjoyable. I think if I outlined comprehensively and stuck to the outline the actual writing would be boring.
book writing numbers
There are a number of things that I'm trying to get into the books. There's a meta-fictional aspect, if I may use that pretentious word, to writing anything. You're writing in the shadow of all the people that have gone before and, in a way, you're having a dialogue with them. As someone who's read J.R. Tolkien and Robert E. Howard and all the great fantasists before, this is almost my answer to them.
heart writing guts
One of the hardest parts of writing is writing from the gut or the heart or something like that rather than intellectually.
character writing exercise
I think my very earliest stories were all intellectual exercises and I was writing from experiences I had never had about characters who were about an inch deep.
book writing historical-novels
You always try to do your own thing. One of the things I wanted to do was to write a book that combines some of the best traits of contemporary fantasy with some of the traits of the historical novel.
real writing track
When I am writing best, I really am lost in my world. I lose track of the outside world. I have a difficult time balancing between my real world and the artificial world.
reading kids writing
One of the big breakthroughs, I think for me, was reading Robert A. Heinlein's four rules of writing, one of which was, 'You must finish what you write.' I never had any problem with the first one, 'You must write' - I was writing since I was a kid. But I never finished what writing.
heart character writing
I've always preferred writing about grey characters and human characters. Whether they are giants or elves or dwarves, or whatever they are, they're still human, and the human heart is still in conflict with the self.
running book writing
I knew that, when writing a book, you're not constrained by a budget. You're not constrained by what you can do, in terms of the special effects technology. You're not limited to any particular running time.
writing epic bigs
I wanted to write a big novel, something epic in scale.
writing want stories
I have some other novels I want to write. I have a lot of short stories - I love the short story.
book writing ideas
I have idea files of books that I want to write one of these days, stories I want to write one of these days, but I'll probably never get to them.
hate writing i-hate
Don't write outlines; I hate outlines.
writing subconscious bounds
A lot of writing takes place in the subconscious, and it's bound to have an effect.