George RR Martin is one of the most beloved and hated storytellers of his generation. He’s best known for his international bestselling series of epic fantasy novels, A Song of Ice and Fire (FREE AUDIOBOOK VERSIONS HERE), which HBO later adapted for its dramatic HBO series entitled Game of Thrones.
Ever since HBO released the Games of Thrones television series, the world can not get enough of Geroge RR Martin. People also prayed every week that George RR Martin would not kill off their favorite character. As the t-shirt says:
“Guns don’t kill people, George RR Martin kills people”
George RR Martin is not only an American novelist and short-story writer in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres, he’s also a screenwriter, and television producer. He has written for shows like The Twilight Zone (1985), Beauty and the Beast (1987), and The Outer Limits (1995).
Martin serves as the HBO series’ co-executive producer, while also scripting four episodes of the series. In 2005, Lev Grossman of Time called George RR Martin “the American Tolkien”, and the magazine later named him one of the “2011 Time 100,” a list of the “most influential people in the world.”
George RR Martin’s work has been described by the Los Angeles Times as having:
“complex story lines, fascinating characters, great dialogue, perfect pacing.”
I came across this amazing master class George RR Martin gave at TIFFon his life, career advice and how he comes up with his stories. He goes into some detail on the craft of storytelling and techniques that work for him. Enjoy!
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” – George RR Martin
Host
Please welcome George RR Martin Thank you have you always been a writer George?
George R.R. Martin
Yeah, pretty much it said in an early age, and I did indeed make up stories and some of the other kids in the projects for you know, I started out with a penny but I rapidly raised my prices all the way to a nickel which could buy a Milky Way bar. So two story sales and I get a comic book. So, but it ended that little professional career and my childhood ended abruptly when one of the other kids who was my regular customer started having nightmares about the stories and his mother came to my mother and no more. So damn.
Host
Do you know what inspired those even those early early stories where the where they came from even then,
George R.R. Martin
you know, I don’t know where any of this stuff comes from it just it comes thank God and I’m glad it does. I if I want to get on psychological I can say maybe I was trying to fill a need in my life for I don’t know, for adventure for travel and all that. I mean, we were we were poor. We lived in the projects. We didn’t even own a car. We never went anywhere I lived in a world that was five blocks long from first street where I lived in history where my school was, so I would you know, read of these other places and dream of other planets and distant lands and darkest Africa and Far East and the Ancient Rome and all of the places that one could read about in books and making up stories about these places allowed me to go there in my imagination even if I couldn’t go anywhere beyond Fifth Street in reality
Host
and were there books or shows or or comics or those that were inspiring to to them that maybe influenced the direction your stories duck.
George R.R. Martin
Why I always love the weird stuff as my father called that the you know, we’re talking now the the early mid 50s. Which there wasn’t a lot of science fiction or much less fantasy or horror around. So I seized eagerly on the shows that were like the original twilight zone with Rod Serling. But even before that, science fiction shows that the early 50s Things like Concorde bed space cadet and Captain video, which I barely remember, that was I was very young when Captain video was on and little later rocky Jones Space Ranger which had a huge impact on me. Very cool show. Sort of the precursor to Star Trek if you actually kind of look at it. And, you know, of course, science fiction and horror movies, a science fiction movie to the 50s was about atomic bomb growing grasshoppers to the size of 740 sevens, which was, you know, pretty cheesy, but, you know, they were they were cool in their own in their own way.
Host
And, and when did you realize that writing could be, you know, beyond those that sort of early Penny and nickel sales? When did you realize that writing could actually be a profession or career you’d want to pursue? Oh, about
George R.R. Martin
three years ago? No, in my early childhood, I was confusing the reality for the, for the imagination, I decided I actually wanted to be a spaceman, which is what we called it before the word astronaut was coined, and nobody had ever heard the word astronaut until the Mercury program, when they didn’t want to use the word Spaceman. But, but before the Mercury program, you know, in the, in the days of rocky Jones and all that it was guys who wanted the space for Spaceman and, you know, you could choose among the kids of my neighborhood that were the ones who wanted to be cowboys and the ones who wanted to be cops and, you know, the ones who wanted to be Spaceman and I was on the Spaceman side and later upgraded to an astronaut. But at some point I decided now I’m never going to do this. So how about I just make up stories about outer space is that of actually going to outer space. And that was fine until I think it was like junior year of high school they they gave us an assignment to research the profession that we we propose to enter. So I researched fiction writer and discovered that the average fiction writer made $1,200 A year from their fiction and even in you know 19 65 to $1,200 a year was not a hell of a lot of money. And you know what some of my relatives heard that they said, you know, maybe you should be like an electrician, they make good money, plumbing, have you considered plumbing? People always need a plumber. And then you can make up these crazy little stories of yours on the side and collect that extra $1,200. So I didn’t go into plumbing. But I did follow journalism since I was good with words and good writing. I went to college I majored in journalism and, and the plan was, well, I would, I would write a few stories on the side and things like that, but my main profession would be as a as a journalist. But it turned out that I started selling, even when I was still in college, selling my first short stories, to the magazines. And then I did a couple years in Vista alternative service and continue to sell more stories. And by the time I got out of this and finished those two years, I had enough stories under my belt and being you know, kind of young and I didn’t have a lot of expenses, then I could live very cheap with, with roommates in a bad neighborhood in Chicago and all that. And I said, Well, I don’t want to really try to go out and get a real job here. I’ll just continue to write a story thing and see where it leads. It led to some pretty good places for me. So I’m glad i i continued that.
Host
And did this the studying in the journalism did that affect your writing in any way or directed in any different way?
George R.R. Martin
Well, journalism schools certainly affected my writing. I don’t know if, since I didn’t actually practice journalism. I don’t know if it did. But the training for journalism, I found was very good. And it’s in several ways. First of all, it was it was good for my style. You know, I mean, I I wrote those monster stories as a kid I wrote for comic fanzines, when I was in high school, little amateur stories about superheroes that were published in the amateur magazines in a day. But my style at the time was let us say purple. You know, I seem to be operating under the assumption that if one adjective was good, three were better. So So I would just pile on the the adjectives and I mistook that kind of verbose prose for rich and textured and poetic prose and Journalism School cured me of that, you know, as the professor’s kept drawing lines through all my wonderful adjectives. And, you know, hardly an adverb survived the entire four years. And it was also good for me. I mean, I was as a younger kid, I was very shy, I was a kid who lived in my imagination, who, as they said, always had my nose in a book. And training as a reporter actually forced me to kind of come out of my, my little shell a little and go out there and meet people. And I had to approach total strangers and ask them questions and, you know, set up interviews and some of them with some pretty fearsome like authority figures and, and people that I would not normally have, like, dared to talk to in, in my ordinary life, you know. So it made me more outgoing. It sort of opened me up as a as a shell, which I think was also good for a writer, the ability to talk to different sort of people and so forth and so on.
Host
And how did you get to then to Hollywood to be a writer for television?
George R.R. Martin
Well, that was, you know, I never actually one I like watching television. But I never wanted to be a writer for television. It was not part of my dreams. I just wanted to write books. And it all had to do with the commercial vagaries of the market. And actually, with, you know, there’s a lot of truth to the old saying, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, especially in in Hollywood, where contacts are a huge part of it. I was a science fiction writer, and in my early career, and I published a number of short stories, I was nominated for awards, I won some awards. Six or seven years into it, I wrote my first novel, which was pretty successful. Then I wrote up a second novel in collaboration, and that was even more successful. And my third novel was was a vampire novel that that kind of broke out of the district genre things and that was yet even more successful, and I was getting higher and higher advances for all of these. And then I wrote my fourth novel, which was a book called The Armageddon rag, which was a rock and roll, mystery, dark fantasy kind of Hybrid novel that my editors said, Well, this is going to be it. This is your big breakthrough, the book that said, we’re going to make this book a best seller and they paid me a six figure advance for it, and came up with this big advertising campaign to make it a best seller. And it was great. I was looking forward to my you know, incipient career as a as a famous best selling writer. The only problem was the book failed to best sell. In fact, it failed to sell it all it became like my worst selling book that I had ever written and suddenly my careers and novelist was over because so that I couldn’t get arrested. You know, I’d been like a hot rising writer for for a number of years and you know, publishing is not unlike Hollywood in that it’s it’s not a profession and I know you guys are film students and and into this thing, it’s not a profession built for security. If security is important to you don’t go into this profession because you know, you can be the hottest thing in town on Tuesday and on Wednesday nobody’s going to return your calls all those dear friends that you think you had that you’ve been having lunch and that certainly happened to me suddenly I couldn’t sell another novel. At any price I thought okay, well the armor getting rid of failed I’ll have to come down in my price. I will get a six figure advance again. But I’ll get like a high five figure advance like I did for figured room No, you know I’ll get like a low five figure advance No. You know, by the end I was willing to even listen to offers for four figure advance but nobody was offering anything because the book had sold so just make a great reviews. But oddly enough, this self same book to destroyed my my career in publishing, also opened the door to Hollywood for me because my my film agent, showed it to another client of his a guy named Phil de guerre. And Phil was a experienced television writer. He’d been on a number of shows as a staff writer and producer. And he recently gone on to, to do his own show. And he had a hit show called Simon and Simon that he had invented. And he was coming up on another show called Whiz Kids, one of the first shows about computer hackers. And but what what our agent we had the same agent Marvin knew was that Phil was also a dead rock and roll guy and he was a deadhead. And he loved to go to a Grateful Dead concerts. He knew all the dead, he had backstage passes and things like that. And he knew the rag would appeal to him. So I showed him Armageddon rag. And indeed, Phil did want to appeal, he wanted to get into feature films. So he optioned Armageddon reg for a feature film. And he was going to write it himself, write the screenplay himself, he was going to direct it himself. And the first thing he did was fly me out to Los Angeles to talk to me about it. Now I’d sold other options before I you know, you if you have a lot of books and short stories, and they get any kind of attention. In those days, especially you’d find someone option them in Hollywood world this little changed a lot. We’re talking now the the early 80s.
So it doesn’t work quite the same way anymore. But in those days, these cheap options were were all over. And I would have four or five or six of my short stories and things under Option simultaneously. But normally, they just they option that they send you a check, you know, you never actually met any of these people will talk to them. They didn’t care you just the author of the original material. They didn’t necessarily want to involve you in the process. But Phil did. And so he flew me out. And we had some meetings and we discussed how we would do the Armageddon rag and you know, who tricky points about the novels and so forth. And I got to visit TV sets and watch him filming Simon and Simon and watch them filming the Whiz Kids which sort of was his Armageddon rag that showed sank without a trace after a short time, but he was still hot enough so that I made that contact with Phil and we remain friendly. So like a year or two passes, and suddenly, CBS has said to Phil well, we want to get another show from you, Simon Simon is doing real well. What else do you got? And Phil says, I want to bring back Twilight Zone. I always love Twilight Zone. No, okay, well, sure we own twilight zone, you can bring it back. So Phil ramped up to to do Twilight Zone. And he turned to a lot of science fiction and fantasy prose writers and called me up and said, Hey, ever think of doing writing for television doing a Twilight Zone episode. And you know, since I was rapidly Well, in fact, I had run out of money and was wondering how I was going to pay my mortgage and couldn’t sell another book because of the value of Armageddon rag. I was eager to try this new thing and I said, Sure, I’ll I’ll do some Twilight zones and I wrote a script for him. and led to another script and etc etc. Next thing I knew I wanted myself out as a staff writer moving to LA for six weeks or so to to work on the on the Twilight Zone staff. And after that came beauty in the beast, and it was two seasons the Twilight Zone and a brief flirtation with Max Headroom was in there briefly and then then beating the beast for three years. And then five years in, you know, development, which sometimes known as development hell. So, all told, I spent about 10 years primarily working in Hollywood.
Host
We’re gonna take a look at a scene from an episode of Beauty and the Beast. This is a episode called brothers, where the beast Vincent, played by the legendary Ron Perlman connects with a character called the Dragon Man, who’s, as you will see also ostracized from society for his appearance, much like a beast so let’s take a look at beauty in the beast.
George R.R. Martin
Yeah, that was from the second season of beauty and a beast, which is probably the three seasons we did the one that’s most representative to show that we actually wanted to wanted to do. You know, I enjoyed my my 10 years out in Hollywood, I learned a lot from it, it was very valuable to me in a number of ways. Not only financially where it certainly was helpful to me after the situation, I’d fundament found myself in after Armageddon rag but also, you know, as a writer, I learned things I. But there were also frustrations, there’s just no doubt that working in television and film requires a certain temperament. And skills that prose writers book writers don’t necessarily need or often have. And I found that on both Twilight Zone and beauty and a beast, and even later in development. The thing that really, I think, drove me back to prose. Well, there were a number of things, but but one of them was the constant. The constant arguments with with other people, the the politics, the fighting of it, it’s, it’s, you know, when I sit down to write Ice and Fire, I can just do the work. And ultimately, I am the judge. Yes, I have editors and my editors make suggestions to me, they say, well, we don’t think this thing is working. And I give away their words consideration, and I change things if I think they should be changed. But in television and film, of course, you’re you’ve got all these people, the studio and the network and the standards and practices department and the actors and the directors and the producers. And sometimes, it’s hard enough to do the good work, and then you do the good work. And then just other people want to mess around with it, or they have their own idea and all that. And so you have to have a temperament not only to do to good work, but to fight for your work. And I don’t necessarily enjoy fighting after after. I mean, I did it. And I defended my work as best I can. And I won some and I lost some. But after a while, some of it just
just wore me out. You know that if you know beauty and a beast, the show.
We always wanted to do shows like this character based shows. I think from the very beginning, the network wanted us to be the Hulk. They were they wanted a much more formulaic show that was much more action oriented, where Catherine would get in trouble every week, and Vincent would be stout and come to her rescue. And and there are more shows that fit that criteria I think you’ll see in the first season where, you know, and they even said well, can we you know, the whole key always be Sout twice he he would be stabbed or would hulk out as they called it at the end of the second act. And then he would have a bigger Hulk at the climax where he would solve the situation and they really wanted us to do the same thing. Well, can we we’d like to be stout in episodes. And could we have less of the poetry reciting and all that and you know, we wanted more of the character pieces and all that and of course, you’re you’re in a constant struggle depending on your ratings. If you the stronger your ratings are, the more you can do it the way you want. And the weaker your ratings are, the more help they will give you and we did pretty well the first season and a half. So by the second season we were really doing the shows we wanted to do and was kind of disregarding the network pressures but they were still there waiting and We were winning our time slot for the first season. And not we weren’t like a top 10 Show or anything, but we were winning a time slot, which was very good. And then I think NBC we were on CBS, NBC made a change up in the in the lineup opposite us. And it had a couple sitcoms on opposite us. And they, they replaced one of them with a new sitcom called, I think it was full house and starring the Olsen twins, and this goddamn thing became a hit. And suddenly, suddenly, we were not winning our time slot anymore. And the network was coming more and more down on us of Oh, my God, you’re losing your time slot. And you know, that’s why I’ve always hated the Olsen twins, and still do to this day.
Host
You’ve given me another reason to were there were there things that you learned when you were writing? You know, serial television that would inform your books later on?
George R.R. Martin
Oh, yeah, certainly. I mean, one of the the structure of Song of Ice and Fire with his viewpoint, things and cutting between the viewpoints, and all of them ending, essentially, with no cliffhangers, or interesting points is a structure I learned in television, you won’t see it in my earlier novels. But of course, working for network television, you have to have act breaks. And depending on the structure show, is it a four four act show? Is it 4x plus a teaser, or 5x or a teaser in a tag, you know, what have you but you always have to go out on an act break before you go to the commercial. And it can be a cliffhanger, that’s a good egg break. It doesn’t have to be it can be just a twist point or a new revelation or a piece of information or, you know, something is resolved. But you know, it’s, it’s for you watch Law and Order. It’s always done moments, you know, right before the commercial did, uh, oh, my god, something has changed. And that is to bring you back after the commercial, of course, but it’s a good way to end a chapter or, or an act. And sometimes it’s pretty hard when you’re designing your story to come up with those act breaks. But, you know, that’s where you get the big bucks. And it certainly works. In the books too. I mean, I It’s keeps people reading, you know, they reached the end of the chapter. And they want to know what happens to that character, because they’re engrossed in Tyrian. But God’s just not another Tyrian chapter for a while yet. First, they have to read this aria chapter, or this John Snow chapter before they finally get back to Tyrian. And those in by the time they finished the Oregon chapter, it isn’t kind of an act break there, too. And that hopefully draws them back for the next one. So yes. And also, I think it helps your dialogue when working in television, and you’re actually hearing actors speaking your lines, you know, I look at my earliest scripts, and you know, I would have people giving long speeches, you know, that take up a substantial chunk of the page. And it’s, you know, it’s too much you get much better readability and, and for, especially for contemporary audience, if the characters aren’t giving speeches to each other, but are having much shorter back and forth kind of, kind of dialogue.
Host
And in it’s interesting, because I think the the in Game of Thrones, that idea of leaving people wanting more is as a constant thing. And there’s also the idea of, you know, Game of Thrones in the books. You know, songs, by so far are not like, other books that one might compare them to, or other shows, they they often break the conventions of the various genre that then what might assign them to how does that play into how you you write?
George R.R. Martin
Well, you know, I’ve always liked breaking conventions. I mean, I love the genres. I’m not one of these guys who’s trying to burn everything down with a flame thrower. I love science fiction. I love fantasy, but I hate familiarity. I love Whether I’m watching television, or going to a film or reading a book, I want it to surprise me. I don’t want to know where it was heading, you know, maybe I get that from my childhood with my mother. I mean, we would sit at home watching TV as a family. And my mother would always say aloud exactly what was going to happen. Oh, it’s the butler who killed them. And sure enough, it would be the butler who killed her you know, I you know, she would, you know, be watching I Love Lucy and all that belt is going to start going much faster. She’s not gonna be able to keep up with the chocolates. And yeah, sure enough, that would happen. So I learned pretty early the trick of watching the shows and predicting where they were going to go. The one which she couldn’t predict Of course, maybe it was one reason I loved it so much was the original twilight zone with the famous twist endings. It’s hard for for, you know, a crowd. Looking around. I see a lot of young people here in this audience and to know what a revolutionary show Twilight Zone was in 1959 and 1960. And how surprising those twist endings were. When we revived twilight zone in the mid 80s, you know, the network was always on us. One of the things we had an ad show is, why can’t you have more twist endings as as the original show did? And we tried, man, but you know, what worked in 1959 really did not work in 1986. I tell you, uh, you know, people, the audience had become so much more sophisticated, and they could see those twist endings coming a mile away. You know, it’s the minute somebody walks into the store as she’s a mannequin. Yeah, of course, she’s bad again. The minute you know, you don’t show the face of a bandage characters. Oh, she’s the Darrell the ugly ones. Haven’t you noticed that they’re not showing faces. You know, these great techniques that Rod Serling invented 59. In the ensuing 2030 years had become so familiar to the audience as you couldn’t put it over on them anymore. So coming up with a, with a really genuine twist ending that worked, became harder and harder. Someone should tell that to M Night. He should, he should trump trying for those twist endings.
Host
Let’s take a look at one of the many. Well, we won’t call it a twist. But surprises perhaps in Game of Thrones, okay.
I mean, not many shows, or books have the guts to kill a 10 year old, let alone after them catching an incestuous relationship.
George R.R. Martin
That’s true. Probably more surprising in a book where Chris he’s the first viewpoint character. You know, he’s the viewpoint character, the first chapter, and then we switch, wait a couple of viewpoints. And I’ll come back to him. But since he was first, I think the assumption of most readers is that he’s going to be, you know, the main guy through that, and then suddenly you think he’s, he’s dead, or maybe he’s dead. But what we find out more later, but you know, it’s what I, we, we write what we want to read. And I, as I said, a minute ago, I don’t like stories or books that are too familiar to too predictable, that I feel like I read 1000 times before. So I want to keep you on edge and surprise you and make you think that no one is safe. And that was that was certainly the intent there. And that scene has, I think, gotten a lot of people hooked on these books and said, You know, I, I thought I was reading just another fantasy till I hit that scene. And then I realized that this was something a little different. So. So that moment has worked very well for me.
Host
It’s I mean, it’s an interesting point, because, you know, in the 60 odd years since the Twilight Zone, these sorts of stories have really gained an enormous foothold in popular culture. You know, you look everywhere, from the literary world, to movies, to television, to video games, to everything. It’s, you know, fantasy stories, superheroes, these sorts of stories that are so dominant. Why do you think we’ve seen such as such a dramatic shift in terms of acceptance and could
George R.R. Martin
geeks have conquered the world? Yes. Actually, I did Yes. doing an interview yesterday, I one of the reporters interviewed me said he we his TV station specializes in geek and nerd culture. And it really took me back to my old high school days where geek and nerd were not things that you want it to be called. And now they’ve become, you know, proud badges of of a group that has a culture. So you know, the world really has changed. You know, my father called the list stuff weird stuff, you know, he couldn’t understand why and disinterested in weird stuff. Science Fiction, Fantasy horror, because it wasn’t like real. He liked westerns, which, of course, as we know, we’re very real. All those gunfighters meeting in the center of the street to practice their quick draws. Yeah, that would have happened every day.
I don’t know. But it’s nice to be part of the the culture that has that has conquered the world and taken over popular entertainment. I think there’s these are all flavors of imaginative literature. To put it in a realm of the romantic tradition as another way to put it, as opposed to realism, which, in a great literary tradition, I think split off at the end of the 19th century into being a 20th century and into two currents, one of which was considered more respectable than the other the the realistic tradition became the literary tradition and all the genre fiction, which followed the romantic tradition sort of got shuffled off into ghettos, but it still appeals much more to, to a much larger audience and science fiction and fantasy, especially as the as the world has shrunk around us and with the television news and, and, you know, our technology, there’s no longer you know, lost cities in Africa, or the exotic, Far East, or all of these colorful places where old adventure stories used to take place these, these corners of the world old now have, you know, Starbucks in them. And so we go to outer space and we go to realms of the Hyborian age or or Middle Earth or other alternate worlds to define the kind of color and of the verb that we use to get out of romantic the tradition of romanticism and adventure stories and things that people like Robert Louis Stevenson wrote,
Host
and yet in even in your stories, these imagined to the stories, there’s a sense there’s a grittiness, there’s a there’s a realism to the characters in the situations. Well, you
George R.R. Martin
know, I think characters have to be real characters to my mind, at the heart of all of all fiction. And characters fascinate me human beings fascinate me and always have were such wonderfully perverse and contradictory, you know, creatures. You know, my quarrel with a lot of a lot of fantasy, as it as it was written, particularly by the Tolkien imitators not Tolkien himself. But the, the writers who followed him into high fantasy in the in the 70s and early 80s. Was that they, they presented a very simplistic view of, of human nature and you know, the war between good and evil as a subject for, for fantasy, I think is legitimate for this subject for any fiction. But to my mind, a war between good and evil is not fought between armies of heroes and white cloaks and armies of really ugly guys in black cloaks, but rather, is fought within the individual human heart in the choices that that we make in times of crisis. I mean, I think all human beings have within them the capacity for good and the capacity for evil. And in fact, we’re all you know, I look at history and all of the greatest heroes have have flaws. All of the greatest villains have moments of humanity or redeeming qualities about them. And to my mind, that doesn’t make them less interesting. And that makes them that makes them more interesting. I was talking last night I don’t know I don’t know how much I’m duplicating myself here. How much were you were at last night’s thing as well. But one of the great things about working for HBO as they they have shown not only on my show, but on on a variety of their other shows beforehand shows like The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire and, and other shows that they they’re willing to present as the center central characters of their shows very flawed and human characters who are full of contradictions. I mean, a character like Tony Soprano, who is at one point, a family man, who obviously deeply loves his his children, and he loves his wife, which doesn’t prevent them from fucking around with all sorts of other random women that he encounters. And, you know, he, you’ll see him feeding the ducks at his at his back at his backyard pool and being very upset that the ducks have flown away. And then a couple of weeks later, he sees a guy who owes him money and he runs him over with the car and gets out and starts kicking him in the head.
And yet, you you do you like Tony Soprano? I don’t know if you if you like Tony Soprano or not, but you certainly find him fascinating. And I think you do find him sympathetic on some level, his his humanity makes you kind of want to root for him. But then he starts kicking someone in the head and you sort of have to examine Whoa, why am I rooting for him? What am I doing there? And, you know, that sort of reaction to me is very helpful. and the frustration about working for a traditional network television is that for, for most of the history, certainly the period I was working for them, they were not interested in presenting anyone that was that was flawed or, or unlikable. And you know, they were trying to pretest everything with their focus groups and all that. I mean, one incident for my own career after beauty and a beast I, I did development and I wrote a number of pilots for them, only one of which was filmed, which was an alternate world show called Doorways. And in the opening sequence of doorways, it’s a, it’s a parallel world show, this sort of feral girl from, from an alternate dimension appears suddenly in the middle of a freeway on Earth, you know, at night, and all this all that she’s never been on a freeway, she’s never seen cars or trucks before. And they’re all these vehicles rushing at her at high rates of speed, you know, and she has this alien weapon with her this gun that shoots explosive needles, and the cars are all honking and all that and they’re slamming into each other as they try to avoid this, this person on foot who suddenly appeared in the middle of the freeway. And then she sees this huge tanker truck coming toward her. And it can’t possibly get out of the way it starts to break and it starts to jackknife. And it’s obviously going to hit her and kill her. So she whips out the alien weapon and blows to shut out of it. And it’s a spectacular sequence that it was in the you know, it was in the script, and it got proved all the way through it. It’s the opening scene of the of the thing and done right it could it should have been very effective here. And we’re reaching the screening stage and suddenly the network realizes something and I say, Wait a minute. What happened to the driver at a tanker truck? Well, she blew the shit out of him. He’s, he’s dead. Oh, no. Oh, no, we can’t have that. He’s just an innocent Teamster. He’s just driving his truck. And suddenly there’s this girl and he breaks he tries to avoid her. He doesn’t deserve to. Well, no, but you know, she doesn’t know any of that. She just sees this big iron thing heading toward her and she has this weapon that’ll stop it from Gilligan’s. So she uses it. It’s like a monster. Well, yes. But if she kills this teamster, this truck driver, the audience will hate her. No one will watch the show. They’ll turn it off right there. Oh, I’m not gonna watch your show about a murderer. But we never even see this guy. We don’t see a driver wish he had truck coming at us. And she blows it up. You know, I’m saying she’s not gonna care. They’re gonna realize that there’s a guy in the truck, no one is gonna make this intellectual thing. But no, no, the network the network was locked in on that. So we had to go back and boot up the cameras again and shoot a scene where the driver unharmed leaps from the flaming truck and goes running away scampering to safety. So we know even though his truck is like at pieces over the sidewalk that no harm has come to innocent Joe, the truck driver who has gone home to his wives and children. So the focus group would like my character and not dislike her because she blew up the truck. So that’s the difference be working for HBO and working for a network?
Host
Well, let’s take a look at another set I suspect a focus group would also disapprove of I’m just gonna guess that the old knife through the eye is not a popular focus group moment.
George R.R. Martin
I don’t know if the focus groups would like that very much. We I mean, that brings me I don’t want to slag on beating the beast. I learned a lot on that show. And I think we did some very good work. But we did have our troubles with the network. On that one, which again, is indicative of what’s going on beauty to be how many of you have ever watched beauty and a beast? Okay, a good number there. It was a very romantic show. And we were nominated for Emmys. We’re very well regarded show and and we had pretty decent ratings never never hit ratings. We will watch like 97% of our audience was women, however, which I thought was fine. But the network wanted some men to watch the show. And they were always on us to increase the action. Because they thought if we had more action, then that would get more men to watch. Action is the network word for violence. They can’t actually ever saved violence because then someone might find it on a memo and they would be accused of trying to put more violence on TV and you know, and they have the standards and practices group that always reviews yourself Epson is telling you Oh no, this is too violent it to be too disturbing to the audience at home rip, please remove it, please tone it down or something like that. And from the very first time I started working even on twilight zone where, you know, we had some of the same problems, but certainly on feeding the beast I bristled at the hypocrisy of this. You know, because it seems to me that if you’re going to present violence, and then you there’s an obligation to present violence, honestly, and to present it as things like this as the as the knife through the, through the eye. I mean, Vincent was killing people. He was ripping people apart with his cause is what he was doing in the action scenes where he rescues Catherine, but we were never allowed to show any blood. You know, I one point we thought, you know, there was the classic beauty and a beast that Cocteau did labelling Labette, where the beast when he came back from hunting, his hands would smoke. And that was, of course a symbolic way of showing an artistic way of showing blood. And we kept trying to come up with what’s our thing? Well, we can’t use smoke Cocteau’s already used the smoke, will, you know, people will say we’re just ripping him off. So we can’t do that. But we can’t show actual blood either. So you know, and then network didn’t even like the fact that he was killing people. They said, What can’t the Hulk never kill people? Couldn’t he just destabilize them? And like, like, what? Well, you know, he should pick them up and throw them a long distance. And they could, they could bounce off the wall, and then we could see them get up and, you know, say feets don’t fail me now and run away and terror. Then wouldn’t the city be full of like thugs who have been thrown across the room by a lion man, you know? So no, we finally got them to allow that he would rip them apart, and they would go down and they would not get up. But we still wouldn’t ever allowed to show any blood. Which means that although in an intellectual sense, if you watch the episodes, you know that he’s killing people, but you never really feel it in a visceral sense, and it is necessary to to feel it in a visceral sense. And you know, we would do episodes, where he kills almost no one or where it’s all character based, you know, an episode like brothers that you saw earlier. That’s a great deal of it is psychological. And, and they wouldn’t like that they wanted more action episodes more and more, get more action in it. We got to get some men watching this show. It’s all just women watching this show. It’s you know, how are we going to balance our demographics here, they’re wildly unsecured. And we never succeeded in that. But we became unbeknownst to anyone. We became the most violent show on television. There was a period there where the show Hunter which was on the same time as us was really getting criticized as it was so violent Hunter Hunter was, you know, like shooting people with every episode and they were dying and we actually learned so we’re like three times as violent as Hunter finsa just killing way more people than Hunter. You know, Hunter is killing like barely one guy in Episode You know, Vincent is going in there with three or four thugs and ripping them to shreds, and leaving their end trails and pools on the floor, but a dress, we’re not allowed to show any of that, you know, and then after he does that, he reads a poem. So
subtle lesson is that if you’re going to have a lot of real violent stuff, have your character read a poem afterwards, and it just cancelled it all out. Of course, you’ll never you’ll never get any men to watch it then because oh my god, he’s reading a love bow my quick turn to Hunter. I might have to hear more of this stuff. So, but of course, thankfully, on HBO, we don’t have any we can present that. But that scene is an interesting scene because they in the book, those of you read the books know that it is a somewhat different scene in the book, in the book, all of the characters are on horseback. You know, he is he is riding back with jewelry, on their horses from the brothel. And he is accosted by Jamie and his men who are also on horses also his it is at night, and it is during a rainstorm. So the rain is pouring down all around us. And that is exactly the way that David and Dan wrote it when they did the first draft of the script at night in the rain on horses. And of course, as filming time approached and budget overruns happen one by one. Each of these elements got lost. Oh, okay. Well, it doesn’t have to be during the rain does it? We’ll lose that. Do we really need it to be nice it would be fit the schedule better if it was day, you know, and horses do we have to have horses. So we wound up instead of at night in the rain on horses. We round up on foot in the day, no nice and dry, would have been great to do it the way it was originally written, very atmospheric and cool in the rain and horses. But this way, they certainly got it a lot quicker and it still worked. And I think the realities of television and television production means you do have to sometimes make make these changes to fit your budget and your shooting schedule. The trick is to know where to draw the line and what to what to fight for. What is something where you can change the fundamentals of a scene without harming the scene, and other changes that rip machine to shreds? Because you you’re accidentally ripping out the heart of it? Or maybe deliberately, we’re being at the heart of it, as you make a change to make it more suitable? Because this
Host
show really is very faithful to the books. Yes, not exactly. quite faithful. Yeah, if not exactly a representation of them. The major change, of course, is really around perspective, because the books do change perspective. And that the show does not as much,
George R.R. Martin
but it’s it’s all through. Well, I mean, as a novelist, you have certain tools at your disposal to tell a story with and these tools are not available to to a filmmaker. I mean, as a novelist, you are, you know, you have internal monologue, you can you can do exposition simply as part of the narrative. You know, you have access to the character’s thoughts. You can do unreliable narrators, where you really can’t do any of this as a filmmaker or a television director, you’re external. You’re never inside the character. I mean, yeah, you can try to be there are those occasional experimental films where you’re looking out through someone’s eyes, and there’s a voiceover telling you their thoughts, they’re mostly terrible and don’t work very well. You know, the voiceover and film is a usually a technique that says something really isn’t working here and we’re having to patch it over with this clumsy voiceover technique. And it’s frequently added at a later point like the famous voiceovers in Blade Runner which I think really detract from from that film and weren’t necessarily but but you have other techniques that make up for that as a as a filmmaker or a television writer you have you have tricks that are not available to novelists, you can you can bring in music to heighten suspense or to build up the emotional impact of the of the scene. You can do things with lighting, and of course you can your actors can bring a tremendous amount to it with just just a look. Just expression on their faces. I mean, the scene we showed last night. I referred to in the comments afterwards, where the King Robert is arriving in Winterfell. And he hops off his horse and walks up to Ned and, you know, looks at Ned and says you’ve got fat. And Shawn being just sort of raises his eyes and looks him up and down and the whole audience How’s with laughter because it’s Robert has really gotten fat. That was something that the two of them, two of them did. I thought it was even in the script. I bet it was. I don’t know, some by play of the of the actors, but maybe it was in the script. But I certainly could not have done that in prose. I mean, imagine trying to write that in prose and how would it go, you know, Ned, you’ve got fat. Robert said Ned flick does eyebrows raised his head up and that doesn’t have the same impact as actually seeing Sean Bean’s face as he does that? Does does that little trick. So you have to always be aware of what medium you’re working in and what things will work in that and what things don’t work.
Host
Now as a as a fan, I have to get to season two. Just Just quickly, we’re gonna take a look at a scene here I think from season two and then I’ll ask you a bit afterwards now as a fan, there’s I know there’s a whole heaping of awesomeness that occurs in book two. How just how excited should I be George? I don’t know if I can get more excited. What set us up for season two, what should we expect?
George R.R. Martin
Well, of course I haven’t actually seen Season Two either. So I’m also pretty excited. I was able to visit the the center knee filming the original pilot, and then when we got season one I was able to visit a couple of sets for a couple weeks. But, you know, last year when they were filming Season Two, I was just too busy dance with dragons had just come out and I was on like a 12 city book tour and having to attend some major conventions. And then I had to go home and do some work. So I wasn’t able to actually see them shoot any of this. So I’m seeing some of these trailers and such for the first time. I know I’m pretty excited about my own episode, which again, I haven’t seen, but I know it was in the script. And it’s episode nine, which is the battle of Blackwater. Probably the biggest battle in the books. And it’s a massive set piece and we hired Neil Marshall to direct it. First time he’s ever done television for a well known British director who’s done century in and the descent, dog soldiers, relatively low budget movies, but with terrific visceral action sequences and great visual look to them. So we’re hoping he’ll he’ll bring all of that to the screen and capture give us a very exciting battle. Those of you who watched the first seasons know that we we did a lot of things right. But our battles were not our high point. Battles are very hard on a television budget, even an HBO television budget, if you’ve seen the battles in like Rome, for example, or Well, they did very well with the Pacific but the Pacific was, had had much bigger budgets and and you can do a lot with explosions to what, um, so. So I’m excited about that. And now I’m excited about some of the new cast members who will be joining I have seen the auditions and they’re, you know, some marvelous, marvelous actors that we’ve got. We have Stannis will be joining the thing status and Melisandre John meets Igrid for the first time, we introduce Brianne Davos, Seaworth Marjorie Tyrael lots of lots of great new characters will be joining the mix so even though I am notorious for killing my characters, I I do keep throwing new ones in there too, so you won’t miss the dead ones that much. Gotta gotta keep a full larder in case I want to kill some more.
Host
OMG I am so excited. We’re gonna turn it over to you folks for a q&a. I’m going to ask that you wait. You raise your hands and wait for the mics to get to you so we can actually properly hear you. So raise your hands. We have a mic over there. Yes.
Unknown Speaker
Hi, George. My name is Gloria. Um, I love your work. Love it. Love it. Love it.
George R.R. Martin
Thank you. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker
I remember when I first discovered Game of Thrones, I just I couldn’t stop reading it. I just it was like, I’d be so tired. And I’d want to throw up because I was so tired. But I couldn’t. I guess. question, when is your next book coming out?
George R.R. Martin
Well, you know, that’s a good question. The next Ice and Fire book will be a few years. I mean, I’m working on it. But these are gigantic bookstores. The last one was 1500 pages and manuscript. I suspect this next one will also be 1500 pages. And I’ve given up predicting how long it’s going to take me to write that because every time I do make a prediction, I’m wrong. And then people come howling with torches and pitchforks outside my house. Oh, my God, you said it would be in it every year. And it’s thought to you lied. So, so I don’t want to predict anymore. I just write one page at a time and it’ll be out. They hope eventually. And even more important, I hope that it will be good.
Host
It’s worth waiting for folks who’s got a mic? Yes.
Unknown Speaker
Hydrogen. My name is Matt, you mentioned earlier that you wrote mainly to explore and discover new worlds and Westeros in the world of song a nice and fires so rich. So I’m wondering with what’s left in the books, how much of Westeros do we have left to discover? And how much do you write because it’s necessary for the story? Or do you write mainly because Oh, hey, this is a cool place to tell a story.
George R.R. Martin
No, the story takes over the story makes it some demands. There are other parts of Westeros that you will see in the last last few books. I mean, I haven’t I haven’t bought the action to to Casterly Rock yet you’ve never seen Casterly Rock you’ve never seen high Gordon, I think both of those locations will will play key roles and in the books to come. But there is a lot of and you know I may do when I’m going years ahead now. So who the hell knows what will happen but the world that I’ve created there is rich enough to sustain many stories and the Song of Ice and Fire is only one of those stories. So if I finish these last two books that will be the end of the story. but not necessarily the end of the world, I think I would probably want to do something else after I finished that something very different, and maybe some short stories, or maybe a science fiction novel or a horror novel, I’ve been thinking for some time. But eventually, if presuming that course, I live long enough and keep writing, I might return until other stories set in Westeros at different parts of Westeros different historical epochs or different continents in geography. So that might be fun.
Unknown Speaker
Hi, George, how difficult Do you think it is for a new science fiction or fantasy writer to break into the industry?
George R.R. Martin
It’s actually, if you’re good, of course, that’s always the Preface. So you have to have have to have talent. It’s pretty easy to break in, actually, you know, I always advise new writers, young writers to to break in with short stories. That was the way I did it in the 70s. And that’s still the best way. I mean, we’re, we’re fortunate that science fiction fantasy still has half a dozen magazines that are looking for new material every month, and therefore have to read their slush pile in a fairly timely manner to find the contents. You know, the established writers that there’s there’s not much money in short fiction, you’re not going to get rich, writing short fiction by any means. And the result is that most established writers don’t do very much short fiction past a point a certain point in their career, they switch to novels, which is where you could actually make a living. So as a result, there’s a lot of openings for new talent in in the pages of analog and the magazine, a fantasy and science fiction, and Asimov’s magazine, and even new E magazines, things like Lightspeed and tor.com, and, and so forth. And my mind, a good career path, still, as it was in the 70s is to is to write a whole bunch of short stories. And sell as many of them as you can and build a name for yourself in the in the world of short fiction, because science fiction readers and fantasy readers will will notice these stories. And then when you finally do write your first novel, it and it hits the stands, it’s not just going to be the the first novel by some new person that you’ve never heard of in your life. And why should you pick up their novel when you don’t know who they are? It’s got to be the long awaited first novel by this person who’s published 20 short stories, and, you know, you’ve been seeing their name and all the magazines and you kind of like what they did. So it gives you, it gives you a leg up when you do move to the to the world of novels. And that’s a that’s a good way to start.
Unknown Speaker
Advent. Hey, George, big fan of yours, on your right side. So I just wanted to ask you, in terms of writing Renly, a lot of people were taken aback in terms of that one scene that had shown up near the end of the season. And I guess they weren’t necessarily picking up on a lot of the subtle hints that you had written in the series. So I was wondering if you had wondered, in terms of what fan reaction would have been at the earlier stages of the series towards reading a more explicit scene, like was seen between randomly and the native flowers and how that might have played out differently? If you had written it earlier in the series.
George R.R. Martin
In other words, if I’d had a explicit scene in the book says what you’re saying, yeah. Well, I don’t know, I don’t know what the reaction would have been. You know, I I do like to do certain things. I don’t know subtly. I think subtlety is, is a virtue. There, there are things in there that that some of my readers pick up on, and that other readers Miss until it’s pointed out to them. One of the things of course, that’s changed in recent decades with the advent of the Internet is that readers are sharing their reading experiences. So if, if there’s something there and some readers pick up on it, and other readers don’t the readers who missed it soon become aware of it by reading the blogs and bulletin boards and the people were trotting out their theories and showing all the hints and things like that. So that changes things but I like to I like to reward the readers who are reading closely and paying attention because there there are a lot of things I like to write the books, to reward rereading, you know, I think First time you read a book you’re reading for plot you’re reading, what happens next is my here is where the guy got to live or die or something like that. And, but then if you go back and you reread the book, you may pick up things on a second reading or even a third reading that you missed the first time and you and you see, oh, my God, look what he’s doing here. Look at this piece of foreshadowing or look at this, he said this, and I didn’t notice it the first time but it’s, it’s right there. It’s cetera. You know, neither Renly nor Loris is a viewpoint character. And since I’m following a very strict structure of seeing everything through the eyes only of the viewpoint characters, there was really no way to present explicit details of their of their relationship without having someone like walk in on them when when, which is sort of, I suppose I could have done but is, is a clumsy technique, but a television show is, is a very different animal, and doesn’t doesn’t have to have the restrictions they get the camera is your viewpoint there. And that viewpoint can be pointed anywhere on any character. It doesn’t have to necessarily just follow your six or seven designated viewpoint characters. You’re going to see a much larger example of that, of course in the second season episode, one of the things in Clash of Kings is that a lot of stuff is happening to Rob Rob takes us army west into the western lands, and is ravishing the Lannister lands. And as those who read the books know various important things happen at the at the crag in particular, and we don’t learn about any of them. We learn about some of the victories from a distance while Rob has won this battle. Rob has been wounded you know Rob is coming back now he didn’t die of his wound. We hear about this whole third hand through messages to to his mother back at River Ron and finally he shows up and there’s big revelations but David and Dan in the in the show are actually going to follow Rob and we’re going to see some of the things that are occurring in the western lands. So it’s it’s going to be just as with the Renly Loris thing, it’s going to be a lot more explicit and you’re not gonna have to rely on third hand reports or rumors or you know ravens coming in to tell you what’s happening you’ll you will see what’s happening with your own two eyes.
Unknown Speaker
Who here yeah, this question comes from reading your blog and I was just very curious as a as a football fan, just the in the flesh personal experience of the roller coaster ride that the Giants puts you on the season. And I have to say I’m not too happy because as a Packers fan, I was not happy about losing that playoff game to JPP and Mr. Cruz so I’m just curious about what happened and what you were feeling as you watch the losing streak and then then come back and win the Super Bowl.
George R.R. Martin
I was the winning the Super Bowl part was amazing. I tell you I love that there were points where I was really ready to give up on the Giants I may even have written on my blog I mean that that second loss to the Redskin this was such a a gutless loss. I thought their season was over at that point. It’s like they didn’t show up in neither of those Redskin games as they showed up to play. But the second one was particularly galling, you know, because they were competing for you know what, a playoff berth and how, how the hell could they lie down that gets an awful team like that and lay another egg, especially when the team had beaten them early earlier in the season. But you know, that’s my history is a Giants fan. I’ve noticed even back into Parcells days that the giants are always one of these teams that seems to play to the level of the opposition. You know, if they are playing a good team like the packers or the Patriots, they’re really tough. They’re really good. They play tough against these teams. And even when they lose, like in the you know that the game to the Packers in the giant Stadium, which I actually attended. That was a terrific game, it could have gone either way. The only mistake was leaving 58 seconds for Aaron Rodgers after they scored the tying touchdown. And but then they play the Redskins who were a terrible team, or the Seahawks they played early in the year and they play down to the level opposition. It’s like they think well, they’re a better team. They just showed up, they should win, but they never seem to actually crush anyone 42 to three like some of the other good teams do when they’re playing a bad team. So it is a roller coaster ride with the Giants and with the Jets. My other team I’m I often tell Parris my wife that she ought to get one of those home defibrillators because I’m sure I’m gonna, I’m gonna die during the last 30 seconds of a chess game as as they, as they’re in the process of either blowing it or somehow miraculously pulling a wind out. So, you know, I don’t know.
Host
I love that we got a football question. Over here next. Yes.
Unknown Speaker
Hello, George. I was wondering if you had any reservations about making your books into a TV series
George R.R. Martin
If I had any reservations you know, it’s it’s there’s always a certain trepidation when you when you’re going to sign a deal, you know, is this going to turn out? Well? Or are they going to? You know, are they going to ruin it? You know, I liken it to a mother sending her children off to, you know, daycare for the first time. I mean, you had this kid, and he’s your kid, and you spent all the time with him, and you’ve been in charge, and now you’re entrusting them to strangers? And are the strangers going to take good care of them? Is he going to get his milk and cookies and time? Are they actually a bunch of child molesters? Who are just lurking there? And they’re going to get the kid off and you’re going to be gone and who the hell knows what they’re going to do?
But you know, I mean, I’d met the people involved. You know, I love HBO shows. I love what they did with Rome and Deadwood. So they had a, they had a terrific track record. And David and Dan, I had several meetings with we we discussed what they wanted to do, and they said all the right things, and I’d read their their own work. They were both established writers themselves. And David Benioff in particular, had done some amazing work with 25th. Our and Troy and his his novels, city of thieves and 25th. Our was actually in a novel before was the movie. Kite Runner, you know. So they’ve done terrific work. So I didn’t I didn’t think they were child molesters, it seemed pretty good. And you know, you have to you have to take a chance sometime when what is it that Mariel Hemingway says to Woody Allen in Manhattan, there’s sometimes you got to trust someone. So I did that too. And also the large dump truck of money that they pull up in front of your house sometimes sways you. And and, you know, the other thing to keep in mind is that the books continue to exist by themselves. That Roger wretches last night, who was a good friend of mine had the misfortune of having his novel damnation alley, made into something that purports to be a film. And it was terrible is a piece of shit, but they completely ruin the book. But Roger built a whole new wing on his house with the money that they paid him for damnation alley. And when he was asked about it, he would always quote James M. Kane, the famous nor writer who, when when asked famously Well, Mr. Kane, what do you what do you think about what Hollywood has done to your books, he would just point to the wall and say, Hollywood hasn’t done anything to my books, they’re, they’re right over there. They’re on the shelves. They’re exactly the way I wrote them. Not a word has been changed. So, you know, go, go forth and enjoy them. And indeed, the original books sell more copies. One thing I’ve been adamant, though, from the, from the very start of my association with Hollywood and for every project I’ve ever done in Hollywood, is to retain full and complete publication rights in any deal and to forbid any novelization. So if any, if any movie is ever made of my work, we will rerelease my original novel, and it will sell we will not have a novelization. You know, even if they completely trashed a novel and changed everything about it. People have to go to the original book, and the original book will benefit from from any sales generated by the movie or a television show. We won’t have some cheesy novelization written by a hacker, which they like to do, too, but that’s one point where I draw my own personal line. That’s always a deal breaker for me if they insist on novelization rights. So So yeah, there’s always trepidation but it’s it’s worked out well, in this case, and that’s fine. You have to know who you’re who you’re doing. business with. When you’re when you are dealing with Hollywood, you know, if if Steven Spielberg comes to you, or Guillermo del Toro comes to you when they want to option, your work. That’s one thing if Jerry Bruckheimer comes to you, you know, you got a different situation there and yet, you got to know what you’re what you’re looking at, going in.
Host
Well, I’m afraid that’s all the time we have this morning. I want to thank you, Mr. Martin, very much for joining us and for all your amazing work.
George R.R. Martin
Well, thank you very much. My pleasure.
