Why It Takes So Long to Write The Winds of Winter and The Doors of Stone

Big books are really big.

It’s obvious, right? We can pick up A Game of Thrones and feel the heft of it. The audiobook of The Wise Man’s Fear lasts 42 hours and 55 minutes. I’ve always loved finding myself lost within these vast worlds—it’s one of the reasons I decided to embark on my own epic journey. 

I knew what it took to write a book. I had previously completed two novels, both of which were about 100,000 words, or about 400 pages. That is a pretty standard length for a sci-fi/fantasy book … and about a quarter as long as the story I had planned. While books of epic length are inadvisable for authors seeking publication, especially debut authors, I decided to throw caution to the wind and go big or go home. 

That was September of 2016. I have worked on my story almost every day for the past eight years, and it’s still not ready to be published. Yes, I got to write “The End,” at least on one draft, but the book is so chaotic that I can’t even show it to my friends and family yet. Minor characters are called “Sailor1” and “Cook2,” still awaiting a proper name. There are plot points that I decided to change halfway through without explanation. 

The plot and characters all make sense to me, of course. As the author, I understand the history behind each decision. But to a reader who hasn’t spent the greater part of a decade with these fictional characters? Completely unreadable. 

So, why has it taken so long? Well, let’s just start with some basic math: It takes me about an hour to write two pages. I bet you can read two pages a whole lot faster. When you read a book, you are time traveling in a way, delving through countless hours of work in just a fraction of the time. 

You're not dealing with multiple drafts, inefficient word choices, or poor sentence structure. The path is well-paved by the time you come across it, which brings me to the next big point.

The big book you read is the leanest possible version of the story.

In an interview with SFFWorld, Patrick Rothfuss was asked what his greatest strength was. His answer?

Brevity.

“It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. There’s a reason everyone comments on the book [The Name of the Wind] being such a quick read. It’s long, but it’s tight. There isn’t a lot of wasted space. I don’t engage in long, tedious bouts of description or big chunks of explanation. It’s efficient.”

In the same answer, however, Rothfuss admits that it hasn’t always been like this. “Over the years I’ve streamlined the book. I probably have a 100,000 words I’ve trimmed out of this book alone.”

Rothfuss cut a full book (400 pages) out of his book! While those pages will never be used for the finished project, they’re still an essential part of the author’s process. It’s like Neil Gaiman says: “Write down everything that happens in the story, and then in your second draft make it look like you knew what you were doing all along.”

Streamlining the narrative in subsequent drafts is certainly something I’ve experienced in my own work. After some consideration, I recently made the painful decision to cut the first six chapters of my book.

Of course, this decision doesn’t just affect the chapters that vanished—it also changes the ones that remain. I wrote Chapter 7 to flow logically from Chapter 6 and deliver on promises I had made earlier in the work. I didn’t need to introduce characters that the readers had already been following for some time. I didn’t need to set up the premise of the novel.

But now, Chapter 7 has become Chapter 1. Even if the chapter covers the same action and follows the same characters, it must be written differently to accommodate the reader. The last thing I want to do is overwhelm my audience with a dozen strange names and concepts on the first page.

Changes are often even more extreme when you make them in the middle of a novel. Those middle scenes are like bridges, connecting one piece of the book to another. When they don’t work, it feels like your whole story is falling apart.

A great example of the challenges that come with filling in the gaps comes from The Way of Kings. In Sanderson’s original, unpublished draft, the character Dalinar vacillates between two extremes: confidence that the visions he has been granted hold power and self-doubt that he may be going mad. This is a hard balance to strike. By definition, a character pulled in opposite directions is not going to be consistent, and that can be frustrating for a reader.

Sanderson eventually found a solution. Dalinar would maintain his confidence, but a new point-of-view character (Adolin) was needed to show the reasons for doubt. As Dalinar’s eldest son, Adolin was perfectly positioned for Sanderson’s needs, but that doesn’t mean the author can just run a search/replace function for all of the scenes involving doubt. All of those sections must be largely cut and/or rewritten to display the differences between father and son—who they spend time with, how they interact with the world, etc.

Rewrites are a bigger delay than writer’s block.

Problems that require big rewrites are a writer’s worst nightmare. Not only have you spent time and energy creating chapters that you now have to scrap, but when you commit to a rewrite, you’re signing yourself up for a whole lot of work. 

Let’s go back to Sanderson’s rewrite. According to Coppermind, Adolin has 13 chapters in The Way of Kings. Imagine finishing a book and realizing you have to write 13 more chapters. 

It’s frustrating. It’s demoralizing. I hate doing it. 

Sanderson shares my disdain for rewrites. On his blog, he wrote, “I like to plan a book, I like to write the book, but revision is something I drag my feet on.”

One of the best ways to minimize the need for rewrites is to do an extensive outline. There are some authors who choose to plan out characters, plots, and settings in a detailed way, so that when it comes time to actually write the book, they can simply execute on well-established ideas.

These writers are commonly called plotters or architects. Sanderson is a self-described architect.

For other writers, the magic of making a book comes from discovery, and planning everything out ahead of time can stifle the artistic process. These are people with broad ideas about theme and plot but, by necessity, allow themselves room for exploration. 

These writers are commonly called pantsers or gardeners. Martin and Rothfuss are both self-described gardeners.

This is, of course, a sliding scale. Architects might stray from their outline if a character or plot demands it, and gardeners are capable of planning. Some authors do a mix of both.

I have tried both. By nature I prefer the organic creative method from discovery writing, but planning really speeds up the writing process.

There are some who believe that Rothfuss and Martin have written themselves into corners and simply cannot work out how to end their books. In my opinion, it’s far likelier that rewrites and minor (or major) plot tweaks have bogged down the process. Rothfuss and Martin may well have written their books several times over and simply decided they disliked them.

Rothfuss’s comments over the years confirm this to me. On a 2020 YouTube video, Rothfuss said, “If I didn't care about the third book, you'd have it by now.” In a discussion with Sanderson, he said, “When I'm doing revision, it's REVISION. I treat the book like it's a car engine. I strip it down into all its component parts and make sure each of them is doing exactly what it should. If it isn't, I fix it.”

Similarly, more than 100 pages of The Winds of Winter have been released or read. I think it’s clear that these authors are writing … and rewriting … and rewriting …

Writing a book drives you go a little mad.

There’s a great Robert Frost quote that says, “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”

Writing is an act of expression as much as it is an act of creation, and good art contains a helping of truth. Let’s go back to The Way of Kings for a second. The story follows Kaladin, a man who chose to become a soldier, despite training under his father as a surgeon. We can feel the duality of the character: His desire to protect, to heal, even as circumstances push him to fight and kill. 

Now let’s look at the dedication in Elantris, Sanderson’s first published novel: “Dedicated to my mother, who wanted a doctor, ended up with a writer, but loved him enough not to complain (very much).”

Look at The Name of the Wind and The Eternal E’lir, Manet. He’s a man with wild hair and a grizzled beard who has spent far longer than most at The University. Rothfuss himself took nine years to receive his undergraduate degree, and if you’ve ever seen a photo of him, you’ll know he matches the description. 

But it’s more than just these self-inserts that make a story deeply personal. The settings of a book might come from dreams, the themes are derived from world-views. What does a hero do when faced with difficult decisions? What scares us enough to become a great villain? What should love look like?

What happens when readers don’t like the answers? What if they don’t get the author’s vision?

Authors put everything they have into their books, but it’s impossible to know what another person will take away from your work. That’s why there is a common phrase among authors to “write the book you want to read.” 

This is a great guiding principle, but at the end of the day, it’s the audience who judges you. They decide whether to publish your book, buy it, and read it. 

Good authors don’t forget their readers, but that creates a mental and emotional strain. 

Imagine working with a hypothetical boss who silently judges your every decision. That’s what writing a book is like. Being an author means trying to appeal to people you’ve never met—people who come from different backgrounds and experiences. You’re guessing how a stranger will react to your thoughts and feelings.

To make things even more impossible, bestsellers like Rothfuss and Martin have millions of fans who all want different things. And since writing is subjective, these fans need no stronger justification than “I don’t like that.”

The best way to analyze your work is to distance yourself from it.

An author can never truly emulate a reader’s experience. You can never go back to a book with entirely fresh eyes—you’ll always remember the character arcs, that clever bit of dialogue, you were really proud of, and the part you absolutely hated to cut. 

Every line is fraught with emotion. I can read about five pages of my book in a word processor before I start to fidget and want to make tweaks. Many authors choose not to look at their books after they’re printed for fear that they missed a typo.

That’s why additional readers are so important. They help you understand what is working, what doesn’t make sense, and what you can do better.

However, the burden of actually fixing everything falls on the author, and to do it, you need to do your best to put yourself in the reader’s shoes. The best way to do that comes through distance. Many authors print out their chapters to annotate them with pen and paper, so they can’t revise endlessly. 

I listen to my book using text-to-voice functions and make notes on blank paper. 

Time provides the best distance of all. After a few months, the sentences don’t seem so precious. The difficult decisions don’t feel so painful. You forget just enough of the book to surprise yourself here and there. That’s when you can really progress. 

Writing a book is an iterative process, and that process requires time for reflection. It’s not practical or helpful to dive into rewrite after rewrite without taking the time to figure out what's working (and what's not). 

Burnout is real.

I started writing my book as a means of dealing with the stresses of everyday life. It felt good to escape my tiny studio apartment and transport myself to a fantastical place full of epic storylines and cool characters. I didn’t have to worry about details, or logistics, or writing style … I just enjoyed the world I had built inside my head.

But what happens when your stress relief becomes your biggest source of stress? What happens when that silent boss says you’re no good? What happens when you realize you have 13 more chapters to write in a book you thought you finished?

And when millions upon millions of people are telling you every day to finish the book? When they are wondering aloud whether you’ll die before it’s done?

I can’t imagine what that’s like. I don’t ever want to know.  

More than once I thought to myself, “I can’t do this.”

I pushed through. I wrote (almost) every day. I loved my story when it was just the faintest spark of inspiration. 

I went as fast as I could. It took eight years. 

I’m exhausted, and I still have work to do. 

My book may never get published.

The Winds of Winter and The Doors of Stone may never get published, but Martin and Rothfuss spent years and years on their worlds before you ever heard of them. Regardless of whether they are writing, or rewriting, or asking for outside opinions, or simply waiting for some distance … I guarantee that no one wants these books to be finished (and good) more than the authors themselves.

“I’d worked on the trilogy for a decade,” said Rothfuss in that SFFWorld interview about his life before The Name of the Wind became a bestseller, ”and in the past two years I’d been rejected by at least 40-50 agents.” 

He didn’t give up.

Here’s what Martin told The Guardian about starting A Song of Ice and Fire: “When I began, I didn’t know what the hell I had. I thought it might be a short story; it was just this chapter, where they find these direwolf pups. Then I started exploring these families and the world started coming alive. It was all there in my head, I couldn’t not write it.”

Featured image: Aaron Burden / Unsplash