On Wednesday, July 27th, I saw the author of A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin, speak at the Fox Theatre in Redwood City, California. The event was sponsored by Kepler's Bookstore in Menlo Park (where I heard about it) and by Cargill, and hosted by author Tad Williams.
I've been enjoying this Spring's HBO series created from the book, and have read the whole series, called "A Song of Ice and Fire". Here are some notes from his talk.
Martin had strong stage presence and was quite funny. He was engaging, well-spoken, amusing, and emphatic. All while wearing his signature Greek sailing captain's cap.
He started writing A Game of Thrones in the summer of 1991. While in the middle of writing a sci-fi novel called Avalon, the first chapter of A Game of Thrones came to him, -- with the Stark children discovering the direwolf pups. So, he wrote that first chapter, then went from that to the second chapter. "At some point, I made a map." He did not start with a master plan and fill in from there; the first scene came to him, and it just continued to develop as he went along.
He actually put aside the book for three years, while working on tv and other projects, returning to it in 1994. Characters like Arya and Tyrion wouldn't let him forget them. "These characters wouldn't leave me alone.". When the first book did come out, "Kepler's sold more copies of Game of Thrones than any other bookstore in the United States.".
After the second book, A Clash of Kings, appeared on the New York Times Bestseller list, he was approached to have the books made into a movie, and realized "They're never going to fit my book into a 2 1/2-hour movie." Because his house was paid for, he didn't need the "huge truckloads of cash" producers were dangling before him, and he wanted the adaptation to be good, he relates: "I had the luxury of saying the sexiest word in Hollywood: 'No'.". In discussing how to do a tv adaptation of the series, he recalls saying: "It can't be network television. If you do network television, you've got to take out all the sex ... and most of the violence.".
The most common question he gets is: "What the hell took me so damn long ?" [to finish his most recent book in the series: A Dance with Dragons]. He answered: "See how heavy it is; how many pages. How complicated it is. That's what took so long." And he mentioned that he was "guilty of an excess of optimism" when he said this latest book would only take one year. He said that there were strange theories circulating on the net of how he really had finished A Dance with Dragons, and was just holding it. To that he commented: "I would that it were so."
He recounts his pleased surprise at the welcome he received by 4,200 people in an auditorium last week for ComicCon in San Diego, expecially when there were girls "making that strange squealing sound that girls do for the Beatles".
When asked: "Do you mourn any of the characters you killed ?", he confides: "Actually, I do mourn the characters." "In some sense, I am all these people. And I'm killing an aspect of me." George jokes that he reconciles this by telling himself that it's not him killing characters, but other characters killing characters ... "Those bastards !". Host Tad Williams chimes in with his take on the parody bumper sticker version of this: "Authors don't kill characters. Characters kill characters.".
The second most frequent question he gets is: "What do you think of the HBO series ?", to which he answers: "I think it's great.". The audience applauded when he revealed: "They started filming the second season 3 days ago.". Another common question is: "What will happen if HBO catches up to you ?", to which he says with a grin: "I've got a considerable lead.".
"I do hope to eventually finish 'A Song of Ice and Fire'." Then later, "I may return to write other stories set in the same world." because he likes the world so much. And he noted "I'm not deliberately setting out to write a political allegory, by any means.".
Asked if he deliberately creates "bad" characters to further the plot, he philosophizes as follows: "What is 'bad' ? Bad is a label." and "All people have capacity for good and evil. This is what fascinates me about the human animal. The battle between good and evil is fought within the human heart every day. And that's what's interesting to write about.".
Nice write-up Sean, sounds like a good presentation!
Posted by: Jason Loughmiller | Monday, 08 August 2011 at 18:32