I want to have dragons and direwolves
and mammoths and a wall of ice at 700
feet tall a minute ago I don’t like
stories of books that are too familiar
too too predictable
that I feel like I read a thousand times
before very few people get up in the
morning and say oh I’m evil what evil
can I do today it’s always said that no
is the sexiest word you could say in
Hollywood the more you say no the more
they want you he’s an American novelist
screenwriter and TV producer he’s best
known for his series a Song of Ice and
Fire which was later turned into HBO’s
Game of Thrones in 2005 Time magazine
called him the American Tolkien he’s
george RR martin and here’s my take on
his top ten rules for success rule
number two is my personal favorite I
make sure to stick around all over to
the end for some special bonus clips and
as always as George is talking if he
says something that really is meaningful
to you that has a big impact on you
please leave it in the comments below so
others can benefit from the experience
as well enjoy
[Music]
and I started actually writing a science
fiction novel that had been an idea I’ve
been playing with a long time book
called Avalon and I was working on
Avalon and it was coming pretty well and
suddenly the first chapter of Game of
Thrones came to me where they find the
dire wolf pups
it’s a freak
it’s a direwolf I know it wasn’t part of
the science fiction novel I was writing
this was clearly a fantasy medieval had
these wolves and this large family I’ve
been reading a lot of historical fiction
and might have been in the back of my
mind but suddenly it all gelled and I
wrote and I wrote that chapter in like
two three days it just came to pour out
of me don’t stop there are five pups one
for each of the stark children the
direwolf is the sigil of your house they
were meant to have them we’ll train them
yourselves you’ll feed them yourselves
and if they die you will bury them
yourselves when I did return the books I
said to myself okay I’ve had many things
option they never make them I’ve done
pilots and TV shows tried to keep them
within budget and producible and ever
make that I’m tired of playing that game
I’m gonna you know I have a big
imagination I have an epic story able to
tell I’m going to make it as big as my
imagination I’m going to have all the
the castles and battles I want I’m going
to have hundreds of characters because
the real world is complex I want my
fictional world to be complex too not as
kind of simplified thing I want to have
giant battles I want to have incredible
castles that each one is distinct from
the other two people remember for all
time I want to have dragons and dire
wolves and mammoths and a wall of ice at
700 feet tall
I want something huge and epic that can
stand up there with Tolkien ask yourself
what if no one ever bought any of my
work what if I’m never going to sell a
book or publish a book or a short story
are you going to continue to write and
if the answer is yes because I have to
do then yeah then you are a writer and
whether you’re selling out I can’t know
but if they’re stories and you that have
to get out you want to put them down in
the paper with whether you ever get the
affirmation of a contract or a book in
your hand or being on the bestseller
list if you still have to tell your
stories then then your writer if you can
give it up then then it probably would
be an act of sanity to learn accounting
or
something like that I have tons of
things I’d like to do and life is short
unfortunately but I hope it will be long
enough for me to do to do some of these
I have known a few writers who have
retired
I cannot imagine ever retiring I did
writing and being a writer is too much
part of my identity and too much part of
what I am I don’t know what I would do
with all that time if I did stop writing
you know play video games or something
like that
what’s a lot more television that it
seems unlikely to me I’ve always told
stories whether I could make my living
from it or even when I was a little kid
just making up stories for the other
kids in the neighborhood and I think I’m
going to continue to do that until the
end what the little climb on gee how old
are you boy
10
the things I do for love I mean not many
shows or books have the guts to kill a
ten-year-old let alone me after the him
catching an incestuous relationship
that’s true
probably more surprising in the book
where Chrissy is the first viewpoint
character you know he’s the viewpoint
character in the first chapter and then
we switch wait a couple of you points
don’t come back to him but since he was
first I think the 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 we find out more
later but uh you know it’s by 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 too too
predictable that I feel like I read a
thousand 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 but this was
something a little different so so that
moment has worked very well for me you
are no Knight you’re forsaken every vow
you ever took so many vows they make you
swear and swear defend the King obey the
King obey your father protect the
innocent defend the weak what if your
father despises the king what if the
King massacres the innocent it’s too
much no matter what you do you’re
forsaking one vow or another I think the
struggle between good and evil is
central to fantasy and indeed in some
ways central to most fiction it’s
certainly a worthy subject for fiction
but where I think I differ is I regard
the distrub
between good and evil as being waged
within the individual human heart it’s
not waged as fantasy would have it where
a character like all the Dark Lord
gathers all the evil people together and
puts them in black clothing and you know
they’re evil because they’re really ugly
and all the good people are handsome and
they wear white and they meet on a big
battlefield in the real world good and
evil or not that complex very few people
get up in the morning and say oh I’m
evil what evil can I do today I’m going
to cover the world with darkness and my
legions of evil will rule that’s silly
you know the greatest monsters of
history as we look back on them thought
they would have heroes at a story you
know the villain is the hero of the
other side as sometimes said that
doesn’t mean that it’s all more really
relative that doesn’t mean that all
things are equally good and evil I think
there there is good and there is evil in
the world but you know it’s it’s
sometimes I struggle to tell one from
the other and to make that make the
right choices and and all of us I’ve
always been attracted to great
characters maybe because that’s what I
see when I look around the real world
where I read about it in history books
or the news or just people I meet I mean
all of us have it within ourselves to be
heroes all of us have it within
ourselves to be villains
we’ve all done good things in our lives
and most of us have also done selfish
things cowardly things things that were
ashamed of in later years and to my mind
that that’s I don’t know the glory of
the human race we’re such wonderfully
contradictory mixed-up creatures that
we’re endlessly fascinating to write
about and read about David Benioff and
Dan Weiss are the showrunners you know I
don’t have any veto power you know I
find a pretty standard contract where I
gave them rights to to adapt this into a
television series and I got certain
titles
and the agreement I’d write one script a
year and and a large dump truck full of
money and they can do you know they can
have the aliens come down next season
they can turn the old cast into vampires
and I’m powerless to stop them but I
don’t think they they will do that
they love the books and they’re they
seem committed to telling my story in a
different medium and I knew all that
before I signed any of the contracts I
mean when these books started hitting
the New York Times bestseller list which
was as early as Clash of Kings I was
approached by other people who wanted to
adapt them many for feature films and I
had meetings with those people and you
know heard their plans how are they
going to fit this giant thing in a
feature film well we’re going to make it
a little better on snow and we’ll drop
all these other characters or we’ll make
it all about Danny and we’ll drop all
these are the characters that they had
various schemes or of how they would do
it or well we’ll just make we’ll just
make the first book up to this point and
then you know we hope that the movie
will do well after the water second
movie and and none of these really
appealed to me so I said no which is
it’s always said that no is the sexiest
word you could say in Hollywood the the
the more you say no the more they want
you and I I guess I was true because
they kept coming and eventually David
and Dan came and we had a wonderful
meeting that lasted like most of the day
we met for lunch and and you know we
were talking and getting all animated
about how we’re going to do series over
lunch and in a crowded restaurant in Los
Angeles and little by little it emptied
out and pretty soon we were the only
people there you don’t drink in our
seventh cup of coffee and iced tea and
still talking about it and and then more
hours passed and we’re still talking and
the restaurant to dinner crowd is coming
in and they’re setting up for dinner I
think we closed that restaurant that
night so it was one of those classic
meetings that you only get once in a
while but I had
great feeling about them I mean you know
if you’re JK Rowling you can go into a
situation where every studio in
Hollywood want you and you can set very
stringent terms where you get to approve
everything but I’m if you’re not JK
Rowling and virtually nobody is JK
Rowling except for JK Rowling then you
can’t do that and you have to find
people that you trust and put your faith
in in in them and in the understanding
of the story I think I was a sophomore
in high school
and I was kind of a nerdy kid that you
know I wasn’t one of the cool kids I
wasn’t good at sports as good I was good
at you know on a roll and stuff that
doesn’t cut in East any slacking in in
school that just gets you more abuse but
sophomore year my one of my English
teachers uh was teaching pose fit in the
pendulum and he said you know this story
has a terrible ending if you remember
that story the guys in the pit the
pendulums coming lower and lower and
then suddenly in the last paragraph
trumpet sound and depending on pulls up
and he saved the Inquisition is in the
hands of its enemies is the last thing
and and you know my English teacher said
this is a classic example of the deus ex
machina so our assignment was to write a
better ending for the bit oh boy so I
wrote an ending where the rats came out
and ate the guy and they ate is they ate
his cheeks and they ate his toes and and
you know they ate his face and the
pendulum cut him in half and he died
horribly screaming and in horrible pain
I thought it was a much better ending
than the one that Edgar Allan Poe came
up with it has a certain uplift to it I
feel it does but what was the real boost
for me is the teacher liked it too and
he had me read it to the class and
suddenly suddenly all these kids who’d
never thought much of me thought I was
the coolest kid in class man wow what a
great
what a great story the rats ate the guy
they loved it and I said I I got to do
more this writing stuff it’s really it’s
really pays off when you’re writing
fantasy when I’ve never I’ve never been
a prince I’ve never been a king I’ve
never murdered anyone I’ve never been a
dwarf I’ve never been an eleven-year-old
girl so you know the question is how do
you write these characters well there’s
certain amount of stuff that you have to
get by doing research you have to talk
to people who actually have had these
experiences like when when brand was
crippled by his fall I had a couple
correspondences with with readers of
mine who were paraplegic and had had no
use of their legs and you know described
to me some of the consequence some of
the things I might not have thought of
and made suggestions to me of how better
to write that I certainly took that sort
of stuff into into account but then the
main thing is is empathy is saying well
okay how would I feel because because
the character is still a person there’s
a certain basis of common humanity and
that’s true when writing about women or
writing about a dwarf or or writing
about any there’s you have to start with
the basis they’re more like me than they
are unlike me they have some special
condition that they have a different set
of genitals than I do but they still
it’s still the same old story a fight
for love and glory right real we all
want kind of the same things out of life
and that humanity can motivate
characters and make them real and that’s
what I try to remember at all times when
you write when I write anyway I want to
I want to engage my my readers emotions
or my viewers emotions you you don’t
want you know death death is a big thing
you know when when we experience death
in real life it affects us you know when
when a spouse dies or your parents died
your brother dies your dog gets run over
or god forbid one of your children dies
rips your heart out it affects you
emotionally
if we’re creating characters that we
really care about we should react the
sim away when they die in in fiction it
and war on television it shouldn’t be
just oh okay
that character is dead let me go out and
get a sandwich or in a commercial I mean
then then you’re not doing your job I
want to I want to grab hold of my
readers and make them cry and make them
grieve and make them laugh as well and
experience joy experience the world’s on
the page as if they were living them
that’s the dream of me at least and I
think most writers how did you decide on
the name Hodor um that’s not his real
name that’s just what they call him his
real name is waldir if your name Walder
you might want to be cool code or two I
don’t know you have to keep reading
Oh
[Music]
the dog
[Music]
welcome
for the door of the door the door
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
ha ha
Oh
[Music]
ha ha ha ha
thank you guys so much for watching I
made this video because the balls asked
me to so there’s a famous entrepreneur
that you want me to profile next leave
in the comments below and I’ll see what
I can do I also love to know which rule
was your personal favorite and why what
impact is it going to have on your
business or life please leave it down in
the comments I’m going to join in the
discussion I also want to give a quick
shout out to Tuan nuyen thank you so
much for picking up 10 copies of my book
and leaving that awesome picture on the
Amazon review I really really really
appreciate it so thank you guys again
for watching I believe in you I hope you
continue to believe in yourself and
whatever your one word is much love I’ll
see you soon
you have to read widely that’s one thing
that I try to hammer home especially at
things like a comic book convention or
science fiction convention because the
fans I’ve met and this has been true for
decades many of the fans I meet read a
lot but they read very narrowly they
discover at a very early age they like
superhero stories and then they read
nothing but superhero stories or they
like science fiction and they read that
that’s fine and I like superhero stories
too and and I like science fiction
fantasy but I also read a mystery novels
I also read a lot of historical fiction
I also read literary fiction and you
know I Raymond Chandler and F scott
Fitzgerald and William Goldman and and
Dennis Lehane and people like that are
marvelous writers and the more you read
the more you see the techniques being
used and what different people were
doing the more you learn have you ever
been influenced by some of the crazy
theories your fans come up with for
mysteries in the books have you ever
changed an aspect of your story based on
fan feedback ie if one of their theories
is better than what you originally
planned and no but I am concerned about
that possibility which is one of the
reasons I don’t tend to read the the fan
boards I mean when the first fan board
started occurring and they started
theorizing and analyzing the books in
such detail and I’m going back now to
the mid 90s really when when the first
boards appeared Dragonstone coming out
of Australia that Peter Gabe brand I
think was the first board I was aware of
and a couple others came up after that I
was very flattered and I did read all
the theories and then precisely this
point occurred where it says you know
what if they’re guessing the things that
I haven’t revealed yet what if they
guessed them correctly how does that
affect me do I then say oh my god they
figured it out already I better change
it or do I just ignore it and plow ahead
and what if they come up with better
ideas than the ones I had do I steal
them
and I didn’t like any of these
possibilities so I said it would be
better for me to try to keep my distance
and not not go on these boards and try
to get some while it’s a futile effort
because people also write me emails and
people come to public forums like this
and and you know they come up with me at
signings of whispering theories in my
ear and things like that so I am kind of
aware of some of the speculation out
there but I try to keep my distance from
it precisely because I don’t want to be
impacted I mean you know it’s one of the
it’s one of the drawbacks of the the
whole internet culture in this world
that you guys have created that
something that previously maybe one
reader in a thousand would have guessed
but you still had the other 999 who
would have no inkling until you reveal
it in a book now that one person in a
thousand puts it on a Internet message
board and everybody sees it and they say
oh yeah yeah that’s right dot no now I
see the clues I got it and pretty soon
half the readership or at least the
internet-savvy portion of your
readership knows it but what do you do
then do you change it and come up with
something goofy and outlandish that you
haven’t led D you haven’t done the the
foreshadowing for that you haven’t laid
the foundation for just in order to
surprise people I mean sure I could have
like aliens come down and that would
certainly surprise the Hat of everybody
no one is predicting that but it would
ruin the series so so basically you
can’t you can’t let yourself be
influenced by this stuff is and I try
not to I’m writing the winds of winter
which is book 6 in a series and I hope
the next to last book the last book will
be a dream of spring once those are done
then I can take a rest and enjoy a few
of the accolades and the fruits of
success that have accumulated to me and
then go back to writing something or
other and I’ll be a different person
that in the world will have changed and
I’ll see what I feel like writing in
whatever year that happens to be I
should be doing that right now you’re
interfering with me I’m sure this book
will be a year late just because of you
and mammoths and a wall of ice at 700
feet tall a minute ago I don’t like
stories of books that are too familiar
too too predictable
that I feel like I read a thousand times
before very few people get up in the
morning and say oh I’m evil what evil
can I do today it’s always said that no
is the sexiest word you could say in
Hollywood the more you say no the more
they want you he’s an American novelist
screenwriter and TV producer he’s best
known for his series a Song of Ice and
Fire which was later turned into HBO’s
Game of Thrones in 2005 Time magazine
called him the American Tolkien he’s
george RR martin and here’s my take on
his top ten rules for success rule
number two is my personal favorite I
make sure to stick around all over to
the end for some special bonus clips and
as always as George is talking if he
says something that really is meaningful
to you that has a big impact on you
please leave it in the comments below so
others can benefit from the experience
as well enjoy
[Music]
and I started actually writing a science
fiction novel that had been an idea I’ve
been playing with a long time book
called Avalon and I was working on
Avalon and it was coming pretty well and
suddenly the first chapter of Game of
Thrones came to me where they find the
dire wolf pups
it’s a freak
it’s a direwolf I know it wasn’t part of
the science fiction novel I was writing
this was clearly a fantasy medieval had
these wolves and this large family I’ve
been reading a lot of historical fiction
and might have been in the back of my
mind but suddenly it all gelled and I
wrote and I wrote that chapter in like
two three days it just came to pour out
of me don’t stop there are five pups one
for each of the stark children the
direwolf is the sigil of your house they
were meant to have them we’ll train them
yourselves you’ll feed them yourselves
and if they die you will bury them
yourselves when I did return the books I
said to myself okay I’ve had many things
option they never make them I’ve done
pilots and TV shows tried to keep them
within budget and producible and ever
make that I’m tired of playing that game
I’m gonna you know I have a big
imagination I have an epic story able to
tell I’m going to make it as big as my
imagination I’m going to have all the
the castles and battles I want I’m going
to have hundreds of characters because
the real world is complex I want my
fictional world to be complex too not as
kind of simplified thing I want to have
giant battles I want to have incredible
castles that each one is distinct from
the other two people remember for all
time I want to have dragons and dire
wolves and mammoths and a wall of ice at
700 feet tall
I want something huge and epic that can
stand up there with Tolkien ask yourself
what if no one ever bought any of my
work what if I’m never going to sell a
book or publish a book or a short story
are you going to continue to write and
if the answer is yes because I have to
do then yeah then you are a writer and
whether you’re selling out I can’t know
but if they’re stories and you that have
to get out you want to put them down in
the paper with whether you ever get the
affirmation of a contract or a book in
your hand or being on the bestseller
list if you still have to tell your
stories then then your writer if you can
give it up then then it probably would
be an act of sanity to learn accounting
or
something like that I have tons of
things I’d like to do and life is short
unfortunately but I hope it will be long
enough for me to do to do some of these
I have known a few writers who have
retired
I cannot imagine ever retiring I did
writing and being a writer is too much
part of my identity and too much part of
what I am I don’t know what I would do
with all that time if I did stop writing
you know play video games or something
like that
what’s a lot more television that it
seems unlikely to me I’ve always told
stories whether I could make my living
from it or even when I was a little kid
just making up stories for the other
kids in the neighborhood and I think I’m
going to continue to do that until the
end what the little climb on gee how old
are you boy
10
the things I do for love I mean not many
shows or books have the guts to kill a
ten-year-old let alone me after the him
catching an incestuous relationship
that’s true
probably more surprising in the book
where Chrissy is the first viewpoint
character you know he’s the viewpoint
character in the first chapter and then
we switch wait a couple of you points
don’t come back to him but since he was
first I think the 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 we find out more
later but uh you know it’s by 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 too too
predictable that I feel like I read a
thousand 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 but this was
something a little different so so that
moment has worked very well for me you
are no Knight you’re forsaken every vow
you ever took so many vows they make you
swear and swear defend the King obey the
King obey your father protect the
innocent defend the weak what if your
father despises the king what if the
King massacres the innocent it’s too
much no matter what you do you’re
forsaking one vow or another I think the
struggle between good and evil is
central to fantasy and indeed in some
ways central to most fiction it’s
certainly a worthy subject for fiction
but where I think I differ is I regard
the distrub
between good and evil as being waged
within the individual human heart it’s
not waged as fantasy would have it where
a character like all the Dark Lord
gathers all the evil people together and
puts them in black clothing and you know
they’re evil because they’re really ugly
and all the good people are handsome and
they wear white and they meet on a big
battlefield in the real world good and
evil or not that complex very few people
get up in the morning and say oh I’m
evil what evil can I do today I’m going
to cover the world with darkness and my
legions of evil will rule that’s silly
you know the greatest monsters of
history as we look back on them thought
they would have heroes at a story you
know the villain is the hero of the
other side as sometimes said that
doesn’t mean that it’s all more really
relative that doesn’t mean that all
things are equally good and evil I think
there there is good and there is evil in
the world but you know it’s it’s
sometimes I struggle to tell one from
the other and to make that make the
right choices and and all of us I’ve
always been attracted to great
characters maybe because that’s what I
see when I look around the real world
where I read about it in history books
or the news or just people I meet I mean
all of us have it within ourselves to be
heroes all of us have it within
ourselves to be villains
we’ve all done good things in our lives
and most of us have also done selfish
things cowardly things things that were
ashamed of in later years and to my mind
that that’s I don’t know the glory of
the human race we’re such wonderfully
contradictory mixed-up creatures that
we’re endlessly fascinating to write
about and read about David Benioff and
Dan Weiss are the showrunners you know I
don’t have any veto power you know I
find a pretty standard contract where I
gave them rights to to adapt this into a
television series and I got certain
titles
and the agreement I’d write one script a
year and and a large dump truck full of
money and they can do you know they can
have the aliens come down next season
they can turn the old cast into vampires
and I’m powerless to stop them but I
don’t think they they will do that
they love the books and they’re they
seem committed to telling my story in a
different medium and I knew all that
before I signed any of the contracts I
mean when these books started hitting
the New York Times bestseller list which
was as early as Clash of Kings I was
approached by other people who wanted to
adapt them many for feature films and I
had meetings with those people and you
know heard their plans how are they
going to fit this giant thing in a
feature film well we’re going to make it
a little better on snow and we’ll drop
all these other characters or we’ll make
it all about Danny and we’ll drop all
these are the characters that they had
various schemes or of how they would do
it or well we’ll just make we’ll just
make the first book up to this point and
then you know we hope that the movie
will do well after the water second
movie and and none of these really
appealed to me so I said no which is
it’s always said that no is the sexiest
word you could say in Hollywood the the
the more you say no the more they want
you and I I guess I was true because
they kept coming and eventually David
and Dan came and we had a wonderful
meeting that lasted like most of the day
we met for lunch and and you know we
were talking and getting all animated
about how we’re going to do series over
lunch and in a crowded restaurant in Los
Angeles and little by little it emptied
out and pretty soon we were the only
people there you don’t drink in our
seventh cup of coffee and iced tea and
still talking about it and and then more
hours passed and we’re still talking and
the restaurant to dinner crowd is coming
in and they’re setting up for dinner I
think we closed that restaurant that
night so it was one of those classic
meetings that you only get once in a
while but I had
great feeling about them I mean you know
if you’re JK Rowling you can go into a
situation where every studio in
Hollywood want you and you can set very
stringent terms where you get to approve
everything but I’m if you’re not JK
Rowling and virtually nobody is JK
Rowling except for JK Rowling then you
can’t do that and you have to find
people that you trust and put your faith
in in in them and in the understanding
of the story I think I was a sophomore
in high school
and I was kind of a nerdy kid that you
know I wasn’t one of the cool kids I
wasn’t good at sports as good I was good
at you know on a roll and stuff that
doesn’t cut in East any slacking in in
school that just gets you more abuse but
sophomore year my one of my English
teachers uh was teaching pose fit in the
pendulum and he said you know this story
has a terrible ending if you remember
that story the guys in the pit the
pendulums coming lower and lower and
then suddenly in the last paragraph
trumpet sound and depending on pulls up
and he saved the Inquisition is in the
hands of its enemies is the last thing
and and you know my English teacher said
this is a classic example of the deus ex
machina so our assignment was to write a
better ending for the bit oh boy so I
wrote an ending where the rats came out
and ate the guy and they ate is they ate
his cheeks and they ate his toes and and
you know they ate his face and the
pendulum cut him in half and he died
horribly screaming and in horrible pain
I thought it was a much better ending
than the one that Edgar Allan Poe came
up with it has a certain uplift to it I
feel it does but what was the real boost
for me is the teacher liked it too and
he had me read it to the class and
suddenly suddenly all these kids who’d
never thought much of me thought I was
the coolest kid in class man wow what a
great
what a great story the rats ate the guy
they loved it and I said I I got to do
more this writing stuff it’s really it’s
really pays off when you’re writing
fantasy when I’ve never I’ve never been
a prince I’ve never been a king I’ve
never murdered anyone I’ve never been a
dwarf I’ve never been an eleven-year-old
girl so you know the question is how do
you write these characters well there’s
certain amount of stuff that you have to
get by doing research you have to talk
to people who actually have had these
experiences like when when brand was
crippled by his fall I had a couple
correspondences with with readers of
mine who were paraplegic and had had no
use of their legs and you know described
to me some of the consequence some of
the things I might not have thought of
and made suggestions to me of how better
to write that I certainly took that sort
of stuff into into account but then the
main thing is is empathy is saying well
okay how would I feel because because
the character is still a person there’s
a certain basis of common humanity and
that’s true when writing about women or
writing about a dwarf or or writing
about any there’s you have to start with
the basis they’re more like me than they
are unlike me they have some special
condition that they have a different set
of genitals than I do but they still
it’s still the same old story a fight
for love and glory right real we all
want kind of the same things out of life
and that humanity can motivate
characters and make them real and that’s
what I try to remember at all times when
you write when I write anyway I want to
I want to engage my my readers emotions
or my viewers emotions you you don’t
want you know death death is a big thing
you know when when we experience death
in real life it affects us you know when
when a spouse dies or your parents died
your brother dies your dog gets run over
or god forbid one of your children dies
rips your heart out it affects you
emotionally
if we’re creating characters that we
really care about we should react the
sim away when they die in in fiction it
and war on television it shouldn’t be
just oh okay
that character is dead let me go out and
get a sandwich or in a commercial I mean
then then you’re not doing your job I
want to I want to grab hold of my
readers and make them cry and make them
grieve and make them laugh as well and
experience joy experience the world’s on
the page as if they were living them
that’s the dream of me at least and I
think most writers how did you decide on
the name Hodor um that’s not his real
name that’s just what they call him his
real name is waldir if your name Walder
you might want to be cool code or two I
don’t know you have to keep reading
Oh
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the dog
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welcome
for the door of the door the door
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
ha ha
Oh
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ha ha ha ha
thank you guys so much for watching I
made this video because the balls asked
me to so there’s a famous entrepreneur
that you want me to profile next leave
in the comments below and I’ll see what
I can do I also love to know which rule
was your personal favorite and why what
impact is it going to have on your
business or life please leave it down in
the comments I’m going to join in the
discussion I also want to give a quick
shout out to Tuan nuyen thank you so
much for picking up 10 copies of my book
and leaving that awesome picture on the
Amazon review I really really really
appreciate it so thank you guys again
for watching I believe in you I hope you
continue to believe in yourself and
whatever your one word is much love I’ll
see you soon
you have to read widely that’s one thing
that I try to hammer home especially at
things like a comic book convention or
science fiction convention because the
fans I’ve met and this has been true for
decades many of the fans I meet read a
lot but they read very narrowly they
discover at a very early age they like
superhero stories and then they read
nothing but superhero stories or they
like science fiction and they read that
that’s fine and I like superhero stories
too and and I like science fiction
fantasy but I also read a mystery novels
I also read a lot of historical fiction
I also read literary fiction and you
know I Raymond Chandler and F scott
Fitzgerald and William Goldman and and
Dennis Lehane and people like that are
marvelous writers and the more you read
the more you see the techniques being
used and what different people were
doing the more you learn have you ever
been influenced by some of the crazy
theories your fans come up with for
mysteries in the books have you ever
changed an aspect of your story based on
fan feedback ie if one of their theories
is better than what you originally
planned and no but I am concerned about
that possibility which is one of the
reasons I don’t tend to read the the fan
boards I mean when the first fan board
started occurring and they started
theorizing and analyzing the books in
such detail and I’m going back now to
the mid 90s really when when the first
boards appeared Dragonstone coming out
of Australia that Peter Gabe brand I
think was the first board I was aware of
and a couple others came up after that I
was very flattered and I did read all
the theories and then precisely this
point occurred where it says you know
what if they’re guessing the things that
I haven’t revealed yet what if they
guessed them correctly how does that
affect me do I then say oh my god they
figured it out already I better change
it or do I just ignore it and plow ahead
and what if they come up with better
ideas than the ones I had do I steal
them
and I didn’t like any of these
possibilities so I said it would be
better for me to try to keep my distance
and not not go on these boards and try
to get some while it’s a futile effort
because people also write me emails and
people come to public forums like this
and and you know they come up with me at
signings of whispering theories in my
ear and things like that so I am kind of
aware of some of the speculation out
there but I try to keep my distance from
it precisely because I don’t want to be
impacted I mean you know it’s one of the
it’s one of the drawbacks of the the
whole internet culture in this world
that you guys have created that
something that previously maybe one
reader in a thousand would have guessed
but you still had the other 999 who
would have no inkling until you reveal
it in a book now that one person in a
thousand puts it on a Internet message
board and everybody sees it and they say
oh yeah yeah that’s right dot no now I
see the clues I got it and pretty soon
half the readership or at least the
internet-savvy portion of your
readership knows it but what do you do
then do you change it and come up with
something goofy and outlandish that you
haven’t led D you haven’t done the the
foreshadowing for that you haven’t laid
the foundation for just in order to
surprise people I mean sure I could have
like aliens come down and that would
certainly surprise the Hat of everybody
no one is predicting that but it would
ruin the series so so basically you
can’t you can’t let yourself be
influenced by this stuff is and I try
not to I’m writing the winds of winter
which is book 6 in a series and I hope
the next to last book the last book will
be a dream of spring once those are done
then I can take a rest and enjoy a few
of the accolades and the fruits of
success that have accumulated to me and
then go back to writing something or
other and I’ll be a different person
that in the world will have changed and
I’ll see what I feel like writing in
whatever year that happens to be I
should be doing that right now you’re
interfering with me I’m sure this book
will be a year late just because of you
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