He says it near the end-he doesn’t understand how he does it. Nobody does, really. It’s a mental and emotional process that’s different for every writer, and it’s a mysterious one that no one can really put into words. I like that he sets the complete scene with Rowling first to give his answer context.
still a good point lol King probably doesn't have a day he overthinks anything. Just start talking/writing and don't stop until you have to (and hope it sticks)
King's better answer is in his autobiography and writing guide, "On Writing." Highly recommend it to anyone interested in either him or just writing in general. It is, like those four minutes, a bit scattered, but it's very informative.
Only the grinch is winning. Kind of like nightmare before Christmas😨😱 jack gets the girl and santa f*s off to his lonely workshop all bitter about a fan. Omg ..... so many similarities ti g.rr. martin
Stephen King describing the clothes she was wearing exactly like a character in a book. It's so ingrained into his throught process that he even does that with a spoken story on a stage.
There have been a few points in my life where I've been out on walks thinking about what I'm going to write and I could literally see in my head the lines exactly as they needed to be written. There just comes a point when it's an integral part of you.
Its because there are two types of people in this world. People who let writers block affect them and people who dont. The trick is to just write the best you can and then reread it and refine it.
@@trippasnippa119 yep, I imagine George is a perfectionist and will try to make the best sentence he can before moving on to the next one. I imagine King just writes up everything first, then goes back and changes it to his liking afterwards. Kind of like a painter who does a wash over the entire canvas vs a painter that details as he goes, and never bothers with a wash at all. Neither approach is wrong. But I also do think King reuses a lot of tropes, and experiences from his own life. I can think of three books that use alchohol, magic, and wise old African American men. Oh, and something perverted happens to a kid, or a kid does something perverted. I don't think George likes repeating himself.
@@watertommyz Yeah, and George probably relies on inspiration, which can technically give better results but is inherently based on luck, while Steve can push through even without inspiration, which can result in dull writing but helps get the job done
I feel if you analysed their books you would get some hints as to why their approach is so different. George seems to approaching it like an artist who wants every book to be as good as the last while Stephen is more pragmatic, knowing that he can churn out books and not all of them have to be classics. He probably realised early on that readers liked books that he didn’t think were his best work and that there is a lot of stuff you don’t need to worry about because the bulk of the readers will be just as happy if you write that bit the same way you always do or if you think up some new clever way to write it that calls back to earlier chapters or books.
I think he just knows that getting the ideas sorted out is part of the process of writing the whole thing, and that it can be refined later… and that everything is actually easier when you’re consistent and don’t work solely off of inspiration
@Josh Traffanstedt A Song of Ice and Fire is no better or worse than The Wheel of Time (which I quite like both). The Dark Tower series is a real epic which spans time and other worlds that Martin hasn't even attempted yet.
This is the perfect scenario. I've always been fascinated by how Stephen King manages to pump out so many books, and I've always been fascinated by how slowly and cautiously George writes his. I think the whole universe was created just so George could ask Stephen that question and we could laugh about it.
If you want to know more about King's process, he wrote an entire book called "On Writing" which is about how he got started and what he does. He even narrated the audiobook. It's fantastic.
Funny idea, but in reality all that George does is practice Tantric Writing. Whilst Stephen clearly only cares for a quick in-and-out experience, six pages and done, basically soulless abuse of editing software, no time for the divine since he is an atheist. I guess technically both counts as sex, but I know which one I prefer.
I was joking, I know what a writer’s block is, but I said it referring how Stephen King apparently never have it. He doesn’t know what writer’s block means
King writes like it's his job. George writes like it's a hobby that took off in a way he wasn't prepared for and now that there's so much pressure it's not so fun anymore.
Nintariz but you can’t force yourself to be creative it either happens or it doesn’t. Fine tuning and polishing can be a conscious effort but having ideas in the first place have to come naturally
Everyone writes at a different pace, and King happens to be well practiced at it, especially when he said he tries to get his drafts clean the first time. The secret for anyone not practiced is this: your first draft is meant to suck. Don't bother with spelling or grammar, let punctuation fall to the side. Your mind is like a flywheel, so start a flow one word at a time, write the very next action, even if that's the character taking their next mundane breath and you know it'll be thrown away in later drafts.
Everyone writes a different pace. Yes. But everyone also writes in different ways. Stephen writes make books about many stories. George is interested in one single universe. You can’t compare the pace of the two people, because they aren’t even doing the same thing. Stephen can literally just stop writing a book, and start writing another one, and it wouldn’t matter. Or he can change everything about a story line, and it wouldn’t matter. George has to take into account, the back stories of dozens of people, when making a single decision about the actions of a character. And that single decision, can also have consequences on next decade of writing he would do. He works on a planet. Stephen works on cities and towns. If he can’t think of what should happen in that town, he just picks any other random town and “goes to town” on it lol. He can literally write anything at all, and it won’t matter.
@@jamesbizs @j p You missed the entire point. Who said I was comparing King and Martin? Did you miss the words where I indicated the post was about telling writers who aren't experienced as King not to worry about it and why? I said that because I was worried people would try to emulate King, which would kill the budding interest of so many future writers who may feel they don't have the 'talent' and give up. The first draft is meant to suck and be messy, and you write in iterations. That goes across the board, whether you write in ways similar to King or Martin. It's only once you get extremely experienced that one would even dare to try and get the first draft right.
I think King understands (after decades) that writing is like walking on a journey: you just gotta keep moving. Some days are amazing and some suck. When you're done with the journey, someone might ask how it went, and you'll tell them all the interesting parts and none of the boring parts. Then it sounds like a great story! Martin seems more like he doesn't want to take one step on the journey unless he knows where he's going and that each moment will be awesome. I respect the result of his labours, but it seems as if it no longer fits his current situation.
@@christianrapper - The only thing that's obvious is that he's didn't answer the question or the follow up question regarding anxiety and writers block. The very last thing he said was, "How can they know what we do when we don't know what we do?" It's a copout response.
@@realizedemoneyes He answered in the only way he can explain it; he sets a goal for each day and keeps to his routine with strict determination. George just flounders around waiting for a spark in the dark. They just have different ways to obtain inspiration. One works it out on paper and the other in his head. Clearly the paper way is faster.
Honestly, these are the two types of artists/writers: the workhorses and the perfectionists, the people who treat it like a job and those who scrutinize every detail and want to make it "perfect". While I am one of the latter, I respect and stand in awe at the former. I wish I had that type of dedication, that consistency.
"You don't ever have a day where you sit down there and it's like constipation. You write a sentence, and you hate the sentence so you check your email. Then you wonder if you had any talent after all, and maybe you should've been a plumber." I can relate to this on a spiritual level.
this is procrastination. when you procrastinate, you don't wanna do the thing. yet you waste time. discipline is the key. just start doing stuff without thinking, and you manage to do things, if you simply start. starting in everything is the hard thing, after that you can forget about time and spend hours doing it, even if you are not really into it. treat it like a work you get paid for, and unless you do it, you suffer consequences. it is true, you spend you time wasted. but time is not well measured for humans, so they seem it is not that bad. if you had to compensate out of your wallet for the time you procrastinated, it would be a whole different story. in actuality, this is exactly what you lose, money you could be earning doing something you actually love.
tru e I’m only a modest student and amateur writer, but it’s true. In school when I had long essays and term papers to write, I never, EVER, started with an intro. I threw down my initial points and thoughts on the screen. I built off of those crucial first sentences. I then continued to write and write and write until I finally came to a solid intro, then the rough draft was done. I think students who struggle with writing papers think there are all these rules and chronology to writing when it doesn’t matter. There are no rules to structuring your initial writings. Just start! Before you know it, the paper will be completed.
@@true7251 Meh, money is not everything. If you do something you love you wont have this problem in the first place and doing something you love is also much more important than making as much money as possible.
Just in time for me to have a new favorite :).... OOPS they just died :'(! DAMMIT!! At least the books will be Miles better than Dumb & Dumbers CLUSTER FUCK OF A SERIES FINALE :///!
I think it's the difference between one off horror stories and long fantasy series. King can put out single stories all contained within a book or two, but Martin (in the spirit of Tolkien) has to come up with a detailed history of the story's world and characters and adhere to everything he set in motion.
Nahhhh, look at Brandon Sanderson or other authors. I believe that he's just not really sure how he will finish the book. He must also have a lot of stress about the fact that it's been 10 years
@@tree_hugger6921 Yeah I think that's the case. I think since this series is his life's work he wants to make sure he does it justice. King has a different tempo and he does great stories. Not to say things like the Dark Tower series didn't take a lot of effort and planning I think Martin has a bit more pressure because of his fandom and his own legacy so far in this series.
God, that made me laugh, and want to cry a lot inside... If he REALLY only wrote 6 pages in a year, he'd only have 48 pages done. It would take 250 years to write a 1500 page book at that abysmal pace... Assuming my math is correct anyway. He's only 70 now which means to finish this one book in that time period he'd have to live several times longer than his entire life to this point!
The war of art. SK sums it up perfectly: show up everyday and get to work. I also think it’s interesting how SK is really just focused on the next 6 pages. When you’re thinking about a whole universe and multiple story arcs, it can all get just so overwhelming.
I agree with That last paragraph , GRRM strikes me as a bit of a over thinker which might influence his fixation on “perfect” world building. SK doesn’t come across that way.
I remember one of most famous King's quote: adverb is not your friend. He'll never write Joe Rowling looks like a tired housewife. He's gonna explain what does tired mean in that context lol. Like he wrote a full chapter about that dog in Gerald's Game
Stephen King talks the way he writes. By the time he answers the question, not only have you forgotten what the question was, you’ve forgotten that there had been a question in the first place.
Its amazing hearing these people talk, just how king was able to recall jk rowlings attire in perfect descriptive detail just shows this man is a born writer, his brain is just wired in a way to observe all he sees
I've been writing for twenty-five years and love every moment of it. While at the same time, it is frustrating as hell, I'd never give it up for anything.
George said after winds of winter he is going to take a break and write other books in the song of ice and fire series. Soo after winds of winter at least another ten years. 😥😥
Bob Joking aside, he probably will. George is getting up there in years and he's more than a little overweight. Even if he didn't take a break after WoW, there's a good chance he wouldn't live long enough to finish the series. Figure in a hiatus of who knows how long and it's all but guaranteed.
Well. books are about 70-80 chapters. 3 chapters every six months equals about 12 years. Last one came out in 2011. He already had at least 11 chapters written so next book 2022.
Tolkien: ... and my language I invented will replaced English. America soon will have languages as compulsory omitting English.Middle Earth and Klingon.
Stephen is a very story driven writer while George is far more lore driven writer. They are both extremely respectable forms of writing and both are extremely difficult to maintain.
Reminds me of two webcomics: *Lackadaisy* and *Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic* -- the only two I know of where the creator was a professional artist prior to starting the comic (as opposed to the more common means of learning the craft *through* the comic, just by putting in time and effort). They're both great comics, but so, so different in their approach. *YAFGC* is done by a storyboard artist, in a sketchy storyboard style -- no color, no "polish" -- and they're short comics with punchlines. *Lackadaisy* is gorgeous, full-color art on giant pages, and covers a meticulously researched historical period in painstaking detail. They're both highly expressive (I encourage artists to study both styles -- Lackadaisy even has tutorials!) with enthralling casts. But guess which one comes out daily, and which comes out once every other blue moon? And that's not to judge one by the other -- they're incomparable, except for being both incredible works of art -- but to say that there's validity to getting it out fast, and validity to taking the time to work out all the details to the best of your ability. But the advice I've come to understand after decades in the craft? If you're starting out, ignore the polish. Ignore the quality and go for quantity -- *Fail Faster* -- because you will learn so, so much more by producing things and putting them out for the public eye than you ever could by sitting there trying to "pet" them until they're perfect. If your brain will let you (I say this as a person who likely has ADHD), go for short projects done fast, and get through a good variety before you settle down and try to tackle the meticulous worldbuilding and any project of extreme length.
I am deeply deeply grateful for Stephen Kings work ethic, what would have we missed out on, had he only written like 10books. Thank you Stephen for never never getting lazy and writing down those beautiful (and not so beautiful ;-)) things in your head!
You guys know how much this comforts me im not the only oralhygeine unchampion. If i am feeling ill i'll definetely not wash because it'll only make it worse. I'll be sick from the taste. And tbh i feel sick pretty often. And i am quite proud enough for stepping my shower game up. As a depressed petrock im quite satisfied with that achievement at the moment. I take it step by step.
Same here. I write fast because I have an outline but I rarely follow my outline. I take constant detours to my plot goal. I have an outline but I rarely follow it. Most of the time I follow according to the scaffolding of the story, but my characters have a mind of their own.
Hey Stephen King!! Thanks for donating to the kids playground out in orange. My daughter loves it! Glad you chose to film in the town I was born in. I happened to be born in an ambulance outside of the “ castle rock church “ love the stories.
Infestedhobo1 Fucking best comment. Stephen writes like an actual “hack” from the old days, where you hack it out, and it doesn’t really matter what you put down because you get paid by the word. Not everything he writes is Misery or IT. Stephen is the most prolific writer of the modern day because he WRITES. Like a boxer: you’re not gonna land all your punches. Throw a lot so you can land some. And some of the ones that land are beautiful punches.
@@amandadamatta_ he won't finish one of the most complex and best fantasy book series ever made, because the pressure is too high? fuck that he is not far from becoming one of the most known writers of all time and gives a shit because of that reason? Ridiculous for real..
Amanda Pinheiro pretty unlikely that he won’t finish it. He is a very skilled writer that has plenty of material to work with. It will just take a while because of his meticulous nature. Which is the whole reason for his work being so good in the first place. People have to just respect his work and give him time, they will not be disappointed.
You can tell king thinks like a writer constantly. The level of detail in describing Rowling when he's just telling a story from memory. When's the last time you told a little story from your life to a friend or coworker and described the clothes and hairstyle of the people in the story? Most people just get to the funny part or the juicy bits. King sets the scene, gives you the details. A life time of habit isn't so easily broken.
For me, writer's block is the same way. I tell people, as soon as I have a life, trouble arises. I never lose ideas for my characters if I keep working on them constantly. But the moment I have a full time job, school to attend, a guy I'm seeing, or any wedge that takes me away from my desk, that's when I have the block. And that's worse than a creative block, because at least with a creative block, you are still sitting at your desk trying to figure out where to go next. Blocks like mine can put me out for months.
Moral of the story: King finds the time to write, regardless of any day to day chores that come hid way. After he tackles them, he goes back and writes!
@Starscream91 Tell me how exactly is she a "trash". Kids these days are so quick to label someone as trash and shit. Jumping onto every bandwagon without doing any critical thinking of their own.
@@dragonkamran Not true. An experienced and successful writer has the benefit of knowing what's been considered good in the past. And while success is never a guarantee, a good writer knows his audience and can choose to write what he or she assumes they will like.
@@mischuwischu4305 Who knows? But I agree that his endings are usually disappointing. In fact, I've had many long conversations with people about that, and they all said the same thing.
Steven King is an architect writer - he plans all the big story moments from the start and then takes time filling in the details. George is a gardener writer. He comes up with an interesting idea and characters and then wanders around the story exploring different themes and ideas for each character
If you read his book On Writing, King is the type of writer of writes on instinct. He doesn't really plan much, he just starts writing and lets his skill and experience carry him through. He likens it to excavating a dinosaur out of the ground. The dinosaur is in there, you don't know exactly what it is, but it's in there. Then it's just up to the skill of the excavator to get it out in one piece without breaking it. That explains why his books sometimes vary wildly in quality and even his best stuff tends to be long, rambling pieces of fiction that somehow captivates you even though it's bonkers. I guess he might be one of the most naturally gifted writers of all time. If he wasn't such a legend, I think many of his books would be heavily edited and shortened by an editor. Now they just let him do what he wants because he's Stephen King.
Not even Stephen King is free from editors, and no writer should be. But they probably are much more open towards his ideas than to newcomers. Just like when he re-released The Stand with two hundred deleted pages.
The man has written so many books, and as a huge huge fan of his, he definitely hits a lot of the same beats with his stories. I don’t think it’s a bad thing but he has his style down pretty precisely at this point. I don’t think there are many writers as prolific as he is.
@@albertshepard4084 Ignore that comment, they're obviously clueless. Most people think that King was just a horror writer and that's just plain wrong. He also wrote The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Stand by Me (The Body), and 11/22/63, just to name a few of his non-horror workings.
Martin is trying to write 100 books at once. He thinks of a character then goes "well what if they had this massive backstory that we explore 4 books from now." Then writing that characters backstory thinks of 10 other characters that need to be fleshed out.
@@randomdude2026 Neither was Tolkien's works. The man worked his whole life on them and they're severely unfinished. So, yeah, fantasy is quite a hard one to fully finish, since these are different Universes.
@@tywinlannister6768 Tolkien finished Lord of the Rings. He may have continued to work on his world of Arda throughout his whole life but he finished the story of his trillogy. ASOIAF isn't finished.
@@randomdude2026 nor will it be, a story sometimes can be difficult to finish, due to its various plot-lines. My point was that neither works are finished, since the story doesn't end where the books end, they have too many others adjacent.
@@TheStraightestWhitest yeah melancholic wizard who had an intensely sexless relationship with a bad wizard who was more horny for evil than he was for Dumbledore.
This is the way to write, especially if you have a hard time finishing things or want to be a professional. It needs to transcend just being a hobby and become a part of you. Where not doing it will literally cause you pain.
@@ugabuga2586 i dont know if imposters syndrome is a mental illness that requires a diagnosis. Does it? I always thought its a sentiment someone's holds not so much a disorder. (A pretty common one at that too)
@@nicky592 Yeah, imposter syndrome isn't an illness any more than buyer's remorse or "big fish in a little pond" syndrome. Labelling a human experience doesn't make it an illness.
Stephen King: Has an idea. Makes a book out of that idea. George Martin: Has an idea. Includes that idea as a subplot of a subplot that is too trivial to form an important part of the main plot, but has raised so many questions that it can't just be dismissed and forgotten about and somehow needs to be worked into the next book and tied into all the other subplots and sub-sub-plots in a plausible and satisfying way.
@@RacinZilla003LOL ol patchy, i had forgotten. Hes probably just Tom Bombadillishly trying to tell everyone he is the real Azor Hai beset by a mermaid curse
Stephen King also writes in satisfying way too. There is just no backstory heavy as George's which makes sense since King has got no series he writes books separately
Stephen King writes quickly because he rarely outlines or plots. He rarely has any idea what the story or characters will do and just lets them unfold under his fingertips. That makes writing a much more spur of the moment experience for him.
Very similar to GRRM, actually. The thing is, on the way, he crafted a lot of lore, and still wrote like that. Which is awesome on the one hand, on the other it's the reason there's so many different new plot lines in the books that he probably lost oversight of them.
Suleymen Amanzholtegi Not necessarily. For the more conservative writer, outlines serve as the crux of the process. Nonetheless, for those more liberal, it’s more so the spur of the moment. It ultimately depends on what the creator is trying to pen in the first place, however.
A truly great man. I have been reading his work for over thirty years and I have to say it has changed my life. I am the slow to learn to read and write young man in The Dead Zone and he is Johnny Smith. Read the book and get the reference.
@@Miketheratguy Your entire writing ability couldn't hold a candle to a single sentence of George's intricate masterpiece. He built an entire world, it's hard to fathom what goes into that. He has to juggle dozens of storylines, character motivations, locations and other complexities like consistency and symbolism in a perfectly woven web. Entitled people like yourself are sickening and don't understand how to cherish and appreciate anything George created for us. You don't deserve the final two books. He got into writing ASOIAF as a hobby, a way to spread happiness and a way to share his world with others. Not to meet the demands of nobodies and be pressured into writing. This is art and that demands respect and patience.
@@Miketheratguy So he has a great mind, people purchase his ideas(his books) on their own will. Doesn't mean he owes any of you creativity lacking fuck-ups anything.
@@chaoticevilmonk2223 he got himself in that position because of his work, not the other way around. He didn't start his career as a best seller with plenty of time to create, he had to make sacrifices and find the time to write his first book.
As a writer myself, I think this has less to do with the type of stories they produce and more to do with their individual personalities. I have two writer modes: robotic, can't stop writing even if I'm trying to sleep or take a shower mode OR can't really write anything/no motivation mode. It is what it is. I don't pressure myself with the artistic process because that would ruin my love for what I do and it would result in crappy writing.
I think the key here is that George RR Martin feels like if a sentence isn’t good, he can’t write it. If Stephen King feels like a sentence isn’t good, he understands that he can fix it. You can always edit a shitty sentence to make it good, but you can’t edit nothing. So even if King is writing the worst thing he’s ever written and he knows it’s bad and his heart isn’t in it…he also knows that once it’s on the page, he can fix it. If George RR Martin would let himself write something shitty with that understanding, we’d have the ending of Game of Thrones by now
George looks like an old harmless blacksmith living in a treehouse. Every morning the smoke comes out from the chimney and he rolls down in a basket to collect some herbs and magic pearls to make axes and daggers.
@@MegaShiney99 Entropy explains why we die.We are non perfect machines that can not use all energy we have in an efficient way.So we are damaged over time.Entropy is a scientific explanation on why we die bro,it is what it is.I loved thermodynamics because it gave me some great answers on nature
