George R.R. Martin Plans to Finish The Winds of Winter by 2016, Teases Possible New Plot Twist

A couple weeks ago, the creators of Game of Thrones confirmed the show would spoil plots from the as-yet-unfinished final A Song of Ice and Fire novels. That news story seems to have further kick Martin into gear, who has long been worried about the “freight train” of the TV show overtaking his novels. He recently canceled several appearances and also decided not to write any episodes for the next season of Game of Thrones (typically he writes one a season). Yesterday, he released a new Sansa teaser chapter of book six, The Winds of Winter, on his website. Today, he told EW that he was determined to finish the book before season 6 airs:

I wish it was out now. Maybe I’m being overly optimistic about how quickly I can finish. But I canceled two convention appearances, I’m turning down a lot more interviews — anything I can do to clear my decks and get this done.

He mentions regretting the break in writing he took to promote A Dance with Dragons, noting “the iron does cool off” when he goes away from writing too long. Martin also said that he recently came up with a huge new plot twist:

“This is going to drive your readers crazy,” he teases, “but I love it. I’m still weighing whether to go that direction or not. It’s a great twist. It’s easy to do things that are shocking or unexpected, but they have to grow out of characters […] But this is something that seems very organic and natural, and I could see how it would happen. And with the various three, four characters involved… it all makes sense. But it’s nothing I’ve ever thought of before. And it’s nothing they can do in the show, because the show has already — on this particular character — made a couple decisions that will preclude it, where in my case I have not made those decisions.”

Read the full EW article here.