George RR Martin might not be able to tell the fans when will the Winds of Winter (the sixth installment of A Song of Ice and Fire series) gets released, but he can tell what to expect for the next book. There will be plenty of dark chapters ahead, for one thing.
At the recent Q&A in Guadalajara Book Fair, George RR Martin teased about his upcoming novel and said "There are a lot of dark chapters right now in the book that I'm writing. It is called The Winds of Winter, and I've been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fill the world, so this is not going to be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places."
George RR Martin reminds the fans that they are not probably going to see a lot of things go right for their favorite characters for some time in the next book and adds "In any story, the classic structure is, 'Things get worse before they get better,' so things are getting worse for a lot of people."
The author also talked a little bit of the tone that the conclusion for the series would take in A Dream of Spring and revealed, "I'm not going to tell you how I'm going to end my book, but I suspect the overall flavor is going to be as much bittersweet as it is happy." Which certainly doesn't bode well for some of the denizens in Westeros.
He also joked about how the series had gradually become a longer and more difficult undertaking than expected. George RR Martin goes on to say that "Sometimes I look back and say, 'Did it really have to be Seven Kingdoms?' The Five Kingdoms of Westeros, that would have been good, right?"
Watch the Q&A below: