Martin acknowledges several authors who lent their time and expertise during the writing of the novel: Sage Walker, Martin Wright, Melinda Snodgrass, Carl Keim, Bruce Baugh, Tim O'Brien, Roger Zelazny, Jane Lindskold, and Laura Mixon.

The Watch suffer heavy casualties, although the steward Samwell Tarly kills one of the Others with a blade of obsidian. The books are divided into chapters, each one narrated in the third person limited through the eyes of a point of view character, [51] an approach Martin learned himself as a young journalism student. Robb's brother Bran and his friends, having escaped the Boltons' attack on the Stark castle Winterfell, are guided north by Bran's dreams of a three-eyed crow.Filming began July 2011, and the first episode of season 2 of Game of Thrones aired on April 1, 2012. In 2012, Martin had acknowledged his concerns about A Dream of Spring not being completed by the time the TV series Game of Thrones catches up in its storyline to the novels. Putting Avalon aside, Martin finished this chapter in a few days and grew certain that it was part of a longer story.

At Guadalajara International Book Fair 2016, Martin gave some clues about the dark nature of The Winds of Winter: "I've been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming.In February 2016, Martin stated that he dropped all his editing projects except for Wild Cards, and that he would not be writing any teleplays, screenplays, short stories, introductions or forewords before delivering The Winds of Winter. Davos discovers a request by the Night's Watch for aid against Mance Rayder; Stannis prepares to execute Davos for treason but changes his mind after Davos shows Stannis the Night's Watch's plea.

The approaching wildling army attacks Castle Black; but Jon takes command of the defenses and repels several assaults, during which Ygritte is slain. French: Three volumes (Hardcover: Pygmalion (2000); paperback: J'ai Lu (2002)): "La bataille des rois", "L'ombre maléfique", "L'invincible forteresse" ("The battle of kings", "The maleficent shadow", "The impregnable fortress"). Seeing the world through the characters' eyes requires a certain amount of empathy with them, including the villains, [84] all of whom he has said he loves as if they were his own children.As of 2011 [update], Martin was still typing his fiction on an IBM PC compatible computer running MS-DOS with WordStar 4.