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Both are outliers. Werthead Send a noteboard - 01/01/2012 10:45:31 PM
Sanderson seems to bang out large novels within 6-8 months of work (as in, writing a first draft).

Who is more of the norm?


The average length of time to write a novel is about 2 years, so both Sanderson banging them out in a year or less and Martin taking 4-5 years is unusual.

However, with Sanderson all of his solo books up to and including THE WAY OF KINGS existed in some draft form many years before he started being published, so they were a lot easier to finish off and release. He's said himself that his books will now take 'longer' to appear. I think the length of time he's spent working on the WHEEL OF TIME (5 years to produce 3 - admittedly long - novels) will be more representative of what we see from him in the future.

They also have very different working approaches: Sanderson plans and outlines whilst GRRM simply makes it up as he goes along (though he has a very rough roadmap in mind), which results in him going down blind alleys which can take weeks or months to extricate himself from.
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