George R.R. Martin voices full support for writers strike (even if it disrupts some of his projects)

Game Of Thrones mastermind George R.R. Martin shares a personal update about the Writers Guild of America strike

By Mary Kate Carr | May 9, 2023 | 1:50pm

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George R.R. Martin voices full support for writers strike (even if it disrupts some of his projects)

George R.R. Martin Photo: Jon Kopaloff

George R.R. Martin may be best known as the mind behind the Game Of Thrones novels (A Song Of Ice And Fire, for all the readers out there), but the HBO adaptations are not his first rodeo. No, Martin has been a card-carrying member of the Writers Guild of America since the ’80s, as he explains in a new set of blog posts, and his experiences in writing television are precisely why he’s so supportive of a strike now.

Like all writers, the strike comes at some personal cost, Martin shares. GOT spin-off A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight has closed its writers’ room (“Ira Parker and his incredible staff of young talents are on the picket lines”). Wild Cards was passed over by Peacock: “We will try to place it elsewhere, but not until the strike is over,” the author writes. Dark Winds’ second season is safely wrapped, but House Of The Dragon faces a tricky filming situation: while “Every episode has gone through four or five drafts and numerous rounds of revisions, to address HBO notes, my notes, budget concerns, etc.,” the strike means “those scripts must be shot EXACTLY as they were as of midnight on May 1. Not a word can be changed, cut, added, not a scene can be altered,” Martin explains. “All that requires writing… and from now until the strike ends, the writers will be on picket lines, not on sets.”

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(The Winds Of Winter novel, unaffected by a film and TV strike, “continues to be priority number one,” if anyone was wondering.)

There are lots of good reasons writers have for striking, but the infamous “mini rooms” are what Martin identifies as his personal most important issue. To demonstrate, he shares how much he learned as a junior writer on The Twilight Zone reboot in the mid-’80s, getting to be on set and learn every step of production firsthand. With the mini room model, as Martin lays out, writers at the bottom of the ladder are being deprived of the experiences they need to move up in the industry. In fact, he writes, “Streamers and shortened seasons have blown the ladder to splinters.” The studios’ offer to allow some writers to “shadow” and “observe” on set, unpaid, is an insulting counter, to hear Martin describe it.

“Mini-rooms are abominations, and the refusal of the AMPTP to pay writers to stay with their shows through production—as part of the JOB, for which they need to be paid, not as a tourist—is not only wrong, it is incredibly short sighted,” Martin states. “If the Story Editors of 2023 are not allowed to get any production experience, where do the studios think the Showrunners of 2033 are going to come from?”

For those struggling to understand how the industry has changed behind the scenes and what writers mean when they say the career is facing “existential threat,” Martin’s personal account is as elucidating as it is enlightening. You can check it out for yourself here.