Game Of Thrones Author George R.R. Martin Once Revealed The Hardest Scene To Write (And It's Brutal)

Writing is hard. Just ask "Game of Thrones" author George R. R. Martin, who's been under the gun for years after his publishing schedule for the Song of Ice and Fire novels ground to an apparent halt. "The Winds of Winter" hasn't been the only challenge for Martin as a writer, though, which won't be surprising to anyone who's attempted to pen their own fantasy or science fiction stories. Writing stories on the epic scale of Westeros is no easy feat, but according to Martin, one particular scene across his first five Song of Ice and Fire books stands out as a particular bear to complete.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, that scene was the Red Wedding. A plot twist so shocking and brutal that it's become forever associated with the mere concept of plot twists, the Red Wedding sees the deaths of Robb Stark, Catelyn Stark, and many of their circle in a despicable betrayal from the Frey family. In the books, the Red Wedding occurs midway through "A Storm of Swords," the third novel in the series, which is split up between seasons 3 and 4 of the HBO series. On the show, the event takes place in season 3, episode 9, "The Rains of Castamere."

Seeing such beloved characters killed off in such a grotesque fashion left a lasting mark on fans of both the books and the show. Perhaps that wound will be mended slightly from the knowledge that Martin himself had a similarly hard time writing the scene into being. "It was just so hard to write that scene, because I'd been inhabiting Catelyn for so long, and of course I have a lot of affection for Robb, too," the author told Time in 2017. Apparently, he wrote the entire second half of the novel before going back to finally create the Red Wedding.

In his 2017 interview with Time, Martin named the Red Wedding as being by far the hardest part of the series to write. "I knew the Red Wedding was coming and I'd been planning it all along, but when I came to that chapter, which occurs two-thirds of the way through 'A Storm of Swords,' I found I couldn't write that chapter," Martin said. "I skipped over that chapter and wrote the hundreds of pages that followed. The entire book was done, except for the scene with the Red Wedding."

It makes sense that such a pivotal moment — one that, from the sound of it, Martin had been building up to all along — would take some real time and focus to handle properly. It's a devastating chapter, and one that became the HBO adaptation's defining moment. "It was some of the hardest writing I've ever done," Martin told Time, "but it's also one of the most powerful scenes I've ever done."

The lasting cultural impact of the Red Wedding on both page and screen is a testament to just how well Martin ultimately pulled off the heart-rending twist.