Martin stated in a 2012 interview that The Winds of Winter and the following book, A Dream of Spring, would take readers farther north than any of the previous books, and the Others will appear in the book. The last installment, A Dance with Dragons, covered less story than Martin intended, excluding at least one planned extensive battle sequence and leaving several character threads ending in cliffhangers. Martin wants to resolve these storylines "very early" in The Winds of Winter, saying, "I'm going to open with the two big battles that I was building up to, the battle in the ice and the battle at Meereen—the battle of Slaver's Bay. And then take it from there." A Victarion Greyjoy chapter will begin five minutes after the end of A Dance with Dragons, taking place on the eve of the Ironborn's arrival in Slaver's Bay. Arianne Martell's sample chapters that Martin released on his website showed her heading for Griffin's Roost to see the young man who is calling himself Aegon Targaryen. At the 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. Winter is the time when things die, and cold, ice, and darkness fill the world, so this is not going to be the happy, feel-good people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places. .... Things get worse before they get better, so things are getting worse for a lot of people."
