A Feast for Crows
The manuscript length of "A Feast for Crows" eventually surpassed "A Storm of Swords". Martin was reluctant to make the necessary deep cuts to get the book down to publishable length, as that would have compromised the story he had in mind. Printing the book in "microtype on onion skin paper and giving each reader a magnifying glass" was also not an option for him. On the other hand, Martin rejected the publishers' idea of splitting the narrative chronologically into "A Feast for Crows", Parts One and Two. Being already late with the book, Martin had not even started writing all characters' stories and also objected to ending the first book without any resolution for its many viewpoint characters as in previous books.