The Importance of the Spine of Action- Game of Thrones and Legend of the Galactic Heroes

The importance of a story’s central activity, or Spine of Action should never be underestimated when writing, especially when you’re writing longer works. Two beautiful examples of this are George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and Yoshiki Tanaka’s Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Two very different epic stories which mirror each other in one central way- both authors ignored the spines of action of their works and paid the price for it.

If you don’t know what a Spine of Action is, or ca...