The Dresden Files > DF Reference Collection
WoJ transcription help needed + mention new WoJ's here
LogicMouseLives:
Dictation by LogicMouseLives
"McAnally"
Any of your personalities that you’ve created in your books, are they based on anybody that you really know?
Um.
Like Thomas? *Laughter*
That’s me.
*more laughter*
No really I–if anybody I’m closer to Butters or Bob. Let’s see, well I based ‘em on– Well I don’t really base them on people, as a general rule. There’s a few people that have– that actually got made into the book, like Shiro is based on a pair of martial arts instructors I had, there was an Okinawan instructor and a Japanese instructor I had. Uh– McAnally. Is based on my friend– McAnally!
*laughter*
‘Cause I needed a name- I needed a name for the bar in the first book and I’m like you know I haven’t seen Sean [dunno spelling] in a– Bar! Drinking! I haven’t seen Sean in a while. Uh, McAnally’s! Yeah, that’ll be McAnally’s place, and maybe if he sees this in a book someday, he’ll– he’ll get in touch.
*Laughter*
And he did!
*more laughter* Sound fades out.
"Siblings"
But yeah, I don’t have Harry’s romantic life planned out, so, uh, I dunno. Maybe. It’s possible. [Transcriber wonders what question he was answering here…]
*Gesturing to the audience* Yes, please.
Did Harry and Thomas have any more siblings that are gonna show up?
No!
No, cross my heart on that one! *Crossing his heart*
*Laughter*
No mysterious twins, no *waving hands in front of face* Sound fades out.
"Apocolyptic Trilogy"
*Opens on laughter*
I don’t even know if he’s gonna survive!
*more laughter* [Transcriber blows raspberry at screen]
Which would be kinda funny.
*still more laughter*
Luccio theory. Marcone!
But, uh, I’ve got about twenty
Butters! *yet further laughter*
Alright alright, simmer down people, I’m pulling rank!
But I’m planning on writing about twenty of the casebooks, like the ones we’ve read so far, and then cap the whole thing off with a big old Apocalyptic Trilogy ‘cause– *several words rendered indistinguishable by cheering from audience* –ever saw.
The Apocalypse!
*Gesturing to shouting audience member* ‘Cause who doesn’t love apocalyptic trilogies!
*more laughter*
You’re the only series that I’ve got that I just, you know I went– I ended up banging up my shoulder, I was out for a couple months and I went back to the beginning of your series all over again and I went right through them in about three weeks.
*Nods appreciatively*
Sound fades out.
"Originality" A.K.A. bob the skull...and scobby doo
I try and come up with– I try and do as much stuff original as I can but I often find out, I look back on the series and find out, “Oh god, I totally ripped that off from somebody!” I just didn’t realize it at the time. You know, Bob the Skull, I’m thinking “Bob the Skull what a great thing! You know I’ve got the skull with the glowing eye lights, like that’s awesome, that’s original, I came up with that on my own!” And then I sat down with my son one night and I watched the opening segment to Scooby Doo.
*Huge laugh*
So, uh. I make an effort but I’m just not immune to culture, and uh, I’m pretty much a nerd, I watch movies every week– and all the time and–
Sound fades out.
LML
Blampira:
Broken up into 2 parts due to character restriction...
Dictation by Blampira
2007 Dragon Page interview with JB Part 1
*Intro to the Dragon Page podcast #260 with Jim Butcher*
Questions are by the podcast hosts: Michael R. Mennenga, Summer Brooks, Brian Brown, Michael A. Stackpole, Evo Terra, and Tim Adamec
Q: I actually have the knife and we're gonna cut the duct tape and release the ropes right now. We've stoled somebody, we kidnapped him from the book fair. And it's a great honor to have Jim Butcher in the studio with us. Hey, Jim.
Jim: Hey, how ya doing?
Q: Not too bad. I hope the ride in the trunk wasn't too uncomfortable?
Jim: Nah, I took some Dramamine ahead of time, so...
Q: Okay, good good. We like to make our guests comfortable. *laughs and a bit of banter* So, Jim...you got a heck of a little series going and some really popular little books going...
Jim: Apparently, yeah.
Q: You gotta be pretty happy about that.
Jim: Oh, I can't complain, that's for sure. *laughter* Pressure's on now, though. I mean before, I was just writing my 'dumb little sci-fi novels' and now the editors are all like "so when's your next NY Times bestselling book...?" So no pressure, right...
Q: Yeah, you were coasting before and now you gotta step up, right?
Jim: Oh yeah, apparently.
Q: We never...we talked before about Dresden Files, the tv series. What was the inspiration that created the book that became the tv series.
Jim: There were a couple of different things that inspired me. First one I'd mention would probably be Laurel Hamilton's "Anita Blake" series. The first couple of books were out when I started writing and I really enjoyed the heck out of them. Upon reading them, I just said to myself after reading the first couple, I was like "Wow, the author must have really had a good time writing this and must really have enjoyed themselves" you know, you could just kinda tell in the product that had come out. So I thought that was a big influence.
The second influence was a movie produced by Gale Ann Hurd, it came out on HBO in '90 or '91 called 'Cast a Deadly Spell'. Yeah, it was an excellent movie, it was really well done. I really enjoyed watching it and thought that the juxtaposition of the fantasy novel with the hardboiled detective novel, which was done very well there, I thought that had a lot of possibilities for the future.
And then I think I saw the two hour first episode of the first season of "Buffy" and just the part where Giles says "Well people tend to rationalize the things that they see that they can't understand, and the things they can't rationalize they tend to forget" and I thought 'Oooo, that's a great rationale, I'd love to play with that in a fiction story'. So that's what I did, I started writing my own.
Q: Wow. That's really cool. So the question that was asked, "How many of these books are you going to put out?"
Jim: I'm gonna do about 20 of the case books, like the ones we've seen so far. And then when we get to the end I'm gonna cap the whole thing off with a big old apocalyptic trilogy because I saw Star Wars in my formative years. *laughter* And I don't see how to get out of an apocalyptic trilogy at this point, so you know, "Why fight it?" *more laughter*
Q: That's a great answer! Were you prepared for the...let's uh...shall we say, for the um...rapid growth of the rabid fan base?
Jim: Um. NO. *laughter* No. It was bizarre. I actually showed up at DragonCon and it's a very big convention, it's in four different hotels, and so by the time I'd gotten a GPS system and a sherpa guide to show me to this room of this panel I was gonna be on, I was already 3 minutes late and there was this line of people in the hall and I'm like 'Okay, great. Not only am I gonna have to wait through this line to be able to get up to my room, for whatever panel these guys are at'. So I got in line and started waiting and there was just this sorta silence that spread out from the back of the line and just started moving down the hall and I looked up from my program and there were all these people staring at me. *laughter*
And the guy nearest me said "Are you Jim...you're Jim Butcher!?" And I'm like "Uh, yeah. Are...are all you guys here to see me?" and they're like "Yeah, the room's full and they won't let any more of us in. The rest of us are kinda standing in the hall trying to hear." And it's like "WOW!" *laughter* 'That's really flattering and totally strange.' Yeah, it was very weird, a weird feeling. And it's just sorta been that kinda thing, only more so.
Q: Has it really sunk in yet that this is just so popular and there are so many people out there that are just, you know, basically "I'm your biggest fan, man!" ?
Jim: No, no. Yeah, I live in denial. I wanna stay there. It's comfortable there.
Q: You like being regular people?
Jim: I am regular people...bottom line, I'm still playing D & D every Friday night, so...great.
Q: Awesome, great. You've got a regular gaming group, huh?
Jim: Yeah, absolutely, it's with some of my buddies from high school, actually.
Q: Cool, Do they ever make you be the DM basically and make you tell the story of...?
Jim: Oh, yeah, yeah. It's either me or my good buddy Shawn who runs it and we just give each other headaches when we play.
Q: Oh, well of course, that's half the fun, is breaking that person's plot and adventures ideas...taking a left turn on it, so... I was wandering through, and like I said before, I was trying to ignore your panel because you were answering a lot of the questions I was going to ask today...
Jim: I'm sorry.
Q: No, that's all right man, that's all right. Actually, there's one of them that I want you to recount for me, we've been kind of fairly critical on the way the show has been presented on SciFi channel, we're fairly verbal about that. But you actually had an explanation for the reason why the shows are being run out of order and why they are being done the way, and presented the way they are...
Jim: Oh, I've gotta a theory, I've got my strong theory.
Q: Yes, and that kinda put a new twist on it for me. Will you recount that for me?
Jim: Yeah, my personal theory is that - I don't know what anyone else has said - but from what I've seen on the show and from talking to some of the folks who're up there, I think they aired the show in the order of whichever episode needed the least post-production first. They didn't even start filming until November 15th and they were gonna air the first episode Jan. 21, and yeah, they just had to slam those episodes through. So they looked around and said "We've only got 3 episodes finished, which one are we gonna do?" -- "Uh, I dunno...which one needs the least work?" -- " 'Birds of a Feather'!" - "Right, 'Birds of a Feather', get that one on the air! That one will be first." Nothing really to do with the overall story, but in terms of the realities of production.
Q: I never looked at it that way, and now that you say that, that would make sense. Because the first few shows were the ones to have the least amount of magic, least amount of special effects, least amount of anything that needed to be done for, other than just shooting the straight stock, so...
Jim: Absolutely.
Q: Hmmmm. Wow. That makes sense. It makes a lot more sense but then it begs the question A) Why didn't they start shooting sooner?, or B) Why didn't they push back the air date later?
Jim: Oh, well, 'push back the air date' - can't have that, that would alter somebody's schedule...
Q: Well, of course, you have so much creative control over what's happening. *laughter*
Jim: Exactly! That's right. I can call people on the phone and have them destroyed now.
*laughter*
Q: Well, on the way up here you were telling me your hopes for season 2, could you recount that?
Jim: Oh, yeah. I'm hoping they do a season 2 and I was talking to Robert Wolfe on the set. I was like "Hey, Robert, I might be interested in trying to do a script for this" and I'm sure Robert would just love to have another noobie on board in addition to the other stuff he was doing. Script writing and novel writing being very different creatures, they really are. But Robert's like "Alright. Well, you know what Jim? IF we have a season 2 and IF they still have me on the show, then we'll talk about it." So there was enough caveats there. There's a lot of caveats in Hollywood, I don't know if anybody...
Q: Yeah, hmm, yeah. Imagine that?
Jim: Yeah, so IF that happens, I'll be able to pitch in more directly in the creative process. If not, I'll just have to rely upon the viral influence. I actually sent copies of all my books to the cast and crew so they could all read it. I even gave Paul a copy of the British versions. I said "Here, it's all spelled 'aluminium' so you won't be threatened."
Q: *laughter* Colour, with an extra 'u' in there. It's hard to believe that he's British from his character he portrays, you know, in the way he does his craft. Because I've even seen him in other things and of course you see him in this and he's got a pretty good Chicago accent.
Jim: Yeah, he does a pretty good job.
Q: Wow! That guy's British? Freaky.
Jim: Yeah, I would just love to see Harry and Bob on the show get body-switched so we'd have the British guy doing the British accent and the American guy doing the American accent and they can make fun of each others flaws in their accents by duplicating them.
Q: *laughter* That's great. That would be funny. That's just an outtake, a one scene outtake that's just begging to be made. Shoot it on the side, put it on the DVD, everybody'd be happy. Have you been to any of the production? I mean, have you been on set, have you talked to any of the people?
Jim: Oh, yes. I was on set when they were actually filming the pilot and actually meeting folks and so on. I was only there for about a day. Then when they were filming one about Bob, when I went up this time, is when I actually appeared on the show. I'm actually in the background in that scene, I'm one of Butter's...one of the medical examiner's assistants, you know. I help him tote in a coffin and open it up, I'm basically Igor, but with no lines.
Q: *laughter* I gotta look for that now...yeah. I'm going, hmmm, yeah, I think I remember that episode. Jim in the background. I'm gonna have to pay closer attention to the background scene, because I remember that episode but I wasn't paying attention to the background.
Jim: Well, I had the hair pulled back in the pony tail and it makes me a totally different person. It's called makeup.
Q: So, are you...you are very happy with what they've done with your novelization...?
Jim: I'm enjoying the show alot. I mean, I started writing the books to begin with because they were the stories I wanted to read but no one was writing them, so I had to write them myself. Now that the show's on tv it's like the stories are stories I like but I don't have to do any work, and since I've got Tivo I don't even have to be there on time, so...*laughter* That's having your cake and eating it too!
Q: That's true. Now, you had mentioned wanting to do 20 stories...
Jim: Uh, about 20 case books. It could be 19, it could be 21 - depending on if my kid goes to graduate school. *laughter*
Q: How often are we gonna get these?
Jim: Uh, once a year, it looks like for the near future. Or faster. Sometimes they'll say "Alright, we wanna nudge it up, we wanna nudge the next book up 3 months" or something like that depending when they adjust their schedule, but...
Q: Well...now when a series gets that large, there's a lot of people who want to dip their toes in and do some spinoffs on there. Are you cool with that, do you think there's enough room in this world to kinda play around with the story and let other people, uh, play with your toys, so to speak?
Jim: Well, possibly. I guess I never really considered anybody would wanna do that.
Q: Really? I guess I can see that...
Jim: I know folks have asked me about writing a collaberative book and it's like, well, I don't know anybody that I hate that much.
*laughter*
Q: I think a series about the Wardens would be kinda cool, you know. I'm thinking there's so much in this universe where someone could take an aspect of this universe and run with it. You know, take the 'Ravens'...follow them around. Or follow another one of the groups around and just build a whole new dove-tailed story or whole new line out of that.
Jim: Very possible. Hmmm, interesting. See, now you've given me whole new ideas and I'm gonna go home and stew over them and add something else to my list of projects.
Blampira:
2007 Dragon Page interview with JB...continued
Part 2
Q: I'm good at putting people on projects that they have no time for. So Jim, let me jump in here and try and get this thing back to talking about 'books'....remember guys "cover to cover" ... Outside of the Dresden series you've also written Codex Alera.
Jim: Yes, Codex Alera.
Q: And uh, it's not a secret that I am not a fan of the whole 'fantasy' genre. I've said that on many occasions. A year or so ago, a guy by the name of Daniel Emory contacted and said, "You keep saying you don't like fantasy. You've got to try this book I just read called 'Furies of Calderon' by Jim Butcher. I think you'll like it." Just so happened that that day, the book showed up in the studio. So I sat down and I read it. The whole friggin thing in about 6 hours. Well done! Well done!
Jim: Aw, thank you.
Q: 'Cause I don't like fantasy but I really liked that, and I think I know why. You've got - at least - two different races of people, of humanoids or whatever, intelligent beasts in here. Right? I saw them a lot more as alien, versus a monster race and a human race.
Jim: Well, yeah.
Q: Is that the idea?
Jim: Yeah, that's really kinda what I was hoping for, so...
Q: Hurray, I got it. Yay! Now, you've got to recount how that story came about because I was cracking up when you were saying that.
Jim: Alright. This starts off with a bad horror movie title called "I was an Internet Loudmouth". This was...I was an internet loudmouth, I was one of these guys who always had lots of opinions and was happy to share them with any...with everyone. 'Let me just go ahead and lock the caps lock key, it's gonna be there the rest of evening' - tickatickatickaticka - while I was answering things. And I was on several different writing lists and one of the discussions we were having involved the 'sanctity of the idea versus the presentation of the creator'. Which, you know, that was internet loudmouth talk for - 'cause we all had our English lit. degree so, you know, we couldn't just say things in normal English 'cause that's not impressive.
The idea was, on one side of the argument people were saying there's some ideas that are so good, no matter how terrible a writer you are, that idea will stand and it will be something mighty and something very cool. "Look at Jurassic Park!" Well, okay. I didn't necessarily agree, okay that example was a little hard to fight sure, but I didn't necessarily agree with the idea and I was the champion on the other side, because I was a loudmouth and I would take up arguments, just for the fun of being on the other side many times. So I was the one championing the counter-idea that no matter how bad the idea is, that really the strength of the story comes from the presentation and the skill of the writer. And that if you had a terrible idea you could take a good writer with good presentation and you could still make a good story.
And so the champion on the other side turns to me and says "Okay, put your time where your mouth is. Let me give you a terrible idea and let me see you write something good out of it."
And I said "No. Why don't you give me two terrible ideas and I'll see what I can write out of it." *laughter* 'Cause being the loudmouth wasn't good enough.
So the guy says "Alright, let me give you terrible ideas. Here's the first terrible idea: lost Roman legion. I am sick of lost Roman legions. All of the lost Roman legions should have been found by now, I've seen that story way too many times, I'm tired of it. That's the first idea."
I said "Okay, lost Roman legion. Fine. What's the next one?"
And he said "Pokémon!"
*BIG round of laughter*
Jim: Which, uh, I was familiar with Pokémon at the time - not because it had any particular appeal to myself - but because I had a seven year old kid and, you know, I just wanted to be a good father. Which is why I had to teach him that dad's Mr. Mime deck would totally overcome his Charm Andrew deck every week. *laughter* "You cannot defeat Mr. Mime and his invisible wall!"
And so I went and did research, I broke down the ideas behind it. And I looked at the lost Roman legion, it was the 9th Hibernia legion. I said 'okay, who's in this legion?' and it was about half of these cosmopolitan Roman city types and about half German mercenaries. And so 'who else would be with them?' Well a bunch of support staff, so I got some basic numbers of who would be there in support of the legion, and then 'what about camp followers?' Well, depending on how many of the legion guys had common law wives and families following along and there'd be other people there to sell things to the Legionnaires, who were regularly paid - which was odd in the ancient world. So I said "Okay, this is who we've got and we're going to take them and we're going to drop them off in this fantasy world, 'cause I'm writing fantasy, 'cause that's what I do.
Okay. Let me look at Pokémon over here. Pokémon is basically, it's the meeting of two ideas and that is the Shinto religion and professional wrestling. Pokémon is a literalization of the Shinto religion, the belief that in all natural things there's a spirit of divine - a kami - inside it, and that a great big mountain has a great big kami and you'd better respect it; and a tiny pebble has a little tiny kami and you probably should respect it, but if you don't then what's it gonna do? It's a pebble. So I said, "Okay, let's take that literalization and I'll take that, that can be my fantasy world."
And then I said "Okay, we need a good name for 'em, I gotta get a good name" and the movie that was in the background while I was scribbling these ideas down was 'Big Trouble in Little China'. We get to the scene where the old Chinese guy is talking and one of them says "All movement in the universe is caused by tension of positive and negative furies". And I went, "Oooooo 'Furies'! That's great!" So I grabbed it and I named my elemental spirits "Furies" and I set up my fantasy world and tossed the lost Roman legion into it and gave them a thousand years to develop a society and off we go. We're off and running.
Q: Wow. Oh wow. *laughter* I just sat there and went "Oh my god, that's awesome." Cool.
Jim: Yeah...and if you've read the books it puts a different take on things once you mention Pokémon. "Brutus, I choose you".
*laughter*
Q: You know we've had this running idea about "Highlanders and Harleys". Yeah, that's true, we were talking about kilts and motorcycles...that was the last one. Yes, the lost MacLeod clan on Harleys, in kilts. So, there's a running idea for you, you know, run for it...more bad ideas. Jim's like, I want a good idea now, please.
Jim: No, I keep coming up with new ones, I just hope I live long enough to write them all. But I've got another...I've got 3 Furies books out, I've just finished book 4, I'm gonna do 6 in the series total. Then after that I'll start on some actual science fiction, and that will be fun.
Q: Give us a run-down, where you gonna be in the next few months coming up? With projects in the works and all that fun crap?
Jim: Oh, I've been on tour, they've been flying me everywhere and so it's like airport, hotel, bookstore, hotel, airport and just repeat that every day. It's been fun, I've been gone for like 2 weeks. I got to stop over at home to grab some fresh laundry one night and then back out again. I'm back home tomorrow and then I'm off to the Pike's Peak Writers Convention where I'll be next weekend. And then I'll be at the Romantic Times Book convention, along with my wife. I think they actually wanted me for a couple of panels, too, but my wife is a romance author now and she tells me I have to behave or she's going to pay cover models to dance with me and they don't have girl cover models at those conventions, so...
Q: Fabio!
Jim: Yeah. Exactly. Well, the real bad part about that is that I would have to dance. To be the guy there, okay, yeah I'd have personal issues, but that's not as bad as the dancing. That's gonna be my major appearances for the rest of this month, you can stop by my website for my appearances calendar. But then after that, I've gotta start busting on the next Dresden book, I've gotta have that done by June 1st, so...
Q: Huh? What? Wait, hold on...St...start? By June...? You...your...you're at least started, right?! {note: the post date of this podcast was April 30}
Jim: I'm on chapter 5, yeah.
Q: Wow! *laughter, jokes* I've got a rough outline of it, uh, got an extension'.
Jim: Actually, I've got a good story about that from the Furies books, the third book, Cursor's Fury. The cover is this gorgeous cover of these two lions made out of water and they're leaping out of this river on this guy in Legionnaires' armor. To get the cover, my editor calls me and she says "Hey, we need a scene from the book we can do, to make a really good cover." Cause you know, the book was due in a month.
And I looked at her and said "Jim, you can't tell her that you're on chapter 3". *laughter* So I said, "Okay, just do the cover with this uh...with these two lions made out of water jumping up out of a river and a guy in Legionaire standard and armor and do that."
And they were like "Ooooo, that's fantastic, that'll be a really great cover" and she ran off to do her editor's stuff and I sat there for like two weeks thinking to myself as I wrote, "How am I going to fit this into the book?" But it actually worked out really well, and it came out with a great cover, so I kinda did the same thing for the next one...and so...hopefully it'll do well for that one too.
*laughter*
Q: Have you found that you've written enough of these now that you can just kinda scrawl them out without much effort or at least without as much effort as the first ones?
Jim: No. As soon as I get over-confident like that I write myself into a corner, so it's one of those things where the smarter I am the more I plan out ahead of time and that kinda leaves me a little less time thinking "how in the world am I gonna get him out of this" and a little more time thinking about the nuances and the grace touch, grace notes and so on.
*Interview wraps up with a thank you to Jim Butcher*
Serack:
Ok, just like I thought when I started this topic, YOU GUYS ROCK! Thanks for all the effort. As Tsunami's post illustrates, having dictations of these is really helpful to a lot of people out there that have issues with watching/listening to video/audio recordings of these, because of reasons like lack of broadband, or hearing impaired. In addition to that, it can make it easier to find obscure WoJs like the one about how he spent the summer doing things with his son who is going off to college (Just an example of something that I wouldn't have taken a transcription of for the DF compilation).
I'm going to start small with
2010 Buzzy Multimedia interview youtube video
Serack:
Dictation by Serack
2010 Buzzy Multimedia interview youtube video
*Harpsichord Music in the background*
*text*
BUZZY MULTIMEDIA
www.buzzymultimedia.com
PRESENTS
*end text*
Flash to poster of Changes cover
*text*
THERE'S WIZARDRY:
author Jim Butcher on
"CHANGES"
a novel of The Dresden Files
*end text* *End Harpsichord Music*
*Jim*
In a non Spoilery way...
Dresden finds out he actually has a child by Susan Rodriguez whom he had a steamy encounter with way back in book 5 and finds out that he has a daughter who's about 8 years old. And not only that, but that she's been taken by the Red Court.
He Has to do something about it because nobody else is going to. He tries to go get some help from the White Council which does him about as much good as it always does, which is to say they make things worse. After that everything is going to be up to him so he is going to find out exactly how far he is willing to go to save his daughter. And exactly what he is willing to sacrifice and give up to do so. Dresden has been offered so many things over the years. This is one of those books where all of those old deals are much more tempting than they ever have been before. He's got to decide, he may not have the options he had before of just calmly turning away from it, where now, if he does, it might be his little girl who dies.
*text*
Why did you give Harry a daughter as opposed to a son?
*end text*
*Jim*
I wanted him to get hit with absolutely the worst person he would need to protect. He has so far resisted all these offers that have come along. I wanted to give him the absolute worst, or absolute best maybe, reason to get over his moral objections that he's had before, or force himself through them in order to protect a life.
Harry has always had this real Cavalier complex, especially where women are concerned. It isn't a survival trait for him, but he's got it anyway. Not only was he going to protect his child, but his child is also female and that makes a difference in his thinking. It isn't rational, but it is part of who he is. Harry wouldn't be "ah it's a boy screw him," but it's not just his child, it's a little girl who needs protection. It's something that can change his mind about decisions he's made before.
Writing this book was like I was finally getting to pull the trigger on so many things I have been building for so long. I felt like the special effects guy in "Tropic Thunder", you know. Just havin way too much fun with my job.
*text*
Do the events of "Changes" happen about when you expected in the Dresden time-line?
*end text*
*Jim*
When in the Dresden Files did I know the plot of changes?
That was when I first set up the story, which was originally for a class project, so uh, it would be about 1996. I kinda planned out the entire story arc of the series. I knew the general events of it. Specifically how things were going to work out with Susan and so on was something I adjusted to on the fly, but I knew this was going to be kind of a mile stone moment in his "wizardly" career.
*text*
Did you go from two-word titles to a one-word title to signify that "Changes" does mark a change?
*end text*
*Jim* *Vigorous head nodding*
Absolutely, that was one of the things. It was a, supposed to be indicative. The same thing with the doo, this is my promotional doo. *points at his freshly shorn hair*
*text*
What is your writing process?
*end text*
*Jim*
I write linearly from beginning to end. Chapter 1 to chapter whatever, to the end of the book. I don't think I'm smart enough to do it the other way, I just have to go one bit at a time.
*text*
Which characters are the most fun to write?
*end text*
*Jim*
Oh, I have fun with so many characters. I got to do some more Mab in this book, and Mab is always one of my favorites to write. Mouse is also great fun to right. Sanya, the last Knight of the Cross who's in operation got to show up. *Russian Accent*Is always fun writing Sanya with his Russian accent in my head. *end Russian Accent*
*text*
Does Mouse look anything like this?
*end text*
*jim holds a, 8 inch statue of a Chinese temple dog almost exactly like the right statue in this picture, but a darker bronze*
*Jim*
Yes, this is a statue of a foo dog, or at least a replica of a statue, Mouse himself is a temple dog. The way he looks in my head is he looks a lot more like a Russian Caucasian. The Soviets bread them as security dogs, from Tibetan mastiffs, and I think Saint Bernards. Mouse looks quite somewhat like this, if you scale up a Tibetan Mastiff, you get to Mouse Size, and that's about where he is. He gets to take part in the adventure in this one, and have a lot of fun as well. You'll get to find out more about Mouse, and exactly where he's fun, and about the kinds of things he can do and why. But you know, I don't want to spoil that for anybody, that's for the future.
There are people that ask me if I could ever write something from Mouse's point of view, and I say, "I would, but then the reader would know too much." Mouse is quite a bit smarter I think than Harry in some ways.
*text*
mythology in The Dresden Files
*end text*
*Jim*
One of the things I wanted to do for the Dresden files was, I wanted to create a world not where I was going to pick one mythology or the other that was the correct one, but where they could all be true, and yet not true at the same time. Something that could encompass virtually anything anyone believed, and to explain how it got to be that way. To make it feasible for them to exist side by side. So that I could be playing around with demi-gods from one culture, struggling against divine beings of another.
*text*
Favorite Files?
*end text*
*Jim*
Oh, Changes is pretty close. It's right up there between Changes and Dead Beat, because Zombie Trex! I mean what else do you need to say about Dead Beat. That was an enormous amount of fun to write. But Changes was extremely gratifying for me because there were so many things that had been building up and building up over the course of the entire series before, that I finally got to make happen here.
*text*
Do you write the dialogue with the Dresden FIles audiobooks, read by James Marsters, in mind?
*end text* (Transcribers note, Buzzy Multimedia is the company that produces the audio books)
*Jim*
I don't really write the dialogue thinking about the audiobooks, mostly because I only have the vaguest understanding of how that gets put together. I am not an audio performer myself. Even if I tried to put it together for the audio books, I'm not sure if I wouldn't be making it worse. So mostly I just try and write like I always have. I probably should apologize to James for that sometime. I should research the audio thing and see if I can write something friendlier.
*text*
Will there be more Dresden Files graphic novels/comics?
*end text*
*Jim*
Yes, there will. Dynamite is going to be busy issuing the second four issues of Storm Front which should be out in the next few months. And then after that they are going on to Fool Moon, and they are already trying to convince me to write another original story like "Welcome to the Jungle" was. I'm really tempted, because writing comics is fun.
*text*
What are some of the big debates among fans of The Dresden Files?
*end text*
*Jim*
Some of the things that I've seen:
There's enormous arguments about who should get one of the Swords of the Cross, and which person should be wielding them. Who might have stolen Thorned Namshiel's coin, and who's actually a secret Denarian now, and walking among the members of the cast. Of course, who Harry should wind up with romantically is always a huge discussion on the boards. I am sure there are many many others, the exact way magic works, you know, what Harry should be doing to manufacture the most advantageous gear for himself, and so on.
*text*
Did your beta-readers have opinions about your "Lord of the Rings" recasting?
*end text*
*Jim*
At one point in the books, the characters are arguing who they are in The Fellowship of the Ring. There's some fairly unusual decisions about who was playing who. And in the discussion inside the books, the beta readers had their own take on it. There was this huge discussion on, well if we were casting Lord of the Rings for the Dresden Files, who would be who. We're not even sure who might be Frodo. It might be Murphy, because I think everybody there would be afraid to cast Murphy as the dwarf, I think because she would have something to say about that so. I know if I was standing near Murphy I wouldn't suggest that she should be the dwarf.
*text*
Why did you cast Harry as Sam?
*end text*
*Jim*
Sam was really the Hero in The Lord of the Rings in a great many ways, he was the one who mattered. But yah, I had a great time writing that scene, and I'm sure the Beta's had a great time arguing it, and I'm sure that argument will carry on to the fan forums. If you wana drop by jim-butcher.com and check out our fan forums, you might be able to throw in your own 2 bits into the discussion.
*text*
By the end of the Dresden Files series, will all our questions be answered?
*end text*
*Jim*
I hope so. I do want to be able to answer all the questions at the end of the series, mostly because I'm fundamentally a lazy writer so I don't want to write something that I don't want to use for something later on. All the threads I've got hanging, I want to make sure I have them all tied up nice and neat before we are done.
Book Twelve is not the last book, so for all the people who are asking, Fear not, there will be a Book Thirteen. The Publishers already payed me for it so I have to write it. Look for it Next year.
*text*
interview conducted & edited by Abbie Bernstein
Music by Eric Kufs (transcribers note, there was also acoustic guitar music for each text interlude after the intro with harpsichord.)
special thanks:
Jim Butcher
Angela Januzzi
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
Huntington Beach, Calif.
This interview has been a presentation of
BUZZY MULTIMEDIA
www.buzzymultimedia.com
*end text*
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