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Patrick Bateman:
I'm banging out Dragoncon 2013 right now, just as an FYI to everyone.

TheCuriousFan:
You can thank Patrick Bateman for this transcription, he just sent it to me to check the formatting.

Here is the video for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NEHTk0gVaQ

(click to show/hide)Announcer: I have a couple of questions for Jim while everyone is lining up and then we’ll get to yours. I guess we don’t really need to introduce you anyways, do we? I think you write some stuff?

Jim Butcher: No, we all know each other, right? (Cheering)

Announcer: I think you write this series of books about this guy, who I believe you referred to yesterday as a magical plumber (Laughter). So this is Jim Butcher, everybody, just in case you didn't know. I would really like to address two things about the series that really interest me the most, and one of them is that I think that you meld the mundane world and the supernatural world so well. Did you set out to do that purposely or was that something that just kind of came together as you started writing the series and continued on?


Jim: Um, well yeah that was kind of the whole idea, was I wanted, you know I wanted to write this character who was a wizard who did all these fantastic supernatural otherworldy things but who was basically the nerd next door, like the kind of guy who might show up to your barbeque and would be amusing.

Audience: I have images of Harry coming to my barbeque.

Jim: I would never want Harry at MY barbeque (laughter)

(unintelligible, followed by laughter)

Audience: The other thing that I really enjoy about the series is your use of humor. That you do such a nice job of … of playing the line between subtle and overt so well that, you know sometimes he can be a little snarky, but it gets to that point where you always pull him back where you don’t say “oh my god this guy drives me insane”. So again was that something that was purposeful or did you just find his voice in time?

Jim: Well as far as him, like, well as far as him like lipping off to people …. I don’t know where he gets that. That’s just sort of something that I kind of grew into and developed more and more as my son got older.

*At this point the questions are somewhat unintelligible, but you can understand that they’re talking about Jim’s son a little.*

Jim: A teenager? He’s twenty two! Oh he started when he was eleven, oh my gosh.

Audience: Can you tell us a little bit about the upcoming new series?

Jim: The upcoming new series is called the Cinder Spires, the first book is titled The Aeronaut’s Windlass, it’s a steampunk series although, um, I don’t know if it’s really so much Steampunk as Steamopera, but I didn't really think they would put a whole new genre thing on the spine or anything like that for me, but, yea so I really think it’s more steam opera. It’s kind of Hornblower meets the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, um actually it’s Hornblower meets x-men, but league of extraordinary gentlemen seems a little steampunkier. But anyway it’s going to be a good time, it’s gotten a really really good response from the beta readers, stronger than anything else I've written so far and hopefully it’ll be something that you’ll enjoy.

Announcer: As you can tell all of these folks are looking forward to it very much. Ok we will start with our questions, Sheila over here?

Audience: Hi Jim, Um I’m the one that ran into you last night on the street (laughter).

Jim: That’s weird. I’m not used to that kind of thing. But not unpleasant, just weird.

Audience: I look for authors pictures, so I know, see? Um my question actually to you, is what kind of research did you do when you were going into Harry Dresden, on the supernatural, regarding magic, demons, the fae and Catholicism because I love the way you blend the fake and real as far as faith perspectives.

Jim: Um, let’s see. Well when I was first putting it together, I first cruised over to, I think it was a Borders at the time, and went into the metaphysical section, and just picked up half a dozen different books on various forms of wicca and witchraft. Not like the “history of” books, but like the books who were written by the people who that’s their religion. That’s what they practice. And so I said “Ok, let me start looking at what people think, and I want to put together the magic system of the Dresden files, somehow out of this. I’ll use this as my basis.”

And, uh, so I went through and I picked out everything that I thought was cool, and I threw the rest of it away, and then I added some special effects. Because in the real world magic is apparently, it’s really not really a high special effect budget thing. And so … not… well I wanted him to throw fireballs. I’m sorry - I started playing D&D in first grade – I’m stuck with that. (cheering)

But that was kind of the research that I did as far as that went, and far as specifically researching Catholicism I haven’t gotten real heavy into. As far as Christianity goes, I was kind of raised on the mental side of fundamental, you know, as opposed to the fun side of fundamental, which I kind of got to a little later. But I had a significant amount of bible schooling, and in my personal life I’m really closer to Christian than anything else, but yeah I mean I was one of those kids who went to camps where you memorized books of the bible during the summer. So I've been drawing on that from my own personal life experience.

Audience: I've been a fan of the Dresden files for a really long time, and as a religion major it got my degree in religion. I was so fascinated by how you reconciled traditional religious practices with other spiritual ideas and how you gave Harry his own.. sort of… beliefs and religion. How did you come to that conclusion? How did you make it all work? Because I came from a household where like… Harry Potter was not allowed to come in.

Jim: I know, I know. I actually got in trouble for playing D&D in the first grade and so I had to play it on the sly. At one point I actually, I had my evil collection of fantasy novels rounded up and burned. Yes, that evil, evil, Piers Anthony, Ummmm, I don’t know. It wasn't something that I planned, it was something that came out as I was writing, and it was just something that I kind of put together and “oh this seems to make sense” and that’s really most of what I’m doing when I’m writing, is I’m building something and I’m not really sure what it’s going to be because I’m too busy building it. But when it’s done it should work, and so far it seems to.

Audience: I was gloating about being here and my bestie said that your novels are by men, for men. I disagree, but I would like to give him some information. How do you handle writing for female characters, is it difficult for you and where do you get inspiration for females in your novels?

Jim: Um is it difficult for me to handle female characters? I don’t know, I uh don’t think so? They seem like the rest of my imaginary friends. I mean I try and do the best I can, I mean at the end of the day that’s all you can do as a writer. You kind of put yourself in somebody else’s head and you see if you can actually try and think what it might be like to be them. As far as inspiration for my female characters they come from a lot of different places. But mostly I don’t really sort my characters into male and female, or really human or not human for that matter. I just kind of build my character. So I don’t know if you think I’m doing ok, great, I could probably get better. I’m working on it.

Audience: At the end of the Codex Alera series, spoilers for anybody who hasn't gotten there yet, you switch the magic system from a lineage base to what you said was merit based. Can you describe how you envision that working?

Jim: Uh yeah. Really … ok…. The way it was working in Alera from then on was everybody was going to have essentially the same amount of base talent, which essentially was going to be not very much. And if you worked at it you got stronger, and if you worked at it more you got still stronger, and so on. And so it’s one of those things where if you want to be an insanely powerful crafter in Alera in the future, you’re going to have to work insanely hard to make it happen, but you could do it. So just, you know, throwing that out there. I don’t know if we’ll ever get back there, but that was kind of the way it was going to be set up to work in the future.

Audience: If you could write fanfiction for any series, what series would it be and why?

Jim:If I could write fanfiction for any series? I CAN write fanfiction for any series! That’s why it’s fanfiction! (Laugher and applause). Oh my gosh let me think – probably, well except because I think that it’s too holy, I would do Vorkosigan stuff. I’ve had ideas for like a troop of colonial marines in a David Weber series, only *unintelligent* and marines. Let me think who else I would do, because now I’m blanking a little bit. Oh! I would want to do a colonial dragons in the Temeraire series, who would be just kind of thuggish dragons, they would be great.

Audience: It's obvious from reading your books that you're a gamer, not just that the fact that you mentioned it a couple minutes ago-

Jim: I am not a gamer sir, how dare you accuse me (joking tone).

Audience: and having been inspired to play the game with your character’s name on it, I wanted to ask you what games are you playing now

Jim: What games do I play. Ok for role playing games, uh my favorite is Warhammer Fantasy roleplay. And I like the old version better, and I’ll argue with my kid because he likes the new one that *unintelligible* did, so we wind up playing that one a lot of the time. I realized that my son had reached twenty two years of age or twenty one years of age turning twenty two in fall without ever having actually played dungeons and dragons, because he’d only played warhammer, and I realized that I had failed. So we got a bunch of guys together and, and it was him and several of his cousins and several of his friends and we rolled up characters. Except I wanted to play D&D except D&D isn’t D&D anymore because It’s 4th edition and I didn’t really like it and it’s lame. So I went and got a pathfinder rulebook (interrupted by cheering) and we started playing pathfinder. And because it’s tradition I started him in the caves of chaos, except I set it during a fantasy world zombie apocalypse and the Keep on the Borderlands is like the last place, one of the last places around where humanity still has a foothold. And they’re sending a party out with the caves of chaos to try and make an alliance with the greenskins against the zombies. So you know you’re going to fight some of the stuff in caves of chaos, some of the other stuff you’re maybe going to have to make a deal with, and they’re having a lot of fun doing that. But it’s awesome, a zombie apocalypse D&D is so much fun.

Audience: Um so I've noticed a lot of the things you say sound like they could have come right out of Harry’s mouth, you know for obvious reasons (laughter).

Jim: Yes they come out of ‘Harry’s mouth’ – that is so clutch I’m going to stick with that, because that gives me total deniability (laughter).

Audience: I’m just wondering after writing one character first person for so long, how much that has affected your personality or how much of your personality you’ve put into your character.

Jim: Oh God knows. Because I sure don’t. For the most part I think I have become no cooler, and no less nerdy. So I don’t know maybe that’s just reinforced what was already there. As far as writing Harry goes, that’s just, at this point, it’s easy. I don’t even need to really think about it anymore, I just kind of sit down and do it. Um Harry’s kind of a guy I’d like to think I’d be, if I had that kind of power. I gotta tell you I think I’d be one of the giggling villains though. Not even one of the sinister ones, or one of the quiet or scary ones, I’d be one of the ones that was having a good time. But uh, Harry’s the guy I like to think I’d be.

Audience: So when it came to the character of Butters, why polka? Of all the things he was really into, why polka?

Jim: Why NOT Polka! Oh gosh, besides I like Weird Al Yankovich’s polka … unintelligible… um I actually think if you’ve never heard like angry white boy polka, and all the other various polka songs he’s done, it takes far more skill for him to perform them as polka than I think the original songs did, being performed as pop songs, and I just love those.

Audience: I had a question about Harry’s family tree, because I remember in Turn Coat Ebenezar McCoy’s scolds Dresden about Thomas Raith and says “he’s not your friend, he’s a monster”. I was wondering if Ebenezar McCoy was aware that Thomas Raith was also his grandson, and if he did what his feelings on that would be.

Jim: His feelings on that are bleak. To say the least. Yeah Ebenezar is aware. It’s one of those things he would rather not be aware of. But anyways.
Here is the first third of the transcript, I'll probably get the rest out tomorrow but for now I go to sleep. (EDIT: two and a half months later and I finally got around to posting it)

Once again, thank Patrick Bateman for this transcript, I'm just the one posting it.

TheCuriousFan:
(click to show/hide)Audience: I think I remember you saying in an interview that you really liked heroes that were maybe not the most powerful, but they got the best of the super powerful big bads by cleverness and whatnot, but it’s kind of obvious that throughout the course of the Dresden Files harry has been getting more and more powerful. (Repeats the question). Do you anticipate Harry leveling up anymore before the apocalyptic trilogy?

Jim:Um, have you ever read Old Man’s War by John Scalzi? Ok one of the things he says in it is… ok basically these colonials, the deal is when they get old they go off to space and they get given like this new body. And the deal is that they have to fight for the colonial army for a while – that’s the trade. And the new body they get is like incredible. It’s like super athletic, and photosynthetic, and regenerative and everything, I mean it’s super super cool. And they give them these guns that are based on nanotechnology and they give them a lecture that says “listen, in the history of mankind, soldiers have never been sent to war with what they wanted. They’ve been sent to war with the bare necessities for what they need to survive, and it’s never enough". If you ask any soldier it’s never quite enough for what they would want. And that’s sort of what I’m doing for Dresden, so you know Dresden kind of started off kind of a little fish, and he’s never going to be the big fish in the pond. He just isn’t – the pond’s just too damned big. But yea I mean you’re going to see more stuff from him, and really what you’re going to see more of I think as the series goes on from here, is not so much Harry getting muscles as Harry getting brains. And uh he’s really becoming craftier and sneakier and planning things out ahead a little better, is really how you become more powerful when you’re a wizard. Leave the pure power stuff for you know, knights and stuff like that, they can go do that stuff. But Harry’s a wizard, it’s going to be a little different. But yea he’s got bigger and bigger bad guys to fight, and yea I don’t think I’m really handing him enough to keep up with the bad guys, but you know. It’s good for him – it forces him to be smarter, faster. (laughter)

Audience: I want to start off by thanking you for saving my marriage (laughter). About 8 months ago my wife had reread the twilight series for like the fifth time, and things were getting pretty bad so my wife picked up storm front, and eight months later we had both read the entire series. And it’s a great series, but my question is you just mentioned the knights, have you thought about once you refill their ranks, giving them their own novel, or are they just going to stay subplot characters?

Jim: Oh um, I had never really considered a spinoff specifically for the knights, it’s something that certainly could have its own story (cheering). I do have an idea for a spinoff series which is in development, and that way I could have something to do after I get done with it. *unintelligible* If the stage falls over this way, you’ll know why (laughter). But yea I mean definitely a spinoff series in the Dresden Files universe is something that I kind of have in mind, for after the end of this one, but yea I don’t want to… I’ve invested too much in his world and I’m always building it and I don’t know if I could just walk away from it like that.

Audience: I was wondering what’s your personal favorite line or quote or even just description from the books?

Jim: MY favorite? I don’t know, man. I don’t really think I’m terribly objective on that. I know that my favorite line is “the building was on fire and it wasn’t my fault”. As a writer I’m proud of that one, although I did wind up at a on a writing panel at one point, and the title of the panel was “Setting Things on Fire: How do you make your writing more exciting without resorting to such petty tricks as setting buildings on fire”. And, you know, how could I respond to that? I kept saying, “just set it on fire” (laughter).

Audience: Hi! So as a pagen, it’s actually pretty important to me that you write the fae so realistically as you do, I focus on the fae myself. So my question for you is, with the folklore you've worked on so far, Celtic folklore, Norse traditions, Catholicism,which has been your favorite to explore and what folklore mythology do you want to touch on in the future?

Jim: Probably the Norse stuff has been my very favorite, and seeing how it’s blended into… how it’s seeped down into other parts of culture, exploring the links between Odin and Santa Clause in particular was fun. We’re going to hit some Greek stuff next, I mean in the next book, I don't know if you guys have heard the summary for the next book or not, Skin Game, Mab loans out Harry to Nicodemus Archeleone to pay off one of her debts and uh, Nicodemus is knocking over a vault that belongs to Hades, Lord of the Underworld. And Harry’s kind of got to be part of the team, you know, so it’s kind of Nicodemus’ Eleven (laughter). And you know off they go to do that and Harry turns around to Mab after the first meeting and is like, “are you insane? Nicodemus is going to betray and kill me! It’s exactly who he is and what he does!” And Mab says, “Of course he is. I expect superior and more creative treachery on your part.” (Cheering) That’s kind of where that one’s going.

Audience: The question I have for you is about Ivy, the archive. What was your inspiration behind that character?

Jim: Um, my inspiration behind creepy little girl character (laughter). I knew that I wanted to have a creepy little girl in there somewhere. As far as where she came from, um … (points at his head on purpose)…. there she was. I thought, “better use her in a book”. There’s lots of weird things running around the inside of my head. I gotta put em somewhere.

Audience: Um ok. So in Dresden Files we all know that Kincaid places a large importance on contracts. I was wondering – is he contractually obligated to kill Dresden still? Or return the money?

Jim: Well he killed him once, and you know. Although that was something more that he did in lines of a favor. Actually I’m going to include a short story on that in the next collection of short stories that I do (cheering) *unintelligible*. I think I’ve got six or seven short stories that have been published that were not in the first anthology, and originally there were like two stories that got left out of the anthology, so the only thing I could possibly think of to do was to write enough more short stories to make a second anthology. There’s a bunch of fun ones in there, and there’s the Bigfoot trilogy of short stories which has been my favorite group of short stories that I've written so far. Bigfoot is the client – I’m not sure if you guys knew that. That was a lot of fun. I’ll be putting the short stories together – I’ve got to write a few more and maybe add in and develop, and then we’ll get another collection and I’ll probably call it “More Jobs,” because I’m so original that way.

Audience: So I've just gotten into the Dresden Files with my mom in the last year or so. She’s a retired EMT so we have this impromptu book club called “He’d be dead now”. And I was wondering if you had any kind of research into what the human body can survive? (laughter)

Jim: Yeah. And I’ve got to admit most of my research is like pictures of guys with railroad spikes in their skulls and stuff like that. At one point I finally realized “oh my god, this guy has taken far more punishment than a professional athlete would have in their career.” So it was like “Uhh ok I better make sure that wizards can handle this sort of thing.” So Harry got just enough healing factor, not enough to really be of any advantage at any point in the books, just enough to get him back up on his feet so he can take more punishment. But it seemed to blend in pretty well with the whole “wizards live a long time” thing.

Audience: It seems several times in writing the Dresden Files that you managed to paint Harry into a corner that you…. (Jim finishes the question for him) I’m not sure where you’re going with that.. have you ever found that you’ve painted him into a corner that you can’t easily extract him out of? Is that what you’re trying for?

Jim: I schedule myself to be there! I mean yeah sometimes that’s the kind of thing I have to do to kind of force myself to get creative and come up with cool ways to get out of it. Other times I know what I’m going to be doing all along and so I just sort of … I paint a false corner that looks like a corner to you guys, but you just don’t know that there’s a door built into the wall right there. Because a lot of times people will go “Oh wow! That shocked me” or “That was amazing!” Or “I never would have thought of that! But clearly you planned that, it was coming ahead of time!” At the same time though, I’m fully aware that I’m only planning enough early on to make you think you could have seen it coming later, really, there's no real way to do it. It is important that all the pieces fit together and that it make sense afterwards, but as far as getting into the corner, I’ve never felt trapped at any point in the Dresden Files. It’s only if you put him in that much more trouble, it’s that much more fun for the readers, it’s just that much more I get to punish him. And all of you, by extension.

Audience: Is intuition magical or separate from magic?

Jim: Um. Yes. (laughter)

Audience: What about Harry?

Jim: Oh you mean in the books? (laughter)

Audience: Is his intuition influenced by his magic or is it separate from his magic?

Jim: It’s mostly separate. Intuition is mostly just kind of … I think in real life intuition is by and large your brain putting together things that you’re not consciously aware are being assembled. And so for the most part his PI stuff, that’s just him noticing things and finally putting them together. Plus, I think that intuition Harry is a lot smarter than conscious Harry. And better dressed. (laughter) But there’s not a whole lot of magic involved in it until you get into the wizards that are like super super focused on things like seeing other places and seeing the future, like the gatekeeper is.

Audience: My question for you is also about quotes. Specifically in White Knight, how you bring a lot of quotes that touch on emotions. When you describe how “constructive anger” is passion, or your description of pain. I want to know where that comes from, because it just seems so deep.

Jim: Uhhh…. (laughter). I just write the books, man. (laughter) I mean you know, you pick up on a few things here and there as you get older. I kind of have, and I think about stuff a lot. I wander around inside my head lost a whole lot of the time, and that’s the kind of thing that results. It pops out.

Audience: As a black cosplayer, thank you for Sanya. (unintelligible). My question is, you say there are no dumb questions, but, I’m a sailor, your books take place in Chicago, boot camp for us is in Chicago. Yes or no, can you add it to your books?

Jim: I shall consider it sir. I’m actually going to be … my big trilogy we’re going to have to get the Navy involved in the end. Everybody here just thinks I’m being nice. Joke’s on you. (laughter)

Audience: In the series you describe how defensive magics work with the left, and more offensive projection with the right. What about left handed wizards?

Jim: Same deal, unless your heart’s on the opposite side of the body. If the heart is on the opposite side of the body, then it’s the other way around.

TheCuriousFan:
(click to show/hide)Audience: Is Murphy ever going to take her new job?

Jim: You mean other than consulting for the foundation? Oh THAT job? Um you’ll have to take that up with her and read the next book.

Audience: What was your inspiration for the other races in the codex books?

Jim: Um ok the other races in the codex books. Obviously the Zerg. I mean I couldn’t call it “Creep” so I called it “Croach”, which is just another word. And nine foot tall werewolves, that was actually based on my dog. Varg is the being that my dog thinks he is. I mean I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a picture of my dog, he’s about this big, and he’s a Bichon Frise. But man he is convinced he is tough. Ever since he saved my son from a bear, that’s been his attitude. And you'd think I’m joking, but … I mean there’s probably enough people here who've heard the bear story already. (Cheering) Alright real quick.

We were living in Pennsylvania and we’d gotten a puppy and the puppy was a Bichon Frise named Frostbite Doomreaver Mcbane Butcher, because he was my son’s puppy and he was nine (laughter). And we lived in a house that was off of the State College of Pennsylvania, kind of in the middle of this mountainous area, and we were in this 26 mile long valley that was all amish farms and was like three houses and a little mini housing development right in the middle. All up and down the valley was Amish farms. And one night the boy was asleep downstairs and we always put the puppy in bed with the boy, and somehow the puppy had gotten out of the boy’s room and knocked over the baby gate, and he climbed the stairs (which he’d never done before) and he’d come upstairs and into the bedroom, and he somehow nudged the door open which was always kept mostly closed. So there was a significant amount of tenacity involved in this process. And the puppy was over on the side of the bed freaking out (Jim makes whining noises) and this is like two in the morning and I’m exhausted, I’m like “what WHAT is it. Ugh DOG why are you out of bed. What is wrong?” And I went to pick him up and he runs away from me to the top of the stairs and then looks at me. And I’m like “WHAT” and I go to pick him up and runs down a couple stairs and then he looks at me. And I’m like “Okay, I got it. I’m following you.”

And I shambled down the stairs and I pick up the dog, I shamble down the stairs to the boy, and the boy is in bed and he’s kicked off all the covers, and he’s just laying and shivering and he’s got a 101 fever. And the dog had figured out what was going on and that that wasn’t right and he’d come to get me. And I got the boy some tylonol, I got him covered back up a bit, I got him put back to sleep, I put the dog back down, he had the feet on his bed, and he goes right to sleep. And I’m like, “Ok! Good Dog! I’m kind of impressed by that. Not too bad!” And I went back upstairs, I didn’t think anything much of it. And a couple weeks later, it’s kind of late February. The same thing happens. And I’m like “What is it, Lassie? Did Timmy fall down the well? Let’s go find out.” And I pick up the dog, and I go downstairs, and the boy is fine. And I kind of put the dog down, I’m like, “well what is wrong with you, waking me up for nothing. He’s fine!”

And here’s the thing. The way our house was laid out (he gives a quick description of a Pantry) here’s the back door to the house, which is actually where we all went in and out of the house, it was a glass door. And it was right here next to our Pantry – we had a great big pantry. And the boy’s room was right here, right across it. It was like 10 feet away from this door. And the whole first floor of the house just like one long area like this. And the dog, he runs about 10 feet down the house, down the kitchen floor, and then stops and looks at me and starts freaking out (Jim makes howling sounds) and I’m like what and I walk over to him and he's quiet and I'm like “Oh GOD you are PSYCHOTIC, Dog!” And I go to pick him up and he runs another 10 feet and looks at me. And I’m thinking “This is somewhat odd.” And we go all the way up and down the first floor of the house like that twice, and the dog curls up on the floor and goes to sleep. And I’m like “What is WRONG with you?” and I pick him up and I put him back to bed.

Next morning, *unintelligible* is off to work, I’m getting the boy up getting set to go to school, and I’m getting his breakfast and his lunch and everything and we’re going out and I open the back door to walk him out to the bus stop, and there was snow the night before, and I open the door and right there, on the front steps that led up to the door, are bear paw prints like this big. And I’m like “Son, why don’t you just stay here a minute.” And I go out and look and there’s tracks. There are tracks that go all the way around the house. Twice.

That dog had sensed that the bear was out there, and he’d made me keep pace with the bear up and down the house as it circled my house, so that the bear would know that I knew it was out there (laughter, cheering). I’m like “Ok, dog. You’re in. You are in.” That dog can do no wrong for me. He’s 12 years old now, he’s retired, but that’s ok. He’s still my buddy.

Audience: Do you own a leather inverness duster?

Jim: I do indeed! (Cheering) Actually, a couple of them. Because I wore one for the main part of the outfit of a fighter character in a Larp that I’d played, and my son was playing my apprentice, so he got one too. So we had the long black coats, the black war paint and everything. We were badass.

Audience: Where did you get it? Because they are very hard to find.

Jim: Actually you can get one from Pen Dragon (?), and they are here at the convention because that’s where I got mine.  So yea, go buy. Harry Dresden coat, that's what it looks like right there.

Audience: Out of all of the Dresdenverse characters, which one would you most want to have a drink with, and which one do you punch in the face the most?

Jim: I’d want to have a drink with Lara (laughter). Because, come on. Who would I want to punch in the face the most? Um… gosh. I don’t want to punch him in the face, I just kind of want to give him a poke in the beaky nose once in a while, because, it’s Butters. He annoys me at times, because he’s so brilliant, and yet he keeps coming to the wrong conclusions as a character. On the other hand I never really planned for him to be around to begin with. He was one of those characters that sort of ambushed me.

Audience: Do you have some kind of special deal that lets you quote the princess bride so regularly?

Jim: No, man. No – I told them I’d do it for nothing. (Laughter, cheering). It’s not my fault – I’ve seen that movie too many times.

Audience: I just wanted to know if you’d considered doing a legacy actually involving Maggie inheriting her father’s powers, Harry Carpenter taking up his father’s sword, and the ubiquitous Mouse.

Jim: Um …. No. Not so much. Although I had considered a young adult series featuring them dealing with issues that grown ups don’t know anything about because you forget them as soon as you grow up. And that would be a really fun series to write, so I’d considered that one.

Audience: I was curious if you actually had an ending in mind for Harry.

Jim: Oh absolutely. I’m one of those writers that believes that stories should have an end, or they’re not really a story. They’re just sort of me trying to get you to give me money all the time. So we’re going to do about 20ish of the novels like we’ve had so far, and then there’s going to be a big old apocoloyptic trilogy at the end. Some kind of big old door stopper thing, some kind of Rothfussian novel. And I can’t believe I made up a brand new word for that guy, Rothfuss. But at the end Harry’s definitely going to get a beginning, a middle, and an end. And it’s the only way that I know of to be able to pace the story so that he doesn’t just turn into superguy, so that I can keep his growth pace with where I want him to end up. Although you guys are going to have bear with me – I’ve never written a 20 book series before. So it’s first time you, first time me.

Audience: When you came in you kind of looked really overwhelmed by the crowd that showed up today. And I was wondering if you’re still continually surprised by the amount of response and response people have for all of your series, because dude you’re awesome. (Cheering)

Jim: You only say that because you've never gamed with me (laughter). And it’s not so much that I’m surprised as much as I’m perplexed. I just kind of do what I do, I just started off writing some dumb little wizard books, and I’m just going to continue to do that. But yeah I’ve always been somewhat stunned by the reaction. The first time I ever got stunned was actually here at DragonCon. There was a panel, and it was a panel like this one, a Jim Butcher panel. And I was almost about to be late. And I was coming down the stairs for it and there was a big thick crowd outside. And I was like “Oh my gosh I’m never going to get to that room in time, there might be some people there this time” because I’d had several of those where nobody showed up. And I got there and I got to the bottom of the escalator and I realized that people were staring at me. And I was like “is there something on my face?” And they’re like “Are you Jim Butcher? We’re all here to see you!” And I’m like “Really?”

Because seriously, I’m not an “everyone shows up and fills the room” type of guy. (Cheering) You’re just saying that because you like Harry Dresden. But yeah. It’s still surprising, because I don’t get it. I've got to hang out with me and change my pants and stuff so I'm less impressed with me.

Audience: I wanted to know if someone approached you and gave you complete creative control over a new TV series, who would you cast and why?

Jim: I’ll tell you who I’d cast as Dresden if I could get him. I’d cast Michael Fassbender. Just for that scene in X-men First Class in the bar in Argentina. Because that was just awesome. And I would cast him. Let me think. Who would I cast as Murphy. If she could be dragged out of, I think she’s in New Zealand now, Xena's sidekick, Renee O'Connor. For Thomas, I don’t know. Maybe Matt Bomer? And I don't know some other people.
And the video cuts off before the final question.

Thanks again Patrick Bateman for doing most of the work for this transcript.

TheCuriousFan:
And now to transcribe the Wyrdcon Q&A.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MT_zmg3T94

(click to show/hide)Announcer: With regards to The Dresden Files, there are fans even at Starlight Runner? and they have sent me some of the geekiest questions that you can imagine. We're are going to supplement your questions today. The Codex Alera anybody? *cheering* *unintelligible* and the new steampunk series The Cinder Spires and perhaps most relevant last night Jim commanded the starship Valkyrie? to semi-victory*more cheering*. So Jim, before I open the floor let's talk a little bit about that experience. I understand that you're an experienced LARPer and that um, but last night, to me it's always something special to me at Wyrdcon. You have an incredibly devoted crew that worked real hard last night, tell us about the experience of kind of walking in on a brand new set of people and taking command of them.

Jim: Uh well, they gave me a bullhorn so, when you're the only one in the room with a megaphone then you're alright, as far as that goes. It was fun because I'd never played the game before or the game system before and I didn't know the rules or how anything worked, it's like "good, make him the captain". Alright, okay, and so my first order was for everyone to use their own initiative and not to wait for me to tell them something that needed doing. So the standing order is "it's better to ask forgiveness than permission", I was kind of one of those laid-back captains, in some ways.

Announcer: So did you latch onto that persona previously while you were preparing for this or did it just kind of jump into you?

Jim: Mostly I just wanted to do the accent, (said with a fake accent) so I spent the entire evening (end of accent) speaking that way. That was a lot of fun and we had a really good time. I felt sorry for the science section, science section was just like "I need you to do this and this and this and this" "why isn't it done?".

Announcer: In the first half hour they were absolutely jammed with orders.

Jim: Oh absolutely. And then everybody was getting sick and passing out, including myself, so we had a regular shuttle back to medical. "Launch fighters!" "the pilot passed out" "awesome!"*unintelligible*.

Announcer: Tell us about this costume, this coat.

Jim: I had picked up this really awesome steampunk airship captain coat, it was this big black leather coat that was designed after 18th century navy ware and then I had just by pure chance, it was destiny, in one of the dealers had two peaking caps which I had been looking for and one of them was a matching black leather peaking cap to go with it. It was a little gestapo, hopefully it was just imposing, but anyway I got to wear the hat and I finally figured out why they wore those hats, they make you like 6 inches taller, uh, you know, so that was a good thing.

Announcer: The movement into the roleplaying games, how do you draw that as a parallel to your writing career? Do they predate it? Did they happen at the same time?

Jim: I started playing D&D in first grade, when my parents were convinced, that was when I got the red and blue rulebooks, that was when my parents had gotten all their D&D information from those Jack Chick pamphlets. So I had to play D&D on the sly, I had to make up ways to be able to go and play D&D. My first character was an elf when that was what you played was an elf, both as a race and as a class, an elf named Spock, that was pretty much how nerdy I was.

Announcer: That's amazing, so did your sensibility about fantasy and world design and things like that emerge from the gaming or was there a parallel? Book reading?

Jim: To a degree from gaming but I just read every fantasy book that I could get when I was a kid, I mean when I was in first grade you know how they would give you stars for every book you read in first grade? You know, first grade reading program, and you know by the time I had gotten like 350 stars they finally just said "okay, we've gotta stop giving you stars, don't feel bad but we have to because you're making other kids feel bad". When I was in fourth grade, actually my teacher, because the lessons were kinda boring so I would get what was needed for the lesson down and then read and in fourth grade I had a teacher who thought that was unacceptable so she started taking books away and by a month into the classes, because she said "you're not getting them back until the end of the year", that was how she worked, so by a month into classes she had to go get a bookshelf from home and hand-truck it into her office so that there was enough room for all the books she was taking away from me, when she finally returned them at the end of the year my mom had to drive to school with a hand-truck and we had two boxes and we had to box them up roll them out like that, because I would not stop reading.

Audience: and you weren't very good at hiding your books.

Jim: No, I mean, I would put my head down like I was asleep and do that but she would still catch me, you know, every couple of days, or I would slip because I just didn't care. I was gonna read books, I was bored out of my mind with just math, so, yeah, that was where I kinda developed, it was from that and you know, from watching movies. I had a couple of sisters who were very supportive in buying me science fiction and fantasy books and making sure I got to go and see science fiction and fantasy movies. *points at someone running around in the crowd with a hand up* just because you have your hand up doesn't mean you're not there *puts fist on top of head* I say that out of character *takes fist off of head*, that was one of my favourite bits in one of The Dresden Files short stories, it actually took place at a LARP and Harry starts making fun of all the various LARP conventions. You know, Harry is looking at them like "nerds" *unintelligible*.

Announcer: The interpersonal connections that you've got out of roleplaying and LARP versus brick and mortar real world connections, how would you compare the two once you reached adolescence and puberty?

Jim: My friends were the people that I played D&D with and that was pretty much it. There were a few quieter theater nerds who wouldn't stoop to D&D but then I didn't start LARPing until I got to college which I think is where most people start running into it unless you were unfortunate enough to have parents who are into it. I'm not saying that my kid had his first character before his first birthday but I am saying that he did get a suit of chainmail and a +1 ring of protection while he was there. He was the cutest 1st level fighter ever. But uh, when I went to college and there were all these people out there fighting with nerf swords and I was like "fighting with nerf swords? that's awesome! I must do this!" and so I started LARPing and my close friends through college and people who are still close friends of mine are the ones I started LARPing with in 1990, I continued that, then I got out of it for a while because we moved off to Pennsylvania and there were no LARPs in the immediate area, and then my son turned 14, we had moved back to Independence, Missouri and he was like "dad, do you think I could LARP" because he had kind of been raised on stories, I've brought him up right, we started playing Warhammer roleplaying when he was about 8, but uh, other dads, they would give their kids the key to the car and let him back it down the driveway, me, let's roll up your first Warhammer character, that poor child. But uh, he said "can we go LARP?" and I'm like "well, okay, if we're gonna go LARP I'm gonna have to teach you how to fight and he's like "oh, okay" so we made a whole thing of it, we went shopping online, we found some good swords and we bought a set of matching swords and I started teaching him how to fence, and he spent about half an hour every day after school learning how to fence until he was good enough that he would do alright and we found a local LARP and we went to our first LARP and they're like "well, he is kind of at the bottom age of what we normally allow in the combat game but we just need to put him up against our weapons martial and make sure that he can handle it and he can do this safely" and I said "yeah sure, go ahead" and the kid was about 14, kind of a skinny little guy and he got up there and he whipped the weapons martial about 10 to 1. And he comes running back over to me like this *does enthusiastic bouncy movement in chair* and he's like "did you see that? did you see that? I fought him and I beat him!" and I'm like "yes you did, son, I told you I was gonna teach you, I told you I knew how to do this" "I figured that you didn't know what you were talking about". So kinda starting there and especially through the next couple of years as he grew taller and taller and got that reach and turned into one of those freaking kids at the LARP who runs around with two swords and and can reach you from further than you can reach and can run faster than you can run and he was that kid and I got to stand behind him and go "go". And we had a great time. You know, hopefully at some point in the future I'll be able to play the wizard who doesn't have to run around too much and then he can be the old tactical fighter advising the third generation, his child who I really hope is a girl and learns to kick someone's ass with swords. I've got a niece who's like a total nerd but I can't convince her to get into sword fighting "you come with me and train for a couple of weeks and then you just whip everyone, it can happen, I can make it happen" "I don't want to do that" "argh, okay".

Announcer: Briefly, because I'm sure some of the people out there know this story, but where did Harry come from?

Jim: Harry Dresden was a character that I created in a writing course in college, it was for a course called "writing a genre fiction novel". And the course was and the homework was and the test was and the final was you wrote a genre fiction novel and you had X number of months to finish it and if you didn't finish it you didn't pass and that was how it worked. And so, I had actually taken this course twice already and written two novels that were just awful and I had several more novels that I'd written on my own that were at least equally terrible. But I had been trying for a long time to convince this professor how wrong she was, on account of I had a bachelor's degree in English Literature with an emphasis in creative writing whereas she had merely published 40 novels. You know, when you're about 25 and you're a guy, it's hard to tell you anything. At least that was my experience of being 25. And finally one semester I decided to teach her by just doing everything that she said and I was going to be her good little writing monkey for the semester and I was going to fill all of her worksheets and do all the little outlines and use her character creation guidelines and I was going to show her what awful, cookie cutter pablum crap resulted from such processes, so I wrote the first book of The Dresden Files. And Harry Dresden was someone that I put together with this very rigid sort of structural process where I said okay I'm going to take the character and I am going to, what I'm going to do is take wizards and detectives and I'm gonna take all the things that I like from wizard characters that I like and detective characters that I like and I'm going to put them all in this one guy and I'm gonna make him, so I started grabbing, I was like "okay, gimme a bit of Gandalf, get me some Merlin, get me some Del Borath? and over here I'm going to take some Sherlock and I'm going to take some Spencer and I'm going to take some Travis McGee and I'm going to put them all in this character. I started working out "how am I going to build this guy?" and what I eventually realised was that wizards and private eyes essentially serve the same role in a story, they're the characters who go places where no one else will go and find out things no one else will find out and what makes them dangerous is not the cool things that they do or the gun they carry in their coat, what makes them dangerous is the fact that they're willing to go nosing around and find things that nobody else knows. What made Gandalf a threat was not his cool special effects against the Balrog or even against the ringwraiths, what made him a threat was that he was the guy who went and did all the digging and research and found out "oh my gosh, there's the one ring", that's what made him dangerous. And that was a realisation that I just sort of took in stride at the time, didn't realise that I had found something important because I was busy proving to my teacher how wrong she was. But after I turned in the first two chapters, it was a course where you went in every week, it was a consultation course, I turned in the first two chapters and, she was a critic who would read a chapter and roll it up and then lean over the desk and thwap you on the top of the head with it and say "what were you thinking?" and then outline what was awful about that chapter and that was sort of de Regor? the course. And then she got done reading it and she looked up at me and tossed the chapter back down and went "well, you did it" and I said "what?", I was used to getting torn apart, she was tough, she gave you professional level criticism, she said "you did it, this will sell, I don't know if this will be the first thing that you sell, but it will sell, it's of sufficient quality that you'll make it work" and I was like "wha-wha-wha-what" and "yeah, you totally will" and after that I started being a little less impressed with how smart I was and I just got to work on telling the story. I remember coming in the next week and going "I've kind of got this plan for it, this'll be the first book but I think I want to do a series that's about 20 books long with a big old trilogy at the end to kind of capstone the thing off" and I said "do you think that would be alright?" and she sort of looked at me, because she knew darn well that I was never going to sell a 20 book series to anybody like that, but she had finally got me to start listening to her and did not want to encourage me so she gave me the look that I came to recognise as her "oh Roadrunner, oh Wile, go run over that cliff, there's nothing I can do". And she sort of looked at me and said "yeah, if you can sell that you should be doing alright" and because I did not know that it was impossible I never looked down and apparently if you don't look down you just keep running.
That's 17 and a half minutes done.

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