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WoJ transcription help needed + mention new WoJ's here

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Second Aristh:
Hi everyone.  Here's several more of the quotable WoJ from the 2015 interviews.  There are a couple WoJ on Dresden along with some nice ones for Cinder Spires that I hadn't heard before.  I didn't transcribe most of the writing craft talk or the stories Jim tends to tell for frequently asked questions.

Serack, I think the Salt Lake ComicCon video is gone, but this should be all of the 2015 sources except the itunes and the two sources with asterisks. 


Interview with the guys who created the Dresden Files LARP game published June 5
Location:  Source

On the White Council
The White Council has long been my example of good intentions run amok.  They were meant to be something that was good and positive and a force for enlightenment, but instead, they wind up being a bunch of thugs who end up killing a bunch of kids.  They’re badly playing catch up because they can’t keep pace with the world that has accelerated around them.

On contrasting the White Council and Black Council
The White Council is this force of restraint and keeping things buttoned down and under control.  The Black Council is much more along the lines of “Well if you’ve got the power you should use it however you want to.  If you’ve got the power, that’s what it’s for.”  They’ve caused all kinds of havoc that even Dresden hasn’t realized yet and still more bad stuff that is coming in the future. 


Road to EuroSteamCon Portugal / Internet Video Chat Interview (interviewer is based in Portugal)
Location: Source

On Rowl
Rowl is the prince of his local tribe.  His father is the king of the local tribe, and Rowl will be king as soon as his father proves himself incompetent.

Did you get any new favorite villain from the Cinder Spires series?
Madame Cavendish is an etherealist, and not a nice one.  She is kind of the driving evil behind everything that’s happening.  Although she doesn’t really think of it as evil, she thinks of it as building a better world.  You have to build it on something, and in this case it’s going to be on Spire Albion.  She’s very strongly backing up Spire Aurora.  The Aurorans are the more expansive aggressive Spire around.  Her job is to basically wreck everything, and she likes her job a little too much. 
She’s obsessed with politeness and manners.  Partly that’s a reflection of the damage that’s been inflicted on her by her etherealism.  She has a very difficult time being able to do things that are not polite and mannerly unless you violate manners first.  As long as your manners are impeccable, you’re almost invincible to her.  If you drop anything or say something that can be the least bit construed in the least bit as rude, then she can start ripping into you.  It’s like twitter.

How do they get steam if they need to go to the surface to get coal and going to the surface means fighting a war?
They don’t have to go to the surface to get coal because they don’t burn a lot of coal.  They’ve got a kind of biofuel that they use because if your whole existence is being lived in these huge towers, and they’ve lived there for a long time, you’ve got to have an extremely sustainable existence.  Burning coal inside a building does not give you that.  They’ve got a biofuel that they grow for part of it.  They also have the heat provided by electricity that’s provided by these big crystals. 
There are very few vatteries on the planet that are capable of growing crystals that are big enough and complex enough.  It takes generations to grow them, so they’re extremely valuable.  When I say extremely valuable, it’s more like priceless because you can’t just make new ones.  It takes a long time to get them.  They’re mostly used to drive these ships which drive trade and diplomacy and everything else.  There’s a limited amount of that technology that can be employed inside the Spires.  The ships get more of it, and they’re going to be developing more of it as the series goes on.  I never want to write a series where everything stays as it always has.  I want to write a series where things get started then because of what characters do, things start to change.  That’s how the world works.  People take action, and the world changes.

Is Cinder Spires geared more towards younger readers than the Dresden Files?
Some of the characters are.  The two female viewpoint characters are seventeen.  They’re both getting started in life.  That’s the age you sign on to join the Spirearch’s Guard, sort of a cross between the peace corps and a police force.  The nobles work for the Spirearch for a year, and it’s their badge of “Look I Contributed to Society”.   That’s where these two are.  Gwen’s cousin Benadict is only a couple years older than she is, so he’s the experienced one at nineteen.  Captain Grimm is an older character in his mid-thirties.  There are lots of other characters that are older like that.  Part of this is we’re taking these newbies and throwing them into these horrible events, but there’s older characters around. 
It’s not necessarily written for a young adult audience.  Like I do with story worlds, I like to take characters and make sure they’re not the same when they start the story as they are when they finish it.  That’s always got to be a part of your writing.  How does the story change this person?  How does this person get to be different?  I think that age of human beings, that’s when human beings start really changing, figuring out who they are, and becoming different as they go into their late teens.  We’re sort of looking around trying to grasp the world that’s around us.  As we make our choices, we start shaping who we’re going to be.  For these characters, that’s where I wanted them to see how they grow.  They’re all coming from fairly similar places, and I want to explore how their choices will make their lives different.   That’s always a critical part of writing.  If you’re not writing where your character’s choices aren’t what’s driving the story and what’s creating your world, then you’re not doing it right.


WonkyCast 17:  Jim Butcher (June 2015)
Location: Source

… it did mean that you could bring Sue into the books.  (tail end of Why Chicago? story)
That wasn’t until later, though.  That was after I had already written the books and was watching a History Channel show about Sue.  I just watched it with my mouth open.  I was currently writing Storm Front when I was watching that show.  I was like, “I’ve got to use this!  I’ve got to use this!”  For five years, I waited to write that scene, and when I finally got to write it, I was like AAAHHH DELAYED GRATIFICATION FULFILLED!  SO AWESOME!


Slippery Words
Location: Source

You describe Albion as a black spire.  Why isn’t Albion white?
You’ll find out more about that later.  It’s a good question that I can’t answer without being very spoilery.  That’s no fun for anybody.

Serack:
Thank you sir!

Serack:
Partial transcript of the stuff I found interesting DF wise from the 2016 Myths and Legends Conference Q&A

At what time did Ebenezer know that Harry existed, and does he know that Thomas is his grandson.
Not until it was too late.  Not till after Justin’s death that he was able to find out.  As far as Thomas, Stay Tuned.

So in regards to Molly and the process that she’s been going through and growing up and such and now she’s the winter lady… I’m kind of interested in… it’s kind of two fold.  How long has it been since a mortal has become that level of a farie and what kinds of repercussions or changes do you think that we are going to see.
Well it’s been a while since there was a pure mortal… I mean technically Maeve and Sarissa are pure mortals and are only influenced by the mantle so… they were first generation Half Fae, but… As far as Molly being pure mortal… is she really any more is sort of the question and sort of what we are dealing with.  I don’t know if you’ve read your short story [audience:  It’s not out yet] It’s not out yet?  Oh, Oh, ok, Well you should read that! Definitely.  It’s called Cold Case. 

What was your inspiration for Michael?
The Sheep Farmer’s Daughter Series by Elizabeth Moon.  It’s one of the better Paladin series I’ve ever read.  And I’m like, You know what?  I wanna do a paladin, I want to do somebody who is righteous, not self-righteous.  Someone who walks the walk instead of talking the talk.  And so I wanted to drop Michael in as someone who was very near a paragon of Christian and Catholic ideals… Not of Christian and Catholic Dogma, and that’s where that character came from.  Someone who was very close to being a really, really good human being, and I wanted him to be there, especially as a contrast to Dresden because Dresden is always messing around in these murky areas and I wanted somebody for whom that was not an issue.  Going into the murk has never been an issue for Michael because he’s a different person from where he stands and the way he looks at the universe that is not what he is going to do.  But he’s also nevery going to be the guy who has to make the hard horrible choices that Harry sometimes has to.  And the question is, is he avoiding responsibility, or does his belief allow him to create other options that aren’t horrible choices?  How does that work?  I don’t know.  I wanted to write a story about it, maybe I could figure something out.  But yah, Michael is the guy that I wish I was, the guy that I think a lot of people wish they were. 

In one of the recent books you had Uriel bestow his power on Michael and Uriel said, “if you screw up with this, I will fall.”  Is that what happened to any of the Denarians?
The Denarians were all either angels who sided with Lucifer, or they were angels who did not get off the fence… or did not get off the fence in a timely enough fashion.  Lasciel was one of those angels who tried to play both sides off the middle and it did not work out for her after the angel war.  Which makes her more bitter because her schemes fell apart.  She was pretty confident about those schemes.  But yah the Denarian’s are all angels who either sided with Lucifer during the rebellion or were sort of cast out after, there was this whole crew of angels who were like, “well you know what, you disserted from this combat or you fled this battle and your gone as well.”  And they might not have been cast into the lake of fire but they went other places. 

Does Lucifer have his own coin? And will he make an appearance?
NO, are you kidding?  He’s the [British accent] prince of $%&#@ darkness.[/British accent] no that doesn’t happen.  No that was the deal, better to rule in hell than serve in heaven, and he does rule in hell, he’s not stuck in a coin.  We will get to see him on stage later, that’s not until the big trilogy.  He’s firkin Satan, you can’t get any worse. 

Will we see Billy or Jenny Sells again?
Let me think that’s way back…  [audience] Monica Sells’ kids [/audience]  OH those two God.  Um.. Maybe… that could well be… Oh my gosh…  They are on a page or notes somewhere and now you’ve reminded me… *expression of painful consideration* I’m going to have to think about this.  Yah, uh, thank you for that question.  I’ll work on it.  Oh my God we will… That has to happen now.  I mean they aren’t going to have a different view of Harry than the White Council does (context, earlier in the Q&A Jim said the Council thinks Harry is the next Kemmler/Dark Lord in the making)

jonas:
Do we have a list of pure interview links somewhere here?

Quantus:
http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,28457.0.html

This has more recent stuff than the OP's from this thread. 

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