I just want to read Peace Talks, unless Jim speeds up the pace of his writing, Mirror and the wrestling story are at least five and ten years out.. I find it hard to get excited that far out..
I think it's reasonable to hope for a DF novel every 3ish years, now. He had a real string-o-disaster life for a bit there! Before that, we saw him doing 1/year for a little while. Recent novels have been bigger, so ... 15ish months?
And he's alternating DF/CS.
Add a bit of overhead, and call it 3 years for 2 books (1 each series).
Someone asked Jim at Westercon how he was challenging himself to improve as a writer, because Jim had just stated that with every new novel he tells he tries to challenge himself to improve in at least one area of his writing, because that's how he gets better as a writer. Jim replied that he wants to work on streamlining his writing technique. Essentially he wants to work on telling the stories he wants to tell in fewer words. He said he wants to start doing this with the next Cinder Spires book and carry over any improvements he can make there into future Dresden Files novels too, so they won't have an ever increasing amount of words. So if Jim is able to do that, it should, when he gets the hang of it, shorten his writing time.
One can only hope, I want to be alive at the end of the series, not only that but be able to read it!!
Hope he can perfect the technique for all our sakes...
So if Jim is able to do that, it should, when he gets the hang of it, shorten his writing time.
Someone asked Jim at Westercon how he was challenging himself to improve as a writer, because Jim had just stated that with every new novel he tells he tries to challenge himself to improve in at least one area of his writing, because that's how he gets better as a writer. Jim replied that he wants to work on streamlining his writing technique. Essentially he wants to work on telling the stories he wants to tell in fewer words. He said he wants to start doing this with the next Cinder Spires book and carry over any improvements he can make there into future Dresden Files novels too, so they won't have an ever increasing amount of words. So if Jim is able to do that, it should, when he gets the hang of it, shorten his writing time.Fifteen books in if he hasn't gotten a handle on it then I personally don't see it getting better. And if he starts a YA series it will be three books in sequence, rather than two.
Fifteen books in if he hasn't gotten a handle on it then I personally don't see it getting better. And if he starts a YA series it will be three books in sequence, rather than two.
So if Jim is able to [write the same story shorter], it should, when he gets the hang of it, shorten his writing time.I am a professional writer in that writing to communicate ideas is a large part of my job. A good portion of my education was on how to write well. Writing concisely while conveying your message effectively is hard. Trimming the fat is time consuming. It's probably the hardest thing for me to do in writing. I imagine it will take him longer to finish the series than it will take him to streamline the process to a point that would get us the series faster.
Hope he can perfect the technique for all our sakes...
Fifteen books in if he hasn't gotten a handle on it then I personally don't see it getting better. And if he starts a YA series it will be three books in sequence, rather than two.
I see it like this: Everything one does or can do has the potential for improvement because nobody and nothing is perfect.Jim knows how to tell a story, and he's really good at it. But a shorter book can only come with decreased complexity IMO. So for instance, in Skin Game, the act of Butters becoming a Knight adds complexity. Murphy could have taken up the sword, she'd used it prior to that point and Jim took the time over the course of the books to show her journey. That isn't a criticism, rather a nod to the different ways the story can be told.
If Jim wants to improve his writing it shows that he doesn't think of his work as being at its best. So I say 'go Jim' . I think his writing so far is great. You can see continuing improvement from Storm Front to Skin Game. So I'm very curious how his style will develop in future books.
Being a first person account, Jim really can't go too far afield like these other writers did, but I hope he keeps focus. I, too, want to live to see the end of this series, but if it takes him 3 to 5 years per book, hell, he might not even live to see the end. He's got, what, 8 books left?
... What annoys me is when writers go off into the weeds describing something. The closest Jim comes to this, and it's not that close, is describing Mac's for the eighth time by the ninth book (or the Blue Beetle or Harry's apartment) ...
I'm pretty sure JB tries to keep in mind that ANY of his novels may be the 1st one a new reader reads.Totally agree, and it only annoys me a little bit, and that's because I've probably read these books too many times.
So iconic elements get at least a bit of exposition for the n00bz.
Totally agree, and it only annoys me a little bit, and that's because I've probably read these books too many times.
@KurtinStGeorge: Good analysis of Jim's writing style. One problem with Ghost Story is that there are side stories. The one with Fitz just feels like a waste of time without some sort of payoff down the road. Now Jim always has that sort of thing in his books, but the longer ones are usually only a paragraph or two. Fitz took up chapters. The other side stories about all the damage he has done to his friends are a necessary part of the story, but I think that adds to why it "dragged." Part of the problem with Cold Days is that it covered most of the ground covered in Ghost Story. As I've mentioned before, it took me about a third of the way into Cold Days to realize I skipped Ghost Story.
As for Peace Talks, only time will tell. Here's hoping for Christmas or sooner.
There is an obscure website; I think they cover fantasy books, that is listing April 14, 2020 as the release date of Peace Talks. I think they pulled this date out of their collective rear end because that led me to checking multiple sites for conformation and none of them had any info on PT's release date.On amazon.de the date is listed April 2020, but I already got fooled last year. They had the date at October 2018. You could even preorder. I was so happy, when October came. But there was no book. In November I received an e-mail that the book wasn't available yet. What the f****. I was so disappointed. Why do they list some random date? Why don't they just say 'no release date known yet' or something like that?
I have a hard time with Butters' "trust but verify" attitude that results in verification turning to a complete lack of trust while Murphy's attitude moves from Dresden being a "thing" to "you may be a monster, but I'll follow you anyway" at the same time. I feel like we didn't get enough character development from Butters to justify this. And it's the sort of character development Jim is capable of doing in a paragraph or two.
Murphy's transition can be justified by the text alone. Butters', not so much.
I doubt we'll ever get back to the days of 12-months-or-less-per-book, but I think 15-16 months is a reasonable hope.
Butters needed to be skeptical of Harry so he could learn to have faith in something bigger than himself. That needed to happen for Butters to become KotC.Especially since the sword was the Sword of Faith.
No, that was back in the days when Jim had a lot fewer irons in the fire... He is a good writer and a productive one, but a novel takes a lot of focus, a long series with lots of interdependent detail takes a lot of focus because his readers really notice if he screws up.
... I think our collective mental well-being would be better served ...:o