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« on: January 24, 2012, 07:31:40 AM »
I've been away from the boards for a bit, and I think the search function is still offline, so I apologize is someone's already done this and I missed it, but here's the transcription from the Cambridge/Boston, MA signing.
[Question Unknown]
….satisfying story possible. Otherwise, you get the stories that just kind of trail off, and nobody likes those.
How tough would it be on Michael to sit back and to perhaps watch one of his own children take up one of the swords, considering he knows exactly what that means, and then sit him back on the sidelines and make him worry about his family?
I don’t know. Michael is a really interesting character in terms of his strength, because a lot of the things that would really gnaw on somebody who was a little bit more rational, he’s prepared to take on faith, and he’s comfortable with that. I don’t think he’d like having one of his kids running around out there, but he could hardly throw a stone, so to speak. Yeah, let he who is without action movie credits throw the first stone, in that sort of situation. It would be hard on him, but he is the kind of guy who would handle it well.
How is the liquidity (e.g. several different kinds each of werewolves and vampires) going to affect the story as we’re going forward?
Gosh, I don’t know…that’s kind of a neat question. I know what I’m planning to do in the future, I know when I’m planning to throw the rock, but I’m not necessarily sure how the glass is going to fall out of the window. I know the rock and the window, but not where all the glass is going to fall. I’ve studied a bit of history, and I try to use that, what I’ve learned from there as my model, and I try to approach it from that standpoint, once the events start happening. I knew Harry was going to handle the Red Court the way he did, but the fallout from it was something that I said, “Ok, now I’m going to have to stop and actually figure through this, and I based it on the fall of the Soviet Union, the fallout from the Red Court buying it, so, we’ll have to see! A lot of this is fun for me to find out, and I wouldn’t want to spoil you about it anyway.
Have I ever had character who I’ve been surprised by, who has decided to jump up and to be more involved in the series that I originally planned?
Yeah: Butters. [unintelligible]…Butters off as a one shot. I wanted him to be the smart-mouth morgue-guy/medical examiner, because I love that character in The Prophecy and The Relic..because they have wise-aleck morgue people who are just hilarious, and I love that, and I wanted to do that for the Dresden Files. But when I got done writing him, I thought, “This guy is so cool, I need to use him somewhere else!” So when Dead Beat came up and I was trying to work out a good sidekick for Harry for this particular story, I’m like, oh, wait a minute, there’s necromancers running around animating dead bodies, and having the medical examiner be the one to be helping Harry along in the middle of this is just so appropriate, and yet, totally useless to him as a helper. That’s perfect!” But, yeah, Butters is one of those characters who did that. It happens occasionally, there’ll be a character who I don’t mean to stick around quite as hard as they do, but, like I said, I’m lazy, so if someone shows signs of being proactive for me, it’s like, oh yeah, I might as well have you show up and do the work, go head. Get me a Coke while you’re up.
Is there a particular source of inspiration for any of the villains I’ve had?
Well, to a large degree, yeah. I read a lot of folklore, I read a lot of mythology. By the way, if you ever go to research folklore and mythology if you’re going to write a book of your own or research it for a game or something, just do yourself a favor and skip the “Adult” section of the library, that stuff there, because if you start reading mythology in the Adult section, you aren’t going to go five paragraphs before you bump into Freud and Jung. It’s like those guys do not know how to have a good time, when it comes to this sort of story. Go to the children’s section, and read those stories, because they just give you the stories, which is where I draw most of my information. And I draw it from things that scared me when I was a little kid. I was sure Bigfoot lived in the lilac bush behind our house when I was small. I had two older sisters, they were twelve and fourteen years older than me, who just loved scaring me. They had a good sense of drama for that. But that’s ok, because I can exorcise those demons now, and put them in a book, and make a dollar out of them, and that’s the American way.
With all these plots that are going on, with Mab and Lea obviously playing games against one another, with archangels sticking there nose in, with vague supernatural entities that live on islands, how are all these conflicting interests, where Dresden’s getting pulled in different directions by all of them, how are they going to play out in the future?
This is like heroin for writers. [singsong] I’m not gonna tell you! I’m going to write it, and we’ll have fun. I know that a lot of the folks that are generally perceived as bad guys aren’t necessarily, there are several who are currently perceived as good guys who aren’t necessarily, and we’ll continue to have those fall out over the next several books. I got some outraged emails from people for the end of Changes, and I just didn’t understand it, okay, because first of all, that technically was not a cliffhanger. Technically, I mean, in terms of story craft, not a cliffhanger, because Harry Dresden sets out to rescue his daughter from the Red Court, even if it kills him, and it does. But I sometimes forget that everybody else doesn’t know the rest of the story. My reaction was that I thought everyone would be really excited, because now that he’s dead we get to start the good stuff! But as it turns out, no, I guess you guys don’t know the rest of it like I do; that might have a slight effect on your perception.
Did I set out to make Harry a nerd?
Yeah, absolutely, he’s a magic nerd instead of a computer nerd, but yeah, I set forth to make a guy that I would relate to and, really, all my friends are nerds and I’m a nerd, and it wasn’t a big deal to make Harry a nerd, too, for me, that was a no-brainer. He just can’t play video games, which really cripples his nerdness.
There’s a lot of characters in the story who have lifespans that have gone on over many generations, do I ever plan on having any backstory on them, stuff like “young Ebenezar” or “the Bob adventures”?
Bob tales? The only thing I have in mind is where I might write the history of the French and Indian War in the Dresden Files universe, back when all the people who were on the Senior Council who can’t stand Harry because he’s a young hothead getting into trouble were young hotheads getting into trouble. I think that would be a lot of fun to do, I just have to bone up on my French and Indian War stuff to be able to do it, and so far I haven’t had time yet.
Is Lasciel going to make a comeback? The coin is still buried in the lab, right?
Her coin isn’t in the lab anymore. Her story is not yet over. However, both Lasciel and Lash appeared in Ghost Story, but not under those names. [Hums the “I’m not gonna tell you” tune]
With the publication of the Dresden Files RPG, what is it like to turn over my world to my fellow nerds to play with who love it so much?
Awesome! It is awesome. Sadly, I’m the one person who can’t play the RPG. I mean, try to imagine being my GM, really. “Yes, it is that way, and if necessary, I’ll write it that way IN THE NEXT BOOK!!! You give me that +2 [unintelligible]!” But then, if I’m GM, it’s too much like work! But everybody else has a good time, which makes me very happy, and was kind of the point of the books to begin with.
Given that I’ve planned out so many things, and there are so many stories and actions that have consequences that have to be played out in the course of the series, are there any seemingly insignificant actions that are going to be played out later on?
Yes, there are. A bunch of them. But we’ll see. I’m still working out how to get them all fit in, but the next six books are going to be very, very busy. Six or seven or eight or however many it takes.
Since you only get books once a year, do I have anything planned like Backup to help you…cope?
Normally, yeah, there’re story projects that are going on on the side, right now I’m writing a trilogy of short stories that I’m calling the Bigfoot trilogy; Bigfoot’s the client. You know, there’s issues with the kid, and he can’t exactly walk into town and take care of them, so he’s got to find somebody to help him out. Yeah, I’m going to continue to do short story projects like that on the side, I’ve outlined a new graphic novel, which I’m going to be working on. Also remember that I’ve got to get a break from that tall creepy loser once in awhile, or I’ll just kill him. Oh. Wait. I always love it when I get to start something else because I go, “Oh, I’m so sick of that loser Harry Dresden” at this point, and then I’ll start writing something else, and by the time I get done with that, I’ll go back to Harry and be like, “Oh, I’m glad to be back in the saddle with Harry, because this feels easy!”
How much time has passed, approximately, since Storm Front?
Um. I could go check the Wikipedia? I’m trying to make it more or less real time. So I think it averages out to about a year between each. Some are a little bit more, some are a little bit less. But I try to make it real time, sort of like Joss did with Buffy.
Who are my favorite writers?
This is a question I hate, because I’ll start on them, and I’ll remember half and hour later somebody I should have mentioned and didn’t. Robert B. Parker is probably my single favoritest writer. I’ll read anything he wrote. I’ve still got the last Spencer book he wrote, which I won’t read, because then there won’t be anymore Spencer books to read. And that’s sad. But I’ve got it. Robert B. Parker’s pretty good. Lately…there’s Rothfuss, that jerk. I just can’t stand Rothfuss, he can write such beautiful lyrical poetic lines in one, and then shift gears and be writing this short choppy pulp-action-style fiction, and just do it so smoothly you can’t even tell what’s going on. Oooh, I hate that. Scalzi’s brilliant. John Scalzi…he’s amazing, he really is. I’ve been reading Brandon Sanderson lately. Picked up Way of Kings, and was like, “Ohh, that is so cool!” Oh, I just love the fantasy world where either you’re a guy with a knife on the end of a stick and a leather jacket or you’ve got Iron Man armor and a lightsaber. That dichotomy is awesome. Lemme think who else I’ve been reading lately. Harry Connolly’s books, I don’t know if you’ve read Harry Connolly, his first book’s called Child of Fire, it’s really good. There’s a new guy coming out, he’s British, his name is Benedict Jacka, his first book is called Fated. It’s a wizard book, it’s really excellent, he’s got a great imagination. I read the Temeraire books, I read the Honor Harrington series. Pretty much anything Glen Cook does I like. But there’s
Are there any characters in particular who inform Harry’s voice?
He’s [the questioner] noticed characters like Gareth [?] are very similar in terms of their outlook on life and so on. I would say yeah, and the characters that inform me are folks like Dashiell Hammett’s lead character Sam Spade (or is that Ray Chandler? I’m getting confused. I think Dashiell Hammett had Sam Spade.) Ray Chandler’s characters as well. Of course, Robert Spencer is [unintelligible] as far as I’m concerned; I wish I could have Harry be as snarky as Spencer. But, yeah, definitely, he’s informed by a lot of things, and also just by the hard-boiled genre in general.
What is the first line of Cold Days?
Mab, Queen of Air and Darkness, has unique ideas about physical therapy. See? First sentence is done! The rest is just typing.
Now that Harry’s died, that whole “Die alone” death curse, is that over?
Was he not dead enough? Yeah, he got out from underneath that one. Sort of. It remains to be seen if he’s going to get out from underneath the rest of it. Which I’m having a very good time plotting out.
Is Maggie going to start playing a bigger role?
She’s like seven! Seven year olds….seven year olds, you’re lucky if their big role isn’t falling off the monkey bars and getting a broken arm, like mine did when he was seven. But, on the other hand, if I’m ever done with the Dresden Files and I’ve got to pay off my gambling debts or something, I suppose I could always do Dresden: The Next Generation with Maggie, although she’d probably think Dad was a little soft.
When will we get to see Ferrovax again?
Fair question, it probably won’t be until one of the last of the case files. If not in the big, epic, epic trilogy. No, because Ferrovax was on his best behavior at that party, and the next time he’s got an excuse to smack Dresden, somebody’s going to throw down, and we’ll have a good time with that.
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