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TOM MERRITT: Coming up, the scientific relationship
between Pop-Tarts and the Dresden Files.
VERONICA BELMONT: So put on your sweater, because cold
days are coming.
It's our author's guide to Jim Butcher.
[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: "Sword and Laser."
VERONICA BELMONT: Hey, everyone.
Welcome to the "Sword and Laser." I'm Veronica Belmont.
TOM MERRITT: And I'm still Tom Merritt.
VERONICA BELMONT: And this is our guide to authors show,
where each time we introduce you to a great new author and
then bring them up to the space castle to ask them a few
questions, including yours.
TOM MERRITT: This week, it's our guide to the creator of
the Dresden Files, Mr. Jim Butcher.
VERONICA BELMONT: Born and raised in Independence,
Missouri, author Jim Butcher cites traditional high-fantasy
luminaries such as Tolkien and CS Lewis, as well as works
like the Han Solo Adventures, as being major
influences on his works.
TOM MERRITT: But Butcher is best known for the Dresden
Files, a gritty, contemporary fiction mystery series that
chronicles the career of private investigator and
modern-day wizard Harry Dresden.
A consultant for the Chicago Police Department, Dresden
specializes in crimes involving the occult and
paranormal.
VERONICA BELMONT: The first in the series, "Storm Front," was
released in 2000.
And "Cold Days," the 14th installment, will be released
on November 27.
In 2007, the Sci-Fi Channel adapted the books into a
television series.
And in 2010, Evil Hat Productions released the
Golden Geek Game of the Year Dresden Files
role-playing game.
TOM MERRITT: Butcher is also something of a betting man.
In 2004, he was challenged by a member of the Delray Online
Writers Workshop to write a good story
based on a lame idea.
Jim took the bet, and his challenger gave him the lame
ideas of a lost Roman legion and Pokemon.
The story Butcher wrote became the first book in the Codex
Alera series.
VERONICA BELMONT: Written in a more traditional high-fantasy
style, the Codex Alera is the coming-of-age story of Tavi of
Calderon, a young man from the Romanesque realm of Alera.
Unlike other Alerans, Tavi cannot control the elemental
spirits called furies, forcing him to rely on his wits as the
realm slips into civil war.
The Codex Alera spanned six books, beginning with "Furies
of Calderon" in 2004 and wrapping up with "First Lord's
Fury" in 2009.
TOM MERRITT: When he's not writing, Butcher is also an
avid live action role player, or larper, playing under the
name Longshot.
He invites fans in the vicinity of Independence,
Missouri, to come out and kill some theoretical monsters, be
beaten into theoretical unconsciousness, and even be,
quote, "theoretically killed."
VERONICA BELMONT: So if you're a fan of modern-day wizards,
fury-wielding legionnaires, or theoretical dragon-slaying,
then grab your foam-covered sword and don your duster,
because we think you'll find plenty to enjoy in Jim
Butcher's works.
TOM MERRITT: OK, Lem our dragon is putting through the
call to Jim Butcher.
So while he's he gets all connected, you please enjoy
this look at today in alternate history.
VERONICA BELMONT: We are very excited to have Mr. Jim
Butcher here with us today.
Thank you so much for joining us.
JIM BUTCHER: Sure.
How are you doing?
VERONICA BELMONT: Excellent.
Thank you for asking.
So we wanted to know first of all what you can tell us about
what you're working on currently.
JIM BUTCHER: Currently, I have just finished up the most
recent of the Dresden Files book, "Cold Days." And right
now, I am working on the first book of my steampunk series,
which I'm about halfway through right now,
a little bit less.
VERONICA BELMONT: So that's kind of a genre you haven't
really gone into before.
How has that been?
JIM BUTCHER: Lots and lots of fun.
I'm having a really great time putting everything together.
Not just to tell a good story, but I also
kind of want to embrace--
I want people to be able to say, finally I have somebody I
can cosplay steampunky that they like.
So I think of all these cool things that are available to
get at conventions and so on.
So I'm kind of writing this for the people who love that
sort of play.
So far the folks--
the beta readers-- who've read what I've done so far are all
like, OK, I get to cosplay this one.
No, I get to cosplay him.
So it's been a lot of fun.
But you get to write all these painfully precise dialogue
scenes and so on.
It's kind of a quasi-Victorian setting.
And I'm having a really good time with that.
TOM MERRITT: It seems like a lot of folks are getting drawn
into steampunk.
We've had Cherie Priest on recently, Gail Carriger.
It's a really fun world to inhabit, huh?
JIM BUTCHER: It's a great genre.
And I'm getting to put this together in a way that's very
unique to anything I've done before.
But yeah, we've got airships and pirates and captains and
monsters and horrible things.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
TOM MERRITT: I can't wait.
I think a lot of people have found out about you through
"The Dresden Files" TV show who may not have found out
other ways.
What do you say to people who are coming to your books for
the first time saying, I've liked Harry Dresden.
I've met him on the screen.
But I haven't read about him yet.
JIM BUTCHER: First of all, I'd say there's actually no hack.
The hack's on the covers, OK.
We get that.
But the actual character, not so much.
But in general, I think one of my favorite descriptions of
the series is "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" starring
Philip Marlowe.
I think that's fair.
Really, Harry Dresden, he's a PI.
He's a wizard in Chicago.
The books kind of embrace a much larger world than the TV
show really got to explore and play with.
The TV show was limited to the few episodes they did for
season one.
And I think they were planning on expanding it, but they
didn't get the chance to.
So really, the books kind of take place in a much larger
world with many more concerns.
And Dresden's a much smaller piece of the overall story.
TOM MERRITT: Perfect, perfect way to satisfy your need for
more Dresden.
JIM BUTCHER: Well, theoretically, yeah.
There's some comic books and stuff, too.
But really, I kind of like the books.
I'm a little biased.
VERONICA BELMONT: So how do you think coming from a
role-playing background has affected your world building?
I mean, I know that's a big part of what you do for fun.
And we've talked to a lot of different authors that have
been on the show in the past who also come from that kind
of background.
JIM BUTCHER: Oh, it's done a lot of things for me.
One of the things that I have done several times is I'll run
game sessions here at home with my own gaming group that
is set in a world that I'm building for a story.
And the main thing that it really does is the great thing
about having players in a game is that they
never do anything right.
They never do what you expect them to do.
It's like no, you're not supposed to stampede a herd of
pigs through the duel in the emperor's garden.
That's not how it works.
But as they do that, though, when you're being the GM for
them, you're kind of telling that story.
Like I kind of frantically feel like I'm building sets
and laying out the floor about two feet in front of them as
they charge forward.
And so there's a lot of creative energy in that.
It does a whole lot for me to help me get more things
established than would have been there otherwise.
TOM MERRITT: Now, we've mentioned, as Veronica did,
that a lot of writers come from a role-playing background
or use role-playing or are just role-players.
But not every role-playing game player becomes a writer.
How did you end up becoming a writer?
JIM BUTCHER: At some point, I was reading a book.
And I was dissatisfied with the way it went.
And I said to myself, I could do that, and sat down
to start doing it.
I couldn't, not at the time.
But nine years later, I started being able to.
And that was when I eventually wrote the first book of the
Dresden Files.
It took me like nine years.
I didn't realize how much work there was involved in actually
writing a novel and putting everything together like that.
But as it turns out, it's a job.
But a really, really good job with totally awesome problems.
TOM MERRITT: Did it change your opinion of that book that
spurred you along?
You're like, maybe that book isn't as easy as I thought it
was to write.
JIM BUTCHER: Oh, no, because I'm obstinate.
But it did, though-- it gave me a much greater appreciation
for the sort of challenges authors have to face.
And so now I wouldn't be kind of the "well, I could do that
thing" now.
I'd just be like, hmm, I might have done that a little
differently, but that's cool.
VERONICA BELMONT: So we have a few questions from our
audience members.
And this first one comes from Daran, who asks, "Are there
any non sci-fi/fantasy series that
influenced the Dresden Files?
For some reason, the series has always reminded me of 'The
Rockford Files.' Am I crazy?"
JIM BUTCHER: You are not crazy.
Although "The Rockford Files" influence is going to be
somewhat limited on account of I only vaguely remember
watching "The Rockford Files" when I was little.
So if there's influence from "The Rockford Files," it's
kind of subliminal.
As far as another series go, I think Robert Parker's Spenser
books have probably been the biggest influence on the
Dresden Files.
The late Robert B Parker-- dammit, he went and died.
I loved his work.
He's really probably the single largest
non-science-fiction/fantasy influence on my work.
I really have enjoyed his stuff.
TOM MERRITT: Joshua wanted to know, "In the Dresden
universe, an ongoing theme is that most mortals do not
believe in magic.
One of the few exceptions is the Chicago Special
Investigations unit.
Are there other governmental groups out there
who are clued in?
As an example, FBI, KGB, NYPD, et cetera.
Do they have their own versions of Special
Investigations?
And if so, would we ever see them in the course of the
novels?"
JIM BUTCHER: It was Joshua, you said, right?
TOM MERRITT: Yes, Joshua asked that question.
Correct.
JIM BUTCHER: Joshua, if you go back, a detail that a lot of
readers have forgotten is at the end of "Fool Moon" where
Susan Rodriguez, the reporter, actually got on videotape the
werewolf and the big closing fight scene at the end.
And then the videotape disappeared.
And most people kind of forget that the videotape just sort
of disappeared.
They sort of put it down to oh, that's
random background stuff.
It's not random background stuff.
Somebody made it disappear.
And yes, there are people like that that exist.
And the difference is that most of them assume that
anybody involved with the supernatural is the bad guy.
They don't make contact.
Not only is Dresden the exception because he's
reaching across the aisle, so to speak to work with Murphy,
but Murphy's the exception because she's reaching out to
work with Dresden.
There's something more going on there.
But the only side of the story we get to see is Harry's side
of the story.
VERONICA BELMONT: And that actually brings us to our next
question, which mentions Murphy.
Rich says, "Both the Dresden and Alera books have some very
strong-- more accurately, badass--
women characters in Murphy and Kitai."
Am I saying that right?
I've read the books, but I've never actually
heard it said out loud.
JIM BUTCHER: Yes, Kitai, absolutely.
VERONICA BELMONT: Kitai?
Awesome--
"to name the two most obvious.
Are you intentionally trying to support or promote stronger
women characters in fiction?
Or do they just happen to be characters whom you feel have
the right fit for your stories?"
JIM BUTCHER: No, it's not something I'm
intentionally doing.
It's just that that's who I write.
I like to joke a lot of times that all my female characters
are based on my wife, Shannon, who was an engineer.
And then she decided that engineering was no longer a
challenge, so she took up romance writing.
She writes romance now.
But yeah, there have been a lot of strong female figures
in my life.
And I just kind of write it the way I see it.
And if you're somebody who is a woman, and you're a cop, and
you're, oh, by the way, it's not enough that I'm
a woman and a cop.
Let's go mess with the supernatural too,
you're not a milksop.
You can't be that as that person.
So I couldn't write her that way.
TOM MERRITT: So you heard it here.
James Butcher on "Sword and Laser" admitted that his wife
is supernatural.
JIM BUTCHER: Yeah, because all the villainous female
characters are based on her, too.
TOM MERRITT: James says, "I've always admired the Dresden
Files' willingness to stick to its own rules for how magic
and the supernatural operate.
However, have you ever found any of your own rules overly
constraining or developed a rule early on you wished you
hadn't later?"
JIM BUTCHER: I don't think of those things as constraints.
When I run into something where I want to have something
happen and then somebody will point out to me, hey, Jim,
because of this facet of magic, it
doesn't work like that.
You've already established that.
And I'll go, oh!
And then I'll go, OK, how can I use this to make it cooler
rather than how is this a problem?
Really, I think that's one of the common traits of a lot of
people who have done well is they don't look at those
things as problems.
They look at them as an opportunity to make something
cooler happen.
And that's the way you have to think of it.
You have to think of it as a challenge to your creativity.
You have to think of it as not something that's gotten in
your way, but something that you're going to be able to
step on to make the jump even higher as you go over it.
So that's always been my feeling, that I've never
really felt that the rules have held me back.
The rules are there to help things be better.
And that's what I use them for.
VERONICA BELMONT: Now, one question that we got from a
lot of people, actually, and this one in particular comes
from Daniel--
do you have an overarching story in mind for Dresden?
Or does it just kind of come to you book to book?
JIM BUTCHER: Oh, there's definitely an overarching
story in mind.
From the get go--
the Dresden Files started off as a class project in college.
And when I was laying out the structure for the entire thing
that I wanted, I went to my professional writing teacher
and said, hey, I'm thinking I should write a series about 20
books long.
You think that would be OK?
And I was too dumb to know that that was never going to
sell to anybody.
And she kind of looked at me with this sort of very bland
smile and was like, yeah, I think if you could do a
20-book series, you'll be doing fine.
So that was sort of the way that turned out.
But yeah, the plan was for all along, I've got a definite
beginning and an end that I want to go.
I believe that stories should have a beginning and a middle
and an end, and then they're over.
And then you do the next story.
But we're talking about 20ish of the case books like we've
seen so far, and then a big old apocalyptic
trilogy at the end.
Because who doesn't love apocalyptic trilogies?
And I saw "Star Wars" at a formative age.
TOM MERRITT: Excellent.
How far along are we then with "Cold Days," which is the next
Dresden book, coming out soon?
JIM BUTCHER: "Cold Days" is the 14th book of the series.
And we're more or less on schedule to
what I wanted to do.
I'm still not stuck exactly to the original outline that I
had written, partly because I thought of cooler things to do
and partly because as it turns out, I didn't really account
for Dresden's relationships or the romantic
aspects of his life.
Because I figured I'd just kind of let
that grow on its own.
And it turns out that the people you fall in love with
have some minor effect on the rest of your life.
I hadn't really accounted for that when I got started.
TOM MERRITT: I guess that's true.
And finally, our last listener question--
Mike wanted to know, if you could do a full book about one
of Dresden's friends or allies, who would you pick?
JIM BUTCHER: Full book about a friend or ally--
I might go with Thomas, his brother, which is a spoiler if
you've just started the series.
Sorry.
But he makes an interesting character.
And he's got his own story going in the
background that I know.
But really, I've got some ideas for spin-offs that I
might do some day, if I have gambling debts or something.
But actually, I would probably set it with somebody else in a
different part of the world and be able to explore more of
the world than we can see from just where Harry's standing.
VERONICA BELMONT: Well, it already seems like you have
quite a few books in store already.
It's not like you need any more projects at this point.
JIM BUTCHER: I know.
I'm going to be dead before I get to
write all these stories.
It's not fair.
I need a longer lifespan.
Somebody should get on that.
TOM MERRITT: Yeah, someone help extend Jim Butcher's
life, please.
We want to hear how this ends up.
VERONICA BELMONT: Absolutely.
And our final question is from me, actually.
Can you impart any writer's wisdom on us or other people
out there who are just getting started in writing?
We're both wrapping up with NaNoWriMo.
I know a lot of other people out there are as well.
What advice can you give to us?
JIM BUTCHER: Write every day.
Even if you only write a little bit, even if you only
write a sentence or a word.
Because if you've written a word, you're at least one word
closer to the end of the book than you were at the beginning
of the day.
And that's progress.
Writing is really-- it's about momentum.
So get that momentum.
Set your time aside every day, even if it's only a little bit
of time, and stay on it.
TOM MERRITT: Thank you so much for chatting
with us today, Jim.
We really appreciate you taking the time.
JIM BUTCHER: Thank you very much for having me.
TOM MERRITT: "Cold Days," a novel of the Dresden Files,
arrives in bookstores November 27.
VERONICA BELMONT: And now another fabulous whiteboard
video explaining the genius of Jim Butcher and its
relationship to William Wordsworth and Pop-Tarts.
AARON: "Every great and original writer must himself
create the taste by which he is to be relished." William
Wordsworth, 1807.
The poet could have been referring to Jim Butcher, who
began writing his supernatural detective series the Dresden
Files in 1996, well before the current wave of urban
paranormalism made it popular.
Of course, he wasn't, since Butcher wouldn't be born for
another 150 years.
And also because Wordsworth himself was actually cribbing
from Samuel Coleridge, who once wrote that his own
literary product was "directed to persons and characters
supernatural with a semblance of truth sufficient to procure
the willing suspension of disbelief."
And that's what Butcher does like a boss.
In both the Dresden and Codex Alera series, he grounds a
magical universe with rock-solid rules and gritty,
even graphic, authenticity.
Not quite realism--
his style is too self-consciously noir.
But while you're immersed in it, you believe in vampires
and curses, in the same way that you believe in the post
office and Pop-Tarts.
Like Pop-Tarts, it's hard to eat just one,
or in my case, six.
It's that compelling.
As Wordsworth once noted, a good writer tears the writing
from his guts.
There's nothing in my guts but Pop-Tarts.
Mmmm, Pop-Tarts.
TOM MERRITT: Now I'm hungry.
VERONICA BELMONT: Mmmm.
Pop-Tarts.
TOM MERRITT: I want to just sit and read "Cold Days" and
eat Pop-Tarts.
VERONICA BELMONT: I can't read it yet.
I'm not caught up.
I've got more books to read.
I've got more Dresden books to read.
TOM MERRITT: Is it wrong that I just jumped in?
VERONICA BELMONT: I'm only on book 10 or 12 or something.
TOM MERRITT: I just started reading it.
VERONICA BELMONT: You're not supposed to do that.
TOM MERRITT: Oh.
VERONICA BELMONT: Did you really just start reading it?
TOM MERRITT: Yes, I did.
VERONICA BELMONT: That is against the rules.
Ah, you're missing so much.
Anyway, would you like to help put together
our guides to authors?
Send us your thoughts on our next guest, Pat Rothfuss--
yay!-- and we'll send you a package of prizes, including
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Just upload your message to your favorite video hosting
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And email the link to us at feedback@swordandlaser.
Please do it.
We really want to show you off to our author friends.
TOM MERRITT: It's feedback@swordandlaser.com.
VERONICA BELMONT: What did I say?
TOM MERRITT: You just left off the dot com.
VERONICA BELMONT: Ah, you guys know the drill.
TOM MERRITT: You can figure it out.
VERONICA BELMONT: You're smart people.
TOM MERRITT: That's it, folks.
We're done.
If you're looking for more great things to read, though,
be sure to watch our book club episode where we read a book a
month and give lots of other great ideas for lots of books,
old and new.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel.
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We'll see you next time.
VERONICA BELMONT: See you next time.
Bye!
Patrick Rothfuss is going to be here!
TOM MERRITT: In the house.
VERONICA BELMONT: In the house.
TOM MERRITT: With his beard.
VERONICA BELMONT: We better get snacks.
[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]
COMPUTERIZED VOICE: "Sword and Laser."