Speaker 1: My grown son, Ryan, who is an avid reader, said
Speaker 1: I've got this book series you got to read, and
Speaker 1: normally I'm not gonna lie like he likes a lot.
Speaker 2: Of fantasy books. And I was like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: But then he said, no, it's about this guy who's
Speaker 1: a wizard and a private investigator in Chicago now, and
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, you had me at wizard who's
Speaker 1: also a private investigator. The books were The Dresden Files,
Speaker 1: and he gave me the first one, which is called Stormfront,
Speaker 1: and it's so entertaining and so interesting, and the lead character,
Speaker 1: Harry Dresden, is in my view, probably an aspirational type
Speaker 1: character for a lot of men. He's not only a wizard,
Speaker 1: he's a private detective. He is an investigator, and he's
Speaker 1: also perpetually kind of grumpy. I mean, he's he's really
Speaker 1: got an all in one package, and he's been created
Speaker 1: by author Jim Butcher, who joins me now to talk
Speaker 1: about his Is this your seventeenth book coming out twelve months?
Speaker 1: Is that coming out seventeenth? Did I see that?
Speaker 3: Well, it'll be the eighteenth book in the Dress and Files,
Speaker 3: if you don't count the two collections of short stories.
Speaker 3: You count them as the twentieth and then I've got
Speaker 3: I think nine other books out as well.
Speaker 4: Well, I love it or not dress in books.
Speaker 1: I want to start by by saying, you know, Jim,
Speaker 1: first of all, I'm glad you're coming on the show.
Speaker 2: That's thing number one.
Speaker 1: My son is very excited about you being here and
Speaker 1: has given me a bunch of nerdy.
Speaker 2: Questions to ask you.
Speaker 1: But I went to your website and I went to
Speaker 1: your about page, and your about page at jimdash Butcher
Speaker 1: dot com has to be the greatest about page in
Speaker 1: the history of about pages, because you clearly outline how
Speaker 1: you got published and it was definitely not a straight
Speaker 1: line uphill for you. And I love that you shared
Speaker 1: this story of perseverance. So if you could kind of
Speaker 1: for my listeners who haven't read the about page, how
Speaker 1: did you get from nineteen year old kid writing a
Speaker 1: terrible first novel, that's what you said, to being a
Speaker 1: guy who's now published we'll call it twenty stories or
Speaker 1: encapsuled books about about Harry Dresden.
Speaker 3: Oh well, it's one of those stories that I like
Speaker 3: to tell because it keeps me humble, or or I
Speaker 3: hope it does. But yeah, I wrote my first book
Speaker 3: and it was an It was a terrible book. So
Speaker 3: I wrote another one and that one was terrible as well,
Speaker 3: and then I wrote four more and those are also awful.
Speaker 4: And it was right around that point that.
Speaker 3: I decided, okay, you know what, maybe I should start
Speaker 3: trying to learn from people. So I wound up going
Speaker 3: over to the English Department, from where I had started
Speaker 3: off in computers, and I decided that I did not
Speaker 3: want to work a computer job. And I went from
Speaker 3: there to business business programming, and I realized that I
Speaker 3: did not want to do that either, and I tried,
Speaker 3: and this was all I was writing on the side,
Speaker 3: And then I tried. I tried going into education, and
Speaker 3: I had the problem with that was they send you
Speaker 3: out to observe teachers in class, and it was just
Speaker 3: the particular teachers I was observing.
Speaker 4: The boy they were miserable people, and so I didn't
Speaker 4: want to do that either.
Speaker 3: And then I thought, okay, well, maybe if I'm going
Speaker 3: to take this book thing seriously, I should go to
Speaker 3: I should, you know, learn something official in school.
Speaker 4: So I went to the English Department, said I want
Speaker 4: to write novels. This is the right place.
Speaker 3: They said, yes, absolutely. So I went to English and
Speaker 3: I wrote another book and it was terrible. And then
Speaker 3: I heard about the professional writing department in the journal
Speaker 3: in the journalism school at the University of Oklahoma that
Speaker 3: was actually taught by a professor who was also a
Speaker 3: novelist with forty books out, and so it was a
Speaker 3: much more kind of a practical training, you know, where
Speaker 3: they were saying, okay, let's let's The first class I
Speaker 3: took was called writing a genre fiction novel.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: And so I wrote several genre fiction novels in class.
Speaker 3: I wrote a couple in class, and they were also bad.
Speaker 3: And so so finally I decided, and I just I'd
Speaker 3: been arguing with the teacher left and right, because I mean,
Speaker 3: I had gotten my bachelor's degree in English literature, you know,
Speaker 3: with an emphasis with an emphasis in creative writing, and
Speaker 3: meanwhile she had merely published forty novels.
Speaker 4: And you know, I was kind of at that age
Speaker 4: where I still knew everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've forgotten most of it now, but as as
Speaker 3: but as as it went, I decided, all right, the
Speaker 3: way the best way for me to prove that this
Speaker 3: teacher is wrong about all the things she's she's trying
Speaker 3: to get me to do, because I was going to
Speaker 3: be writing swords and horses fantasy. That's that's what I
Speaker 3: wanted to write. I wanted to be the next Tolkien.
Speaker 3: And uh, you know, she kept suggesting, Hey, Jim, you
Speaker 3: know you keep talking about Buffy the vampire, sli hair
Speaker 3: and babble on five in class, maybe you should try
Speaker 3: writing like an urban fantasy book or or a science
Speaker 3: fiction novel.
Speaker 4: I poo pooed it, But finally I decided to prove
Speaker 4: her wrong.
Speaker 3: And the way I decided to do it, I was
Speaker 3: going to do absolutely everything she told me to do.
Speaker 4: I was going to fill out all her little forms
Speaker 4: and do all her little worksheets.
Speaker 3: And and you know, follow every little rigid thing that
Speaker 3: she was teaching me about about how to write a
Speaker 3: good story, and that would show her what terrible cookie
Speaker 3: cutter patlum crap.
Speaker 4: Would have emerged from that all the process.
Speaker 3: So I did, and I wrote the first book at
Speaker 3: the Dresden Box, which which showed her.
Speaker 4: But as it worked, as.
Speaker 3: It turned out, you know, she I turned in the
Speaker 3: first couple of chapters of Dresden Files. And bear in
Speaker 3: mind that This was a teacher who believed in preparing
Speaker 3: you for the reality of the New York publishing world,
Speaker 3: which is a very cut through kind of place. You know,
Speaker 3: if you don't do your job there, you don't stay.
Speaker 3: And you know, her critique had included such things as
Speaker 3: rolling up the chapters I'd handed into her, leaning across
Speaker 3: her desk, popping me on the head with him and saying,
Speaker 3: what were you thinking?
Speaker 4: She was that kind of teaching.
Speaker 3: So I hand her the first, you know, the first
Speaker 3: thirty pages of the first Dressdent Files book, and she
Speaker 3: picks it up and starts flipping through them and reading
Speaker 3: them and reading them and reading them, and finally she
Speaker 3: looks up at me and says, well, you did it.
Speaker 3: I said what, because that was not something I'd ever
Speaker 3: expected to hear from her. You know, she was always
Speaker 3: the I mean, she would tarry uppart.
Speaker 4: She's like, you did it.
Speaker 3: This is of saleable quality, this is professional level writing.
Speaker 3: I don't know if this will be the first thing
Speaker 3: you sell, but you will be able to sell this book,
Speaker 3: so you know, please, you know, you know, by all means,
Speaker 3: keep this book if you're gonna be able to sell
Speaker 3: it one day, even if it's not the.
Speaker 4: First eving sell. And I was like, wow.
Speaker 3: She's like, okay, now come back in next week with
Speaker 3: an outline for the rest of it, and she meant
Speaker 3: the rest of the novel roll I roll in the
Speaker 3: next week with an outline for it for a twenty
Speaker 3: book long series with a giant three book capstone trilogy
Speaker 3: at the end. And I handed into her and it's
Speaker 3: a console course, right, so you just you're just talking
Speaker 3: for forty five minutes. And I handed into her and
Speaker 3: I'm chattering with her and I'm just going on and on,
Speaker 3: and at some point I realized we're forty minutes into
Speaker 3: the into the meeting, and she hasn't gotten to say
Speaker 3: anything to me.
Speaker 4: So I kind of stop and go, what do you think?
Speaker 4: And I can still.
Speaker 3: Remember the look on her face, right, she just got
Speaker 3: this kid on board. I finally got this kid on board.
Speaker 3: I can't derailing now, That's what I can see the
Speaker 3: look on her face now, And she.
Speaker 4: Can because there's no way you're gonna go sell a
Speaker 4: twenty book series in New York as a first time
Speaker 4: offering you. This is not gonna happen. And so she says,
Speaker 4: I think you can sell a twenty book long series
Speaker 4: should be doing, okay, And I was like, okay, great.
Speaker 3: And because I charged full speed ahead, and because she
Speaker 3: hadn't told me it was impossible, I did it.
Speaker 2: Did you ever dream small ever?
Speaker 4: Well? Apparently no. I mean, I'm just right.
Speaker 3: I'm just writing ridiculous wizard books, right like I write
Speaker 3: popcorn books.
Speaker 4: But I want to write like the very very best
Speaker 4: popcorn books. That that's head of my goal was a writer.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Harry Dresden, because now that we know
Speaker 1: he sprang forth out of a desire to prove your
Speaker 1: instructor wrong.
Speaker 2: How did you decide? How did Harry Dresden come to be?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 1: At what point were you like, Okay, I got a wizard,
Speaker 1: and let's give him a job. Okay, is he going
Speaker 1: to be a firefight?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: Is he going to be? Is he gonna be?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 2: I know he'll be an investigator? Or was that?
Speaker 1: Were you looking for the investigator first or the wizard first?
Speaker 2: And they all came together? How did he come to be?
Speaker 3: I knew I wanted to write I wanted to write
Speaker 3: an investigator. I wanted to write a wizard. That that part,
Speaker 3: you know, because I was putting it together, and I'm
Speaker 3: hitting here thinking about it, and it's like, okay. So
Speaker 3: it was a very it was a very mechanical, very
Speaker 3: inorganic process.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Basically, what I did was I went and picked my
Speaker 3: top half dozen wizards and my top half dozen private investigators,
Speaker 3: you know, from various books, and then I chopped them
Speaker 3: into bits and reassembled them like this Frankenstein.
Speaker 4: And uh uh and and.
Speaker 3: And then and you know, I was just picking my
Speaker 3: favorite traits from various wizards, various various private eyes. And
Speaker 3: what I realized was that wizards and private eyes in
Speaker 3: the realm of literature, they have the same job. They
Speaker 3: go into places other people aren't willing to go, to
Speaker 3: find out things that other people aren't willing to find out.
Speaker 4: And that's and.
Speaker 3: That was when I realized, oh wow, there's a lot
Speaker 3: of synergy going on here.
Speaker 4: And so after after that, you know.
Speaker 3: Whether they're going into the the the criminal underworld or
Speaker 3: the the literal underworld, you know, that's kind of what
Speaker 3: wizards do. And and so I realized, Okay, I've got something.
Speaker 3: I've got a good thing going here. So I took
Speaker 3: my favorite bits of shear Locke and Spencer and Travis
Speaker 3: McGee and and several other you know, several dashal hammock characters.
Speaker 3: Uh And I mixed them with my favorite wizards from
Speaker 3: my fantasy books and just took my favorite traits from
Speaker 3: the wizards. And it's like, I absolutely have some that
Speaker 3: have have somebody who's going to be really, really snarky
Speaker 3: and lip off to absolutely anyone.
Speaker 4: I need somebody who's going to who's going.
Speaker 3: To be extremely, extremely stubborn and just can't be deterred
Speaker 3: from from his course of action.
Speaker 4: Uh uh.
Speaker 3: And and I also I wanted to write a lot
Speaker 3: of humor because I felt like that was sort of,
Speaker 3: you know, sort of played to my strength as a writer.
Speaker 3: And so I put this character together and I assembled
Speaker 3: him as this Frankenstein. I put him in this story.
Speaker 3: And at the time, it felt like a complete waste
Speaker 3: of time. It felt like I was just doing this,
Speaker 3: you know, as a class project. You know, it wasn't
Speaker 3: going to turn out into anything cool or meaningful or
Speaker 3: anything like that. And here we are, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: working on book nineteen.
Speaker 4: Now, Well, let me.
Speaker 1: Just say I and I know this is probably gonna
Speaker 1: be blasphemy, knowing what you just said earlier, in the interview,
Speaker 1: but I have never been able to make it through
Speaker 1: any token book. I have tried multiple times to get into.
Speaker 1: But it's the notion that I have to have a
Speaker 1: glossary in the back to explain to me the words
Speaker 1: and people and stuff of a fantasy land that I
Speaker 1: don't enjoy for whatever reason, it doesn't connect with me.
Speaker 1: But with The Dresden Files, you drop him into modern
Speaker 1: day Chicago, so I have a frame of reference. I understand.
Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons I love Buffy. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love Buffy the Vampire Slayer because you have all the
Speaker 1: monsters and everything, but it's modern day, right, So I
Speaker 1: don't have to be a lover of fantasy to love
Speaker 1: the Dresden Files because it already feels familiar.
Speaker 2: That's what I love about it, right.
Speaker 3: That's one of the great advantages that when I'm writing Dresden,
Speaker 3: you know, I can say, Okay, they were in a Walmart,
Speaker 3: and that's all I have to say, because people have
Speaker 3: been in Walmart, you know.
Speaker 4: And after that I can and I can establish these.
Speaker 3: Places that are very familiar, that are that people are
Speaker 3: comfortable with, and then fill them with these you know,
Speaker 3: fantastic incredible creatures that maybe they're not.
Speaker 4: Familiar and comfortable with.
Speaker 3: But because we've got this setting, you know that, you know,
Speaker 3: it feels like, okay, maybe this could happen.
Speaker 4: Let me give him a little bit more time to
Speaker 4: see how it plays out.
Speaker 2: Well, I want to.
Speaker 1: My son is the one who introduced me to you,
Speaker 1: and he sent me a long email. I'm going to
Speaker 1: afford it to you so you can see all of
Speaker 1: his nerdy questions as well. But he said, and I
Speaker 1: want to read this. I want to read this in
Speaker 1: its entirety, this part of it anyway, mister Butcher, thank
Speaker 1: you for the wild ride that has been Harry's life
Speaker 1: and for letting us in on it. It's got to
Speaker 1: feel crazy on some level that so many people resonate
Speaker 1: with the series. The truth is you've just written some
Speaker 1: damn good books. I look forward to continuing the adventure
Speaker 1: in twelve months. That is the next book, coming out
Speaker 1: in January. Also, while I know that some fans out
Speaker 1: there would kill me for this, I hope you don't
Speaker 1: give us all the answers. There's something real and bittersweet
Speaker 1: about not knowing the history of this organization or that artifact.
Speaker 1: Even if you yourself know every detail. I hope you
Speaker 1: keep your own Tom Bombadil hidden away in there, sir.
Speaker 1: That is from my son super Nerd love this kid,
Speaker 1: and he loves you. So I wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: kind of about that question. How far in advance, like
Speaker 1: you're about to release twelve months, how far was the
Speaker 1: story put together in terms of your twenty book arc
Speaker 1: that you pitched to your teacher.
Speaker 2: Are you on track in that arc story wise?
Speaker 1: Or is the story evolved since you came up with
Speaker 1: that twenty book arc.
Speaker 3: It's it's evolved a little. I'm still mostly on track. Wow,
Speaker 3: I've never written a twenty book long I've never written
Speaker 3: it right now, I think it's gonna wind up being
Speaker 3: twenty five books total. I've never written a twenty five
Speaker 3: book long story before though, So, I mean, originally it
Speaker 3: was going to be twenty.
Speaker 4: Three, but I think I'm gonna need a couple more
Speaker 4: before I get to the end. So far nobody seems
Speaker 4: to mind.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, I mean, at this point, I'm a
Speaker 3: little superstitious about deviating from the from the plan. It's
Speaker 3: working out so well, I mean, it just what seems
Speaker 3: churlish to turn aside I mean that twenty five year
Speaker 3: old kid. He might have thought he knew a whole
Speaker 3: lot of things he didn't know, but he also had
Speaker 3: some good ideas. And I, you know, I've still got
Speaker 3: my my notebooks from class back then, where I was
Speaker 3: outlining oh yeah, absolutely, and uh and and yeah, I
Speaker 3: outlined kind of the basic structure of what was going
Speaker 3: to happen in the story.
Speaker 4: I knew what was gonna happen in the story world
Speaker 4: all the way through to the end.
Speaker 3: And now it's you know, now it's it's I'm getting
Speaker 3: close to the end of it, so you know, hopefully
Speaker 3: I can make things pay off in a satisfactory way.
Speaker 1: My friend Ben Albright just walked in the studio. He
Speaker 1: too is a super fan, I found out yesterday. Do
Speaker 1: you have a question for Jim, Ben?
Speaker 2: Not a question, just to thank you man.
Speaker 5: You know, your books help get me through college and
Speaker 5: a couple of deployments in Iraq. Even watched the TV
Speaker 5: show The Dressed and TV show with Paul Blackthorne. I
Speaker 5: enjoyed that as well, So I just to thank you
Speaker 5: for creating a world that some of us could get
Speaker 5: lost in for a little while and forget about the
Speaker 5: world we were in.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you man.
Speaker 3: That's what I think the role of especially fantasy writing
Speaker 3: is is to get people to escape things for a while,
Speaker 3: you know, to get into a different world than our own.
Speaker 3: And that's I'm so pleased I was able to do
Speaker 3: that for you while you were deployed, man.
Speaker 5: And thank you for your service, No, thank you, thank
Speaker 5: you for providing the hours of entertainment and enjoyment.
Speaker 2: And this is why we do it.
Speaker 1: So, Jim, let me ask you this last question before
Speaker 1: I have to let you go. First of all, this
Speaker 1: has been an absolute delightful interview, and I should have
Speaker 1: known it would be after your about page, which I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, if there were awards for about pages on websites,
Speaker 1: yours would be literally like head and shoulders above everybody else.
Speaker 1: But when you hear something like that and you meet
Speaker 1: the fans, because I'm sure you do some of these
Speaker 1: fan fests or stuff like that, I mean, have you
Speaker 1: had the opportunity to go and actually meet people, what
Speaker 1: do you get?
Speaker 2: What? What do you what do you get.
Speaker 1: From those experiences? When you do get to meet the
Speaker 1: people like Ben and my son who love your books,
Speaker 1: what does that do for you?
Speaker 3: It's kind of a recharge, uh, you know, because a
Speaker 3: lot of times, you know, I'll get discouraged because you know,
Speaker 3: writing is a sort of a marathon occupation, right.
Speaker 4: I mean, it takes months and months and months to
Speaker 4: write a novel.
Speaker 3: And when I get out to meet the fans, and
Speaker 3: there's a lot of times when you're when you're when
Speaker 3: you're writing, and it's just like, oh man, nobody's gonna
Speaker 3: like this. I mean, it's ridiculous for me to think that,
Speaker 3: you know, given the evidence. But still, you know, that's
Speaker 3: kind of like what being an artist is.
Speaker 4: Right. You're you're worried that eventually people are gonna find
Speaker 4: out you're a fake. And so here I am.
Speaker 3: You know, I right, But when I get out to
Speaker 3: meet the fans, and I'll have these people and they'll
Speaker 3: come up to me and they'll tell me, hey, I
Speaker 3: was reading this book. I was reading these books with
Speaker 3: my father and I, you know, the Will while he
Speaker 3: is dying new cancer. And it was everything that we
Speaker 3: got to get. We got to read these books together
Speaker 3: while that was going on, and it got it let
Speaker 3: him escape his pain for a while, and it let
Speaker 3: us be closer together because we hadn't been for years
Speaker 3: and years, and.
Speaker 4: I just want to thank you for that.
Speaker 3: And somebody comes up and tells you that story and
Speaker 3: you go, oh my god, I was just trying to
Speaker 3: pay the bills.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: But but you know, but at the same time, I've
Speaker 3: been able to create this and and this, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of this little, this weird, little seed that I
Speaker 3: planned has grown up into this big tree that that
Speaker 3: a lot of people have been able to take shade in.
Speaker 3: And when I get out to meet the fans, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 3: you know what these books are. You know, they're going
Speaker 3: to help people. I mean, they're not They're not going
Speaker 3: to change the world. They're not going to alter the
Speaker 3: fabric of reality. But they are going to make somebody's
Speaker 3: day a little bit better. And and they are going
Speaker 3: to make somebody's.
Speaker 4: Really rough time a little better than it would have
Speaker 4: been without them.
Speaker 3: And I feel like, if if I can make that,
Speaker 3: as if that could be my contribution to the world
Speaker 3: as a human being, that's very satisfying. When I get
Speaker 3: to get out meet those people and hear those stories,
Speaker 3: it kind of renews my commitment to takes well.
Speaker 1: Jim Butcher isopreciate your time. And you know what I
Speaker 1: always tell people, Not all of us can cure cancer,
Speaker 1: but we can entertain you while you fight your cancer.
Speaker 2: There you go. It's been an absolute pleasure chatting with you, sir.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on