Had to split this interview into Part 1 & Part 2, due to 20,000 character restriction...
Dictation by
Blampira2007 FictionRight Interview with JB and his wife Shannon Part 1*FictionRight.coms intro of Alan Lickiss interviewing Jim & Shannon Butcher @ the Pike's Peak Writers Workshop*Alan: Rather than giving a lot of introduction in my words I'd like to hear from their own words: 'Who is Jim Butcher' & 'Who is Shannon Butcher'?Jim: Do we have to answer in third person? Can we say I? Okay. I haven't yet reached a point where I can talk about myself in third person. I'm a gaming nerd who started writing and eventually after about 10 years of trying finally got sold. Now I put out a series of books called the Dresden Files and there's a tv show on SciFi, and I have another series...a more standard fantasy series, it's out now. And I did a Spider Man book too which was enormous fun, so I think I've got what, like 11 books out now? Something like that...
Shannon: Lots.
Jim: Yeah, many books, several books, with more coming. So I'm busy working and people seem to be having a good time and that's pretty much what I do.
Shannon: And I'm Shannon Butcher. I write romantic suspense for Warner which is now Grand Central Publishing. I was an engineer, always wanted to be an engineer, and writing was kinda this detour that was unexpected, but wonderfully fun, and you know Jim taught me the craft and then I kinda figured out that writing was a lot like legos and I always liked legos. So now I play with writing.
Alan: Thank you. You mentioned, Shannon, that Jim got you writing. Can you tell us how that went about?Shannon: Well, uh, he would be looking at a scene or something and pounding his head against the wall saying "This just isn't right." And I'd read and go "it looks good to me" and so he's like, "no, you just don't know what your'e doing" and I'm like, "well, okay, teach me" ya know? If I don't know what I'm doing, tell me what to do. And so he started teaching me writing craft so that I could help him when he got stuck or whatever and eventually it just got to the point where it finally dawned on me that "I" could do this. And so I turned the craft around, instead of doing what Jim does, the fantasy and urban fantasy and all that, I write romance because that's what I dig.
Alan: Came to the darkside, huh?Shannon: Yeah.
Alan: And Jim, you mentioned you were a nerd that started writing. What caused you to start writing?Jim: Oh, uh. I suppose a couple different things. My senior year in high school I was...this is kind of emblematic of me as a kid...I was cool enough to be skipping class, but I was skipping class to go to the library. And so I happened to be in the library and Margaret Weis came in and was doing a talk at school and I hadn't known she was gonna be there, but I was skipping class in the library anyway, so why not? And I listened to her talk and thought, this whole writer thing might be a good time. And I eventually, uh, when I turned 19, I wrote my first novel and it was terrible. That's alright, I didn't know it at the time. Then I started taking some other classes, I was going to the University of Oklahoma and I started taking some of the professional writing courses that were in their journalism department, you know, that were actually taught by novelists who had many novels to their credit. Eventually, I started listening to those people and when I did I finally wrote a pretty decent book. That was 7 or 8 novels later though. So, you know, I've got a whole bunch of books that are uh, I've heard them called 'drawer books' & 'garage books' but I can't find mine on purpose. I suppose if I go raid some old hard drives that are in my computer morgue I might be able to find them, but I don't know anybody I dislike enough to make read those books. Anyway, I kept writing and writing and eventually got my work up to a publishable level and wound up going to a convention not unlike this one, only in Missouri, and hooked up with an agent there and she sold my stuff. And that's pretty much how I got started. It took me about 10 years, though, from the time I wrote my first novel to the time that I actually sold something. So I'm kinda the little author that could.
Alan: Well, I think a lot of authors go through that same experience, you don't see the overnight successes that people think you see. Someone has a novel come out and it goes really big but it's been 10 years in the making. A lot of times....Jim: Yeah, exactly. I think this year was the first year, if you count all the years from when I started writing, this year was the first year I've actually broken minimum wage. So, yeah, it took a while to get set up.
Alan: But it sounds like for both of you...is that you've started out with novels, that you didn't go the short story route?Jim: No, no. There's really no...there's so much less of a market for short stories than there used to be...and it really wasn't what I wanted to write. I'm not very good at writing short stories, they're almost a totally different medium than novels.
Alan: They are?Jim: Well, you have to do everything in a novel that you do in a short story only you have to do it in much less space. So you know, I think it's like trying to learn to dance ballet in a closet. You know, it's a much different thing, much different situation. I'm sure there are some good closet ballet dancers but uh, you know, I don't know of any. And I know that I didn't want to try it. But in any case, I went straight with novels and started from there. It took a long time to write, I mean, it's not so much of an investment when you're learning to write short stories and you write a terrible short story and you go on to the next one and you learn. Perhaps that would be the smarter thing and then I wouldn't have 8 books that I want nobody to ever see ever again.
Alan: What you said is very true, they're two different entities, novels and short stories, and if you really want to write novels even though you can hone your craft faster on a short story, you learn to write something different.Jim: It's true, it's a different set up.
Alan: What were your influences, who did you like to read when you were getting started?Shannon: Julie Garwood was the person who made me believe romances rocked. I mean, I'd always scoffed at them. I started out reading historical romances and then, when I changed over to contemporary romantic suspense, um, a lot of Linda Howard and Elizabeth Lowell, yeah, I love their writing. That's when I got excited and thought "This is what I want to do".
Jim: Me personally, one of the writers that was very influential when I got started was Laurel K Hamilton. I got done reading 'Guilty Pleasures' the year it was released in '93 and said "Wow, this author really had a lot of fun writing this book". It wasn't until years later that I actually tried writing something that was sorta in the same vein, I was only writing "swords and horses fantasy" as I always like to call it, that's what I want to write "swords and horses fantasy". So, authors in that genre that I loved reading were Tolkien and David Eddings, Lloyd Alexander's "Prydain" novels which were actually young adult novels but are still very good books. "The Chronicles of Narnia" of course, by CS Lewis, and then kinda the bigger books that are out like, um, Elfstones, the Shannara books. Robert Jordan's books, which I read for a while - until it became to much of a history lesson to catch up on the last book, you know, the last 5 books when he released the new one, it had been 5 years since I've looked at them. But those were the authors I was looking at when I was getting started.
Alan: How about now, do you have anyone that you favor, that you like to read because you maybe learn something of their works, from reading their works, or...?Jim: Actually, the authors that I love to read now are the ones good enough that I can get into their book and their story without breaking them down. It gets really hard to try and enjoy a book when you're doing a lot of thinking about of "well, how's the author doing that, let me see, let me take apart how they made this happen" and I much prefer to read a book that is actually a good enough story that I don't ... that I can get out of professional thinking mode.
Shannon: You don't see the strings attached.
Jim: Yeah, yes, it's watching the production from the audience versus seeing it from backstage, and if I've gotta watch a book from the wings I don't have as much fun as the people who're sitting out front. So I much prefer those others, like um, Lois Bujold does that for me a lot. I, uh, professionally speaking, I wanna have Lois's babies. And then, I think to pick up new authors, Naomi Novik, I've really enjoyed lately. Robert B Parker of the Spenser novels, I have to reread those at least once a year...those are probably the 3 big ones lately. I always forget somebody who's really important and then kick myself later, but that just happens every time, so...
Alan: How about you, Shannon, in the realm of romantic suspense?Shannon: Oh, in romantic suspense I love Suzanne Brockmann and Tara Janzen and Cindy Gerard are some of my favorites. I'm also getting into paranormal romance and there I really love JR Ward and Sherrilyn Kenyon and Christine Feehan, some of her stuff is just awesome, so...those are some of the books that I hold as rewards to myself for getting my work done.
Alan: Ah, a treat for when you get to a point that you've done?Shannon: Yes, exactly.
Alan: Are you like Jim that you like to be able to not see the strings?Shannon: Oh, absolutely. If the book isn't crafted well enough, or if it's not necessarily my favorite flavor, then I spend too much time thinking about how they wrote it, rather than just enjoying it.
Alan: You referred to those 'second-read' books, you read it the first time and really enjoyed it but you have to read it again to see "how'd they do that?"Shannon: Yeah, "how did they
do it?" Right.
Jim: Exactly.
Alan: What is your favorite part about writing? There's this whole huge process that goes into this, what do you like the most?Shannon: Typing "The End!"
*laughs*Alan: Cashing the checks... *laughs*Jim: Yeah, getting ready to type out "the end" is a great pleasure, Planning the book out is a great pleasure for me, I like to put ideas together, and there are many ideas in the books that I get to look forward to, "Oooo, I've been looking forward to writing this scene for 'X' number of years", You know in Dead Beat where Harry gets to ride around on a zombie Tyrannosaurus and "Oh! I've been waiting for
years to write
that scene with the T Rex". Well, you know, I really think...how many of us don't know at least one building that would be better for the introduction of a T Rex through the lobby, you know? Perhaps even an entire campus? But yeah, I like planning out the big scenes, the ones that I'm looking forward too, the one-liners I've been looking forward to delivering in print for a while. That's really kinda my favorite part is actually getting to do those bits that I've been wanting to do for a long time.
Shannon: I really like the first draft, you know. To just...I kinda go psycho when I'm writing the first draft and I do it 12-16 hour a day, every day, until it's done. I love that kind of...living in that creative world, you know, where my brain is all being on the right hand side and happy. That's probably my favorite part. And then there's
revisions...Dun, dun, dun...Jim: Dun, dun, dun...
Alan: I'm curious, how much you work - you write in different realms, how much do you help
each other out with plot or revisions, cause you're one of those rare married couples who both write.Shannon: We swap...I mean, we talk about ideas over dinner and everything, but that's...it use to be a lot more so, you know, Jim was helping me with my writing and he'd read it and was like, "Well, it was better
but..." you know, but now, we're both so busy there's a lot less involvement between our writing than there used to be.
Jim: Yeah.
Alan: What she said?Jim: Yeah, what she said. We kinda threw ideas back and forth sometimes when we were in the car or we'll complain to one another about 'how I can't get this part to work right' or 'I can't believe the editor wants me to change this', but we don't actually do a lot of the working together on books because we wanna stay married.
Shannon: Yeah. We wouldn't know how to split the money in the divorce, so...
Jim: Yeah, exactly.
Shannon: It's easier this way.
Jim: Yep.
*laughter*Alan: I noticed Jim that on your website that you have a podcast, can you tell our listeners about that?Jim: Uh, well, it's not my podcast, it's Fred Hick's podcast. It's called "The Butcher Block" and it's about all things Jim Butcher. It's an unfortunately named podcast but Fred liked it so, you know, his call. Fred is a good friend of mine from my college days and was a Harry Dresden fan years before the books were ever published. He's also the one, the owner of Evil Hat Games, who's putting out the Dresden Files Role Playing Game.
Shannon: Yay!
Jim: Yeah, and so, Fred has the podcast that he runs and Fred is one of these guys who is just
manic obsessive about everything he's doing, so you know, every once in a while he'll cycle around and
this time out it'll be the podcast he'll be manic obsessive about and
next time it'll be back to the game manic obsessive, or back to the website - manic obsessive about that. And he get's a ferocious and fearsome amount of work done when he does that. Lately, it's the podcasts has been the new thing, so he's put out several issues of the podcast with the (tv) show coming out and there's been a big insurge of new fans, so he wanted to have something there that would be for all the folks that were new, something immediately available for them to kinda get into and listen to. I've been on an issue or two talking about the show and he's gone and talked to other folks and artists and some of his fellow gaming authors who are putting together the game ... and so that's "The Butcher Block" and you can find it at jim-butcher.com.
Alan: We'll be posting a link on our podcast website.Jim: Oh, cool. Thank you.
