Info about Peace Talks from Reading the WoJ section

[KurtinStGeorge]

Looking through the WoJ section I found some bits and pieces that might allow us to add a little to our knowledge of what's coming next.

Someone asked Jim, way back in 2011, when we'd see Injun Joe again.  Jim replied, "Injun Joe will have to be in there by [pause to think] at least by book 15.  Probably 15 and 16, he’ll both be in. [pause] Yeah, that seems about right.  I have to think these things through, I haven’t thought of the answer to absolutely every question."

So Peace Talks is book 15.  I could see a role for him in Mirror Mirror too.

When asked if we'd see Agent Tilly again, Jim replied, "Yes definitely.  Tilly I had to get into the story a little bit earlier on, for when things are happening on more than the Chicago level later in the story."

Damn that's pretty vague, but it sounds like Tilly is coming back eventually, but probably not in Peace Talks, but I'm not really sure about that guess.

After talking about Mirror Mirror a bit in 2014 Jim said this:"There’s Skin Game and then the next one the White Council is going to come to town and there’s going to be a big brouhaha, and then I think I can do Mirror Mirror after that. And then maybe we’ll do professional wrestling stories. Because I love professional wrestling. I watch it for the writing. And you can sort of pick out, well, wait, what’s the inspiration for this show? And you can figure out what the book is the inspiration for this show, this particular segment of the wrestling. It’s like, ‘Ah ha! This is the Return of the King episode. Look! They’ve destroyed the evil guy and now the good king is back, and now he’s the champion of the league, and so and so has been fired, and so and so has been re-hired, and he stretched forth his hand and cured a girl of cancer.’ It’s wonderful. I love watching wrestling. It’s great fiction."

There was actually more interesting info in there about the wrestling book than Peace Talks.  However, I can make a guess about Peace Talks if I add in that Jim recently said this book will get apocalyptic. Perhaps more than just a couple of representatives and bodyguards from the White Council will eventually become involved in the story.  My guess is, at first there will be one or two senior council members sent as negotiators with a retinue of security forces, but when the situation devolves into something uglier, this will force the White Council to commit more forces (more senior council members); or at least the Senior Council will justify their actions that way.  I also remember the post Peace Talks, Christmas Eve story where it's mentioned that Harry tried to warn people that things could get out of hand.  It wasn't said who Harry warned, but it seems most likely that Harry would have warned the Council, probably Marcone and maybe Lara Raith, that their actions could have dire consequences.  I don't think Harry would warn Mab, because he'd know that she wouldn't care.  Mab's going to do whatever she thinks is necessary to get the job done.

[Regenbogen]

Thanks for the research. Makes me even more excited. For the last few weeks I found myself opening Jim's website several times a day in the hope of finding something new. How silly is that? 

[Bad Alias]

I don't do it that often, but I'm starting to get impatient. Impatient in the restlessly eager sense, not the tendency to be quickly irritated or provoked sense. (I lose patients the closer I get to the thing anticipated).

[SerScot]

I’m looking forward to Peace Talks, I’m looking forward to Mirror Mirror... the wrestling story, not so much.

[Mira]

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..   

[g33k]

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).

[KurtinStGeorge]

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. 

[Mira]

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...

[Regenbogen]

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...

Oh dear. I was thinking the other way around. Jim is older than me... No, I don't want to write it down. I wish for him to see his great grandchildren.

[Lazarus52980]

So if Jim is able to do that, it should, when he gets the hang of it, shorten his writing time.

I don't think it works that way.  I'm no expert on writing, so I'll give a quote by someone who was:

“I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

― Mark Twain

[morriswalters]

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.

[Mira]

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.

Agreed.. I think he has spread himself too thin,  fame works that way sometimes.  I can understand wanting to move on to other projects,  but then one should look at quality not quantity...  If the short stories are an example of streamlining I think he is going down a rabbit hole, because they don't seem streamlined so much as rushed..   Something to be expected when one has deadlines for every ball one keeps in the air and there are at least a hundred of them..

[Bad Alias]

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.

[toodeep]

Hope he can perfect the technique for all our sakes...

Oh God no!  GRR Martin got in trouble writing one of his books because he told fans it was "basically done" after a year of writing and then took many more years to publish it.  The reason was because when he read what he had written it didn't go far enough fast enough.  He could have published, but wanted to finish the series in 7 books, so he literally took years editing and "working on his craft" to get it concise enough.  I'm still not sure he really succeeded considering how many side stories and bits got cut out of the series without detriment to the overall story.

I don't think that Jim would fall prey to that, but it does scare me.  Of course, on the other end of the spectrum in the "Robert Jordan" disease, where a very good 8-book series instead gets spread out over about 14.  (shudder)

[Regenbogen]

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.
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.