Info about Peace Talks from Reading the WoJ section

[Bad Alias]

@Regenbogen: While I agree completely, one will hit a point of diminishing returns (, die, or have some sort of decline). But the thing about any skill set practiced long enough is that there is always a possibility of breakthrough moments when skill drastically increases when the skill has previously plateaued, so one should always aim at improvement when the skill set is central or highly valued.

[morriswalters]

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.

Jim knows how to tell a story, and he's really good at it.  But a shorter book can only come with decreased complexity IMO.  So for instance, in Skin Game, the act of Butters becoming a Knight adds complexity.  Murphy could have taken up the sword, she'd used it prior to that point and Jim took the time over the course of the books to show her journey. That isn't a criticism, rather a nod to the different ways the story can be told.

[Kindler]

Jim has stated that the short stories/novellas require nearly as much effort as writing a novel for him (source: http://wordof.jim-butcher.com/index.php/word-of-jim-woj-compilation/woj-on-future-df-works/). So I wouldn't expect a reduced word count to lead to a (significantly) reduced cycle. Something like three quarters of fiction writing (for me at least, and for lots of other writers who have spoken about it) happens away from a keyboard. Sitting down and putting it on the page is mostly typing.

Jim's not writing poetry or literary fiction; he's not agonizing over specific word choices, I don't think (not the way GRR Martin does, anyway, that old codger). He writes clearly and (for the most part) plainly. It's one of the reasons he's my favorite author; he's focused on entertainment, producing fun plots and interesting characters, not describing each scene in excruciating detail the way House of Leaves or Fight Club does. Reducing the word count isn't going to cut the length of time it'll take to put it on paper mostly for that reason.

And writing concisely can be a whole lot harder. Jim described his planning process as basically "General concept, Starting State of Affairs, general Ending State of Affairs, and a few Big Scenes That Happen Between Those Two things." Cutting the word count will basically mean going from Four Big Things to The Three Big Things That are the Most Relevant to this Book, unless I miss my guess.

In other words, I think we're talking about shaving off a couple of weeks' worth of writing time if he reduces his chapter count by, say, 15% of Skin Game. That's practically negligible for readers (though not for Jim). Say Jim did it for Peace Talks, for example. It might mean that he finished his draft in May instead of June (though Peace Talks is not typical of Jim's writing process for obvious reasons). It might make for a leaner, tighter, and (potentially) better novels, but it won't necessarily make for less work.

[spiritofair]

Count me as a fan of focused writing! Both Robert Jordan and GRR Martin both had way too many tangential things going on in their books. Jordan would go off on tangents that were baffling, completely ignoring fan favorite characters like the main crew of kids from the town at the beginning of the story (Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene, Nynave) and focusing on boring, unimportant characters that, in the end, had little to do with the overall story.

Martin did the same, going far afield in Dorn and on Tyrion's river ride. And Brienne's travels. All boring, all detracting from the main characters. All worthless in the end.

And all of that crap slowed the story down. Jordan died before finishing his tale, and Martin probably is going to as well. I remember when Feast came out, and I lamented, oh, crap, he's pulling a Jordan. Man, did he!

Being a first person account, Jim really can't go too far afield like these other writers did, but I hope he keeps focus. I, too, want to live to see the end of this series, but if it takes him 3 to 5 years per book, hell, he might not even live to see the end. He's got, what, 8 books left?

[Regenbogen]

Being a first person account, Jim really can't go too far afield like these other writers did, but I hope he keeps focus. I, too, want to live to see the end of this series, but if it takes him 3 to 5 years per book, hell, he might not even live to see the end. He's got, what, 8 books left?

That reminds me: there are novels with a first person narrator that have other point of views too. I always thought, it makes the death of the main character a higher possibility than with only the first person.
Normally a first person main character dieing is not logical, because how could he tell the story after his death?
Sometimes a second or third POV is introduced to be able to tell the story of the main character's death. But not always.
For example in the 3.Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb:

(click to show/hide)

2 trilogies first person only. Third trilogy: first book first person only. Second book: suddenly from Fitz' little daughter's POV, also first person! I thought: That's it, she's preparing for Fitz' death. Tears. And I was right. Flood of tears. 

On the other hand there are the Outlander novels by Diana Gabaldon. First book: Claire's POV first person.
Not sure if 2. or 3. book: third person POV's. In the 3. book there were several chapters from Claire's, Jamie's and Lord John's POVs.
After that until now more and more alternating POVs.
So far Claire is still alive. But we will see. Maybe in 6 or 7 years when the last book is out.
But it really slows the story down. Not as extremely as GOT but in the novels with less than 3 POVs there was more story, you felt as if a lot had happened.

I hope JB doesn't let Harry die for real (not like Changes ). I would like a happy ending. Not like "everything is fine" but a tragedy here and there but Harry and Maggie alive and happy.
But I don't believe he will do that. 
And I hope there will be no other POVs except in short stories.

[Bad Alias]

What annoys me is when writers go off into the weeds describing something. The closest Jim comes to this, and it's not that close, is describing Mac's for the eighth time by the ninth book (or the Blue Beetle or Harry's apartment). Martin does it with clothes. I don't need three pages every chapter for each character's clothing. I was watching a panel where an author was talking about this. He said every author has a subject that they love that no one else cares about. He said that the author is over indulging himself when the reader can tell "the author was touching himself as he wrote it." It's almost always some "nerdy" area of interest like medieval clothing, currency systems, genealogy, etc.

I read a trilogy once where all of a sudden a second character had pov chapters. I knew immediately that the main character wasn't going to make it. I was right.

[g33k]

... What annoys me is when writers go off into the weeds describing something. The closest Jim comes to this, and it's not that close, is describing Mac's for the eighth time by the ninth book (or the Blue Beetle or Harry's apartment) ...

I'm pretty sure JB tries to keep in mind that ANY of his novels may be the 1st one a new reader reads.

So iconic elements get at least a bit of exposition for the n00bz.

[KurtinStGeorge]

One thing that keeps Dresden Files novels from becoming 1000+ page tomes; that are more coffee table books than something you really want to read, is that Jim usually limits the number of side characters who will interact with Harry, and he usually keeps other secondary characters from taking up too much space.

So in one book Thomas is Harry's sidekick, in another it's Murphy and so on.  And for a good example of how Jim effectively uses secondary characters, look at Small Favor.  Kincade and Ivy play important roles in the story, but they never threatened to overwhelm it.  Jim didn't waste time digging into pointless minutiae of these characters.  He gave us just enough information to picture them, get a feel for who they are and what it's like to be around them, and then had them play their given roles.

Now I felt both Ghost Story and Cold Days dragged a bit, though I'm no book editor.  I couldn't tell you what needed to be trimmed.  Actually, I thought Ghost Story needed a rewrite, but that's a different topic.

However, I think there may be legitimate reasons for Peace Talks to be the longest Dresden Files novel to date.  I'll give a condensed version of what I've written in other posts.  Harry hasn't had to face off with the Fomor yet, not really; just some of their servitors and lessor creatures.  Plus, Harry wasn't trying to fight them in Skin Game, just get away.  So there's that.  There's bound to be drama between Harry and various members of the White Council, amd that could get complicated.  Lara Raith will undoubtedly be on hand.  Then there's Thomas and Justine.  Marcone may play a role; actually Jim has already said he will.  Molly might be around, and then there is the issue of her new job and her parents finding out.  Will Ivy be there to broker negotiations?  Probably, and if she's there Kinkade probably will be as well.  Finally, it's likely some other major bad guy or bad thing like Cowl or Mavra will crawl out of the woodwork. 

I think most of the characters I mentioned above will either play a major role in the main story or in an important subplot.  I believe Peace Talks is going to be a very pivotal book in the series; that it will lay the groundwork for much of the future drama of the last five or six books before we reach the BAT.  That is why Jim will have worked all or most of the above named characters, and their issues, into this novel 

What I'm hoping is that the future books will have more focused story lines that allow for Jim to limit the cast of supporting characters, and the number of words needed for these characters and their parts of the story, to a reasonable number.  That's how I picture Jim being able to compact his word counts in future Dresden Files case books.

[Bad Alias]

I'm pretty sure JB tries to keep in mind that ANY of his novels may be the 1st one a new reader reads.

So iconic elements get at least a bit of exposition for the n00bz.

Totally agree, and it only annoys me a little bit, and that's because I've probably read these books too many times.

@KurtinStGeorge: Good analysis of Jim's writing style. One problem with Ghost Story is that there are side stories. The one with Fitz just feels like a waste of time without some sort of payoff down the road. Now Jim always has that sort of thing in his books, but the longer ones are usually only a paragraph or two. Fitz took up chapters. The other side stories about all the damage he has done to his friends are a necessary part of the story, but I think that adds to why it "dragged." Part of the problem with Cold Days is that it covered most of the ground covered in Ghost Story. As I've mentioned before, it took me about a third of the way into Cold Days to realize I skipped Ghost Story.

As for Peace Talks, only time will tell. Here's hoping for Christmas or sooner.

[KurtinStGeorge]

Totally agree, and it only annoys me a little bit, and that's because I've probably read these books too many times.

@KurtinStGeorge: Good analysis of Jim's writing style. One problem with Ghost Story is that there are side stories. The one with Fitz just feels like a waste of time without some sort of payoff down the road. Now Jim always has that sort of thing in his books, but the longer ones are usually only a paragraph or two. Fitz took up chapters. The other side stories about all the damage he has done to his friends are a necessary part of the story, but I think that adds to why it "dragged." Part of the problem with Cold Days is that it covered most of the ground covered in Ghost Story. As I've mentioned before, it took me about a third of the way into Cold Days to realize I skipped Ghost Story.

As for Peace Talks, only time will tell. Here's hoping for Christmas or sooner.

You are right about Cold Days.  A lot of Harry's interaction with his friends was about the fallout of Harry's absence, and we already had seen that in Ghost Story.  That might be part of what annoyed me when Butters went off on Harry in Skin Game, even though Butters complaint was about the time Harry was stuck on the island, but it felt very similar to what we had seen in both Ghost Story and Cold Days.

There is an obscure website; I think they cover fantasy books, that is listing April 14, 2020 as the release date of Peace Talks.  I think they pulled this date out of their collective rear end because that led me to checking multiple sites for conformation and none of them had any info on PT's release date.  My guess is the publisher is highly motivated to push for a release date for this Christmas season.  I hope it works out that way. 

[Bad Alias]

I have a hard time with Butters' "trust but verify" attitude that results in verification turning to a complete lack of trust while Murphy's attitude moves from Dresden being a "thing" to "you may be a monster, but I'll follow you anyway" at the same time. I feel like we didn't get enough character development from Butters to justify this. And it's the sort of character development Jim is capable of doing in a paragraph or two.

Murphy's transition can be justified by the text alone. Butters', not so much.

[Regenbogen]

There is an obscure website; I think they cover fantasy books, that is listing April 14, 2020 as the release date of Peace Talks.  I think they pulled this date out of their collective rear end because that led me to checking multiple sites for conformation and none of them had any info on PT's release date.

On amazon.de the date is listed April 2020, but I already got fooled last year. They had the date at October 2018. You could even preorder. I was so happy, when October came. But there was no book. In November I received an e-mail that the book wasn't available yet. What the f****. I was so disappointed. Why do they list some random date? Why don't they just say 'no release date known yet' or something like that?
Now it's the same with April 2020. The date was already online while JB was still writing.

On the other hand... If they had not fooled me, I wouldn't have started a research and found this forum.

[KurtinStGeorge]

I have a hard time with Butters' "trust but verify" attitude that results in verification turning to a complete lack of trust while Murphy's attitude moves from Dresden being a "thing" to "you may be a monster, but I'll follow you anyway" at the same time. I feel like we didn't get enough character development from Butters to justify this. And it's the sort of character development Jim is capable of doing in a paragraph or two.

Murphy's transition can be justified by the text alone. Butters', not so much.

I tend to agree.  It felt a bit forced, didn't it?  Kinda like it was needed for the plot rather than as a natural outgrowth of Butters' character.  I suppose I should explain why the plot needed Butters to act this way.  Butters needed to be skeptical of Harry so he could learn to have faith in something bigger than himself.  That needed to happen for Butters to become KotC and made that moment feel much more powerful; or at least that was the intention.  I don't think it worked as well as intended because the forced nature of Butters initial skepticism of Harry tainted; to a degree, what followed.  (Not the entire novel, just the rest of Butters story.)

We see this happen in movies all the time.  A character will act one way or do something that isn't well explained or developed, just so they can do something stunning later on, like becoming the hero in time to save the day.  Sometimes in a fast paced movie you won't consciously notice this, but as Mr. Plinkitt on Red Letter Media's YouTube channel says, "But your brain did" notice it.

[CrusherJen]

I'm thinking (hoping) the April 2020 date is a conservative guesstimate. If Jim got the manuscript back from the Betas and submitted it to the publisher in August, that's an eight-month turnaround, giving plenty of time for revisions, typesetting, printing, etc.

I'm truly hoping the publisher decides to expedite the process (and not just because I want it in my hands ASAP.) I'd heard here somewhere that the beta readers were getting chunks to read during the writing process. If that's true, then hopefully (crossing fingers) the manuscript won't need much polishing. Plus with all the pent-up demand for the title I think it's worth their while to get Peace Talks out as quickly as is reasonably possible.

I'm still hoping for December, but first quarter 2020 is also possible. The only justification I can think of for waiting until April is to avoid January and February, which tend to be slow months for retail in general. (And IMHO a good way to fight slow sales is to publish a proven author!)

[KurtinStGeorge]

Dresden Files bibliography
No.   Title                   Release date
1   Storm Front         April 1, 2000
2   Fool Moon           January 1, 2001   
3   Grave Peril          September 1, 2001
4   Summer Knight    September 3, 2002   
5   Death Masks        August 5, 2003
6   Blood Rites          August 2, 2004   
7   Dead Beat            May 3, 2005
8   Proven Guilty       May 2, 2006
9   White Night         April 3, 2007
10   Small Favor       April 1, 2008
11   Turn Coat          April 7, 2009
12   Changes            April 6, 2010
13   Ghost Story       July 26, 2011
14   Cold Days          November 27, 2012
15   Skin Game         May 27, 2014

Five of the Dresden Files books have been released in April and two in early May.  So I can see why someone websites would pick April of next year as a good speculative guess, even if there is really no evidence to back that up.

It's interesting to look at those release dates.  I remember thinking Jim took a long time to finish Ghost Story and the wait for Cold Days seemed endless.  I guess we didn't know how good we had it.