As a longtime member of the fan geek community, I'm familiar with much of the same material as... well; probably anyone interested enough to read this article. I can drop jokes and references to episodes of Star Trek, Shakespeare, movies, and classic SF&F books -- you name it. I would like to think that as a member of the fan community, generally speaking, I have a certain amount of insight into what will appeal to folks with similar interest. Hopefully, that makes my own work more enjoyable and accessible to everyone.

Or maybe I would have. Sometimes I can be somewhat stubborn.

After it was written, the question was how to get it to an agent and/or editor. I set out to find an agent or editor who would look at it. It took me more than two years. I went to several conventions where I wanted to get the chance to meet editors, even slipping around the con's guidelines and security personnel in one instance, when I felt that the rules regarding the signup of people for the meet-the-editor breakfast was totally unfair.

Finally, I got smart and started looking for agents and editors who were already working with someone writing something similar to my own stuff. Since the Dresden Files had been strongly inspired by the Anita Blake books, I started looking at the people working with Laurell Hamilton. I was on one of her fan-discussion lists online, so I got a bunch of questions from list folks and went to a convention where she and her agent would be, hoping to meet them and make a good impression. At the convention, Laurell must have thought that I looked fairly clueless and/or amusing, because she wound up (for no good reason at all) asking me to go out to dinner with her and some folks after I had done some chatting with her at the convention's reception. So I wound up having lunch with three authors, an editor and two agents, both of whom asked me to send them material before the end of the convention with the notion of representing it if it didn't wholly suck.

One of those agents, my current agent, Jennifer Jackson, had rejected the exact same material not six months before. When I pointed this out to her, she snorted at me and said, "Yeah, but now I've met you." So wannabe writers like I was, take note: meeting people makes a big difference.

In any case, I wound up working with Ricia Mainhardt, the other agent there (who had asked me about twenty minutes before Jennifer did), and she had sold the first three books of the Dresden Files within six months, to Jennifer Heddle at Roc!

Well. Maybe it isn't THAT simple. But that isn't entirely inaccurate, either. There's a lot more in the way of magic and duels and barbarians and spies and traitors and monsters and lords and kings and mass battles and bloodshed and realms teetering on the edge of utter disaster. But basically, it's a young man caught up in vast events, and finding the will and the courage to face them.

Book seven is currently titled Dead Beat, and it's a tale of cowardice, courage, and necromancy. Look for Harry's first conflicts with some truly world-class dangerous bad guys, for the Wizard-Vampire war to expand significantly, and for Harry to be forced to rethink all the moral lines he's drawn for himself and resolved never to cross.

It wasn't until after I started researching Chicago that I realized what a fortunate choice it was. There is such a rich tapestry of history and culture that blends together in that area that you can't help but start thinking of stories to bring out of it. In addition to maybe a dozen books on the town, I have met several residents of the city online, who I have occasionally dragooned into helping me get descriptions of specific locations in the city, such as what one particular bridge looks like, or the structure of one wall of Graceland Cemetery, or the general appearance of Chicago PD headquarters. Between my local accomplices, my books and the information I can draw from the Internet, I try to do my best to create a very real and believable version of Chicago for use in my story world.

Poor Peter, he gets beat to crap all the time, too -- not just physically, but in mental and emotional senses as well. If all the heroes in NYC get together and fight some bad guy, when the fight is over you're bound to see Peter Parker walking up to Reed Richards and saying, "Hey, um. My costume got torn to shreds, pretty much, and my wallet is gone. Can I borrow cab fare?" "No need!" booms some other enthusiastic hero. "I'll drop you at your place. Where to?" "Uh, yeah," Peter will be forced to say. "Thanks there, Iron Man, but see, I sort of have this thing about my secret identity, where IT'S A SECRET. So I really can't take you up on that offer." The poor guy is far more than human, is an admirable hero, but he still gets to suffer the little indignities and pains that life has to offer. He's as human as the rest of us, as vulnerable as the rest of us in many ways, and because he is he becomes a person who you can identify with and like.

It's hardly a new device, the working-man hero. Bruce Willis did it as John McClane in the movie Die Hard, for instance. While he was a heroic character setting out to accomplish heroic deeds, he still started off the night with bare feet. He still got covered in cuts and bruises. He was terrified when his life was in danger and was not afraid to acknowledge it -- and that vulnerability is what made the character appeal to so many viewers. A hero, sure. But he's also a human being.

I wanted to use that same basic theme for my wizard protagonist, and so I designed Harry to be someone who is basically your average urbanite male. He has to pay his bills, feed his cat, go to work, worry about taxes, take showers and cook meals without the benefit of electricity and so on. Sure, he has access to Phenomenal Cosmic Powers, but his powers don't define who and what he is. First and foremost, I wanted Harry to be a human being -- to make mistakes, to regret bad choices, to struggle to set things right where they need righting and to learn from his disasters and grow as a person. I wanted Harry to be the sort of person who, even if he didn't HAVE any powers, would still be right there in the midst of things regardless, because he's doing what he believes is right. I want the reader to get the sense that Harry is a guy who could live a couple of doors down in their neighborhood, and who would probably be a polite and amusing guest if you had him over to dinner.

Of course, he does have a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth. And his ankle. And calf. And knee. But hey, nobody's perfect.

In story craft terms, a talking head refers to a character whose purpose in life is to dispense information. Talking heads will wander onto the page, blurt out exposition without bothering to display much in the way of character or motivation, and promptly exit. So when I designed Bob, complete with his little obsessions and quirks, I decided to make him a literal talking head, while avoiding the traits that add up to a story-craft talking head.

Trust me, it was a lot funnier at the time.

I'm saving THAT for when I need to get some kind of hideous revenge.

My very favorite books, in no particular order:
Watchers, by Dean Koontz
Cetaganda, by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Belgariad, by David Eddings
Honor of the Queen, by David Weber
Guilty Pleasures, by Laurell Hamilton
MacBeth, by Shakespeare (this one is cheating a little, but the witches technically make it a fantasy)
Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett

Clearly I have gone mad with power.

Oh, and I really like the movie version of Clue, the one with Tim Curry.