On Writing with Eileen Schuh

Eileen Schuh, a fellow Canadian author, is taking over today to promote her newly released version of The Traz. Please welcome her like you would me as I’ve read The Traz and know you’ll enjoy it very much.

Welcome, Eileen, thanks for coming!

The Traz: Book 1 of the BackTracker Series, in fact the entire BackTracker Series, was written during a very low and lonely time in my life. As with many artists, I found myself keenly creative during that dark time—and slightly insane.

I felt my characters were dictating their adventures and I was merely typing their stories. I did no plotting, no researching…in fact, I seldom knew what was going to happen next and often didn’t know why things were occurring as they were. I was unaware of my characters’ secret pasts and motives, just as the others in the story were. Writing the BackTracker novels was indeed more like reading a series than writing one.
Then, of course, came the work…

It would’ve been wonderful if the characters had dictated the stories to me according to the Chicago Style Guide. I wish they’d left out the irrelevances of their lives that, although important to them, had little to do with the main theme of the book and were, well…boring and/or repetitive. I wish they’d realized that my readers would not be able to see them and their actions in their head as I could and, therefore, they needed to dictate better descriptions about the setting, themselves, and each other.

I admit, I don’t think my characters had any intention of going public with their stories—after all, there are many humbling and humiliating and outright embarrassing episodes in their lives. However, I decided to take them public and their rights to privacy fell by the wayside and I became responsible for making the stories powerful and strong…and well-written.

It’s my understanding that having discovered that readers are not harshly judging them, but rather quite liking them, Shrug, Chad, Sergeant Kindle, and the rest of the BackTracker crew have begun enjoying their time in the limelight. So much so, that Katrina, the young protagonist, even opened her own Twitter account…
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THE TRAZ is available in paperback and ebook formats and in a special School Edition that includes a Teaching Guide. Click on the following links to purchase or sample THE TRAZ

Also available from other fine online bookstores.
If THE TRAZ is not on your local bookstore or library shelves, ask for it to be ordered in for you.

Eileen Schuh is also the author of the adult Sci-Fi novella Schrödinger’s Cat

For more information on Schuh and her books visit her at:
Eileen Schuh
Her Blog
Twitter
Facebook
Facebook Fan Appreciation Page
Follow Katrina on Twitter: KatrinaBuckhold

Thanks for reading,
Sarah Butland
author of Sending You Sammy, Brain Tales – Volume One and Arm Farm