First Saturday Sci-Fi - April 2019
Spring at last !! Bet you thought it would never arrive !! This month we're talking to Sci-Fi writer Traci Ison Schafer. Traci lives in Ada, Oklahoma, and is a Price Analyst for the United States Air Force. She’s a native of Ohio and started her career at the infamous Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, which she used as the backdrop for her first book, the science fiction novel The Anuan Legacy. Traci is current Past President of the Oklahoma City Writers (OKCW) and is an officer on the Executive Board of the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation (OWFI) were she serves as Second Vice President.She also remains active in the writing community in the Dayton, Ohio, area where she’s a founding member of the critique group The Plot Sisters (est. 2012) and has served as a panelist at the Antioch Writers’ Workshop at the University of Dayton. Traci has a master’s degree in business, a bachelor’s degree in science education, and has earned teaching certifications in several science fields including physics, astronomy, and earth science. She’s curious about all things beyond this physical world such as aliens, reincarnation, and psychic abilities, making them among her favorite writing topics. Traci’s writing has earned several awards, including winner of the National Indie Excellence Award in Science Fiction and finalist for the Independent Author Network Science Fiction Book of the Year. When not busy writing, Traci enjoys spending time with her family.
1. Tell us about your favorite work… what makes it special?
The Anuan Legacy is and probably always will be my favorite. It’s my debut novel and the one I used tolearn the writing craft. I pretty much started from scratch with that book as far as creative writing knowledge goes. So, even after I’ve written a hundred books (fingers crossed), this one will always be special to me. It’s the one that started me on the path to the writing career I love.
2. What do you think makes for good Sci-Fi?
With every book you need to meet some basic criteria—a beginning the hooks, a good indicting incident, solid conflict/tension throughout, an exciting climax, and a satisfying resolution. But, with sci-fi, you definitely need to have good, convincing world building. You have to take that reader to another world, whether that world is somewhere in outer space or on some alternate earth. And you need to make it seem natural to the people living in that world. Or, if someone in the book is new to that world, they need to notice things that are different and react to them just as a reader might act if thrown into that same world. I also think sci-fi is one of those genres that you need to keep fast-paced. You can’t take two or three pages to describe a couch (or whatever).
3. Do you think your books can help shape the future and if so how?
I don’t know about shaping the future. If people remember them and even want to emulate them, I think that would be great. But my main goal is to help people find a little escape from their routine, daily lives here on Earth.
4. Do you have inside jokes or true events hidden in your writing?
I don’t recall any jokes or true events, but I do pull things from my life into the book.I’m originally from Ohio and started my government career at Wright-Patterson Air Force base. There’s always been a rumor about aliens at Wright-Patt, so I played off that and had my captured Alien located there.I even have a line in the book eluding to the alleged alien history of that base. Also, the opening setting for Tori/Victoria’s was loosely-based on a real-life setting from Wright-Patt.
I use a lot of names from my real life, too. Pags is the nick name of a B-2 pilot who was the only one to fly every B-2 in the fleet. There will never be another who can claim that distinction because we lost one of the B-2s back in 2008. I named the drone Toji after my aunt and uncle’s dog. And a couple of co-workers asked me to put them in my book, so in Book 2 of The Anuan Legacy, you’ll find ground team members Byrne and Farber, the last names of those two co-workers.
I also use real life for some of the foods. I based the description of a salad-type mean off a house plant sitting on my dining room table. And a particular drink was based off my favorite chocolate banana smoothie at Red Lobster.
There are more ties like the ones I’ve mentioned, and probably even more that I don’t realize. It’s hard not to pull from real life when writing.
5. Which do you prefer… model your characters after people you know or just make them up?
I mostly make them up. My characters need to be flexible enough to work within their story-line. So, even on the rare occasion where I do have somebody in mind (like Brian who was based on an engineer in Air Force R&D that I knew), they end up morphing so much to fit the story that the original person is lost.
6. Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to take away?
I don’t aim for a message besides sit back and enjoy the escape, but I suppose it would be nice if people could be more empathetic like the Anuans and not do things that would hurt others.
7. What is your favorite review?
That’s a hard one to answer because I appreciate them all. Obviously, if they enjoyed the book, that makes me happy. But I think the reviews that touch me the most are the ones that acknowledge the efforts I’ve put in to making the book a success. For example,"The author has clearly spent a lot of time practicing their writing skills and working with an editor, and this book is engaging and interesting." Or, “It's clear how much time and attention the author put into this book.”
Being self-published, it’s so important to me to make sure I put out quality books in every way from the writing craft to the book cover. I want my books to be able to compete with the top books out there regardless of whether they were published by another self-publisher, a small press, or one of the “big five” publishing houses.
What comes next?
I’m working on Book 2 of The Anuan Legacy series. I just finished the second draft and am going to let it rest for a few weeks while I cover some events. Then I’ll give it a read-through with a fresh perspective to see if everything feels okay before passing it along to my beta readers. The rest will depend on the feedback I get from my beta readers. If they have any comments or issues, then I’ll work through it again. My beta readers’ feedback is so valuable. The Anuan Legacy is a much better book than it would have been without them.
I also have others works in progress that I’ll focus on after I get The Anuan Legacy series finished. By finished, I mean the three to four books that are already in my head. But, if readers want more, I may come back to that series and continue Victoria and Gaige’s adventures.
Where can we learn more?
You can find more information about me and my books at www.traciisonschafer.com.
amazon.com/Anuan-Legacy-Book/dp/0999370006
