About  Jesse Ryan

Audio Transcript Author Interview Jered Fitzgerald and Jessica Binkley (Jesse Ryan) 

Audio file 

Podcast Jered and Jessica Mixdown 1.mp3 

Transcript 

My name is Jared Fitzgerald and I write in science fiction and fantasy. 

And my name is Jessica Binkley. I typically write under Jesse Ryan, and I write psychological thrillers. 

So, when did you know you wanted to be a writer? 

Oh, so that’s tricky. Uhm, it’s kind of like a two-part thing. So, when I was growing up, I got a diary when I was about 10 years old, and it was from these visiting missionaries that were coming around to where we lived. And they were these really nice women and so sweet. Then they brought me a little diary and they’re like it’s, you know, it’s really good practice to write down everything and then you can look back on it. So really, I started writing then and I had this fascination with writing. 

Uh, but fast forward to when I was well it was, it was when Janet Fitch’s White Oleander book came out and Oprah made a really big deal about it and I saw it and I got off work that day and I went to the bookstore, and I started reading it and I remember sitting there going OK I want to write like she does. This is what I want to do like I want to do this, but then it took many years for me to finally accept that that was a viable option in life I guess, uhm so yeah. I don’t know if that really answers the question. 

No, yeah it makes sense. 

A lot of people have a certain Eureka moment, it seems like. 

Yeah, yeah, those are the two times that I can really pinpoint where it just stuck out in my mind. 

All right? What titles do you think have influenced you most as a writer? 

So, that’s tricky for me. OK, so early early on it was Jane Eyre, I just got obsessed with her the whole way that her story was written. All of the things that she went through. I felt like I could identify with that character so much and I just I was like, oh man,  I love this book. 

Uhm, I wanted to be, you know, like Charlotte Bronte and write books like that. 

But White Oleander was probably the really big one that stands out in my mind, and the one that gave me permission. I think to really jump out on my own and attempt to start writing. 

You know more than just myself. It had to be Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects as soon as I read that I was like OK, I can do this I wanna do this. 

Whose career would you emulate if you could? 

Oh man, that’s a really tough question because there are so many different writers’ careers, I think are great for different things I don’t know if there’s one that I want to follow exactly, but overall, I mean, probably Donna Tartt. I really like what she’s done. She’s she stayed true to who she is, but she puts out a book and then it’s you know that’s her work for five years or 10 years, I’ve always admired that. But then Gillian Flynn again comes up because she basically put out three books that you know they just took off. I think she had over 20 million copies sold of that first book and then her next two kind of followed that same pattern, so I would not complain if that happened. 

Uhm, yeah yeah. 

So probably parts of all those people. 

What does your writing schedule look like? 

Oh, so pretty much whenever I can squeeze it in. Uhm, right now though I’ve really had to buckle down and I get up in the morning first thing, I know, people are like oh, I always write really early or really late. I used to be a really late writer. I would stay up, you know, 1,2,3, in the morning writing. But as I’ve aged, that is not as fun to do anymore, so I tend to write first thing in the morning. You know, before the chaos of everything kind of hits my plate and  you know adult responsibilities happen. 

Right? 

And the last question, what was the last book you read? 

Oh OK, so I have several books that I’m reading at the same time. I’m one of those people. Uhm, but the last one that I just finished last week was, called Litani, it’s by Jess Lourey, and she writes a lot of YA and what I would call psychological thrillers but with a twist kind of thing, so not 100% my genre but still the thriller. And then The Winter People, uhm, trying to remember Jennifer McMahon. That was a really good one. So, I’m trying to read more thriller books, but I tend to read just about anything. 

Right, right? 

Well, that’s all I’ve got. 

Alright, perfect well I guess I will start asking the questions so let me pull them up really quick. 

OK so first I wanted to ask you. 

What genre do you write in? 

 Science fiction fantasy. I have a couple of short stories. I do mostly short stories and fantasy. 

I have a project I’ve been working on for the past couple of years that I go in and out of. 

But that’s going to be like a big giant, you know. I’m not sure I have time for it right now, kind of thing. I’ve written a few chapters, but it’s looking to be, you know, like a 1000-page monstrosity if it gets to that point, but science fiction is what I’m going to write for my thesis. 

OK, perfect yeah. 

So, do you have any particular system or strategy when you outline a book? 

Well, it depends, for the large book, the fantasy book, that’s going to have multiple POVs. 

And that definitely has to have an outline you know, to just to keep your timeline straight and get your characters straight. Because if you don’t, it all starts falling out of synchronization and you never know what’s happening when or what character, overlap so you gotta have an outline for that and I’ve stuck to that pretty well, but other ones like my thesis. I mean, I’m going to have to write an outline for the assignments, but some smaller stuff I’m almost more of a pantser, gardner or discoverer, however you want to see it, you know there’s a bunch of words for that. Like George RR Martin, I think that called it a gardener. 

But you know, it just depends but I generally I like to have maybe somewhat of a general outline, but then I kind of freestyle a little bit with my characters. I try to allow my character’s personalities to influence the plot other than the other way around. 

OK yeah, I agree with you. 

I’m the same way I’ve heard it referred to as a pantser, just you know, flying by the seat of your pants. I am that person, so can you tell me a little bit about what your writing process looks like? 

It usually starts with an idea or a character. This my thesis I started out just with the title I can’t remember. I feel like the kids were watching some of their weird shows and and the title came to me the name of like kids show called the Bubble Gum People and I thought, would that be weird like a grown up story of that and I I came up with this idea for a group of aliens that have their own TV show they came to Earth and then they started their TV show and then they revealed it to the world and now it’s about like the consequences of that. And like a real world and what that would look like. 

I generally, I’ll take an idea like that and I’ll first run through the idea. What story could be, but then I usually do three or four of those, so I won’t like the first one or the second one. 

And then I started getting to like where the deeper things and how really that would have effects in real ways, the world in real ways and then eventually sometimes those other ideas start to like leak into like the new idea, but so eventually sometimes all of those ideas come together. 

But yeah, it’ll start with the premise and then start with the story and then more story and then it’ll rewrite, rewrite and then I’ll finally do an outline. 

I’m I’m all over the place. You know, I’ll write some and then I’ll rewrite that line and then I’ll write some, and then eventually it gets done but yeah, I’m a bit scrambled sometimes. 

Yeah no, I appreciate that. 

So, would you, if you had the opportunity, would you like to see your book made into a series or a movie and if so, which one? 

I, think it varies with my thesis. 

I think it would make for a better movie. It’s going to be shorter, with our thesis you keep it to the 50 to 80,000 word count. 

So, I want to keep it in that to get like a really polished thing, but anyway that would make for a good movie, but my fantasy ideas I think will be better as TV series more a long-form series on Netflix, you know the dream is Game of Thrones right?  

Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, but yeah, that would be my very that would be my dream come true. 

Awesome, OK, so what is the best book you’ve read recently? 

I just finished with, uh. A book called Recursion by Blake Crouchand it gave me some really good thoughts on writing in general. Actually, was a fantastic book so I tore through it. 

I mean, I’d stayed up late at night and then I even read it at work a little bit, ’cause a lot of my reading is on my phone on the Kindle app, ’cause I can instead of social media, I just read for a while or whatever and wherever I am, you know. But anyway, he does this cool thing. His last book was like this Dark Matter 2, where it’s a three-act structure, but with that, he takes a story premise like this. One knows about time travel and but then for each act he kind of breaks it down into different story archetypes as in the first act was almost like a police procedural and then the second act was almost like a military thriller, and the third act was like the end of the world type of disaster movie.  

So, he kind of it lets you feel like all avenues of this one premise have been explored in detail and makes it makes for a really satisfying read. 

Sounds great, yeah. 

When you read for pleasure, do you always read just one book at a time or are you a person that reads several? 

I guess it depends on how good the book is if there’s a book that I’m reading, that’s just got me, you know, by the throat. I have to read it. It’ll be one, but generally, I’ll read like three or four like right now. I’m re-reading The Wheel of Time a little bit here and there. And then I’ve got another book by Dan Wells he’s a friend of one of my favorite authors, Brandon Sanderson, so I thought I’d give his friend to try. That’s interesting, and then I’m also reading The 5th Season by NK Jemison here and there. That’s really that’s a very strange book to get through because it’s written in the second person. Takes some getting used to, yeah, you know you do this and you do that. 

Oh wow.  

It takes time while it takes a little while to get used to but eventually you start to get used to it. 

Yeah, that’s interesting. 

Yeah, I haven’t checked that out. 

No, it’s a good one.