An Interview with J.B Ryder

By Rilewa Ayoade

Writer, and most recently, published author, J.B. Ryder is making his mark. Hailing from Southern California, J.B. is a seventeen year old writer, who released his debut novel The Forgotten Colony in early 2023. A work in progress since age twelve, J.B. self published his book at age sixteen, and has managed to connect people all over the world with his writing. J.B. answered some questions for us at The Beatrice Martin Foundation about how he got his start in writing, plans he has for his future work, and more.

Has literature always been a big part of your life?

I wouldn’t say that literature has always been a big part of my life. I wasn’t a huge fan of reading until I was around nine or ten.

What first got you interested in writing?

I have always enjoyed storytelling, which—when I was a kid— usually manifested in the form of my own additions to existing franchises (Star Wars, The Hunger Games, The Walking Dead, etc.) I would usually imagine different scenarios revolving around what would happen if I found myself in those universes, and/or the backstories of some of the underexplored characters. I never really wrote a lot of it down. I started to fully consider writing when I was twelve years old and a bunch of my favorite characters got killed off. I realized that if I wanted a story to be a certain way, I had to write it myself.

How big of an impact has writing made in your life?

Writing has had a massive impact on my life. Not only do I usually dedicate about three hours a day to actually drafting, but I also spend another hour or so on the marketing of my projects. Therefore, my day-to-day life largely revolves around writing.

Do you think that getting your writing published at a young age has changed your perception of reading and writing? 

Nowadays, I definitely read more nonfiction books about productivity, strategy, and marketing to aid in the writing and promotion of my stories. In addition, the fiction I read is mostly geared towards improving my own writing style.

Your first book, The Forgotten Colony (TFC), you released last year. How would you summarize it for someone who knows nothing about it?

The Forgotten Colony tells the story of a man—long ago orphaned by a colonial disaster on Mars—forced to face his demons head on as he battles to save humanity from a barrage of world-ending solar flares.

You've noted before that TFC is inspired by the climate crisis. Did anything specific lead you in that direction? 

A lot of climate fiction stories portray a hero going on some grand quest to save Earth, ultimately ending with their home being saved. I wanted to diverge from that to show how the tables turn when a planet has become too far gone—in other words, saving the planet used to be possible, but it’s not anymore. Therefore, the protagonist of The Forgotten Colony is not attempting to stop Earth from dying; he recognizes that conditions have grown so terrible that the only way to save humanity is to leave. 

 In some ways, traditional climate fiction pushes the idea that if people put their heads together, they’ll always be able to save the world, no matter how desolate it has become –slightly diminishing the ticking clock. The perspective in TFC, however, suggests that people should do what they can to combat climate change as early as possible because, if they don’t, a point will be reached when there is nothing they can do.

Characters in your writing have a tendency to be multi-faceted, and not adhere as strictly to archetypes. How do you think the complexity of your characters adds nuance to your storytelling?

I think that the slight moral grayness of the characters makes them more human, as there is no such thing as a completely good—or evil—person. Even the hero does things that could be construed as irrational or dangerous to others. I hope that this shows how conventional standards of morality decay when the world is ending; and the hero is only the hero because he ends up being ‘right’ in the end.

Where do you see your writing going? Do you think that we will ever see spinoffs or TFC companion novels?

I am currently writing the sequel to The Forgotten Colony, and I plan to have at least one more book in the series. After that, I could see the possibility of doing a very specific spin off about a very specific character.

What would a TFC film adaptation look like?

The Forgotten Colony would likely be best as a TV series, given that the novel covers a lot of ground in its 500 pages. It’s also possible that the story would need to be tweaked in certain places because some of the sets would be hard to create.

The community you've cultivated is quite dedicated (The TFC Discord, fanpages etc.) What challenges did you face when starting to build a community? 

The biggest hurdle to get past was just getting people to find the book in the first place during the pre-launch period. I ran fan art submissions, edit contests, fan cast selections, etc to make it seem like there was a lot of hype around the book. This, in turn, got people genuinely interested in it, and I got a lot of readers right out of the gate.

TFC was written over the span of four years. How did the passage of time contribute to the quality of the final result? 

Because the writing of TFC was so spread out, I had to rewrite the book multiple times. This was due to the fact that I became a genuinely better writer over the years. Therefore, there was a stark difference between some of the earlier scenes and later ones that needed to be smoothed out. The whole story needed to be consistent in its flow and sentence structure. 

Did you ever lose motivation during the writing process? If so, what drove you to keep going? 

I definitely did lose motivation after the first draft, as I didn’t initially realize how much work it would take to actually make it readable. I ended up wasting about six months doing nothing. Then, I realized that if I didn’t finish the project, all the time I spent on it would have been for nothing.

Are there any authors you look up to that have inspired you?

During the third draft of TFC, I read the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes around six times because I really liked Suzanne Collins’ writing style. This influenced my own prose and sentence structure.

What do you like to read? 

I like to read Science Fiction and Fantasy, but I predominantly read non-fiction books.

The way you market on social media is unique and effective. How has the experience of promoting your writing been for you?

The promotion of the book has been really interesting because I haven’t spent a dime to do it. All of the marketing has been done through Instagram and Tiktok, and the algorithms of both continue to funnel new readers to my page. As long as I keep up with current trends and make sure I’m getting information about my book out there, I get sales.

You've made it clear that you have a focus on making your book accessible—how has that impacted the success of your book so far?

Overall, I think that a lot of authors get too hung up on trying to make money early on, instead of prioritizing the creation of a strong reader base. By giving away the book for free on multiple occasions, I have yielded several thousand new readers of TFC that may not have otherwise purchased it. This, of course, has led to more positive reviews, which improve the book’s ranking.

Having finished writing The Forgotten Colony recently, would you say that the way you're approaching writing the sequel is different?

My approach to writing the second Zach Croft book is different in that I outlined the whole thing right away. I didn’t want to just wing it for a second time, forcing myself to constantly work through plot holes on the spot when I hit walls in the story. By getting the rough idea out on paper first, I have been able to write the book much more efficiently. It definitely won’t take nearly as long as The Forgotten Colony.

Thank you for your time! Do you have anything else you want to say to readers?

Thank you to everyone who has read The Forgotten Colony, and I look forward to releasing the second book to you all!

Bonus Question: On social media it's been said a lot that your main antagonist, Carver, is Lana-coded*. What does that mean to you? 

There is no way to put it other than he looks and acts like a Lana Del Rey song sounds –specifically, West Coast.

J.B. can be found at https://jbryderauthor.com/ and on social media under the handle @JBRyderAuthor.

Some responses have been edited for brevity, and/or clarity.

* ”Lana” Lana Del Rey is an American singer-songwriter.