The WD Interview: Jesse Q. Sutanto
It seems that Jesse Q. Sutanto can write it all. She writes YA rom-coms that will make you chuckle while remembering the challenges that come with young love, and she writes YA suspenseful thrillers that will chill you to the core. Her adult contemporary fiction, the Dial A for Aunties series and Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (which won the 2024 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original), will by turns have you laughing so hard you cry while also warming your heart with joy, and her adult suspense novels, I’m Not Done With You Yet and the new release You Will Never Be Me, make you question the veracity of everyone’s motivations around you.
For Sutanto, who was educated in creative writing at the University of Oxford and now lives in Jakarta with her husband and children, writing in different categories, genres, and tones is all about keeping things interesting for herself. “It’s kind of like eating savory foods and then after that, you’re ready for something sweet,” she said. “Each one has been a really nice palette cleanser.” Earlier this year, her third and final book in the light-hearted Aunties series, The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties, was released, so it was time for another book on the dark side.
You Will Never Be Me is the story of two former friends who have both seen varying levels of success as social media influencers, specifically as momfluencers. When they first met, Meredith Lee helped Aspen Palmer learn the ropes, but after Aspen’s influencer status shot past Mer’s, Mer felt left behind. So, she engages in some “Stalking Lite” and maybe a little sabotage too, until Aspen’s seemingly perfect life starts falling apart—for the world to see. But when Mer suddenly disappears, leaving a young son behind, Aspen sees an opportunity to solve the mystery and fix her life in the process.
When I asked Sutanto what sparked the idea for the story, she asked that I not print the answer: “This is such a spoiler! The thing that gave me the idea was actually [redacted]. I don’t know if you watched it, but season one had this time twist, and it just blew my mind when I first watched it. I was like, I need to write something like this.” But as for the reason behind the characters being influencers, that’s in part because of the content Sutanto sees online. “I’m a mom, and so the algorithm is always pushing mommy-like content to me. And I read this article about this husband who was like, ‘I’m leaving my wife because of aesthetics. … I can’t even get my daughter a toy that I want to get her because of aesthetics.’ I felt so bad for him, and then I was obsessed with the idea: mom influencers.”
If you’ve read any of Sutanto’s other novels, this focus makes perfect sense. Regardless of whether they’re humorous or psychological thrillers, one underlying theme in them all is perception, specifically how women and teen girls are perceived by their peers, their family, and by wider society. That’s where we picked up our conversation.
Momfluencers take that idea of perception to the next level. Why is that theme important for you to write about?
Growing up, I was raised in a cult culture where I was basically raised to be a trophy wife, and the standards for being a trophy wife, they were so strict. Down to the hairstyle has to be long-haired. You had to keep your weight under a certain number, and you have to be educated, but not too educated. One of my cousins went and got a PhD and my parents were like, “Oh my goodness, how is she ever going to find a husband now?” Because she is going to be more educated than most of the men. It took a lot of work for me to unlearn all of that. The perception of girls and women, it’s such a big factor in my life right now. So, I guess it always leaks out into my writing, whether I mean for it to or not. I rarely ever set out to write a message book, but it comes out naturally.
When I read You Will Never Be Me, I couldn’t put it down. It’s such an entertaining ride to see what horrible things the characters will do next. It’s a masterclass in manipulation and continually pushing your characters past their limits. How do you create these kinds of characters? Do you have a process for developing them?
I usually create the plot first because I outline my books before I start writing. But I never know what the character is going to be like until I actually start writing. Then their voice kind of comes out onto the page. Like with Vera Wong, I had no idea what she was going to be like. All I knew was she was going to be nosy. But I didn’t know the tone of the book until I started writing the first chapter. And it was the same with You Will Never Be Me. I know what they’re going to do, so I have this vague idea of people that need to be able to do certain things. But I never know their personalities until I start writing.
One of the other things this book does really well is talk about the idea of authenticity and what that means in terms of people in the public sphere, like influencers, which to some extent is something that writers who want to be published are going to have to contend with. How do you stay true to yourself as a creator in what you share with your fans, and what advice do you have for other writers?
This is a really tough one. I wanted to become a published author for a very long time. It took over 10 years, I would say, for me to even get my first publishing deal. During that time, I kept thinking, Oh, when I become a published author, my life will begin. I’m going to be so happy. It’s like that goal weight thing, you know? I spent my teen years thinking, If I hit my goal weight, that’s when life will start for me. And it kind of carried over into publishing.
After I got my publishing deal, and then I got more deals, the Dial A for Aunties thing happened, and it was so big. Then I was posting a lot on social media in an effort to help promote the book and posting a lot about my life. I was making it look really happy because a lot of it was happy. But I kind of realized, I’m just as anxious and depressed as I was before I got the publishing deals. I realized I’m being so inauthentic. Especially on my Instagram page, I was only ever sharing the highlights of my life.
It was around that time that I started doing therapy and I told my therapist, “I’m being so inauthentic, and I hate it. I’m contributing to this unhealthy obsession on social media about only putting your best selves out there.” So, it was something I had to work through with her to find a happy medium of what to post on my Instagram. I explained to her, “I can’t be a hot mess online because I still want people, if they find my page, to be like, ‘Oh, she seems fun. I’m going to pick up one of her books.’”
After months and months of working with her, I feel like we came to a happy medium. I do this Write With Me series on my Instagram where I post a reel every day when I’m writing. I’m very honest with how some days I’m going through a hard time. … when I look at my Instagram page now, I’m so happy with what’s on it. It’s 70 percent positive and then 30 percent crappy days.
There were so many twists in You Will Never Be Me, and they all felt so true to the characters and to the story. Do you know most of the story and the twists when you start drafting? Or are you ever surprised by where the story takes you?
When I first started writing, my first ever book was totally pantsed. I didn’t know how to outline and so I think the first three books I wrote, I pantsed them. I remember my husband being like, “I was just reading an interview with this author, and he says that he outlines his books before he writes them.” And I was immediately like, “How dare you. I’m an artiste. Every author has their own process. Don’t tell me to outline.” And then I realized, this isn’t working because I was getting stuck all the time. Even after I finished the draft, it would be a hot mess. I would have to rewrite a lot of it. So, when I first started outlining, I only outlined about half of the book, and then I got stuck. I would start writing and then, things would surprise me. There was a lot more flexibility.
You Will Never Be Me, I think it’s my 18th book, so by now, my outlines are meticulous. I like to say I’m a Chinese mother: My outlines listen to me because my characters are scared of me. They know not to surprise me. My outlines, they have no chill, you know? They’re chapter by chapter. They tend to be 12 pages long, and they’re quite detailed. Each chapter would have maybe one to two paragraphs detailing what’s going to happen. When I was writing You Will Never Be Me, I knew all the twists. I knew the biggest twist, and I wrote the outline around that big twist.
You’ve published 11 novels in four years. How do you keep up with that pace, both in terms of coming up with the ideas and writing them, but also doing things like this where you’re promoting them?
Because it took me so long to get my first ever publishing deal—during those 10 years I was writing and then I would get really sad when the books ended up getting rejected by everybody—I learned the healthiest thing for me to do was, once I finished a book, once it was ready to query or go on submission, the best thing for me to do was to immediately move on to a new project. To fall in love with a new project so I could let go of the last book. So, I got into that habit where as soon as I finish a draft and I edit it, I send it off to my agent.
Now I actually do take a break, but I emotionally detach myself from it. Then I’m actively thinking of my next project. I’m actively asking myself, What do I want to work on next? So that’s number one, the mental health part of the answer.
And then the logistics part. I’ve trained myself to write super-fast because it’s the only way I can outrun this really mean little voice in my head. I don’t know if you have this voice. I call it my “editor,” and as I write, this inner editor is saying things like, “Oh wow, that sentence is awful. That’s so awkward. Does that even make sense? The character is so boring. This plot makes no sense.” And on and on. I found out that the only thing that helps me avoid this voice is to set a 15-minute timer. During those 15 minutes I don’t go to the bathroom. I don’t take a sip of my coffee. All I can do is write. I don’t allow myself to delete anything that I’ve written during those 15 minutes. I’m just speed writing.
Over the years I’ve trained myself to write 500 words during those 15 minutes. Every day I do four 15-minute rounds, and then I hit 2,000 words and stop. I don’t do anything with that manuscript for the rest of the day. I would focus on the admin stuff or the interviews, the promotion work. It gives me a break, and I’ve written 2,000 words.
I do this until I get to 40,000 words, and then for the next 40,000 words, I check myself into the most beautiful hotel in Jakarta because it’s so cheap [laughs]. Our hotels here are a third of the price of hotels in the States. I take full advantage of it. I go to the most beautiful five-star hotel here. I stay for three nights, and then for those three days that I’m at the hotel, I write the next 40,000 words of the book. I basically finish it in a long weekend.
I love the idea of this mini writing retreat for yourself! How did you come to that idea, and why did you land on 40,000 words as being the point at which you wanted to have that dedicated writing time?
I chose 40,000 words because that’s right in that horrible, saggy middle of the book where the concept is no longer fun, and you can’t see the finish line. Everything feels stale and horrible. You don’t know where the plot is going. Well, I know because of my chapter outline [laughs]! It’s still a horrible middle.
The first time I did it was because of Vera Wong. I had pitched the idea to my publisher, and they got really excited about it. They were like, “We’re going to push back Aunties 3, we want to publish Vera next.” And I was like, “I haven’t even written Vera.” And they were like, “That’s OK. We have faith in you.” So, I wanted to get it done as quickly as I could, because I didn’t want there to be too much of a delay in my publication schedule.
At 40,000 words, I’m in this horrible middle, and the plan was to go to a hotel for three nights and write 20,000 words. I feel like once I get to 60,000, usually I can see the end, and that would give me the last push. I’ll just write 20,000 words, then I’ll come home, and I’ll go back to my 2,000 words a day. But when I went to the hotel it ended up being so amazing. I didn’t have to think about groceries or all of the daily life, mundane chores, no distractions. I ended up finishing the book.
After that, I felt rejuvenated. For three days, all I did was sleep and eat amazing food and write. It was feeding my creative soul. People were telling me, “You’re going to be so burnt out by then.” But I wasn’t. I left feeling feel like a person again. Not just some tired mom, which is what I feel like most of the time. Ever since then, that’s been how I write all of my books.
I want to go back to something you said about those 15-minute intervals to outrun that inner editor you have. How do you change your mindset so you can do that?
It is so hard. When I sit down in front of my computer, I actually say out loud—even now, I say it out loud—“I am going to write trash now.” And somehow just saying those words, it gives me the permission I need to not have standards. Then as I write, if I start feeling like this is so bad, I actually mutter under my breath, “I’m writing trash. It’s OK. I’m letting myself write trash. It’s OK. Just keep writing trash.” I keep reminding myself, you can edit trash, but you can’t edit a blank page, and editing is so much easier than writing because writing is like coming up with something out of nothing. That’s how I changed my mindset—saying those words out loud, repeating them.
You write and publish in so many categories and genres. Did you know you wanted to do that going into your writing career? And if so, how did that impact your search for a literary agent?
I kind of knew, but I kind of didn’t. When I first started writing I was writing only YA. My first book deal was for The Obsession, which is YA suspense. And then my then-agent told me, “Middle-grade is picking up, publishers are buying it. Do you want to try writing that?” So, I wrote my middle-grade fantasy. When writing middle-
grade, you need a lot of humor because kids love to laugh. It was the act of writing that, that made me think I wanted to try my hand at writing a comedic book.
That was when I got the idea for Dial A for Aunties. At the time I thought it was going to be YA because I’ve only been writing YA. Then as I was plotting it, I was like, Wait, this feels really wrong. A bunch of aunties lugging around a dead teenage boy? That just felt really bad. [Laughs] It needs to be for adults.
I remember feeling so nervous: Can I write an adult book? And it was so ironic because by then I was 30 and it hit me. I was like, Oh my god, I’m 30. Of course I can write about a character who is 26. I was querying my middle-grade at the time, so when I started getting offers for it, I would talk to each agent and I would ask them, “How do you feel about me writing adult as well?” And a couple of them were honest. They were like, “No, I don’t think it’s a good idea. You should stay within kid lit.”
Then I spoke to my current agent, and she was all for it. She asked about the Dial A idea. I told her and she was like, “It sounds amazing. Send it my way as soon as you have it.” So, I went with her. She knew that I wanted to write in multiple spaces, but I don’t think she knew at the time how wildly different they were going to be. It’s been a really fun ride. I’m really glad she’s such a good sport.
You mentioned adding humor to your writing when you were writing the middle-grade book, and I did want to talk about that because all three of the Aunties books and Vera Wong, they’re just so funny. What is your approach to writing comedic content?
I think it was always there in the first draft just because of the genre of the books. I knew that they were going to be comedic books, so they kind of had to be there.
I’ve written in so many different genres by now, I can say with certainty that humor and romance are the most difficult things for me to get right. Because I feel like, especially with humor, if you don’t get it right, it just comes off so cringey. Then the whole thing falls apart. I was taken aback by how difficult it was to pin that down.
Dial A for Aunties, that was easy because it was based on my family. A lot of the things were things that happened with my family. I remember when I was little, we were in the States and my dad wasn’t feeling well. He went to see a doctor and he told the doctor, “My body doesn’t feel delicious.” The doctor was like, “Excuse me?”
Those kinds of instances, they stick with me. So, it’s very easy to draw from real life and just put that in the books. I feel like that comes through—the authenticity—that people can tell that it actually is an authentic thing, rather than an author trying to be funny.
What final words of advice do you have for readers of WD?
Usually, my biggest piece of advice is lower your standards, but we touched on that already. My next best piece of advice is to find as many writer friends as you can because these are the people who will completely, 100 percent understand how difficult it is to break into publishing. I think the only non-writer person I can moan about this to is my husband, and none of my non-writing friends and family get it. My parents, they’re in real estate so they just didn’t understand why it was so hard to get an agent. They’re like, “Well, if we want to sell a house, we just get an agent. Why so hard to get a literary agent? What is wrong with you that no literary agent wants to work with you?” And I’m like, “Well, no, it’s different.” I feel like the only people who truly get it are your fellow writers, and I would’ve given up so long ago if not for my writer friends. Reach out and find your community.
