'I just start writing'
Big Little Lies author Liane Moriarty has a knack of turning out books that translate brilliantly to TV – so what’s her secret?
- Caroline Frost
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When Liane Moriarty received an invitation to meet Nicole Kidman in a coffee shop in Sydney back in 2014, she decided she’d best play it cool. The bestselling Australian writer had experienced more than her share of her novels being optioned by persuasive TV and film producers before seeing them disappear into the long grass of “development”. So she decided to put on her best “jaded but okay with that” face as she sat down with one of her country’s highest-profile Oscar-winning superstars.
“I was very glad to meet her, but I just thought it would be a fun story,” says Moriarty. “I said to her, ‘I know how this business works. I won’t get excited.’
“But Nicole said, ‘If we option it, get excited. We won’t be doing that just for the sake of it.’ I was quite taken aback. I thought somebody who’d been in the industry for that long wouldn’t have her passion and enthusiasm. But that was the beginning of everything.”
Kidman was as good as her word. The project up for discussion in the coffee shop that day was Big Little Lies, Moriarty’s sixth novel written with her customary focus on strong, complex women across different generations. With Kidman producing as well as starring alongside Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley and Zoe Kravitz, the 2017 drama went on to become a massive commercial hit and critical triumph for HBO, with Emmy Awards and Golden Globes for Kidman, Dern and co-star Alexander Skarsgard, as well as for the show itself.
Big Little Lies’ Shailene Woodley, Zoe Kravitz, Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman and Laura Dern. HBO
“I remember being backstage at the Emmys,” recalls Moriarty. “Nicole said, ‘Can you believe it?’ I said to her, ‘Well, you told me right at the start, get excited.’”
As well as its suspenseful story that left fans clamouring for a second series, Big Little Lies was heralded for showcasing multiple significant roles for women. Moriarty, an executive producer alongside Kidman and Witherspoon says, “I remember Reese talking about how they’d all worked on film sets where they’d be the only woman, and how much fun it was to be working together. I was really proud of that.” And she adds: “My books are often dismissed as chick-lit. There was something lovely in that these women all wanted to be part of it, and it was a success.”
Following this and subsequent adaptations of Nine Perfect Strangers (also starring Kidman) and Apples Never Fall (Annette Bening), one of Moriarty’s earliest books The Last Anniversary is the latest to find its way to screen (with Kidman as executive producer). Teresa Palmer plays Sophie, whose life is transformed when an ex-boyfriend’s great-aunt Connie bequeaths her a stunning island home. The property and its residents all have their own secrets, naturally, not least Connie’s sister Rose, played by an enigmatic Miranda Richardson.
Adaptations are fun, but the books feel personal – they’re between me and the reader
Liane Moriarty
Fans of Moriarty’s work will recognise some familiar tropes – women navigating their way through societal demands, family betrayals and romance. Unlike her other TV dramas, this story hasn’t been transposed to the US on screen but stays rooted firmly in Australia, specifically fictitious Scribbly Gum Island on the Hawkesbury River. Moriarty explains: “I came up with the idea when I visited a similar island with my parents. It was the first time a setting was a spark for my book. Also, at the time I wasn’t a full-time novelist, I was working on a history project which involved speaking to several older Australian women. The personalities of the older characters in this book were similar in their way of speaking. So it felt important we stayed at home.”
Moriarty herself grew up in the Sydney suburbs, the eldest of six children. Along with her sister Jaclyn, she always loved writing stories. “Our father gave us our first publishing deal, a dollar for each book.” Later, Moriarty went into copywriting and was only inspired to write her first novel when she got a phone call “from my sister Jackie to say her first novel had been accepted for publication. I needed to see her do it.” Now a third sister, Nicola, has joined the family published writers’ club, where first drafts are shared and “we know it’s our job to respond with excessive praise”. Are the Moriartys the Brontës of Sydney? “Hopefully we’ll live longer and be less socially awkward.”
With ten bestsellers under her belt, Moriarty is indisputably a heavy hitter. Does she still write for readers, or increasingly viewers too? “Some critics say I now write with one eye on the screen, but I have a lot of internal monologues,” she explains. “I have no interest in adapting my own novels. I don’t know how
to do that.”
Nicole Kidman, Liane Moriarty, Reese Witherspoon and Big Little Lies producer Bruna Papandrea. Getty
Saying that, Moriarty permitted herself one exception, writing the treatment for Big Little Lies series two. “I called a new character Mary-Louise, as I knew that was Meryl Streep’s real name, and I joked, ‘I’ve created this role for Meryl.’ The producers laughed at me, saying I’d gone all Hollywood. Then a few months later,
I received a text – ‘We got you Meryl!’”
Despite such glamorous encounters with screen stars, it’s clear that the journey from her imagination to the page remains Moriarty’s focus. “Adaptations are great fun, but they are the results of other people’s talents and expertise,’ she says. “The books feel very personal, they’re between me and the reader.”
With more than a million written words to her name, is writing still a joy? “Completely. I still have those times when I feel like I can’t do it, and I feel clumsy. But I always have lots of ideas, and I find my characters are getting older along with me. I think more things happen to you as you get older. In my earlier books, I was interested in the younger characters, but now I’m interested in everyone.”
Surprisingly for someone whose stories translate so easily to TV, Moriarty has no narrative framework in place when she begins each novel. “My sister Jackie plans it all out, but I just start writing,” is how she describes her working day in her office at home in Sydney. “I flail about at the beginning but then I find my momentum and I aim for 500 words a day. When I’m not writing, I’m watching TV or reading. I don’t have any other hobbies, apart from two teenagers, family and friends.”
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She may have no fixed structure, but Moriarty’s writing is full of warmth, wit and compassion for the unlikeliest of characters. Has she always had a sense of human fragility? “I do find that easy to understand,” she nods. “I know I have to do something to keep people turning the pages, but the rest is all me. Saying that, I can’t think about it too much and I can never sit down saying, ‘Now I shall be compassionate and hilarious…’”
Authors
Caroline Frost
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