Why Liane Moriarty Broke Her Own Rules and Wrote a Sequel to ‘Big Little Lies’

Big Little Truths Book Courtesy of Penguin Random House

Liane Moriarty never planned to write a sequel to Big Little Lies. Part of it is just principle. Early on in her relationship with Hello Sunshine, which produces the HBO adaptation, she got a message from founder Reese Witherspoon asking if there was any possibility of a new book in the BLL universe, and even that didn’t sway the prolific author. “I was very adamant that I am not like the Game of Thrones guy,” she says. “I was already writing my next book, and I’m not the sequel person.”

But then, throughout the years of working on the first two seasons of the HBO series, she started to wonder whether it might be interesting to check back in on the families of the Pirriwee school. She started working on a separate novel set in a high school, and then when a swell of interest for a third Big Little Lies season started up, she realized she could take that story and give it to her BLL community. “I announced to my team that I was going to write it, and they said okay, we want it right now now now,” she says. “Which is always tricky because publishers usually let you take your time with the creative process.”

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Ultimately, she wrote Big Little Truths, which is on stands now and will also serve as the foundation for the show’s highly-anticipated third season. The book picks up with Madeline, Celeste, Jane, Renata and Bonnie 10 years after the first novel. This time the central crime revolves around a severed finger that is sent to the high school, and a mysterious — potentially nefarious — new teacher captivating their children.

Ahead of the novel‘s release, Moriarty spoke to THR about what it’s been like navigating the adaptation world, how the new novel fits in to television show, and why she isn’t working directly with HBO anymore.

As the first season of the show was getting really popular, and then getting awards recognition, did you feel like you had to fend off the people who wanted another book to use as material for a second season?

There was some. And of course I gave in a little because I wrote the treatment for season two. It was 50,000 words.

Oh, wow. I’m suddenly thinking about how HBO picked up Girls from a one-pager.

Well, it’s because I didn’t know how to write it any other way. I was meant to be just giving ideas. But I don’t plan or outline my books, so it was hard for me to outline the season. I had to just start writing it in order to make stuff happen [in the plot]. I wrote that with an American accent, and I was proud of myself, although now I regret that I made changes from my books for the show. I did that because I thought it would work better than what they had done. It was a career highlight that I created that character for Meryl Streep but I didn’t like the fact that that sort of disappeared.

When you figured out the way to tell more Big Little Lies story, with the children as teenagers, did you ever consider just writing another treatment for an additional season of the show instead of an entire novel?

Definitely not. I would never do that again.

Which of the characters came back to you the easiest?

Maybe Madeline, although I couldn’t tell you why. I put her through a lot [in the book]. Celeste was the hardest, because I just wanted her to be in a hopeful place. Maybe this is why I have always resisted writing sequels. My standard line was, I always put my characters through so much that I want to lave them living happily ever after. But I also had to make it life real life, and keep the reader feeling interested.

The book takes place in the universe of the first book, and not the universe of the show — so it’s in Sydney, not Monterey, and there are plot points that differ from what happened in the show like Madeline’s marriage or Renata and Jane’s marriages. Were you worried about the buy-in that requires of readers?

I was very aware that it’s been a long time since people have read the first book, and that many of them have seen the show. In their minds they’d have sort of confused the worlds. I myself have that issue. When I went to write Big Little Truths, I’d totally forgotten about the character of Fred, because poor Fred didn’t make it into the show. I was considering doing something really meta, like having him be in his room playing video games all the time and somebody says, oh it’s like Fred never existed isn’t it? But I tried not to get too clever. I had no problem ignoring the plot of the show. For example, my Madeline has dark hair and Reese’s had blonde hair, so I just deliberately did not mention it in the sequel. Or there’s a line where Jane’s talking to Celeste and they’re going to hide behind a hedge and she says, you’re too tall. But I’d never described Celeste’s height, that was Nicole. But that’s okay because it doesn’t contradict anything. There might be some moments that readers catch that don’t quite work.

And you brought Mary Louise into the book…

And I don’t think I would have done that if I hadn’t come up with that character [for the show] myself. The characters have to feel like they belong to me.

You’ve had a few different other books turn into television shows — Apples Never Fall and Nine Perfect Strangers — does anything that you see onscreen affect the way you write?

Overall, not at all. The only tiny thing that I’ve taken from my adaptations is that I was really taken with the way that Meryl Streep played Mary Louise, and she had this particular gesture where she would take her necklace and tap it against her lip. I thought to myself, she must have seen somebody doing that and she put it in her little toolkit of possible gestures to use when creating a character. So I wrote down for myself, don’t forget the gestures as a way of building your characters and improving your writing.

Did you know when you were writing this sequel that there was definitely going to be a third season of the show? Did you have to think about what might work in that season as you were writing?

I said to them, “I’m going to write this, but I don’t want to hear your thoughts, I’ll just give [the manuscript] to you and you can do what you want with it.“ And they were really good about that, except they were just saying, “Hurry up, hurry up, the children [actors] are getting older“ and that sort of thing.

At what point did you let the creative team get involved?

I broke my own rules because I normally never let my editors see anything along the way. But this time I let them see because I wasn’t doing it fast enough. But I asked for no feedback. I didn’t want to hear anything about, “Well that wouldn’t work for us.“

So this third season will be more of a separation of church and state in the adaptation process? Where they’re optioning the book and you let them do what they want with it?

It will be exactly like that. That’s the way I’ll continue to do it going forward. I think what I’ve learned with my adaptations is that if I ever join meetings or anything, in the beginning I think okay we can make changes. I know it’s a different medium and I’m feeling all collaborative and enjoying the teamwork. But then we go around a little bit and there’ll be an issue and I think, well you should have just left it the same as the book because I worked this all out before. Like, if you stick to the book it’ll all work out. But really, you shouldn’t do that! So I need to just enjoy it as any other viewer.