The Big Little Lies sequel Liane Moriarty never planned to write

Hello.

Thank you so much.

And Liane, of course, the sequel to Big Little Lies has to be called...

Big Little Truths.

Although you say that and we had a lot of tro- [laughs] trouble coming up with that title.

Really?

Yes.

Oh, we went from, um, I think for a long time I was calling it Bigger, Bigger Lies, then Giant Little Lies, and then all of a sudden, yeah, we, um, came up with Big Little Truths and then it, then it seemed obvious, which means you've got the right title.

Of course.

H- h- how long have people been asking you for a sequel for Big Little Lies?

Oh, well, almost from the moment it came out, because I can remember getting a message from Reese Witherspoon when they were planning, uh, you know, the show was in development, and she was saying, "Oh, people are asking is there any chance of, um, of a sequel?" And I remember saying, "No, absolutely not, um, because, uh, I don't write sequels." And I'm, and I said, "I'm so sorry.

I'm not going to be like the, the Game of Thrones guy." [laughs] So, so yes, for a long time.

Well, what, what's the aversion been to sequels?

Well, I had a standard line.

I would say, uh, that I had put my characters through so much-

Mm

... that I wanted to leave them in a happy place.

Um, which wasn't just a line, that's, that's how I f- felt, and that I was now interested in, in creating a whole new set of characters.

Mm.

Of course, you have had to think about these characters and what comes next for them already because with the TV show, Big Little Lies, there was a second season and you had to come up with a novella for that book.

Uh, that, of course, is not what this novel is though, right, Liane?

No. That's, that's right.

So, uh, I called it a novella because I was meant to be writing a, sort of a treatment, but I didn't know how to write without writing a story.

Mm.

Uh, so I ended up writing 50,000 words for that, and that to me felt quite different.