Les Mis writer to share top tips at Stratford Literary Festival

Writing is something that must only be done in the morning and it’s a skill that you can work on.

So says prolific writer William Nicholson, who is speaking at Stratford Literary Festival this month. And with his impressively long list of works - including the 2012 release of Les Miserables, his advice is worth taking.

But the huge success of Les Mis, which won three Oscars, was not a surprise to William.

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“Les Miserables is such a good show that our job in making the film was not to mess it up,” he said.

“Had it not had a good reception, we would have been acutely embarrassed because it would have meant we had failed.”

William’s television work includes Shadowlands and Life Story, while other films include Sarafina, Gladiator and Elizabeth: the Golden Age. He has also written and directed his own film, Firelight, and four stage plays.

William’s latest novel, Motherland, is published this spring - and it is this type of writing that he loves best because it enables him “to tap into the minds of the characters”

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And he only writes in the morning beacuse it it “very psychicly absorbing”.

He said: “If you are a writer, you have got to live a life so you understand why your characters do what they do.”

In fact, from the beginning, William has always been beavering away at one or more novels. He said: “For 15 years before I was successful, I was writing all the time. Because I was powering away at those novels, I got steadily better. Writing can be learnt.

“You have got show your writing to people and listen to their views - and the best training is to read good writing.”

William will be in conversation with Michael Odell at the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford on April 27 at 7.30pm. For tickets (£12), call 01789 207100 or visit www.civichall.co.uk

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