How Dubai rewrote the script for UK actor-writer Ben Miller
Comedian and director recalls finding his agent and inspiration at LitFest
Why does British actor, director, comedian and author Ben Miller attribute a large part of his writing success to the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in Dubai? “I came to the Festival with a science book called It’s not rocket science. I bumped into my now literary agent right here at the Festival years ago. The rest is history as they say. We talked about the idea for writing children’s stories. So I changed my genre of writing to focus on children’s fiction. It was quite a turn from writing factuals after a considerable research to writing non-fiction stories. The journey has been rather amazing,” he said.
Miller is perhaps best known for his role as Bough in the Johnny English movies alongside Rowan Atkinson, BBC’s The Armstrong and Miller Show with Alexander Armstrong and BBC’s Death in Paradise.
He has also appeared opposite Ben Whishaw and Hugh Bonneville in Studio Canal’s Paddington 2 and What We Did On Our Holiday with Rosamund Pike and Billy Connolly.
This year at the Festival, Miller brings his book The Night We Got Stuck In A Story.
So, what makes a good children’s book fiction writer?
“Every writer needs to find their own voice,” said Miller. “My stories have a magic element. I also like to weave in folk stories and fairy tales. Here the older the better they are.”
Miller said he loves to add a dose of humour. “I bring science, but the main ingredient for me is magic,” he added.
Element of enchantment
In an interview to Gulf News, Miller said: “There has to be some enchantment – a magical world for children to be able to fire their imagination.”
He added that there has to be
a moral to every story he writes. “There has to be something that children learn while reading a story.”
Miller said he alternates between the characters. “If my first character is a boy the second will be the voice of a girl. I have a daughter at home so it is not difficult to get into her shoes and write a book from the voice of a girl,” he said.
Miller, a father of three children aged 16, 10 and 7, said he is sufficiently inspired to write children’s fiction thanks to his children. “I have them all covered,” he said.