Branford Boase Award Winner- Nathanael Lessore
Last evening, Nathanael Lessore was crowned the winner of the Branford Boase Award on its 25th anniversary. Congratulations Nathaneal! We are honoured he has written a piece for us around his tips for writing!
Writing what you know … by Nathanael Lessore
The winner of the 2024 Branford Boase Award winning, Steady For This, shares his top writing tip.
One of the key writing tips I give to kids on school visits is to “write what you know”.
I won’t write a story about a maths genius because I’m not one. Maybe I could, if I had the patience and time to learn and research the inner workings of a math-magician, but I’m far too lazy for that.
Instead, I write about awkward, goofy teens because I used to be one.
I’m quite open about how I don’t find myself particularly funny, which raises eyebrows as to how I ended up writing books in the comedic genre, but I do I think that life itself is hilarious. All throughout my life, I have found myself in funny situations, surrounded by funny people.
That was true when I grew up on the North Peckham estate, whose reputation as a gloomy wasteland was always juxtaposed with the hilarity of life on an estate.
A lifetime’s supply of awkward situations litter my books, and I’m frequently asked, “How did you come up with that?”. The answer is usually, “because it actually happened”. For this blog, I’ll divulge a never-heard-before anecdote that’s similar to the scenes I write in my books. Easter egg for the readers!
As a teenager, I once sneezed on the buttons in the lift, and was caught between mesmerised and disgusted as the contents of my face trickled down the buttons. Instead of getting out the lift and dying of shame like anyone would, I stood and I stared. And then the lift started moving, as someone summoned it back to the ground floor. I panicked, knowing that whoever was in the lift would see me, and see the sneeze buttons, and be rightfully disgusted.
The lift doors opened and I ran. I did not run out the building. I didn’t even wait in the communal area. I tried to race the lift back up and make into my front door unscathed.
Alas, I was not fast enough.
Halfway along the balcony, I heard the lift doors open behind me. I leaped to the side and hid behind a concrete pillar, meters away from the safety of my front door.
The girl from Number 82 was already screaming in anger, on the phone to her mum, yelling about how “that trampy kid at number 84 spat on all the buttons”. From my hiding place behind a pillar, I scoffed in indignation. I didn’t “spit”, I merely sneezed. Me and that particular neighbour never spoke again.
Another?
There’s a throwaway line in Steady For This where Growls says, “I ain’t felt this pathetic since that cockroach fell out my pocket”.
The true story behind that line is that I moved into a cockroach infested flat some years ago. I didn’t know what they were (I just assumed that were big, flightless bugs) and I lived among them like a roach whisperer. Shortly after moving in, I’d caught a cold and went to the GP. Stepping into the GP’s office, I pulled a tissue out my pocket and a large cockroach landed directly between us. His eyes followed it to the floor. With an unforgettable look of pure disgust, he said, “Eughhh, is that a cockroach?”, before the thing started scurrying around his office. The doctor leaped up onto his chair, instructing me to take a paper cup and trap the thing. I found myself spending the entirety of my appointment scrambling around under the desk trying to catch a cockroach that had fallen out of my pocket. The walk of shame when I finally caught it and took it outside, was nothing compared to the shame of going back into the GP’s office to carry on the consultation.
There are probably hundreds of anecdotes, just as shameful and absurd as these. I promise that I’ll try to get them into my books, just as many already have.
My point is, even though I’m not particularly funny, funny things happen to me, and around me, and to everyone I meet. And so I tell the children on my school visits, that you don’t have to be the most interesting person on the planet to write a book. Pay attention to the stories that other people tell around you. And just try remember stuff that happens to you, write them down if it helps.
This is what I mean when I tell kids to, “write what you know”.
Pro tips from all my author visits
1. Write what you know
2. Show don’t tell
3. Make notes on what you find funny, e.g. when everyone’s roasting someone on the group chat
4. Listen. Amazing stories happen to you, and they happen all around you. Listen to people. This will also help with narrative voice
5. Read. You can’t write if you don’t read.
6. Be original!
Nathanael Lessore was born in Camberwell, Southeast London, as one of eight children to French and Madagascan parents. Although he has spent most of his life in Peckham, Nathanael has also lived in Paris, Strasbourg and Singapore. Nathanael became a marketing executive after graduating from the University of East London, believing at the time that a Creative Writing degree destined him for a career in marketing. His second book, King of Nothing, has just been published. Together with his editors Ruth Bennett and Ella Whiddett, Nate won the Branford Boase Award with Steady For This, which was also shortlisted for the 2024 Carnegie Medal.
