Although he’s behind a number of popular films, Sparks says he’s remained low-key: “It would be wonderful to think that the world is full of readers, but it’s not. More people would recognize “The Notebook” than Nicholas Sparks. It’s on cable every month, and it’s been seen by 400 million people, whereas 20 percent of the U.S. population reads novels.”
With 15 best-selling novels and six film adaptations under his belt, Nicholas Sparks is one of the most successful writers working today — and he does sit down to work every day. The man behind “Dear John,” which beat “Avatar” for the No. 1 spot at the weekend box office, talks about making movies and making people cry.
When you write a book, is a film adaption in your mind?
No, I’m a novelist. The day I figure out Hollywood, I think I’ll be the first in town. It’s a complicated thing, and that’s a world that I can’t control. The only world that I can control is the world of writing a novel, because if I write it, it will get published.
But there isn’t a part of you thinking, “How will this be adapted?”
The only way I think about film in the process of writing is to be aware of films with the knowledge that I’m trying to write an original story. I don’t want to write a book that’s been written before. At the same time, I don’t want to write a novel that feels like you just saw it in a movie. For instance, I would never write a love story set on the Titanic. It was never a book. It would be original in literature, but it’s not original.
So, why do you like to make people cry?
That is certainly not the reason I write what I write. I write in the genre of the Greek tragedies. You cover the full spectrum of human emotions. So sadness is certainly part of that. It just happens that most people remember the sadness. That’s not my fault, though.
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