Nicholas Sparks likes making people cry.
He’s the author who brought us the story of two star-crossed lovers dying side by side in The Notebook, the gut-wrenching saga of doomed romance between a high school bad boy and a cancer patient in A Walk to Remember and 23 other gorgeous but devastating tales of soulmates and heartbreak.
“Well, hey — The Notebook worked, and if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he tells Yahoo over Zoom of his writing style.
Sparks’ first novel, published in 1996, was so successful that he has spent much of his subsequent career wondering if he should stop writing stories that make people bawl their eyes out and lean into something else. He decided against it, though he does like varying the ways in which he makes his audience people sob.
“Readers don’t know whether it’s going to have a happy ending or a tragic ending or a bittersweet ending,” Sparks says. “Either way, they’re going to cry, because I’m going to try to induce some tears.”
Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling in the movie adaptation of Sparks’ novel, The Notebook. (New Line/Courtesy Everett Collection)
True to form, Sparks’ latest novel, Remain, had me reaching for tissues. It follows an architect mourning his late sister when he takes up residence at a bed-and-breakfast in Cape Cod, Mass. There, he starts a love affair with an otherworldly woman.
The supernatural element is new for Sparks, but he adheres to many of the same beloved tropes in his new book, out now: A coastal setting, a passionate coupling and, of course, extreme heartache.
One true pairing
Although emotional devastation is certainly present, a few elements make Remain different from Sparks’ other works. For one thing, it’s a collaboration.
The author’s longtime film agent introduced him to M. Night Shyamalan, whom he met with in May 2023. Together, Sparks and the filmmaker created the story that would become Remain. Sparks turned it into a book, and Shyamalan wrote a script for a forthcoming movie he’s directing, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor, which will be released in theaters in October 2026.
“You’ve got to think of Remain as a coin — he did one side of the coin, the film, and I did the other side of the coin. It’s the same story, but different mediums,” Sparks says. “There are tweaks that will make the stories feel different … but they have to, because they’re different mediums. One is a story told in words, one is a story told in pictures.”
Sparks says he’s been a fan of Shyamalan’s movies for a while — the end of his 2010 book Safe Haven is actually a nod to the iconic twist in The Sixth Sense. Inspired by the horror director, Remain is also Sparks’ scariest published work to date. He said shifting to a darker, more frightening side of storytelling was no different for him than “writing angry.” It just took a little refinement on his end.
Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel in the film adaptation of Sparks’ novel Safe Haven. (James Bridges/Relativity Media/Courtesy Everett Collection)
“To get it exactly right the way you want it to be takes work. I write a lot of sentences and I edit them a lot,” he says.
Meet me at the beach
Each journey from the page to the screen is a little different for Sparks, but variety keeps him on his toes decades into his career. Though readers know they can come to him for heartbreak, he tries to spice things up with every new release by varying the themes, adding side characters and writing about different age groups.
“Because these are all love stories set [near the beach] … if you had asked me when I first started, I would have said there’s no way on earth I’ll come up with 25 different versions of this,” he says. “But here I am, and it’s still going.”
Sparks knows there’s another beach romance capturing the zeitgeist — The Summer I Turned Pretty. The television series, which follows a young woman navigating a love triangle with the longtime family friends she grew up with, is not exactly Sparks’ cup of tea, but he gets its appeal.
Several key scenes in the series The Summer I Turned Pretty take place on the beach. (Erika Doss/Amazon/MGM Studios/Courtesy Everett Collection)
“I try to keep a pulse on what’s going on in American culture,” he says. “I can certainly see why some people are drawn to it and why it’s become very popular with certain people … that’s not exactly what I do, but that’s OK, I’ll be comfortable continuing what I do. I think there’s room in the market.”
For all we know, he could secretly be writing a teen beach romance involving a love triangle right now. One thing’s for certain — it’s going to make us teary-eyed.
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