(Holly) A book at our reach is like a handshake to the connection we all need, because through them we gain friends, family, and those characters we never even knew we needed in our lives until we start turning the pages.

Hi there, I'm Holly Jackson, your host for Books by the River.

I want to say thanks to you for joining us on this journey where we sit beside the writers who tell these stories that sometimes feel like our own, or give us a glimpse of the experiences of someone we just might need to know.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (Announcer) Major funding for Books by the River is brought to you by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, the proud partner of South Carolina ETV and Public Radio.

With the generosity of individuals, corporations and foundations, the ETV endowment is committed to sharing southern storytelling and compelling conversations with viewers across the nation.

This program is supported by Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina.

This program is made possible by the support of Peter Zamuka and Lynn Baker.

Additional funding for Books by the River is provided by Visit Beaufort, Port Royal and Sea Islands and Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USC Beaufort.

(Holly) And here to talk to us today is Nicholas Sparks, author of Remain.

Welcome, Nicholas.

(Nicholas) Hey, thanks for having me.

(Holly) So glad you're here back in Beaufort.

You've been here a few times, huh?

(Nicholas) Yeah, in the past.

Right?

Just a beautiful, beautiful town, actually.

Long, long time ago, I actually thought about moving here.

But this would have been back in the time in the 90s, right?

I was living in the upstate of South Carolina, and... And and we ended up going back to New Bern, where we'd lived before.

But Beaufort was on our our top two, probably.

(Holly) Okay.

Well, thanks for coming back.

And let's go ahead and get right into it and talk about this book.

Something, kind of new territory for you.

Yes.

Remain, with M Night Shyamalan.

So tell me about this collaboration.

And it's kind of how it came to be.

(Nicholas) Yeah, it's really kind of one of those Hollywood stories.

I, it's funny, I have people in Hollywood, I have an agent, and I have other people, but I have an agent.

And he - the head of Blinding Edge Pictures, he works in LA quite a bit, and he knew my agent I had at Blinding Edge.

Anyway, they were talking one day they said, "Hey, we should get these two people together, right?"

And this wasn't that long ago.

It was probably either late 2023 or early 2024.

And I've heard of, I've heard this before.

You know?

"Let's get someone together.

Let's have a meeting."

Yeah, most of the time nothing ever happens.

But I guess about March of, it would have been March of 2023 or something like that.

A meeting was arranged.

So I fly out to meet Night in May of 2023.

And there was a twofold purpose to that.

Number one, we were each to conceive an original story, like 5 or 6 sentences, just the broad outlines.

And the goal was it would appeal to his audience and mine, and it would work as a novel and a film.

(Holly) Okay.

(Nicholas) So we each pitch each other our 5 or 6 sentences, right?

In that meeting, we decide, okay, well, let's do yours Night, and let's hammer out much more details.

Characters, well what are their names?

Where is the story taking place?

All this stuff.

That was all in May of 2023.

Didn't hear another word about it, nothing, until I guess, early September of 2024.

And Night calls me on the phone.

He says, "Hey, remember that story we were talking about, you know, year and a few months ago?"

"Yeah."

He says, "Well, pretty sure that's going to be my next movie.

I'm going to write it.

I'm going to direct it, you know, I'm going to produce it," he says.

Heck, he's even going to act in it a little bit.

So I said, "Okay, I guess I gotta write a novel."

(Holly) Let's do this thing.

(Nicholas) Okay.

So so that was only a year ago, right?

That was October.

So I started it in October, and then it came out in October of 2025.

(Holly) So this time span where everybody's silent, you just kind of put it on the backburner and went on with life.

(Nicholas) I was doing another book, I had to promote another book.

I was working on another novel, you know, I had to set that novel aside to write this one, and that's the one I'm finishing up now.

But yeah, just set it aside and there we go.

(Holly) All right.

Let's talk about the challenges of this.

I mean, it it had to be just whole new territory for you.

You're doing something different (Nicholas) A little bit.

(Holly) And I mean, was it challenging?

And what were those?

(Nicholas) No.

(Holly) No?

(Nicholas) You know, people think that.

But, you know, one of the ways I've tried to keep my novels original since The Notebook, right?

If you look at The Notebook, that's let's say the theme was everlasting love.

And so for early on, I said, well, let's change the theme to make, novels different.

So Message in a Bottle was love after loss and can you ever find love again.

And then Walk to Remember was, well, let's do first love and then let's do love and how it saves you.

And then you start doing dual themes.

And so you do love and danger or love and mystery.

So I started doing this.

So this is essentially love and "the paranormal," so to speak.

So I've done versions of this in the past.

If you look at it that way, and also in my past, you know, Safe Haven, you know, there's a character in there that by the end of the novel you don't know whether that character was really there.

Was it a figment of the main character's imagination or was it a ghost?

And I did that because I'd always been a huge fan of The Sixth Sense, by M Night Shyamalan.

(Holly) Yeah.

(Nicholas) So the whole world comes around the whole time.

(Holly) It's cool how this all works, isn't it?

All right, so let's talk.

You're you're in two separate places doing your own thing.

(Nicholas) Right.

(Holly) Are you consulting with each other along the way?

How often?

(Nicholas) Yeah.

What a great question.

You know, it's funny people say, what does this mean?

You know, did I write a page and he writes a page?

How does this work?

Really the way you got to think of this is, okay, let's say an egg is fertilized, okay.

An egg is fertilized and it splits.

So now we're talking identical twins.

Okay.

Well one twin was raised by one father and the other one was raised by an entirely different father in another part of the world with his own ideas about child raising.

That's pretty much what it was.

It's, okay, Night, you do the movie.

So here's the script.

He's going to write the script, and then I'm going to do the book.

And that's kind of how it works.

So when we consulted and he would say, "What do you think?"

And we might do some brainstorming here and there as we're working through the script.

But it's not like I ever insisted, "Well, Night, you really need to do this."

In the end, he's the dad, It's going to be his!

He's.... Yeah, right.

(Holly) That's true.

Yeah.

(Nicholas) So I was more of a cheerleader.

"Oh, that's a great idea.

Here's some other options.

A B or C."

Maybe he took one, maybe he didn't.

And, then, you know, by the end of the script, I remember because it was finished before the novel, I said "Night, you know, this is this is a dynamite script.

It's gonna be a great movie."

I said, "It ain't going to work as a novel.

It's just not going to work at all."

And so then, of course, I finish the novel and he gets it.

"This is a great novel," he goes, "but man, it's so different than the film."

And I say, "Well, two different fathers."

(Holly) Yeah, I love that analogy of the twins.

Okay, so whenever you went to this initial meeting, you had two ideas.

His one, there's still that other one out there floating.

(Nicholas) Right.

We'll see what happens with this.

Right.

If people... (Holly) You haven't let go of it, have you?

(Nicholas) No I mean, it's good, right?

It was my idea.

I think it's good.

We'll see if he wants to do that.

We'll see how Remain does.

You know, I was real fortunate that Remain debuted at number one on the New York Times list, so really excited about that, but we'll see how the film does and if people want to see this combo again.

We already know they do as a novel, but will they want to see it again, see this combo as another film?

We'll find out.

(Holly) Right.

(Nicholas) October 26th.

I think it's coming out.

(Holly) All right.

Cool.

Alright, let's talk about characters and talk about the connection that you have with them.

There are so many that have been along your professional career.

Are there ones that you just can't let go of?

How do they kind of stick with you and even influence your life at all?

(Nicholas) Are we talking about the characters in this book?

(Holly) We're talking about all of your characters.

(Nicholas) Or all the way back to Noah and Allie?

(Holly) Is there anybody you just cannot let go of?

(Nicholas) Oh gosh, some I mean, some of the characters are, you might say, a little bit closer to who I was.

And then some were a bit more of a stretch from who I was.

And certainly I remember the major details about these characters.

A couple that have that have stuck with me, but they're the ones that were really... I don't know if it was so much the characters, but the people they were inspired by.

But, you know, of course you have Noah, who was inspired by, my at the time, Kathy's, grandparents.

That's who I was married to.

Message in a Bottle was inspired by my dad.

Right?

Garret Blake and Jamie in A Walk to Remember was inspired by my sister.

John in Dear John was inspired by my cousin.

So you're kind of drawn toward those characters because of the character, or is it really because of of the people in my life.

And so, yeah, that's I guess, some of them.

(Holly) Yeah.

Okay.

Alright, I want to talk about storytelling and how technology with of course, AI, (Nicholas) Heard about it.

(Holly) Yeah, yeah.

What can only the human do and talk about just, you know, what cannot be replicated by the human itself.

(Nicholas) What cannot be replicated by the human?

(Holly) Right, I mean... (Nicholas) Or replicated... what AI can't replicate?

(Holly) That's right.

Yes, that's what I mean.

(Nicholas) Oh, yeah.

I had - I was just literally discussing this right before the show.

You know, it's really interesting.

AI is really, and of course, it's growing by leaps and bounds.

And, and the idea behind it is it's going to learn and but the principle is, the tools, the algorithms that you put in, it's really only going to be as effective as that.

So let's say someone has a goal of writing like I write.

You know, currently my novels are a product of everything I've ever read, everything I've heard, every story I've ever seen.

In addition, TV and movies, my upbringing, it's my values, my own life experiences, right?

All of that goes into me now, and of course, AI can't replicate that because it doesn't know unless I tell them exactly what it did.

Right.

And that's part one.

Part two, I suppose in theory it's possible maybe in ten years.

And if it is, look, I'll be the first one to do it.

But if you want to write a novel like me, and you don't have all of this information that I have, well, what patterns, are there patterns in my novels?

Those patterns will only be as good as I indicate them to be.

Like, for instance, if I'm writing a descriptive paragraph and AI says, "Oh, okay, this is a descriptive paragraph."

But that's not the only reason, perhaps that I had a description of, let's say, a river, right?

It's a, it's a sunset and it's the sun glowing on the river.

Okay, that could be one reason I want to set the scene, but it could also be maybe I'm setting the stage for what happens three pages later.

Also, maybe we need a break, a pause, a narrative pause because of what just happened one page ago.

And then you add in things like, well, whose perspective is this sunrise?

Is it her character?

Is that how she's seeing it, or is it how he's seeing it?

And is this the same as he saw it early on, or has now he, let's say, evolved, right?

Is that different?

So here's a paragraph.

You might say, "Oh, write a descriptive paragraph for the sun."

Sure, AI could do that, but there might be 5 or 6 rules for that paragraph why it was put in there.

Why is this dialog like this?

Why is it one page and not two?

Why does it start this?

You know, now who can answer those questions, Why I did everything?

Only I can.

Until I'm sitting with the AI person, say, "Here's why Da da da da da.

Here's all the rules associated with this.

Not only this paragraph, but let's say this chapter, this section, this movement."

Until I put all those rules in, I don't think anyone can write a novel like I do.

(Holly) Yeah, careful what you say in front of your phone then.

(Nicholas) Right, right?

But yeah.

Right.

Well, (Holly) What a weird time.

(Nicholas) Yeah.

So.

So it would be really, you know, maybe in ten years if this comes out right, I'll be I'll be older than it would be nice to be able to press my own button.

But look.

(Holly) Yeah.

(Nicholas) If it gets to that level, I'll be the first one to do it because I'm the only one that will know how to do it.

(Holly) Fascinating.

Fascinating answer.

All right, let's go back to Remain.

I want to know what stretched you creatively this time.

If you can pinpoint something.

(Nicholas) Yeah.

But now and this is a tough question to answer.

Because I don't want to do spoilers.

(Holly) No, oh no.

(Nicholas) But let's say that many of my novels are known for being love stories.

Well, this was a love story that had certain rules.

And let's just say it was really difficult within the rules, to develop a believable love story because these rules limited what the characters could do and what they could do with each other.

How do you have a love story feel real when you're not allowed to do what you've done in the past?

That was a little tricky at times.

(Holly) Is that exciting, though, having those challenges?

I mean, are you still having fun?

(Nicholas) <laughs> Everyone asks me that!

I never find writing fun!

You know, this is so, this is probably the biggest myth.

Writing is easy, but if you want to write well, it's not easy.

It's not pleasant.

It's full of frustration.

Hard times outnumber the good times 10 to 1 in the course of a novel.

You know you'll have ten hard days for every one easy day.

And who who really wakes up says, "Man, I sure hope my job is super hard and frustrating today?"

(Holly) Right.

(Nicholas) You know?

Okay, now why do I do it?

Well, there are things that I do love.

I love the challenge of seeing if I can come up with a story.

And that's really the reason, right?

I, I love the, the challenge of, can I write something better than I've ever written before?

Yeah, but these are ideas, the actual work, you know?

That's not much fun.

(Holly) Do you put pressure on yourself?

(Nicholas) Oh, of course.

That's, I think everyone who's had a modicum of success in any profession, will put various levels of pressure on themselves to be the best version of themselves.

And if this activity is meaningful in their life, and writing is meaningful in my life, it's meaningful.

It provides purpose.

You know, these are all pros, right?

It's allowed me to to be at home and watch my kids grow up.

It's got a lot of pros, but, man the writing.

Look, I like everything about my job except for the actual writing.

That's the hard part.

<laughs> (Holly) Yeah, except for what makes it go.

All right.

Well, how do you deal with those stressors?

(Nicholas) Well, I think it's, Well, you know, it's what your mom said, what every psychologist says or influencer.

You try to be healthy, right?

You you try to eat right, you try to get enough sleep.

You make sure you get exercise, fresh air and, and depending on the day, you either try to be alone or you make sure that you reach out to friends or family so you're not cut off and isolated.

It's, you know, I think that that version of looking at yourself in a holistic way or that you're not only your career health.

So I'm having a frustrating career day, but that's inevitable.

I've already said it's inevitable.

If you're really trying to do something difficult and challenging, not, you know, the best batters in baseball.

They're, you know, they strike out.

They're out seven out of ten times.

Right?

It's just the nature of it.

But that's career health.

But you've also got your mental health, right?

You've got emotional health.

You've got physical health.

You've got spiritual health, you've got, social health and I think that the more that one tries to keep all of these other areas in a healthy balance.

It doesn't necessarily make the, let's say, struggle in the career easier.

But it's certainly if one of those is out of whack, this can be even harder.

If you're physically unwell or you're not sleeping or you're you're drinking too much or turning to drugs or, you know, none of these things are, then you get out of balance, everything is harder.

(Holly) Sure.

I really love the tagline in your, I think it's your Instagram account that says, like, making people cry since 1996.

(Nicholas) Yeah.

(Holly) I mean, do you go in saying, all right, let's make them cry.

Here's where they're going to start crying.

Is crying on your brain as you're writing those books?

(Nicholas) Well, not necessarily as I'm writing, but it's there.

(Holly) Yeah?

(Nicholas) Yeah, it's there with every book.

I think I, what are the purpose?

You know, if you think about the purpose of various novels, let's say, you know, a thriller is supposed to thrill, a mystery is supposed to keep you asking "whodunit."

You know, adventure is supposed to keep you on the edge of your seat, excitement.

You know, a legal thriller, you know, moving toward a courtroom drama or something like that.

Well, what's the purpose of what I do?

What is it?

Because it's not just romantic fantasy, which would be a romance novel.

It's not that because they don't end... They don't all end happily ever after.

So to me, it's just, you know, I write, I write dramas and dramas that should feel universal and real to the reader.

And quite frankly, sadness is part of life.

Everyone experiences it.

And if you ignore that, what you're left with is a lollipop.

Something sweet but forgettable.

But those novels that move you through the entire range of human emotion and then, genuinely move the reader without manipulation, without melodrama, but genuinely impact emotionally the reader in laughter or sadness or anger, frustration.

Those kind of books that do that, those kinds of stories, they're the ones that are most meaningful.

Right?

Okay.

And it works not only in what I do, but it's these are the most famous stories, right?

You think you think William Shakespeare, you think Romeo and Juliet, you know, you think, how about a Disney movie?

Well, do you think The Lion King or whatever?

What happened to, you know, Simba's father?

You know?

And then the canyon and the hyenas.

Terrible.

He gets run over.

(Holly) Right.

(Nicholas) There was sadness there.

What about Bambi?

What about the poor mom in the forest?

(Holly) Old Yeller still gets me.

(Nicholas) Old Yeller.

See?

So, so so the great memorable stories, move you effectively and genuinely through the range of human emotion.

And that's what I try to do.

I tried to do it in this one.

And there we go.

(Holly) All right.

Let's talk about Nicholas Sparks in 1996.

(Nicholas) Yeah.

(Holly) Versus now, how are you different?

(Nicholas) Older.

(Holly) Well, <both laugh> (Nicholas) And things hurt!

My knees hurt.

Right?

I mean I don't know.

(Holly) But have you changed as a writer even in how you approach your writing style, your self-discipline as a writer?

(Nicholas) No.

Not necessarily.

In 1996, again, you know, we spoke about it earlier.

The challenge of The Notebook was to see I already knew going in.

I'd written a couple of novels that had never been published, so I knew I would finish it once I started it.

So my only goal was to say, I wonder if I can make it great.

I wonder if I could write a great novel.

That's still the exact same thing that motivates me now, if I wrote The Notebook because I love to write, you know, and that changed.

I mean, even when I was working on that one, I found it very difficult and challenging to get every, every page, section, character exactly what I wanted it to be for all these AI reasons that I don't even know.

(Holly) Right.

(Nicholas) Even know what they are right offhand, right?

It's just kind of this instinctive thing.

So that hasn't changed.

Certainly, you think you're wiser.

I've gone through more.

Right?

You've seen full circle and and various relationships and things like that.

So that probably adds a depth to my writing.

I would say that if there's one big change, I could write, let's say, The Notebook today, let's say I'd never written it, and I could do that one today.

But if you go back to 1996, there are novels that I don't think I could have written.

Let's say something like The Longest Ride or See Me or Safe Haven.

These were very these were just bigger novels.

They were longer.

They were much more complex, you know?

Longest Ride had two stories, and part of it took place 50 years ago.

And you're rolling it forward with this.

And this had all these different characters.

The complexity was probably too much for me as first time out of the gate.

Remember, Notebooks pretty easy.

It's like Noah and Allie when they're young.

Oh, let's do Noah and Allie Ten years later, hey, let's do Noah and Aliie when they're older and <laughs> Right?

You know, it's kind of simple if you think about it.

But these have a lot of characters and settings and times in this.

I don't, I don't think I knew how to do that back then.

Right?

I just don't think I had the chops.

I do remember, it's a funny story.

I remember I wrote my, it would have been, I think, my sixth book, and it was called The Guardian and it was great, man.

I struggled with this book, and it was the first time I tried to do this dual theme thing.

So this was Love and Danger.

Man, I was so proud of it.

And I sent it up to my editor and wait on pins and needles, and I get this great phone call from her.

And I said, "What did you think?"

She's like, "I just loved it.

It's such a good story."

I said, "Great!"

She said, "You know, there's a couple of things, that's all."

"What are they?"

She's like, "Well, I didn't much like the main male character.

Oh, and I didn't much like the main female character.

And, I didn't really like a lot of the secondary characters and how you did them.

And, the first part of the book kind of drags and the structure is all off, and no matter what, you're going to have to rewrite the last half of the novel from scratch."

(Holly) So, "I liked it, but not really."

(Nicholas) And I'm gobsmacked.

I said, "Well, what did you like?"

She goes, "Oh, I really like the dog."

And that's all I was left with.

I was so gobsmacked by this.

I couldn't even face this book again.

So I set that book aside.

I wrote Nights in Rodanthe.

I got that book out instead, then went back to The Guardian and okay, now let me rework this dual theme thing.

That's what I mean.

Obviously, I couldn't have written The Guardian before The Notebook, and that was only seven years later because, see, I didn't!

<laughs>.

Until I really had some more chops and did a lot more thinking.

(Holly) Alright last question I have to ask, as you knew before we started the show, there are a lot of college students from the University of South Carolina-Beaufort who work on our show.

This is part of their college experience.

What kind of little advice would you give them as they're approaching this real world and making decisions like you were?

Do I do this pharmaceutical sales thing or do I take off and try this writing thing?

(Nicholas) Yeah.

I mean, okay, I think I should be clear on, You should ask yourself the hard questions.

And then about, like, okay, but let's say you're a young female, would you rather have a great family or a great career?

And if your choices well a great family.

Well then concentrating in your 20s on getting that first, that's what I would say.

Say it to my daughters and they're, you know, they're both college graduates.

I say but if that's important, you know, your 20s are when you should do that, not your 30s or 40s.

Because if you want kids and you wait too long, you know, there's a ticking time clock.

Whereas, look, Whereas, look, if you have fmaily this and that and you start working at 35, okay, you got 30 more years to work, go get your career.

It's plenty of time.

So that's what I would say.

So be clear on what you want and move toward what you want.

And then the other bit of advice that I say, what I tell my kids is, you've heard your whole life that you should do what you love.

I say, that's horse pucky.

I say you should do what you're good at and you should do what can provide, let's say, financially, the kind of life that allows you to do the things you like.

Like how many plumbers wake up and say, "Man, I can't wait to plumb."

How many sanitation workers say, "Gosh, I can't go -" but see these jobs pay well.

And then they get home and then they can coach their kids little league baseball team.

If that's what's important or they have a good social life with their friends and that's what's important, or if it they gives them time to fish.

And you see what I mean?

(Holly) Oh yeah.

(Nicholas) You don't have to do what you love.

Because you know what?

If what you love is watching TV.

Okay, you know what?

If what you love is walking your dog or scrolling, on social media.

Look, do what you're good at (Holly) So you can do what you love.

(Nicholas) Do what you're good a so that you can do what you love.

I wrote so I could be with my kids.

I wrote so that, you know, those were the reasons.

(Holly) Beautiful, beautiful way to end this.

I want to thank you so much for coming.

(Nicholas) Thanks Holly.

Holly) It's been a real pleasure talking to you.

And thank you, everyone, for joining us.

I'm Holly Jackson, the host of Books by the River.

Until the next book.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (Announcer) Major funding for Books by the River is brought to you by the ETV Endowment of South Carolina, the proud partner of South Carolina ETV and public Radio.

With the generosity of individuals, corporations and foundations, the ETV endowment is committed to sharing southern storytelling and compelling conversations with viewers across the nation.

This program is supported by Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina.

This program is made possible by the support of Peter Zamuka and Lynn Baker.

Additional funding for Books by the River is provided by Visit Beaufort, Port Royal and Sea Islands and Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at USC Beaufort.

♪ ♪