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Nicholas Sparks
April, 2003
In this interview Nicholas Sparks talks about THE GUARDIAN, which is both a love story and a thriller.
Q: Why did you combine a love story with a dark character in a thriller?
NS: I wanted to create a character who added an element of danger to the novel, and Richard was the result. I did that because I wanted to write the type of novel that I hadn't written before, and because I think it's important for my readers that they don't read the same book over and over.
Q: How did you come to create such an obsessive, evil character?
NS: In crafting the character and story, I tried to make it seem believable. I can't tell you how tired I am of hearing stories about people who stay with violent partners. The question I always asked myself was: 'Why didn't the other person simply leave when the danger started?' With this story then, Richard and Julie went out only a couple of times before she realized it wasn't working; yet Richard wouldn't let her go. I think that could honestly happen to anyone-that's what dating is for, after all-to learn if you're compatible with someone.
Q: Was it hard to create an original character and thriller?
NS: Richard was difficult to create in an original way. So many thrillers have been written, and so many different types of evil characters have been seen in film, that creating someone believable but original was one of my major challenges in the editing process.
Q: Have you ever known anyone like Richard?
NS: You should know that I've never come across someone like Richard in my life. He was entirely a figment of my imagination.
Q: Why was this book so hard to write?
NS: The balance between the love story and thriller elements was tremendously difficult to pull off. In many ways, THE GUARDIAN is two novels in one, yet I did my best so that the reader would never lose sight of the fact that the story was primarily a love story about Julie and Mike.
(c) Copyright 2003, Time Warner Bookmark. All rights reserved.
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September, 2002
Notes on Nights in Rodanthe
by Nicholas Sparks
NIGHTS IN RODANTHE, unlike my previous novels, was not inspired by specific events within my own family. Rather, is a story of two characters that were drawn from many of the people I've met in my life, and in many ways, these characters are the most unique -- yet universal -- characters I've included within a novel.
Adrienne Willis is forty-five, a divorced mother of three, whose husband left her for a younger woman. Paul Flanner, at fifty-two, is a successful surgeon who lived a life devoted to his work, and because both the characters are older than my typical characters -- Noah and Allie, in the final third of THE NOTEBOOK, notwithstanding -- they are facing dilemmas that are different than any dilemmas I've written about in the past. There are children and elderly parents to worry about, both of which add a different type of challenge to the relationship as it unfolds. At the same time, both have reached that point in time where they seem to realize that although that not all of their dreams for their own lives have come true. In the course of writing, I grew to care deeply about both characters.
NIGHTS IN RODANTHE is probably the most romantic of the novels I've written to this point. From the setting to the characters, the story was written to show how people can fall in love at any age, and often when they least expect it.
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(c) Copyright 2003, Time Warner Bookmark. All rights reserved.
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