Nicholas Sparks teams up with M. Night Shyamalan to co-author supernatural love story

Transcript

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Geoff Bennett: Bestselling author Nicholas Sparks has built a career writing emotionally grounded love stories like “The Notebook” and “A Walk to Remember” that explore the resilience of the human heart. His latest novel, “Remain,” adds an unexpected twist.

Co-written with filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, it blends Sparks’ trademark romance with Shyamalan’s sense of mystery and the supernatural. The two teamed up to craft a story about loss, faith and finding meaning after grief.

I spoke with Nicholas Sparks about the collaboration and the new creative territory it opened up.

Nicholas Sparks, welcome to the “News Hour.”

Nicholas Sparks, Author, “Remain: A Supernatural Love Story”: Thank you for having me. Thrilled to be here.

Geoff Bennett: Your name is practically synonymous with deeply human love stories. This book “Remain” adds a supernatural dimension. You co-wrote it with filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan.

How did that collaboration begin and what convinced you that it would work?

Nicholas Sparks: Yes, it kind of began in one of those funny Hollywood ways, right? I had — my agent in Hollywood knew someone in Blinding Edge Pictures, and they were talking, they said, hey, we should get Nick and Night together.

And I have heard that a couple dozen times over the last 25 years and usually nothing ever happens, but this one came through. A meeting was set up, and the purpose of that meeting was each of us was going to come up with an original story that would work as both a novel and a film and that would work for his audiences and mine.

And we were going to pitch each other our stories. And that was in May of 2023, and didn’t really hear anything until August of 2024. And he called me up and he said: “Hey, you know that idea that we really hammered out back the previous year?”

I said: “Yes.”

He said: “I think it’s going to be my next film,” which is — by that he meant he was going to write it, direct it, produce it, the whole bit. And so I said to myself, well, I guess I have to write a novel. And then so I sat out to do that.

Geoff Bennett: The book is out now. The film will be released next year. You have often explored love after loss. What new dimension were you reaching for this time?

Nicholas Sparks: Yes.

Well, and there was a couple of them, right? I really wanted to explore the theme that Night and I really harped on. And that’s really that love is sometimes the only thing that can save us, right, in moments of whatever we’re going through. And I tend to believe, and I have certainly lived my life and my novels kind of reflect this general idea that I have of all the good stuff in life and in the world come from love, right?

And the goal here with “Remain” was to do it in a way that will maybe be surprising to my readers and surprising to his viewers in the best possible way.

Geoff Bennett: This is your 26th book. Is that right?

Nicholas Sparks: Twenty-sixth book, 25th novel. Yes, I know. It’s a lot. I mean, when I think about that, I’m like, how did I do that? I remember after writing “The Notebook,” I finished “The Notebook” and I was excited. It sold to the publisher.

But I remember very vividly thinking, well, that was it. That’s the only story that I have. I had no idea that I’d be going three decades later. And still to this day, after I finish a novel, that’s what I say. Well, that’s it. Pretty much covered everything there is on this topic. There’s nothing left.

And then eventually another story comes. It’s — I guess it’s amusing. My agents and people I work with, they say, oh, you will come up with it. When I say these things in the moment, I genuinely believe it. I’m like, that’s it. I got nothing. The well is dry. It’s — I don’t know.

Geoff Bennett: How do you find fresh emotional territory to explore?

Nicholas Sparks: Yes, it’s — every idea, every novel has one germination point. And that can be anything, right?

It could be “A Walk to Remember” was inspired by my sister and her battle with cancer, for instance. So that’s the germination point. Other times, it’s a theme. For this one, hey, love and the supernatural. Other times, it’s maybe a character or something that you have read in the newspaper. Hey, oh, that might be an interesting element to incorporate in the novel.

When I wrote “The Wish,” I’d been wanting to do an adoption story for years. After I finish a book, I think starting in my third or fourth book, I wanted to do an adoption story of some kind, but I could never come up with the story. Took 20 years and adoption — and then I was thinking about that story and said, I’d also like to do a Christmas story. And the two ideas came together and that eventually became “The Wish.”

So you have that initial point can come from anywhere. And then from there you start asking yourself questions. You know, what would be the best kind of character to tell the story that I want to tell? What’s his age or what is her age? What do they do? Where are they in life? Are they young? Are they single? Are they divorced? Are they widowed?

What is the best — what’s going on in their life? And you kind of get to a point where I reach 20, 25 ideas, the big ones, like how the book begins and ends, maybe four or five of the major plot elements, who the characters are, the general theme.

If I have that, then I’m usually ready to go ahead and start writing. And — but if I don’t have those — and that list of 25 can break any time, right? I have got dozens of ideas that got to idea number eight or idea number 12, but I didn’t quite get enough to be able to write the book.

And my process is different than other processes. I have read Stephen King. He doesn’t know how a novel is going to end when he starts writing. He doesn’t know everything that’s going to happen. And all I can think is, how can you write like that? How do you know it’s all going to come together, right?

I mean, everyone in this field, they have their own process and mine works for me.

Geoff Bennett: It strikes me that, creatively, genre can be limiting at times. It can carry stigma. You have romance in fiction, supernatural in film. Is that something that you feel? Does it ever shape how you write?

Nicholas Sparks: No. No, I could care less about stigmas or anything like that. I write stories that I think will stand the test of time, or I — at least that’s what I strive to do. And certainly you look at something like “The Notebook,” it’s been out 30 years now, and it’s still widely purchased, widely read. It’s read in schools and things like that.

And that’s what I try to do is to write a timeless story. If you look at — some of the great things in literature are exactly what I write, right, maybe different style or whatever. But “Romeo and Juliet,” if I just say that, pretty much everyone knows what the story is. Or if I say “A Farewell to Arms” by Ernest Hemingway, people know that story too.

Like I said, love is a — it’s one of the great themes that’s driven literature and everything since the very beginning. So I don’t feel any stigma. The challenge of that genre is to try to do each story very originally, so I am not replicating myself. And therein lies the challenge.

Geoff Bennett: The book “Remain” is out now with M. Night Shyamalan, written by Nicholas Sparks.

It’s a real pleasure to speak with you. Thanks for joining us.

Nicholas Sparks: Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.