Microphone
It’s not everyday you get to ask an author his advice on writing a novel. And it’s even rarer that you get the opportunity to ask a multi-million copy shifting, best-selling author, but here we are, talking to Nicholas Sparks, the man behind The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe and A Walk to Remember, to name but three. A man who’s seen Hollywood snap up several of his books for big screen adaptations. So come on Nicholas. What one single piece of advice would you give the aspiring novelist?
"You have to write." Nicholas laughs, heartily. "That’s it. You can’t be a novelist if you’re not putting words on paper."
He chuckles again, a sound that dots much of our (thoroughly enjoyable) chat. “I know it sounds pointless but writing is no different to any other profession: you learn through the process of actually doing it. It’s as simple as that. Most people have a story, I think, but to be a novelist you have to put that on to paper. That’s how you start.”
For Nicholas, it was a lesson learned at a young age.
"I wrote my first novel at 18, the second at 22," he explains. "I’d been a business major at college and I was able to look logically at the likelihood of me making a living doing such a thing and decided the possibility was virtually zero, so I sold pharmaceuticals for a while. When I was 28 I gave it another shot and wrote The Notebook. That did quite well" – something of an understatement: in this instance "quite well" means 110 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List, and sales of over 10m copies in 45 languages – "but, even after that doing well, I still wasn’t sure I could do this for a living or even come up with another story, so I kept my 'real' job in case it didn’t work out the way I wanted, the way I hoped."
Indeed, it was only as he neared completion of second novel Message In A Bottle that Nicholas gave up "work". However, that’s still something of a misnomer given the amount of effort Nicholas puts into each novel.
"Whenever I sit down I do my best to write 2000 words. For some novels that goes easier than others, and in each particular novel there are certain sections that are easier to write than others. In some cases, the words flow and I can do 2000 words quickly, in three hours or less. Other times, it can be anywhere between three and ten hours." He laughs. "Right now I’m in the middle of a ten hour day! I don’t know why, that’s just the way it is..."
Before that, of course, there’s also the research and afterwards there are the revisions. It’s a lengthy process which even involves rereading his own earlier novels but, as Nicholas explains, it’s all part and parcel of developing as a writer.
"When I write I can honestly tell you that I’ve done my best on that particular book, that particular page. I go over each page probably 30 times, between the agent, the editor and myself. By the time it’s published, I’m happy I’ve given it 100% and that’s all I can ask of myself.
"I re-read my early work frequently, because I strive to be original and I don’t want to copy something I’ve previously done, so I need to maintain familiarity with my early work. Here and there I might find a couple of words or a sentence I’d change, but when I write I can tell you that I’ve done my best on that particular book, that particular page.
"There are many long days, but there’s a tremendous sense of accomplishment when I finish a novel because I’ve given it everything I could to complete it, and I always try to make the novel that I’m writing better than anything I’ve ever written. After that, it’s up to the readers to decide."
The film of The Last Song is out now across the UK.