Kate Young asked Nicholas Sparks:

What draws you write redemptive love stories, no matter how endings may differ from a “happily ever after”?

Nicholas Sparks When I write a story, I am writing to make my characters and plots feel real, and in writing a love story, I am writing to represent the reality of love. In writing something real, I want to create something that evokes all of the true emotions of life. We are all happy and sad, angry and confused. We all fail and strive for redemption. If I wrote a character that had all but one of these emotions, it would be a fairy-tale, instead of a great love story. The reality of love is that all love stories, by definition, must end in tragedy. A “happily ever after,” like a perfectly happy character, isn’t true to our world, and isn’t a part of the books I am trying to write.

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