Nicholas Sparks

"(Romances) are all essentially the same story: You've got a woman, she's down on her luck, she meets the handsome stranger who falls desperately in love with her, but he's got these quirks, she must change him, and they have their conflicts, and then they end up happily ever after. ... (t)he themes in love stories are different. In mine, you never know if it's going to be a happy ending, sad ending, bittersweet or tragic. You read a romance because you know what to expect. You read a love story because you don't know what to expect."

--Nicholas Sparks via USA TODAY

Hmmm. Let me put it this way: if romance novels are guaranteed happy endings, then Nicholas Sparks guarantees tragic, bittersweet endings. So I honestly don't see how one formula is superior to the other. If I'm going to have to choose between two equally predictable and formulaic genres (yes Nicholas Sparks, you are predictable), then I'm going for the one more likely to leave me smiling (guaranteed emotional payoff, okay!). Also,

Sparks says: "I'm going to interrupt you there. There's a difference between drama and melodrama; evoking genuine emotion, or manipulating emotion. It's a very fine eye-of-the-needle to thread. And it's very rare that it works. That's why I tend to dominate this particular genre. There is this fine line. And I do not verge into melodrama. It's all drama. I try to generate authentic emotional power."

Really? Systematically killing off one main character in every book kind of screams emotional manipulation to me. In my opinion, fiction is supposed to try to tug on your heartstrings. The difference in whether it works, is when the reader realizes they're being manipulated and feels swindled. That's when it doesn't work, and that is precisely why I haven't bothered to read his other books and watch his other movies after A Walk to Remember and The Notebook. 'Genuine' or 'manipulated' emotion on the part of the reader, of all people, is not the distinction. All emotions from reading fiction are manipulated, somehow. It's all in the story, and whether or not the reader can be strung along thinking that the events happening are a natural progression of what they're reading.

Of course, it is a fine line to tread, and you can't please everyone. Even though I don't adore Nicholas Sparks, I know many people who do. That being said, I have nothing against 'Greek tragedies' or Romeo and Juliet. Having a preference for happy endings is just that, a preference. If bittersweet tearjerkers are up your alley, by all means grab a Sparks novel.

And, odd -- I noticed he has Jane Austen on his shortlist of people who are 'doing what he does' (mind, it is a very short list). If love stories are spotted by their unpredictably tragic endings, how the heck did Austen make the cut?

But what especially amuses me is how Sparks tries to distinguish his works from romances (a genre he is often tagged with for obvious reasons) by linking himself exclusively with big literary names (cue: Austen despite her decidedly untragic endings) while playing down the romance genre as frivolous and adult versions of fairy tales. Because we all know only sad and tragic things ever happen in real life.