Literary Love Making in Nicholas Sparks Novels: Finding the Balance Between the Writer's Life and Writer's Work in Bestselling Romantic Love

For almost a decade now Nicholas Sparks has been writing love stories. Not only has he been publishing his stories, but they have received high acclaim in each of their installments. Several of his novels have been made into major motion pictures and increased his popularity quite significantly. His status as a successful romantic fiction writer is undeniable, but the question is, why? What is it about Nicholas Sparks that makes his novels so engaging, and personally, what do I need to do as an aspiring novelist to try and acquire the same literary status? Sparks’s novels reach readers at a number of different levels, thus giving them appeal no matter the intellectual intent of the reader. Theoretically, Sparks engages reader response techniques as well as formalist processes such as “habitualization” and “defamiliarization,” while also developing engaging plot lines that represent many of the experiences from his own life. His writing is not only academically redeemable, but it is also creatively stimulating; between the two, Sparks represents the thunder and lightning combination all writers strive for while trying to achieve literary success. This project also offers a creative element in which I attempt to exemplify many of the traits discussed in the analytical sections of this document, by recreating them in a creative, fictitious fashion. Themes such as: motion versus stasis, life versus death, and the ordinary versus the extraordinary all exist within the narrative structure of my short story “Trip to Fall.” Besides these thematic elements, the creative section strives to represent the balance Sparks achieves between the experiences of his own life and the fictitious world he creates. Overall, this project delves into the life of Nicholas Sparks to better understand the inspiration for his writing at the level of form as well as content, while also paying tribute to Sparks’s style through a representation of his work in my own words.

Literary love making in Nicholas Sparks novels: Finding the balance between the writer’s life and the writer’s work in bestselling Romantic Literature

For almost a decade now Nicholas Sparks has been writing love stories. Not only has he been publishing his stories, but they have received high acclaim in each of their installments. Several of his novels have been made into major motion pictures and increased his popularity quite significantly. His status as a successful romantic fiction writer is undeniable, but the question is, why? What is it about Nicholas Sparks that makes his novels so engaging, and personally, what do I need to do as an aspiring novelist to try and acquire the same literary status? Sparks’s novels reach readers at a number of different levels, thus giving them appeal no matter the intellectual intent of the reader. Theoretically, Sparks engages reader response techniques as well as formalist processes such as “habitualization” and “defamiliarization,” while also developing engaging plot lines that represent many of the experiences from his own life. His writing is not only academically redeemable, but it is also creatively stimulating; between the two, Sparks represents the thunder and lightning combination all writers strive for while trying to achieve literary success. This project also offers a creative element in which I attempt to exemplify many of the traits discussed in the analytical sections of this document, by recreating them in a creative, fictitious fashion. Themes such as: motion versus stasis, life versus death, and the ordinary versus the extraordinary all exist within the narrative structure of my short story “Trip to Fall.” Besides these thematic elements, the creative section strives to represent the balance Sparks achieves between the experiences of his own life and the fictitious world he creates. Overall, this project delves into the life of Nicholas Sparks to better understand the inspiration for his writing at the level of form as well as content, while also paying tribute to Sparks’s style through a representation of his work in my own words.

Mapping of Diepoxybutane Damage in the Cytochrome b Domain of Mitochondrial DNA and the β-globin Domain of Nuclear Chicken DNA Using Quantitative PCR

Diepoxybutane (DEB), a known industrial carcinogen, reacts with DNA primarily at the N7 position of deoxyguanosine residues and creates interstrand cross-links at the sequence 5'-GNC. Since N7-N7 cross-links cause DNA to fragment upon heating, quantative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR) is being used in this experiment to measure the amount of DEB damage (lesion frequency) with three different targets-mitochondrial (unpackaged), open chromatin region, and closed chromatin region. Initial measurements of DEB damage within these three targets were not consistent because the template DNA was not the limiting reagent in the PCR. Follow-up PCR trials using a limiting amount of DNA are still in progress although initial experimentation looks promising. Sequencing of these three targets to confirm the primer targets has only been successfully performed for the closed chromatin target and does not match the sequence from NIH used to design that primer pair. Further sequencing trials need to be conducted on all three targets to assure that a mitochondrial, open chromatin, and closed chromatin region are actually being amplified in this experimental series.