John Green’s ability to connect with his audience isn’t accidental. He has become one of the most popular and successful young-adult novelists in the world in part because of his ability to interact with readers, both online and in print.
It’s part of the reason why his 2012 novel The Fault in Our Stars — about a romance between two teenage cancer patients — debuted atop bestseller lists, and its film adaptation has generated tremendous buzz among younger moviegoers.
After all, Green isn’t the sort of writer who spends his hours isolated in a room by himself. Rather, he’s constantly reading — and responding to — YouTube comments, tweets, and Tumblr posts from his fans. He sees the interaction as mutually beneficial.
“They’re always sharing with me their interests and what they’re passionate about. They’re tremendously intelligent and intellectually curious. That’s very helpful for me as a writer,” Green said during a recent stop in Dallas. “I think a lot of the prevailing sentiment about teenagers, that they’re disengaged or not interesting — seeing what they write about, think about, and talk about, helps remind me that those things are not true at all.”
The inspiration for The Fault in Our Stars came while Green was a student chaplain at a children’s hospital in Ohio shortly after graduating from college.
“I wanted to write a story about sick kids ever since then,” Green said. “I wanted to write about how complex their lives were, and how normal emotionally their lives were, at least from my perspective.”
He admits his first few attempts were self-indulgent, but he gained focus in 2009, when he became friends with a teenage girl who wound up dying of cancer at age 16. The book is dedicated to her memory.
“Through our friendship, I started to think differently about illness and about death,” Green said. “I came to the belief that short lives can also be very meaningful lives, which is really important to the book.”
The story follows Hazel (Shailene Woodley), a cancer survivor required to wheel an oxygen tank with her everywhere she goes, which has left her as something of a sharp-tongued recluse. She winds up bonding with Gus (Ansel Elgort) — whose cancer has gone into remission since his leg was amputated — over their disdain for a cheesy Christian support group.
With the support of Hazel’s mother (Laura Dern), they fall in love much as any other two teens would, and find a confidant in Isaac (Nat Wolff), whose cancer has left him near blindness. As their relationship deepens through an understanding of one another’s medical issues, they also reveal insecurities.
Gus also takes an interest in Hazel’s favorite book by a reclusive Dutch author (Willem Dafoe), and after an unlikely email exchange, the duo makes plans to visit the mysterious writer in Europe. But then the grave realities of cancer threaten both the trip and their relationship.
The script was adapted by the screenwriting team of Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber, who previously wrote The Spectacular Now, which also starred Woodley.
“I read it because I received it from them, and then immediately read the book because I was so moved by it,” Woodley said. “When you have a script this perfect, your only real job as an actor is to show up with your lines memorized and to completely surrender to the moment.”
Green, 36, claims he was hesitant at first to option the book rights for a film adaptation, but became convinced once the producers promised to remain sensitive to the material. He also credited the actors for their heartfelt portrayals.
“It was a personal story for me, and I felt it was going to be impossible to make a movie where the female lead is in a romance and she has tubes in her nose the entire movie and the male lead is an amputee,” Green said. “That did not seem like something that Hollywood could do. They did a great job.”
