The movie adaptation of The Fault in Our Stars had an 8.2 million opening on Thursday night. However, the spirit of the girl who inspired John Green's book remains with him.
Esther Earl was a 16-year-old Massachusetts teen and a friend of Green. In the introduction of his book, John Green said that he and Earl met at a Harry Potter convention.
Before meeting Earl, Green was in the midst of brainstorming about what to write next, Yahoo reports.
“I wanted to try to write about people as I knew them—as full, rich, complicated, funny people, but I couldn't ever do it,” Green said.
In an interview in The Atlantic, Green said that he struggled with writing the book for 12 years.
Green added that his friendship with Earl inspired him to take a different route. The two spent time together, leading up to the hours of her death.
"But even in her final days, Esther was wholly alive, as alive as anyone else," Green wrote in his introduction.
The time he spent with Earl changed what he originally planned to right about. Thus, he chose to think about young people battling cancer, leading him to write The Fault in Our Stars.
Even though Earl inspired the book, the main charcater, Hazel, is not based off the teen.
Earl, who the introduction of the book is dedicated to, passed away in 2010 after battling cancer for four years.