Rediscovering Nancy Drew

9. The New Nancy Drew Series: Questions and Answers

The New Nancy Drew Series: Questions and Answers Anne Greenberg and Carolyn Keene How long does it take you to write a book? KEENE: Actually it really depends on the book. From the time the outline is approved, we're generally given six weeks to get out the first draft. And some of them have gone much more quickly than others. And that generally depends, finally, on how strong the outline is. Ifyou've got a good strong outline, you can write books pretty quickly. If your outline is a mess, it will take you every day of your six weeks or more. And you get faster as you write these things. It's a hard question but I'd say three to six weeks is a good range. Have you ever pitched a Nancy Drew that didn't get accepted? KEENE: The very first one I did was set in New Mexico, and it was an idea that really just didn't work, so I let it go and started with something else. Even after a chapter by chapter pacing, do you ever get in a completed manuscript with surprises that are unwelcome? GREENBERG: It doesn't happen that much. Often, it's not the events or action that need to be changed but the way they're presented. Here is a good example of how you think you have a good idea for a story and then somehow you're horrified to realize that it probably won't appeal to your readers. We okayed a book about someone stealing very rare civet cats from the local zoo for making perfume. We 79 80 CREATING AND PUBLISHING NANCY DREW thought, endangered animals, rare animals-this is popular. Then we realized that we were going to have to talk about glands. We had this awful moment where we said, "My god, where is the kid appeal here? What are we going to do with this book?" Finally what we came up with was that the person behind the thefts was the granddaughter of someone who had come up with a very famous but now lost perfume formula and needed this natural substance instead ofa synthetic substance. So we were able to salvage that book. Is there a strategy behind your redoing the artwork to the standard Nancy Drew series so frequently? GREENBERG: Before I came to Simon & Schuster Pocket Books there had been a format and a look which was done under a different kind of publishing sensibility than we have in the mass market end of things. And that format changed before I got there. We're still using the basic type and graphic design; we've changed artists, however, because I wasn't necessarily happy with the way the art was looking. In fact on that classic Nancy Drew series I think we have a wonderful artist and I'm really thrilled with her work. This is kind ofa heavy question. Years ago, I think before you were in charge ofthe line, I met with an earlier editor. I was going to possibly ghost a book for her in the series. And while we were talking about it, the subject ofMildred Wirt came up. She said she couldn't really talk about it too much. My question is, why hasn't Simon & Schuster jumped on the bandwagon and said, "We own the property; the original ghostwriter has been discovered after all these years." I mean, it would be great press. GREENBERG: Well, we have confidentiality agreements with other writers. Leslie McFarlane wrote his autobiography and revealed that he had written the Hardy Boys (McFarlane). I believe that Howard Garis wrote revealing that he was really Victor Appleton who wrote Tom Swift. Nevertheless, my advice from my legal department -and none of this is necessarily my decision-is that we have an agreement with Mildred Wirt Benson and we have other agreements, and we should stick to the Stratemeyer tradition of not discussing who actually wrote the books.1 THE NEW NANCY DREW SERIES 81 COMMENT: Interesting, because since the trial in 1980 everyone knows that Mildred Wirt wrote the original one; it's a matter of public record. GREENBERG: I know, it's a very difficult question to answer. With so many books coming out now in the Nancy Drew series, do you anticipate difficulty in the future in keeping so many in print? Or is...