Jade Varden Official Blog

Even if you haven't read the books, or seen the movies, you've heard the name Nancy Drew. She's a famous book detective, and through the years she's been edited, adapted and re-packaged endlessly so she can keep on being relevant. And it's worked, because we all still know who she is -- and she's been a teenager since the 1930s. The Books Nancy Drew was born on the page in 1930, to be exact, with The Secret of the Old Clock . This first book spawned an entire series that's going on 83 years old. The many, many books in the series are written under the name Carolyn Keene, a person who does not exist. Several ghostwriters have been responsible for crafting Nancy's adventures over the years. Ghostwriters were also used to change those stories. Nancy underwent her first big re-branding in 1959, to eliminate racist stereotypes and other subject matter that didn't make for appropriate reading in those times of Civil Rights. Drew changed agai...

No matter how you might feel about the books, you know you wouldn't mind writing something with Twilight -like popularity. You wouldn't mind having a popular series like The Hunger Games , probably, just like most authors. Writing a series is great. It allows you spend some time in a certain world, gives you the chance to really develop your characters and could even become a hugely successful movie franchise. But writing a series can also turn into a trap. This is the good side and the really ugly side of a neverending series of books. This is the Series That Doesn't End Sometimes, a book series can become much bigger than the author ever expected. The character in the series, the series itself, becomes much bigger than the author. Like, way bigger. Some book series don't end. Like, ever.