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Popular Culture Review
Nancy Drew book, Johnson shows how Wirt Benson deviates from the
syndicate’s given outline, changing chapter breaks and inserting clues to
develop Nancy’s character as impulsive and inquisitive (Johnson “Transitions”
10). Wirt Benson’s freedom with character development, dramatizing, dialogue,
chapter breaks, and detail invention and selection become more and more
limited after Harriet Adams took over the syndicate. Adams and Wirt Benson
had different ideas. At times Adams would rewrite Benson’s manuscript
(Johnson “Writing” 36). Benson explained:
Mrs. Adams was an entirely different person [than me]; she
was more cultured and more refined. I was probably a rough
and tumble newspaper person who had to earn a living, and I
was out in the world. That was my type of Nancy. Nancy was
making her way in life and trying to compete and have fun
along the way. We just had two different kinds of Nancys (qtd
in Johnson 36