A Goodreads user asked D.J. MacHale:

A ten book series is quite the commitment. As someone who also has the tendency to stay dedicated to one vast fictional universe for a long period of time, I’m curious: how long before you began writing the merchant of death did you have the idea for Pendragon? And did you know how it would end when you began writing? Or did you make it up as you went along?

D.J. MacHale If memory serves, I started writing pretty soon after I got the idea. I was heavily involved in kids TV and saw the writing on the wall (so to speak) that the kinds of shows that I made (dramas) weren't being made anymore. At least not for kids. So in order to continue writing the kinds of stories that interest me, I turned to books. As for knowing how Pendragon would end, I outlined all ten books in one week. Seriously. Of course the details evolved as I wrote each book, but generally speaking I knew where it would end before I began.

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