Television showrunners are a foolishly optimistic bunch.

Let's be honest, any show will live or die based on how good the characters are, how good the actors are, how complicated the relationships are, how grounded they are and how much heart they have.

I'm not a fan of endless mystery in storytelling - I like to know where the mythology's going; I like to get there in an exciting, fast-paced way - enough that there's a really clear, aggressive direction to where it's going, to pay off mystery and reward the audiences loyalty.

When you're writing TV or movies your vernacular is time, it's all based on rhythms, a character takes a beat or two characters have a moment, like everything is about time. And when you're writing a comic, everything is about space. It's how many panels to put on a page, when should you do a full page splash, what is the detail that you see in any particular image.

When you start a show, the plans are not set in stone. They're really mutable, cocktail napkin sketches.

Every so often you want to map out your plot mythology but never so specifically that you can’t let a story surprise you. You want to allow the type of action of the writer’s room so that you have the ability to take a left turn.

A show is going to be good and fun to work on, if the research is interesting.