SCOTT M. GIMPLE

On every show I've been on, it's just managing all the different responsibilities and time management. 'The Walking Dead' is a really well-oiled machine, and I have a great number of people who do a great number of things very well.

Character deaths in and of itself should never be done for shock.

It's not like there are a lot of horror shows on television. There are a few.

I don't want there to be a typical episode of 'The Walking Dead.' I want to try to give people different things every week because that's what I dig.

A non-frightening zombie is a lame zombie.

We're at a point nowhere it has to change. We have characters that are not alive that are alive in the book. We have characters that never appeared in the book. We have a lot of events that didn't quite happen the same way in the book. But there's so much in the book, stuff we've passed in the timeline that I really thought was awesome, that I really wanted to get to.

I'm thrilled to continue the tradition of the spectacular, cinematic, horrifying, exciting and emotional storytelling of 'The Walking Dead.' I'm a huge fan of the comics, and started with the show on the other side of the set, as an avid viewer.

You lose somebody you've possibly known for years and on top of that you lose a character that you love seeing on TV so I think that kind of makes it cool that we pay a price too. That it is painful on many levels and its amazing to be writing that moment and crossing that line right on the page and seeing the ugliness of it and having to deal with it. It's a very weird thing.

When 'The Walking Dead' has been its best, all that stuff is happening at once: the emotion, action, horror, scares. I'm very proud that I was able to write an episode where a little zombie girl could walk out of a barn after a horrific zombie execution and have people cry. That's one of the proudest things I've ever done.

I'm very lucky that I started out as a reader of the comic book and a viewer of the show. And I try to remain that, and make 'The Walking Dead' that I love watching. Luckily, I have the source material that I love, and I want to serve that as well.

I don't want there to be a typical episode of 'The Walking Dead.' I want to try to give people different things every week because that's what I dig.

I'm thrilled to continue the tradition of the spectacular, cinematic, horrifying, exciting and emotional storytelling of 'The Walking Dead.' I'm a huge fan of the comics, and started with the show on the other side of the set, as an avid viewer.

It's gonna be weird how there are going to be new 'Star Wars' movies every year starting in 2015. I don't know what that's going to be like, having one every year. Maybe it'll be perfect. Maybe it'll be just the right amount of time to have something to look forward to. Maybe it'll be too many at once.

The most interesting thing to me is that 'The Walking Dead' is a show that reinvents itself every eight episodes. It's an evolving landscape. There are characters that die. There are characters that stay on. There are characters that go away. I love that.

On every show I've been on, it's just managing all the different responsibilities and time management. 'The Walking Dead' is a really well-oiled machine, and I have a great number of people who do a great number of things very well.

Lots of shows are written completely in the writer's room. And I wouldn't say 'The Walking Dead' is that way. There are three levels to it. There's us in the room. The writers going off by themselves. And me working with the writers on a finished script.

I think portraying human beings trying to hold on to their humanity against pretty much certain odds that they'll die horribly in some way someday, and that they'll face horrible things along the way, I don't know - I think that's a beautiful thing. It's a wonderful thing.

When 'The Walking Dead' has been its best, all that stuff is happening at once: the emotion, action, horror, scares. I'm very proud that I was able to write an episode where a little zombie girl could walk out of a barn after a horrific zombie execution and have people cry. That's one of the proudest things I've ever done.

I'm very lucky that I started out as a reader of the comic book and a viewer of the show. And I try to remain that, and make 'The Walking Dead' that I love watching. Luckily, I have the source material that I love, and I want to serve that as well.

You can do irrefutably impossible things with the right amount of planning and support from intelligent and hardworking people and pizza.

I actually come from comics, and I'm big on comics. I was reading 'Walking Dead' from the beginning. Then just being on the show, I was really lucky to work on episodes like 'Pretty Much Dead Already' and 'Clear.' I worked a lot on episodes that I didn't write.

A non-frightening zombie is a lame zombie.

We're at a point nowhere it has to change. We have characters that are not alive that are alive in the book. We have characters that never appeared in the book. We have a lot of events that didn't quite happen the same way in the book. But there's so much in the book, stuff we've passed in the timeline that I really thought was awesome, that I really wanted to get to.

Those are the stakes that are constantly there and how do those stakes change you? How does that change the person you are? If it does just turn out to be about survival then is that living? How does that make you, you? How does that change your identity? That picture of the governor, his wife, and his daughter, he wasn't that guy before this all started. People dying around him changed him into that.

Character deaths in and of itself should never be done for shock.

It is horrible to sit in front of the keyboard and write those scenes because you're losing too. You lose somebody you enjoy working with.

When people make a horror movie, it's a few months. This is years of horror, that these guys have to play out. It just hit me and I was like, "Wow, that's heavy."

I think ultimately it's just time management. You're just doing a lot more stuff. You're doing the same stuff, you're writing and you're producing, but it just comes with a lot of other things. A lot of long term thinking and plotting things out for the future, bringing elements together. I have a lot of support.

You lose somebody you've possibly known for years and on top of that you lose a character that you love seeing on TV so I think that kind of makes it cool that we pay a price too. That it is painful on many levels and its amazing to be writing that moment and crossing that line right on the page and seeing the ugliness of it and having to deal with it. It's a very weird thing.

I have a great set of executive producers helping me out. I have a great cast and crew. AMC has been fantastic. I'd say it's everything I was doing before, just eighteen other jobs. I love it.

There's a lot of unexpected things. Wonderful things, tough things, but there's always somebody just ready to pitch in. That's probably the heaviest thing, the constant amount of support because it makes you just want to do even better. It makes you want to do stuff for the fans, makes you want to do stuff for the people on the show. I love it.

It's not like there are a lot of horror shows on television. There are a few.