What I learned in 'Sons' is that I would come in with a blueprint of a season and how it would go, and I realized that the looser my grip was, the better it became because the story found itself. Things happened as I wanted them to in terms of the bigger mile markers, but the fun part was I never knew how we would get there.
When I started 'Case Histories,' the characters were all going to Antarctica on a cruise. The first part was called 'Embarkation.' It was supposed to be about everyone preparing to embark on the cruise, but it mushroomed into an entire book.
My comics have changed so much over the years, in the writing, in art style, sometimes incrementally, sometimes quite suddenly. So I've cultivated an audience who will go along with me because they trust me.
That was one of the key things - when you asked the story about the writing of the story - one of the things we wanted to make sure was that it grew out of.
I think it's not uncommon for new television shows to spend certainly the first year, but without a doubt, like, the first eight or ten episodes, kind of figuring out what the show is.
Part of our goal, in the episodes moving forward, is to deepen and dimensionalize every other character, to get into their relationships with each other, expand that stuff and really sink our teeth in.
I write a ridiculous number of drafts. The characters change and grow through the drafting, and my understanding of them deepens. Creating characters in a novel is like shooting at clay pigeons and missing, and then missing more productively as the narrative continues.
I like stories that grow, that have unpredictable layers. As opposed to Hollywood movies that start out with a lot of shock and noise and peter out into an unconvincing cliche.
