Sorry it’s taken me so long to respond. It seems that ever since the temperature dropped out here I’ve just transitioned from one illness to the next. I haven’t been ignoring you or anything, though.
The Pilot -- 1x01Balancing all the characters was a real chore. Not something I plan to do again if I ever write another series. And I think that’s what ends up slowing down the pace so much. Not that I have a problem with the pacing. I’m kind of proud of the gradual build-up of the season.
I wouldn’t read too much into it. If I can organically find a way to have a character actually introduce themselve to the other characters I like to wait until that happens to fully introduce them to the audience. I like for the audience and our main characters to be on the same page. Not that I stick extremely close to that rule, but it’s something I like to do.
Glad to hear it.
Locked Down -- 1x02 I think it’s a lot of things. Teenage rebellion on Justin’s part and overwhelming responsibility on Curtis’ part. It also doesn’t help Curtis that while he’s doing everything he can think of to keep his family safe he’s got his Son fighting him on it. That and one of the main things that links all the Walker men together is just how stubborn they can be.
Yep. This is actually intentional. Since all three of his Sons have pretty significantly different personalities it just made sense to me that he would have three significantly different relationships with them. I go a little more in-depth on this in an interview on the vDVD but it’s pretty spoilery if you haven’t finished the season.
Sorry.
Awesome. Karl and Justin are easily two of my favorite characters to write for. Maybe it’s because they were the two that started the whole idea of the series or maybe something about the fact that they’re situations are mostly their own fault that intrigues me.
I mean, there isn’t gonna be some grand “jump the shark” episode where we learn that the two are responsible for the Zombie outbreak but they did both make some pretty poor choices as to how to react to it. And the terrible things they endure will mostly be a direct result of the choices they made in the Pilot.
Ten after Six -- 1x03You know, what? Thinking back on it I can’t remember what the inspiration for that scene was. I think I was just looking for an easy cliffhanger for their storyline in episode two but in the end I think it did a good job of giving us a glimpse at the world beyond our family.
Does it make me sick if I say Vince’s “torture” scenes were some of the easiest to write? I really didn’t have to think much at all. Stuff just came out of me.
Nah, Season 2 will come along eventually. It's just been really kicking my ass. I used to think it was odd when I'd hear comments about your sophomore season being the hardest to write. Fully understand now.
Evacuation Procedure -- 1x04Yup. Very much a transition episode, this one.
I'd say you're pretty close to reading into it just enough.
Yeah, I kinda regret some decisions I made with these two. In my opinion Curtis simply made the wise choice. With the information he's got he really has no reason to believe that Justin isn't somewhere safer right now. I think I could have done a better job expressing exactly how hard it was for Curtis to sort of trust that Justin was going to be okay.
In my defense it is pretty tough to fully express the relationship between two people when they share very few scenes together. Here's hoping I can find a way to rectify this before all's said and done.
Honestly, just about everything Vince does surprises me. Not sure what it is but when he gets to talking words just flow from my finger tips.
I truly have no idea what I was doing when I wrote that knife scene in there. I actually had to go back and skim through the episode to find out what you were talking about. I think there's actually a couple of things in the series that I came up with fully planning to pay them off much later only to forget what the pay off was supposed to be.
He really doesn't, does he? More or less just a series of unfortunate events.
Ha. Usually people only get upset when I kill animals. Which now that I think about it I'm not sure why that hasn't happened yet. I once promised myself that I'd kill at least one cat in everything I write.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read and post your thoughts. It really inspires me to kick this chain of flu bugs in the ass and get Season Two done already.