Hoselton called Hugh Laurie's titular character an "iconic figure" who half the viewers love and half love to hate, but all find fascinating. "When the other characters are trying to get at House's emotional core, trying to analyse him, figure out what makes him tick, those are the most satisfying scenes."

"Shore will always say, 'Where's the heart in this scene? Where's the heart in this story? Why does House care about this case? Why do we as an audience care about this patient?' If the patient lives or dies, we want the audience to have an emotional reaction to that, even if House doesn't. House might not care if the patient lives or dies, he just wants to solve the case. But if the audience feels that way, then we've lost them."

Don't Sweat The Small Stuff

Hoselton confirmed that House doesn't have a show bible, a document that supposedly collects the known facts of the series. "It's sort of a joke," he revealed. "Every now and then, somebody will say 'Where does Wilson live?' 'I don't know, it's in the bible.'"

Greenstein suggested show bibles are not particularly common or useful, given the collective memory of the writing staff and the availability of episodes and scripts online. "If there's one on Desperate Housewives, I haven't seen it." In fact, he hasn't read a bible for any of his shows. "It's probably a useful tool if you're a freelancer," he shrugged. "But the series bible to me is a relic of pre-Internet days. It's not necessarily a tool we worry about."

Take An Idea To Script

One hallmark of television writing is the enormously collaborative nature of the process. Unless they're Aaron Sorkin or David E. Kelly, it's very unlikely the credited writer of an episode wrote every line, and even the plot was probably influenced by others. While the showrunner often does a final pass on every script, ensuring the voice of the show is consistent, the other writers and producers, the studio and network, and the directors and actors on set might have a say in the final product.

On House, Hoselton said, two of the writing executive producers fall under head writer David Shore, and the rest of the writers report to those two. That show doesn't operate with a full writers' room the way Greenstein's comedies do (fellow House writer Pamela Davis described the process in more detail), but Hoselton described the collegial work environment in our Banff interview. "There's 14 other writers who will help you with anything. They know exactly what you're doing, what the show is, who the characters are. So you can walk into anybody's office and pitch a scene that you're working on and they know what you're going for and they know how House should react."

Occasionally, all the House writers gather to discuss potential story arcs. For example, at the beginning of season four, someone threw out the idea of a "Survivor arc," spawning House's game of replacing Foreman, Chase, and Cameron, who had all quit or been fired at the end of season three.