Shannon Burke is the author of ‘Safelight,’ ‘Black Flies,’ and ‘Into the Savage Country.’ Recently, he decided to partner with his screenwriting friends - Brothers Jonas and Josh Pate - to write a coming-of-age action adventure story.

The idea of Outer Banks came from an article about a power outage on the Outer Banks. Pate said, “There was a photograph taken at dusk of these darkened mansions. It was just this evocative image that stayed with me.” Pate mentioned his fascination with this idea to Burke, and they started to unlock the story that would later become the Netflix series.

“We wanted to do something based on memories from high school and that period of adolescence.” According to the description, the series is about, “a group of teenagers from the wrong side of the tracks stumble upon a treasure map that unearths a long buried secret.”

In this interview, the writers discuss their fascination with 19th Century novels, how to cut the safety net to write professionally, lessons from Dennis Hopper, when to burn a bad novel, and why writers need resignation not confidence to build a career.

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