Although Jean has been credited as the sole writer of several episodes, he considers the process to be mainly collaborative: "the principal writer an episode has, at most, written 40% of the script. It's a real team effort." The writer credited in the episode's opening credits is the person that came up with the idea for the episode and wrote the first draft, even if he or she only contributed to a small part of the final script. Jean has stated that Lisa Simpson is one of his favorite characters to write for. She is the character he relates to the most because of their similar childhoods and the fact that he has a daughter.