Sandy Kenyon talks with 'Manhattan Love Story' creator Jeff Lowell

In ABC's new romantic comedy "Manhattan Love Story," Dana has just moved to New York to take a job in publishing when she meets a native New Yorker named Peter, and we get to watch their relationship from the very beginning.

"It's a nice juxtaposition of fast-paced laughs and smiles, and something that people can just completely related to," star Annaleigh Tipton. "And how awkward and weird and fun that is."

What happens on the stage begins on the page, and in the case of "Manhattan Love Story," page one came from Lowell's mind. But once ABC bought the pilot, he hired a dozen writers to help him bring the show to life. Some of them go back to Lowell's time in "Spin City" during the 1990s, but others in the writers room are the same age as the characters they're writing.

So my research is just asking them about their weekend," he said. "Yes, this is the hard job I do."

Lowell said he looked at a thousand scripts, then hired the people who he thought had written the funniest.

"What do I bring to the show?" writer Emma Koenig asked. "A lot of terrible dating experiences and an obsession about what men and women think."

"I'm a reformed player, and I bring all my experience of playing from my playing days to the show," writer Jameel Saleem added.

And if he doesn't like what a writer has written, it doesn't get in the script. And beware of Lowell's famous fake laugh -- that's the writers' cue to go back to the planning board.

You can catch the second episode of "Manhattan Love Story" Tuesday on ABC at 8:30 p.m. EST.