For those seeking a series of All My Children spoilers, who better to speak to than head writer Charles Pratt Jr.?

The scribe recently sat down with Soap Opera Weekly and delivered the dish on a few key characters. For example, here's a look ahead at Ryan Lavery in the new year...

Ryan has floated around between women. Sometimes he's a good guy; sometimes he's a little dark. In other words, sometimes he's this, sometimes he's that. My feeling is to get him back to the way he was when I liked him and to the way I think the actor [Cameron Mathison] liked him.

Ryan is best a bit roguish, with a little cynicism and a dash of humor — but ultimately a good guy, a white knight. At the same time, [he's] a guy who fights for his cause. I always saw him as an ambitious person, romantically and otherwise. I don't like him bearing his feelings or vacillating between women, or doing the right thing for the wrong reasons or the wrong thing for the right reasons.

I see him more as a simpler man with a direct purpose and clear goals, who goes about [reaching] them, never in devious, terrible, crazy ways, but gets his results in any way possible. He spent a little too much time wearing his heart on his sleeve, and now it's time to be more of a man of action.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.