She might not be a desperate housewife, but Northwestern University graduate Jenna Bans has helped to turn “Desperate Housewives” into one of the highest-rated shows on television.

Bans, 29, is the youngest writer for the show, which reached its season finale on Sunday.

She said she draws on her memories of childhood in a suburb of St. Paul, Minn., when she develops vivid character sketches and scenes for the Wisteria Lane setting of “Desperate Housewives.”

“Everyone kind of brings his or her own experiences,” Bans said.

Bans said her experiences at Northwestern, where she graduated with a theater major in 1998, are also important.

“Being a theater major helps you to do dialogue,” she said.

Bans described the writing process as highly collaborative. Each of the 11 writers, three of whom are women, get an assignment—a character or some scenes—and then everyone gets together to make suggestions to improve one another’s scenes.

Creator Marc Cherry and Executive Producer Tom Spezialy approve final script changes.

“It’s a really good working environment,” Bans said. “Everyone has a great sense of humor.”

Bans wrote a good bit of material for Gabrielle Solis, the character played by Eva Longoria.

“I love Gabrielle,” Bans said. “She’s fun and selfish and kind of crazy.”

In the show’s last episode, some mysteries got resolved, while other mysteries will linger until next season.

Bans said she feels really lucky to have a writing job lined up for the next season of “Desperate Housewives,” especially because TV writing jobs can be uncertain.

She recalled working on a WB drama that lasted a mere six weeks.

Before she interviewed with Cherry, Bans won a much-coveted slot in the Warner Brothers Writing Program, a four-month program that pairs up potential TV writers with mentors or TV executives.

Bans earned a place in the program after she wrote and submitted a sample script of an episode of the HBO series “Six Feet Under.”

After participating in the writing program, Bans worked as an assistant to a literary agent at the Broder, Webb, Chervin, Silbermann agency, where she made helpful contacts.

After Cherry sifted through aspiring writers’ scripts, he interviewed Bans and hired her.

Then came the fun: Bans and the other writers began coming up with stories for “Desperate Housewives” last summer, before the filming began. As the shooting begins and the writers are pressed to come up with new episodes, Bans said, “You’re always time-crunched.”

The ongoing dramas and mysteries on Wisteria Lane help to keep the writing flowing, Bans said.

Cherry “knew how it would end from the beginning [of the season],” Bans said, “so that made things go pretty smoothly.”

Although it is too early to tell how many seasons “Desperate Housewives” will last, Bans said that it is “every TV writer’s dream” to have five seasons. After five seasons, a show tends to run in syndication, which means that the writers keep getting paid for their work when reruns of the show air.

The “Desperate Housewives” writers already have some ideas up their sleeves for next season, but Bans didn’t reveal any of the upcoming plots.

Still, one suspects that there will be more secrets and more drama, no doubt.