All language subtitles for MasterClass Shonda Rhimes Teaches Writing for Television_Full

I think the moment that I first really

knew I wanted to be a writer was

probably almost before I can even

remember. I've always been a person who

was a storyteller. I don't think I knew

I wanted to be a television writer or a

screenwriter, but I've always been a

storyteller. It's how I was made. I feel

like I was born a writer.

Me, on the other hand, I'm kind of

screwed.

We're going to get killed.

Did you propose? Weren't you going to

ask her tonight?

I was doing this night. Liv, we're going

to get killed. We're $3 million.

Are you listening to me?

You'll get for rushing to judgement on a

free trial.

Well, yeah, that's my job.

I want to be a gladiator in a suit. I

got to say

I want to be a gladiator in a suit.

The discovery that you can make a living

writing is like

I don't know it's like your birthday

every day or something for me because I

was a person who I was writing endlessly

in my journal every day. I was also

writing stories every day. I was writing

every day no matter what. It was what

sustained me. It's my air. It's my food.

So then to discover that I could make a

living at it felt fantastic. And that I

could make a living at it in a way that

I enjoyed felt fantastic. I wasn't

writing stuff that I hated. I was

telling my own stories. And how lucky am

I to get to do that. And even when I was

writing movies and not necessarily a,

you know, a movie that I was thinking to

myself, this is my life's work. I still

was telling stories that I felt strongly

about. There's a heart at the in the

center of every story you're telling

that has to be true or else I don't know

why you're writing. So for me, every

story was a story I felt really good

about telling. I feel like I'm at a

stage in my career where honestly I'm

interested in building the next group of

showrunners and the next group of

writers and really making it possible

for people to have better careers and

know more and learn from any mistakes

that I have already made because a I'm

not going to do this forever, but b

what's the point if you're not passing

it on to somebody else frankly and it's

exciting to get to do that. It's also

about the fact that, you know, at a

certain point you start to have

perspective and can really look back and

see everything from a different angle

and sort of start to understand what

works and what doesn't. And and the

minute that starts to happen and it

stops being about you and it starts

being about what you can give back,

that's when you really want to do

something like this. I'm fairly sure I

have never gone into this much detail

about my process. It's really

interesting to get to tell all of this

stuff. It's kind of the stuff I really

wish that everyone knew because I feel

like it's so helpful. It's the stuff I

wish someone had told me a long time

ago. It would have it probably would

have made a bigger difference. I mean,

it would have made things easier on me

and I probably would have been less

afraid during a lot of the process. But

it's also the stuff I want new writers

to know when they come into our company.

things about writing dialogue, things

about the way you lay out a story,

things about character. There's a lot to

learn here that would be really helpful.

Most of all, a lot of the stuff that I

learned about how to be in a writer's

room, how a writer's room works, I would

have killed to know that. And I'm going

to tell you everything I know about

showrunnes

you. You have to learn that as you go.

And if there was a way to learn that, I

would have killed to know that when I

got started. I want you to use this

class when you have an idea, when you're

not sure if you have an idea, when

you're trying to take your idea and to

turning turn it into something. When you

are trying to figure out what your

script is going to be about, when you're

trying to figure out how to structure

your script, you can use it once you're

at the rewrite stage. You can use it

when you're trying to take your script

and get it somewhere. You know, this

should be something that you can use to

refer back to. you can go back and look

at again and again as you work on your

script at different stages. Frankly, I'm

opening the doors to my office and I'm

letting you in and you're going to get

to hear all the stuff that I never

really ever tell anybody about the way I

write. And I'm excited about that.

My name is Shondaanda Rimes and this is

my master class.

I always say, you know, film is for the

director. It really is. The director

makes all the decisions. It's the

director's vision. What's in the

director's head is what's on screen. In

television, what's in the writer's head

is what's on screen. You know, in film,

the director fires the writer. In

television, the writer fires the

director. That's the joke, which isn't

really that funny if you think about it.

Nobody wants to get fired. But it really

is this medium in television where when

I think to myself, I want it to look

like this interior operating room day.

They build the operating room that I

imagined. And that's fantastic.

I love the fact that I could have an

idea and that idea can get realized

that quickly. That is extraordinary.

I think I love the intimacy of TV. You

know, we spend more time

with people in their living rooms. My

characters are in people's living rooms.

People spend more time with them than

they do with members of their own

family. You know, if you um watched

Grays, you spent more time with

Christina Yang than you probably did

with some of your closest friends. So

when she left, you lost a friend and

psychologically that is true.

Emotionally that is true. But also you

went on the journey that she went on.

You learned things from her. You were

with that character. There's an intimacy

there. And it means that the world

becomes a little bit smaller to me. You

know, 60 countries of people and 207

languages. that show. That means that

the world is a much smaller place than

we thought it was because it means that

all of those people were watching the

same shows at the same time and caring

about those characters. The storytelling

in film is very closeended. Obviously,

you you've got three acts. You know,

you've got your hero on a journey and

that journey has to end. There's always

sort of a very short character arc for

your characters.

a television show. What's wonderful is

that your character or your lead

character or your lead characters,

depending on how you're telling the

story, can go on sort of an endless

journey. It's an endless adventure that

you get to tell for as long as you'd

like. Um, I've been telling Meredith

Gay's journey for 13 seasons now, and

it's been going on and on and on. And

so, you get to watch a character grow

and change and evolve, which is

exciting. It's just a different level of

activity, I think, and um inner

character development. I think all

writing is the same. It's not that the

writing for television and the writing

for for movies is so different. Um I I

think any lesson I learned writing for

movies is very similar to writing for

television. Storytelling, the art of

storytelling is fundamentally the same,

which is if you are not writing from

character and what would a character do

and is this actual human behavior then

and you're not writing honestly, it's

not going to resonate and it's not going

to feel real. So to me, it's all the

same in that sense. How you write a

story is how you write a story.

I think it's important to read and this

is this to me is a habit that I think is

key. I think it's important to be um

current on current events. I read the

news every day. Like I pick pick a

newspaper. I don't care what it is. I

don't care if you have conservative

leanings, liberal leanings. I don't care

what you're reading, but pick a paper

and read it every day. Not just so that

you know what's happening, but so that

you start to make a story out of what's

happening because that honestly often is

such a great way to a find little

nuggets of ideas, but b give yourself a

sense of storytelling in terms of what's

going on in the world. It's it's just a

a nice way of going. It also gives you

something to talk about. It makes you

culturally literate in a different kind

of way, and it's another thing to add to

who you are. I read well I read the

Atlantic Monthly which is not daily but

monthly. I read the New York Times. I

read the Washington Post. I read um

those are the key ones. And then I try

to listen to news on the radio like NPR.

And I try to watch MSNBC and CNN and

ABC. Like I try to go between a bunch of

things so that I'm getting a lot of

different points of view. Me, you know,

I think that that's important. How are

people how are people reporting the same

story differently? That's always

fascinating because once again that's

storytelling in a very different kind of

way and often those things end up being

turned into somebody's show or story or

whatever and that's always fascinating

as well.

I think one of the best things to do as

a writer, um, and I think a lot of

people don't do this, is a, you better

really know your television. And I don't

mean like know your television history

in a sense of like you've seen what's

come out in the past 5 years. Like

there's a lot of people who can tell you

like, oh, I've seen Breaking Bad. That's

delightful. And maybe you've seen The

Wire, but did you see Gunsmoke? Have you

seen the West Wing? Did you watch Sane

Elsewhere? Like, you really need to have

an actual knowledge of what's been on

television before and why and what the

good stuff was. And that will really

give you an education if you're going to

write if you're going to write

television series. Go watch a bunch of

really old television pilots and watch

how television's changed and watch why.

It's the same as you want to read

everything you can get your hands on. I

feel like I really worked and watched a

lot of television pilots, but I still

try to watch I'm still trying to go back

and watch as many movies as I can and

and fill in the blanks of things I

didn't get to see when I was in film

school or might have missed. And I'm

definitely trying to read everything I

get my hands on always.

I think probably the top three things an

emerging television writer should do if

they if they want to write a pilot and

they want it to be good. Um, get your

hands on some pilot scripts. Find the

shows that you loved their pilot and you

thought, "Man, if only I could have

written something like this." Get your

hands on those pilot scripts. They're

easy to find now. Um, read them and then

watch the pilots again and then read the

scripts again and then really just start

to dissect the pilots. What was the

structure? How did they work? How many

acts did they use? What were the page

counts of each act? Why? If it's a

comedy, how many jokes did they have?

You know, every last aspect of those

things is important. How do they

introduce the characters? So, dissect

the scripts. Dissect the pilots. One.

Two. Then go watch some pilots that

really didn't work that you thought I

mean for you they didn't work. You

thought they were terrible. If you go

watch some pilots that you really,

really hated, you will see very

different things. and you will learn a

bunch of stuff about what does not work.

I think it's absolutely essential

actually to pick a show, a show that you

love, a show that you think is good and

dissect the crap out of it. Frankly,

take a show you love. Um, for me, I did

The West Wing. I am obsessed with Aaron

Sorcin. I think Aaron Sorcin is a

genius, truly. And I took the West Wing

and from the pilot through I think

season three and I dissected the heck

out of that show for myself to really

understand a what good storytelling was,

b what good structure was and just

understanding how he used language and

how he used structure and how he built

characters. It was really an education

for me to the point where I could pretty

much

like do an entire like episode. I could

say all the words of the entire an

entire episode because I liked it so

much. And while I'm bummed now because I

can't watch that show and just watch it

anymore,

I can say that it was an excellent way

for me to learn so much about television

at a time in which I was trying to

figure it out for myself. Probably one

of the things I learned by watching the

West Wing was the need to be original in

my use of dialogue, the need to not copy

anybody, the need to not be simple in my

use of dialogue, and I also got the

freedom to let my characters be

intelligent, which I really thought was

great. Um, it was one of those things

where you watch something and you think

like, oh, in everything else I've ever

seen, there seems to be a slight dumbing

down. And Aaron felt like he was making

everyone a little bit smarter than the

audience. And that was a a very freeing

thing to see because letting your

characters be the smartest people in the

room

is a relief in a lot of ways. There are

things that you can learn just by

watching that are not about copying how

something's done, but just by

understanding how something's done or

discovering that sometimes it's really

effective to have an episode where

things are really quiet. You know, it's

just about watching and seeing what

makes something good and then

understanding

that those maybe they're breaking a rule

or maybe those are some rules to think

about and then understanding what makes

something not good. It's helpful

at this point. What's amazing and

exciting for you is that there are as

many different types of dramas as you

can make up in your head. You know,

because there are so many mediums in

which to put your shows, you can do

almost anything. And even if it hasn't

been imagined yet, there is a space for

it. It's no longer, you know, the old

world in which there were procedurals

and serialized dramas and that was

pretty much it. You know, the dramdy,

maybe that was a piece of it, but that's

all you had. Now, there are so many

other options available to you. Do you

want to tell a sci-fi period piece?

Fantastic. Do you want to tell a

serialized procedural with, I don't

know, sci-fi elements? Great. there's a

way to do almost anything in any way.

And so you shouldn't feel, you know,

hemmed in by any of those rules. What I

do recommend though is that you do

become familiar with what an actual

procedural looks like. You know, what a

law and order looks like, with what a

serialized a purely serialized show

looks like, um, like a lost looks like,

so that you understand how those shows

work. So that when you then want to go

and break all the rules, you know what

rules you're breaking.

People always ask like where do your

ideas come from? Where do you get your

inspiration? And for me that is such a

that's such a crazy question. I don't

know how to answer it all the time. And

I think it's because my ideas come from

everywhere. Your ideas should come from

everywhere. They come from a

conversation I have with somebody.

They'll come from a fight I overhear

while standing in a coffee shop. They'll

come from, you know, I'll read some tiny

little thing in an obituary somewhere

and I'll go, "Oh, that's a funny little

detail." It doesn't really matter where

they come from. They come from

everything. They come from, you know,

you're sitting in a park and you just

see the way two people interact.

something sparks something and that

always turns into something completely

different. It's not like you get an

exact,

you know, you hear an exact sentence

from somebody and you go, I'm going to

write a television show about that. It's

somebody says something to you that then

turns into something else that then

turns into something more and then next

you know it's bloomed into a whole idea.

That happens to me all the time and it's

about which ones you're going to settle

down and write really because ideas are

great. You have a ton of them. They're

not all necessarily television series.

When I have ideas, a couple of things

happen. I I have a journal that I keep.

I've always kept a journal. And

sometimes I write them down. Sometimes I

wake up in the middle of the night and I

write the ideas down. And I used to a

ton. I used to do it a lot. I don't do

it as much anymore. Um, mainly because I

have children now and I value my sleep a

lot more, but also because the things

you write down in the middle of the

night very rarely make sense.

Like in the morning, you can never

figure out what they meant. What I have

started doing is taking notes in the

little notes section of my phone, which

is surprisingly effective. Not just

because you can dictate, which you can,

but also because it's always readily

available. And I'm surprised at how many

times I write something down. It does

not necessarily have to be an idea as

much as it is a tiny line of dialogue,

which is where I wrote Gladiator in a

suit. Um, or it's, you know, just a

thought that you had like, why is this a

thing, you know, like why blah blah blah

blah. It's very interesting that that's

a place where you can sort of keep a

running tally of the things that you

might have written on little post-it

notes all over your house. There's a

place to keep it all. And I like that.

When I'm looking at an idea and I'm

wondering um is this an idea for film,

is this an idea for television? Is it a

movie? Is it a TV show? What you're

really looking for is what's the end of

the idea?

Um, a movie idea has an ending. You

know, you can you can say and the bus

that's been going, you know, 60 miles an

hour and hitting everything in speed

comes to a halt and the guy gets the

girl. That is not a television series.

There's not going to be, you know, every

episode a bus that has to go 60 m hour

or whatever it is. But a television

series has endless stories. You know,

you look at something and you go, what

stories could we tell with this? you

know what what other stories could we

tell and you think like oh I can do this

I can do that. I remember when I met

Judy Smith who is the inspiration for um

Olivia Pope and Scandal and we sat down

to talk and we talked for I think it was

we were supposed to talk for 15 minutes

but we ended up talking for like 4

hours. When she left I literally could

see 400 episodes of television. Like I

had I was like this is endless just in

terms of what the cases could be and

what the stories could be. There was so

much in there about thinking about what

she did and how it all worked. That is

how you know. You think to yourself, I

could endlessly tell stories about this.

You know, with Grace, I thought, well,

there's a million kinds of surgeries and

there are a million challenges and

frankly they spend seven years as a

surgical resident. So, at the very

least, I have seven seasons in this

show.

Those are the that's how you know there

it's not close-ended. You don't know

what the end of the series is. is you

don't know what the end is exactly.

For me, I know an idea is something real

or or possibly a series or maybe going

to be something when

it's like a song that you can't get out

of your head. So, it'll it'll I'll have

this idea and I'll think, well, that's

interesting. And then it won't go away.

And I'll wait for it to go away. I'll be

really hoping it goes away. Um, but then

it won't. And after a while, what starts

to happen is characters start to wrap

themselves around the idea. And then now

I have characters and this idea. And

then I start to have scenes in my head

and this idea. And then after a while, I

start bothering everybody around me by

pitching them this idea. Um, so, you

know, my four-year-old will be like,

"That's that's great, mommy." Um, my

siblings will will listen to me

patiently. People at work will listen to

me patiently. And what's interesting

about that part of it is when they start

to ask you questions about it, you have

to really pay attention to the questions

because their questions will tell you

whether or not this idea is worth it.

Um, if this idea is actually something

or not. Um, they'll sort of say, you

know, well then what happens or how's it

going to end or who what did you mean?

And if what you're saying doesn't make

any sense to them, you have to really

think. But if they want to know what

happens next, they're interested and

they're intrigued.

I don't know if there's a a formula for

what makes a great TV idea in terms of

all TV ideas, but I can say that

for me and really truly any TV show, a

good TV idea has to have a compelling

character, has to have compelling main

characters with compelling dilemmas. You

know, even in comedies and in dramas,

you cannot have a show that is about

people who are fairly unoriginal. You've

seen them all before, doing fairly

unoriginal things that you've seen all

before. You, if that's what your show

is, it's not a show. I mean, it's just a

it's a cliche. So, you really want

compelling characters doing compelling

things in original ways. Period. You

know, if you're making Grey's Anatomy in

a cornfield, you already have a bad

idea. You know, Grey's Anatomy in a but

with a newspaper, bad idea. Um, and I

say that mainly because you're already

trying to copy something and it's not

original. If you can describe it in that

way, that simply, it should it shouldn't

be done. You should be striving to make

something purely original that's your

own. It might turn out to be something

that everybody else describes as that

and that's fine, but it shouldn't be how

you're describing it. The way you know

you have a fresh take is is if it feels

surprising. Frankly, when people are a

little bit suspicious of your idea and

they're not quite sure it will work.

Sometimes that's when you know you have

exactly the right thing because

everybody in executive land in the in

the money-making side, they always want

whatever it is they just saw before.

It's safe. So, you just don't want to be

safe. I don't think it's a smart idea to

come at it from the idea of I want it to

be safe or I want it not to be safe.

Especially to go like I want to be the

most outrageous I can be or I'm going to

make sure I'm different. That's also not

creative. That's not having an idea.

That's being bold for bold's sake. And

I've seen that happen and I've seen that

not work either. I think

I think you know you have something that

appeals to you and then you have to look

at it from the angles of is this an

original idea or am I just inspired by

something that I saw and am I just sort

of doing it again?

Is it truly original or is it just a

remake?

I think one of the factors that you

really do need to consider are sort of

what's happening in the world, what the

outside

world is doing right now, both in

television and in reality, um, and in

movies, frankly. You know, I wrote a

pilot called, you know, about war

correspondents at a time in which we

were going to war. not the smartest idea

because nobody really wanted to see

people having fun, you know, covering

war, but you and you really have to

think about where are we sort of as a

country. Where are we politically? Where

are we in terms of the news, especially

because you're talking about not just

viewers, but consumers of people who are

buying it and putting it out there to

consumers in the marketplace. When I

made Scandal, what was interesting about

that for me in terms of looking around

and seeing what was happening in the

landscape of the country and what I

thought people would want to see is,

you know, it's a very cynical show. Uh,

and it's based on the concept truly that

Washington is a place filled with

monsters, metaphorical monsters that the

rest of the country never will

understand and never will get to see

because the dark parts of Washington are

completely hidden and are so dark that

if America ever saw them, you know,

their heads would explode from the

horror basically. And the only reason I

felt comfortable telling that story and

I knew that people could enjoy watching

that story was because we were in the

midst of sort of the glow of yes we can

Obama White House. It was a very

positive, cheerful, optimistic period of

time politically in Washington. It felt

a little polyiana in a lot of ways and

people felt comfortable with that. The

same way West Wing happened in a time

when things were a little bit darker and

people felt pessimistic about the world

and West Wing is an incredibly

optimistic show and that helped people

in the other direction. It was really

escape to watch that um Scandal is an

escape to watch for the other reason.

So, you know, those were two sort of

dueling things. But I do think that you

make a show based on is it okay to be

optimistic? Is it okay to be

pessimistic, ironic, whatever? That felt

important to to understand that I could

be pessimistic because the world was in

an optimistic place.

I would love to say that commerce has

nothing to do with my ideas and I never

think about what the network wants and I

just give them something and say,

"You'll put this on the air."

But it's not true. Mainly because when I

first started out, that's not how things

work. You don't just get to write

whatever you want and then somebody

magically puts it on the air. We're not

princesses. We're not wearing tiaras.

It's not it's not the world. We all have

to feed ourselves.

But also, there's something kind of

great about the assignment of something.

And the reason I say that is because as

writers, I don't know about you, but

getting me sitting down at my computer

to write something in the beginning was

always the hardest part of anything. So

having an assignment of something makes

things easier. Give me some fences to

play in and I can play all day. So to

me, I would say, you know, what is what

are the studios looking for? And you

can, you know, every year they always

have their interesting ideas. We want a

spy show. We want medical shows. We want

action shows. we want this. We're

interested in character this year. We

want to time travel. Whatever it is,

that's a little bit like a challenge.

And if you're a competitive person, can

I write the best one of those? If

everybody's looking for a medical show,

can I write the best one of all the ones

they're looking for? Everybody wants a

time travel show. Can I write the best

time travel show anyone's ever seen?

It's it's a little frustrating sometimes

because sometimes you don't want to

write within those fences. And so,

don't.

But if you do want to and you can, then

do it. That's sort of the way it works.

And it's always good to at least know

what the marketplace is looking for. So

if you choose not to, then you're at

least consciously stepping outside of

the fences of what the marketplace is

saying.

I decided to make a medical show for a

very simple reason. I had written a

pilot about war correspondents that I

loved. and I'm a very competitive person

and I wanted to make my pilot and I

remember saying well what does Bob Iger

who runs Disney's chairman of Disney I

said what does Bob Iger want what kind

of show does Bob Iger want and they said

Bob Iger wants a medical show and I

thought great I like surgery that seems

interesting and I had really been as one

of those people who watched those

surgeries that happened on the science

channels and so I wrote a surgical show

I don't know if he had said I like shows

about race cars, I seriously doubt I

would have been able to come up with

something. But because it was about

surgery and I am fascinated by all

things scientific and I'm fascinated by

what happens when people go under the

knife that was great for me. I thought,

well, this is an area I understand. And

I could come up with a show that went

with that and and run with that idea. It

worked perfectly. It's smart if you want

to make a show to think about the fact

every once in a while that television is

a business. You know, it is for me most

of all an art, but it is very smart to

remember that for the people who are

wearing suits, it's a business. What do

they need? And can your art meet that

Here's

the difference between an idea and a

premise. An idea is, you know, what if I

wrote a show about gangsters? A premise

is

really filling that out. It's what if I

wrote a show about modern-day gangsters

who lived in New Jersey and that

gangster went to see a therapist on a

weekly basis because they had problems.

The Sopranos. That's the difference

between an idea and a premise. And I

think that makes it really clear because

the more specific the idea is, the more

it becomes a premise. That's a good way

to think about it really. You're taking

an idea, you're you're sort of honing in

on it. You're thinking, I want to do a

show about surgeons. Um, I want to do a

show about surgical interns. I want to

do a show about, you know, female

surgical interns and how hard it is to

be them. I'd love to do a show about

female friendship while they're surgical

interns. They need to be competitive.

Uh, a woman whose mother was a surgical

intern, a s famous surgeon and what's

that like to have that as your history

and then you're struggling to live up to

something. You know, the more specific

you become as you think about who the

characters are and what the world is,

the better it can be. You know, anybody

can say, "I want to do a medical show,"

but you have to do a medical show that's

about something very specific in order

to make it, I don't know, just an

original idea. You know, we can all I

want to do a show about astronauts, yes,

but that's not the same as wanting to do

a show about a very specific piece of

that. Think about just even journalism.

Who, what, why, when, where, and how. If

you can't answer those questions, you

don't have anything to talk about yet.

You really need to be able to say the

who and the what and the why and the

when and the where and the how. And as

well, what are the central conflicts?

What do the characters need? What do

they want? What are they searching for?

You should be able to tell somebody your

premise in a couple of sentences, and

have it be able to be clearly stated so

that they can understand it. I want to

do a show about competitive surgical

interns, the the center of which is

Meredith Gray, a woman who's hiding the

fact that her mother has Alzheimer's.

You know, you really want to be able to

be concise so that when you're telling

your story, you know what you're talking

about. If you don't know what you're

talking about, no one else will either.

I think when you're developing a story,

you know, I don't necessarily think of

it as, you know, there needs to be this

character, this structure, it has to be

this genre. I don't think of it that

specifically. I mostly

and I think that it it's more organic

this way. I mostly try to think who who

am I telling a story about and what

story am I telling? I look at it that

way and I really try to make sure I can

tell a story. And I don't know if that's

helpful, but for me everything is about

the journey of the character. Who is

this person? What journey are they on?

And what are they supposed to learn?

What do they need? What do they want?

and what are we giving them? What are

their obstacles? It's really about that.

And then once you understand who you're

writing about and what they're supposed

to be learning, what do they want? What

their obstacles are going to be, then

you can start really thinking about how

you're going to structure something.

Grays is a show with a big procedural

element in that there's a there are

medical cases every episode. You have to

do surgery on someone and save a life or

lose a life, one or the other, in every

episode. And it's about how the doctors

learn from those cases. So that has to

happen in every episode.

That means that you have to have the

same sort of here's our medical case,

here's our second medical case, here's

what our doctors are going to do, and

then you have to have your serialized

element, here's where Meredith is,

here's where Alex is, here's what's

going to happen with our characters,

here's our theme, here's our voiceover.

That makes for a very sort of clean way

of breaking story. For private practice,

it was much more amorphous. We dealt

with the moral and ethical issues of

medicine. It's a really interesting way

of talking about the dichotomy of

medical shows. It dealt with what would

I do if it were me in this medical case.

If I was, you know, stuck in this

medical situation. because of that it

was it always had to be something that

was sort of emotionally devastating or

or something that would be just be a

hard decision to make. So you had to

find whatever that was and then you had

all of your serialized elements that

went around it. That meant that you were

planning it in a very different way

because you were looking for a case that

wasn't about how the doctors felt about

the case as much as it was what you were

looking for something gut-wrenching

frankly that was really going to leave

you want I wanted people to be talking

about it over dinner the next day. I

wanted people to be having a

conversation about what would you do if

that was you. So that was about finding

that kind of case and sometimes more

about that than about almost anything

else.

scandal because it was fully serialized

and generally I mean there there was a

procedural element but generally it was

about this big blown crazy dark monster

world of politicians.

There was no planning of that show. We

sit in a room, we talk about everything

and it is a week-to-eek situation. So in

order to plan one episode and get to the

next one, in order to get to the next

episode, you had to plan the one before

it. There was no way to say um you go

plan episode six while we work on

episode four because you couldn't plan

episode six until you knew what episode

five was. That is just how the show lays

out simply because it unfolds like a

crazy story that never has an end.

There's no way to crack that. We keep

talking about how we're going to crack

that. We never crack it. That's just how

that show works. And I think every show

has its own way of telling itself.

When developing a show, I think it

really is important to think about tone

and to understand the tone of your show.

You know, I really give a lot of thought

to how I wanted to feel while I was

watching Grays. You know, I always think

about I write shows that I want to watch

and I think that's important because it

keeps me interested. I don't write shows

that I think other people want to watch

because you have to think about the fact

that while it might be great to write a

show other people want to watch, you

then have to write that show. And

sometimes you have to write that show

for 13 seasons. I don't know how I could

write and be in charge of almost 300

episodes of television if I was not

interested in that show. So writing

something I want to watch, the tone of

that had to feel like something I was

interested in seeing.

The tone of, if you think about it, the

tone of season one of Grays was very

light. It felt like it it had its darker

beats, but it was a very light tone and

felt very um sort of like an adventure.

They were on a medical adventure of

discovering things. It was funny and it

had a little joy to it, but it wasn't

too serious. Scandal had a much darker

tone purposely. It was really about the

burdens of

of the sins that you had, you know,

already committed and the crimes the

personal crimes that you had committed,

but also the responsibilities that you

carried and the loneliness of that for

both her Olivia Pope and for the

president and for you know Cyrus even.

So to me, there was something really

interesting about layering that in.

Those tones

are really important because you don't

want to abandon them too quickly. But if

you'll watch Grace, you'll notice that

that tone changes over time as the

characters do. In a television series,

the life of a series, you have to think

about the fact that

um Grae is a different show every

season. As far as I'm concerned, I end

the show and I begin a different show

every season. Otherwise, it feels like

it's going to become sort of stale. So,

the tone to me is different every single

season.

A story bible is when you submit um

well, it's not even submitting. It's

creating a document, however many pages

long depending on who you are, that has

um paragraphs and pages on the

characters, um who they are and where

they're going. It has pages on each

episode. And for me, that meant for

Gray's like what's Meredith Gay Meredith

Gray going to be giving a voiceover

about? What's the theme going to be?

What are the medical cases going to be?

And then what's going to be happening to

the characters in each episode? They

were very specific. And I did I think 12

of them and I think they were like sort

of two pages each for each one. I think

we're handing those out to you guys so

you guys are going to get them. But what

was great about making those story

bibles, that story bible specifically,

was that it really provided me with a

template of what my show was. And it

allowed me before we even started making

the show to step back and look at it and

go, "Okay, there is a template for how

to make this show." When I did my story

bible for Grey's Anatomy, there were 12

episode ideas that I submitted for that

show. And I think we might have done

almost all of them season 1. We actually

used them. I think it's important to

know what you want to do and to to do it

to have real ideas that are useful and

usable. Frankly, you have time before

the show starts to actually do that kind

of research and to come up with those

ideas. Once the trains start going, once

the show has been picked up and you

start production, it's way harder to

come up with things. So, be useful. Use

that time. Do some real thinking about

what you want your show to be. And

frankly, be thoughtful about it. If

you're going to submit some ideas and

have some,

be, I don't know, be resourceful. Come

up with really good stuff.

Show titles are very interesting. People

feel like they really need to know what

their show is called really early on.

Every pilot I've ever done has been

written and pitched, written, and shot

as the untitled Shondaanda Rhymes

Project. Every last one. Mainly because

it's too difficult to try to come up

with a title.

Usually there's a certain point at which

I think I know what the title's going to

be and then it sounds ridiculous in my

head later or it's really long and odd.

I think

you know Pete Noak who created How to

Get Away with Murder, he knew he wanted

to call that show How to Get Away with

Murder and he was very smart at getting

that title in there because he had Viola

Davis say it right there in the

beginning of the pilot. Um you know they

love to test titles and think about

titles and talk about titles. I am

notoriously bad at it. I think for a

while I wanted to call scandal damage

control or there were just a million

different things I I think about. But I

never can settle on a title until sort

of right before it's time to start

marketing the show. And I don't think it

matters. The title of your show is not

what matters. That's best left to the

marketing gods, honestly. And like I

say, there are things that I know I do

extremely well. That is telling story.

Don't spend your time focused on what

the title's going to be or

or I don't know like what music's going

to play or something. You just the story

you're telling is what needs to be

focused on. And I say that because when

it comes to things like character names,

don't be focused on those either. Mainly

because you have to get those cleared

through all these legal clearances and

you'll become very obsessed with

somebody having a certain name and then

you'll have to change that name. So, to

me, there's something great about just

sort of letting the chips fall where

they may, giving a character kind of a a

nice but interesting name that you can

deal with that's not something a name of

someone you know and hate or love, and

then waiting until legal clearances have

happened and then getting specific. Like

don't get hung up on those things and

let them keep you from writing or

creating.

I am a firm believer in research when

you're doing your pilot to tell an

authentic story. And it depends. I mean,

there are stories where doing a ton of

research is really necessary and there

are stories where doing a very small

amount of research is all that you need.

But it just depends on what kind of

story you're telling. You have to really

be clear on what kind of story you're

telling and be okay with your level of

authenticity. I'm a big fan of the good

oldfashioned library, which many people

are not, but I absolutely love it. Books

will tell you everything you need to

know about what a profession is like.

One of the things I want to say about

doing research that I think is very

important, you know, read all the books.

Read every book. Find books. Read them.

Do not steal people's work. It's an

unwitting thing that can sometimes

happen. You don't really even realize

that you're doing it. But really be

careful that when you're reading books

and doing your research that you didn't

find one book and take that one book and

use it as all of your source material

for something, you know, you really want

to understand that you were looking for

how a job is done and not how someone

did their job.

It's a fine line, but I think it's

important because unless you're going to

buy their rights, you know, the way we

did with Judy Smith, you really want to

make sure that you're being respectful

of the fact that somebody else has an

experience that is their own. And you

know, the same way you wouldn't want

somebody to suddenly take your story and

make a show out of it and then tell you,

"Too bad. I kind of just was inspired."

You want to make sure that you're being

respectful of everybody else's stories

as well.

I think researching a project is really

specific to what the project is. You

know, researching

medicine, you know, surgery is very

different than researching, say what

Judy Smith does, you know, the

inspiration for scandal.

Being a lawyer is very different than

being a shrink like the doctors were on

private practice. So sometimes it's just

about talking to somebody who does the

job or who's lived the life, which is

really interesting. You know, on Grays,

I did everything from talk to actual

surgical residents. Um, I talked to

actual surgeons who performed certain

surgeries. I talked to patients about

what their lives were like. There there

are resources you can call up. There's a

media place for people who are doing

health stuff. You can call up the

television academy and ask a couple of

questions and see where they'll send you

to. There are places that you can call.

And frankly, honestly, sometimes if you

just picked up the phone and for

instance called a doctor's office and

asked a bunch of questions, they'd

probably be happy to help. It's very

interesting how many people are happy to

help you when you say, "I'm writing a

television pilot." Oddly enough, just to

give you information on what the world

is like.

So, for something like Grays, I went

ahead and talked to residents. I found

out what her, you know, like the

resident I spoke to the most, what her

life was like as a resident, the little

details, um, how long they were at work,

what it felt like, what the, like the

suturing on a banana that I think you

see Christina Yang doing in the pilot.

That's something that she said they did

all the time. The idea that they would

go and watch surgeries and sit in the

gallery and talk about them like they

were a sporting event. Little details

like that were were gold to me because

that was really important. The idea that

you'd have to go outside and come back

in um just to get yourself some air,

which would keep you awake, was

important. All of those little details

kept things moving for me and made a

world that felt specific to being a

doctor. And I was really gratified to

hear from surgeons that they felt like

that felt really real. I mean, none of

them felt like they were in on call

rooms as much as ours were, but it felt

like there were aspects of it that

really reflected their world.

I was really fortunate and I had worked

on the HBO movie Introducing Dorothy

Dandridge and I had done a ton of

research for that. What I learned in

doing that research was that the best

way to research something was to simply

listen. So if I could get someone on the

phone or I could sit down with somebody

and say, "Tell me about what you do."

And then just listen to them speak.

That's so much better than having

pointed questions where you already know

what you want the answer to be. Because

if you already know the answer, why are

you asking the question? What's much

better is to have what I call like the

absorption phase where you just want to

hear everything they have to say and

absorb everything they have to say. Make

all your notes with no judgments or

ideas about what you're planning to do

already. You just want to hear the

information and take it in. And then

sort of that sort of fills you with

ideas, I think. It's it's always helpful

to go in with no ideas already in your

head. Let them fill you up with stuff.

Then you go away and then you hone that

down into a series of very specific

questions. I think those questions can

then become something specific. And if

they can't answer your questions or

they're, you know, you got your one shot

with them, then you go to a different

source or then you go looking things up.

But the first time around, don't go in

thinking you already know what you want

to know because that's how you miss all

the good stuff. That's how you miss the

unexpected pieces of information that

people don't usually get. You just let

people talk and tell you everything

they've got and then, you know, take

that back with you before you start to

get more specific.

I like to take notes. I like to take

handwritten notes or typed you know on

the computer notes. Some people I think

like to record things and they find that

very useful and I know for a lot of

people being able to go back to those

recordings works for them. For me I

never ever have gone back to any

recording. So just for me that doesn't

work. Somehow the interpretation that

happens while I'm listening to somebody

talk is more powerful than going back to

tape. So, I try to take notes in

whatever form I'm taking them while

listening to someone talk. Mostly

because I think I'm forming story in my

head as I'm listening to them talk. And

that's always it works for me really

well. You don't want to walk away with

nothing written down. Although

there have been times, you know, given

that it's Washington or given that it's,

you know, certain situations that you're

in, you can't stop, pull out a piece of

paper and start writing things down. So,

there have been times when I've spent

the whole time not being able to take

notes and just trying to remember

everything. Those have actually been

maybe some of the best times because

when you just are forced to do nothing

but listen,

you take in more and frankly what comes

out of it sometimes is much more

powerful and better for you. So, you

know, you should but then I always make

sure that I write down notes afterwards.

So, when you're doing these these

moments where you're doing these

interviews and you're absorbing whatever

it is they have to say for research, you

can record them, you can take notes, you

can type up notes. I always think

sitting down afterwards, no matter what

you've done, to write down, you know,

your points of view sort of right after

it's happened, your thoughts, your

ideas, whatever's come to you is a

really important thing to do.

When doing the research for Grace, I sat

with um the surgical resident. She gave

me a ton of information. I just absorbed

everything she had to tell me about what

her life was like. Then I went away and

I sat down and I thought about what I

wanted my story to be.

That brought up a lot of questions. Um

how many hours did they work? What would

you do if you wanted to go on a date?

Like if you had been working that many

hours and you wanted to leave and go on

a date from from work, where did you get

ready? If you slept there, where did you

keep your stuff?

What happened to residents who were like

I just asked things like, "What happened

to residents who were pregnant? Did a

pregnant resident work all the way

through?" Just all of the things that

just came up in my mind as I was talking

to her, but then also questions that

felt very specific to the story. If you

messed up as a surgeon, what happened?

Did people make fun of each other? How

competitive was it? What did the world

feel like? Where did they all hang out?

How often did they get to sleep? Like

all of those little questions that end

up being

pieces of the world that you saw. That

idea that they all went and sat in the

tunnels and hung out on those gurnies

really came from the fact that, you

know, I wanted them to have a space to

just be. But she was like, there's no

place you can sit down or hang out

that's not in front of patients really.

You know, you can go hang out in the

locker room, but then other people are

seeing you. You don't want to hang out

anywhere where your attendings can see

you because you're going to get in

trouble. You know, there were lots of

little details like that. So I was like,

I'm going to make, you know, put them in

the basement and have this like weird

space that they're in that's underneath.

I visited a hospital and saw sort of

this sort of tunnneled area and thought

this is a perfect place to be. And you

watched all these doctors sort of moving

through that space there. There was

research like that that was important to

me. But when it came to the medicine, I

thought, well, the medicine is about the

charact, you know, is not about the

surgery as much as it is about how our

doctors are feeling about the surgeries.

So instead of writing, you know,

specific medical details and learning

all of that stuff, I just there's a

thing we call on we call it on Grace, we

call it medical medical. On Scandal, we

call it political political. But on

Grace, we call it medical medical. And

instead of writing, you know, a whole

bunch of medical dialogue, we just write

medical medical. And you can you can see

it in the scripts like it'll say, you

know, Meredith will say, I need to

medical, medical, the medical. And

someone who else will go, why medical

the medical, hand me the medical. And

that happens because it's not about the

medicine as much as it is their learning

and their teaching and what's going on.

It's based in the characters and their

feelings and their their growth. And we

fill the medicine in later. Sometimes a

lot of times we know what the surgeries

are and we know what the medical's going

to be in general, but we're not focused

on those specifics. We rely on the

surgeons and the the researchers that we

have to help us fill those in. I also

sat and talked about thought about what

my medical cases were going to be. You

know, the idea that George Ali was going

to perform a surgery all the way through

on his first day. That detail was was a

piece of truth that happens. you know,

you pick somebody, you make them your

guy, and then you sort of abuse them so

that everybody else knew what was

coming. And that story and how that

worked was something that she told me

about. And I wanted to know more about

it and how it all worked. And that was

really interesting to get those details.

And so then I had to do the research on

how does one do an appendecttomy all the

way through.

That was one of the medicals that I

learned really early on because how that

worked was crucial to how he was

humiliated. It was more about the

character story than it was about how

the surgery worked. Like what Burke was

saying to him had a lot to do with

George's downfall. Not as much as like

just doing a a surgery would be. And

then what was being set up in the

gallery was very important too. and the

the notion of calling someone 007 and

the little the little catchphrases

people had for how they talked about

doctors, that kind of thing was stuff

that I asked her. So getting those

details and getting them all written

down was important. Once you have all

that stuff and you have your script sort

of in front of you, what you discover is

as you're writing, there are 10,000 more

questions that come up as you go that

you never thought of before. you know,

how realistic is it that you know, you'd

you'd I don't know, have to do this much

on the first day? How realistic is it

that you get this kind of a patient? Who

would you be working with? What is your

residency like? All of these little

details that even came down to when do

they get their badges? It was it was

very interesting.

And having all those details and getting

all that stuff just made the world feel

more authentic.

In the first meeting with Judy Smith,

you know, it was supposed to be this

15-inute quick meet and greet and we

ended up talking for four hours. That

was really interesting because I don't

think I said much of anything at all. I

think I spent most of my time listening.

Um, you know, she's done everything. So,

listening to somebody tell you about

their job, just the nature of their job.

And she really started with here's how

my job started. Here's how I got, you

know, I got started. Here are some of

the things that I've done in my work.

I'm not going to give you names, but I'm

going to give you details of how these

things worked. That was really all I

needed. So, I could just sit and listen

to what was going on. I didn't

necessarily have to ask questions. So,

it was a great sort of absorption time.

And then from that, I think I probably

took a month or two to really think

about what she'd said and what we'd

talked about. And I went and I looked up

articles about her and tried to Google

her. And my favorite thing about that

was is you couldn't Google her. And I

couldn't find a single picture of her

that was anything more than maybe one or

two pictures of her sort of pushing

cameras away for somebody else or a

picture of her that was in just like a

piece of her sliced off on the side of

somebody's frame, which I loved because

that told me everything I needed to know

in a lot of ways. That was a ton of

research for me. And then once I had

that research, then I began compiling

lists of questions for her. What would

you do if this happened? What would you

do if this happened in this situation?

What happens? how do you solve this kind

of problem? And she would give me long

lists of answers. I would call her and

say, "What kind of person do you call

for this?" Or, "Could you actually, you

know, technically dispose of a body?"

And she'd be like, "No, but here's what

I think you could possibly do." She

would help us come up with the ways and

the reasons we could make the story

happen. And that was helpful.

I feel like there's always a time when

you are researching a project and

thinking about a project and it's

percolating in your head when you sort

of can't stand it anymore because you've

the research you're doing and the

creative thinking you're doing have

melded enough that you're ready to tell

a story.

For me, there's always sort of a a click

in my brain when it's really clear that

I know what my story is and I'm ready to

write. There's no rule about what that

is. There's no moment that I can tell

you, you know, like you have to have

these 10 things. It just happens when

you feel like you know enough about your

characters to start writing them down.

For me, a lot of times that's when I

start hearing dialogue. When I'm able to

start imagining dialogue in my head or

I'm able to start imagining full scenes.

Um, I don't know if you'll begin to

imagine full scenes and that'll be what

makes you want to write or if dialogue

will be the thing for you, but there

comes a moment when you realize if I

don't write this down, I'm going to lose

it or I'm going to get bored or I'm

going to lose my mind or I can't take it

anymore. So that's when you should start

to write. And the thing to remember is

that you still have the right to go back

and do more research. Nothing has to be

perfect. I think a lot of people are

stopped by the idea of perfection. Like

I must know this or I must know that.

Nothing has to be perfect. Just frankly

just

I hope what people find in the

characters that I write is that they

feel truthful, that the vulnerability

that they display feels like honest

vulnerability, like it doesn't feel

mannered and it doesn't feel fake, and

that they say the things that people

seem to be afraid to say in public, so

that you actually feel like you're

watching the private lives of actual

people.

That's the goal for me anyway. Um to

have characters who seem brave enough to

live their lives in front of you so that

you think you're getting a peak inside

someone's personal life. Otherwise,

you're just watching a commercial

almost. Not that there's anything wrong

with commercials. We all love them. But

you know what I mean. You want to really

feel like you're getting an intimate

look at someone's personal story. People

always ask the question, you know, how

do you write such strong, smart women,

which I think is

kind of an amazing question, mainly

because the alternative is weak, stupid

women, and I don't know any of those.

So,

I don't know. I don't even understand

why that question is a question, but I

suppose it's a question because people

have seen a lot of weak, stupid women on

television, which is disturbing. Don't

be one of those people who's writing

weak, stupid women, please. So that

strong, smart women stops being th those

adjectives stop being used and it just

becomes women.

That would be helpful.

I think when I'm beginning the character

development process, usually I'm

thinking about who my character is in

terms of, you know, first it's the real

ba really basic things. How old are

they? What do they do? Um, where do they

live? What's their income level? What's

their education level? What kind of

family situation are they in? And did

they come from? Um, and then it becomes

things a little bit more interesting

like

if they went to therapy, what would be

found? Do you know what I mean? Like

what's their paos?

And and also just what don't they know

about themselves? What what do they

need? What do they want? Um, who are

their friends? You know, I try to fill

up their lives in a way. There's a

little bit of I don't know. People

probably didn't do this as much as I

did, but I spent a lot of time playing

imaginary friends when I was little. I

played with the cans in my pantry and I

made them little people in little

kingdoms. I played with the dolls and

you know my Barbie dolls and they all

had very full rich lives. Um it's a

little bit like that. like take somebody

and fill up their world because

otherwise you just have these sort of

stick figures that you're moving around

from plot point to plot point and that's

useless and very uninteresting for

people to watch. You really want

your characters to have to feel human to

really feel actually human for people to

be so invested in them that they forget

that they're not real. You know, I find

it to be the biggest compliment in the

world when I get letters that say, "I

can't believe you killed soand so." And

I think, "Well, they're not dead." You

know, it's a character. But it is a

lovely compliment because they have

gotten so invested in the characters and

what's happening to them that it means

something. Think about when you're

writing your characters, not just, you

know, how could I make them seem smart

and funny, but how could I make them

seem smart and funny in original ways?

What about them feels quirky? Not

everybody could have been the most

popular person in school. Not everybody

could have been the most beautiful. Not

everybody was prom king. Not everybody

was, you know, the best athlete. What

about them was fascinating. And nobody

was geeky in the same ways. Like it's so

interesting like when you're watching

television, my pet peeve is like

everybody was on the debate team when

they were a nerd. No, they weren't. Find

something really interesting and

specific for your characters. The more

specific you are with your characters,

the more defined they become and the

more three-dimensional they become.

You know what's interesting is for some

characters, I really work to know every

single thing that there is to know about

them. I try to have a big backstory. I

try to really understand them for, you

know, for the characters on grays and

for the characters on Private Practice,

I really wanted to know so much stuff

about them, so many details. For

Scandal, I let them be as blank a slate

as I could, mainly because it fit the

show we were talking about. these people

were cold and neutral and they all had

secrets that they were hiding and I

didn't want to know too much because

I wanted to sort of find out as we were

going along what was going on with them

as well. So, I had no idea, you know,

that Abby had a violent ex-husband, and

I had no idea about Huck and his family,

and I had no idea about Quinn's past or

Cyrus's husband or any of it until we

came to it in the story. And it worked

for me because the unfolding of that was

you getting to know these people and we

were getting to know them at the same

time. And what was wonderful is that you

have a cast that was very willing to

leap, but layering and unlayering those

things and unfolding them for people.

It it was a great experiment for me

because I wasn't sure it was going to

work to to have characters that were

such blank slates and it it worked

perfectly. So sometimes you need to know

everything and sometimes you need to

know nothing. I think it's helpful to

give yourself enough detail to be able

to really

know what a character would do in any

given situation, but not necessarily you

don't necessarily have to know their

entire past. The same way you can have a

really great friend and you can know

enough about them to know how they're

going to feel about something or how

they're going to react to something or

what they're going to want to do next,

but you don't necessarily know

everything that happened to them in

their childhood or you don't have to

know who their last girlfriend was and

what happened in that relationship or

their last husband. You just have to

know enough about them to know them.

Part of what keeps you from making

clichéed characters, and this I get

directly from Gina Davis, who I think is

super interesting and was on Grays for a

while, is just take half the characters

that you made men and make them women.

Take half the characters that you were

going to cast as one color and cast them

differently. You know, just think

differently for yourself and that might

help free you up a little bit when

you're writing in your head. It helps me

all the time. You know, somebody will

say, "Why are all the cops guys?" And

I'll think, "I hadn't thought about

that. That's a really great point. Look,

I hadn't I hadn't thought about all

these guy people who are running around

protecting everybody as being guys."

Good point. Let's rethink. And I think

it's important for people to rethink

because what people see on television

changes, you know, what they think about

themselves. So, I always say if you are

a

a man and you're writing a woman and

she's like a pretty woman, imagine what

that character would be like doing all

the same things but she were a guy.

Like, how would that change the

character? Would she become smarter,

stronger, more courageous, less

interested in boys? you know, like think

about those things because that sort of

helps you put yourself in that

character's shoes if you're having a

hard time. I think it's an exercise that

I have made

people do in my writer room from time to

time. You know, we've had we've had

moments where that's been a thing. And I

and I don't find it to be a conscious

thing. Like, it's not conscious sexism

and people are trying to take a female

character and make her um less, you

know, smart or less strong or less

interesting. It just comes from the

you're not used to writing from somebody

else's perspective. And if you're not

used to writing from someone else's

perspective, it becomes hard to

necessarily see that person um the way

that you maybe wanted to or you maybe

thought you were supposed to. The thing

that I think is most important is to

feel compassion for your character. To

feel like if I were standing in that

character's shoes, how would I feel?

What would I do? What would it be like?

And I think that's important because I

don't think people do it often enough,

especially with characters that are

different from you. It's so easy to go,

well, that person's a villain or that's

the pretty girl or that's, you know, the

the village idiot or whatever and not

actually feel compassion for those

people and try to make them

three-dimensional. You know, the biggest

fights I've ever had in my writer room

are when somebody says to me, "Well,

Cyrus is just horrible," or "Yus is, you

know, Cyrus is dirty. He's a terrible

person. And I just can't abide that

because to me, Cyrus is a patriot. You

know, someone will say, you know, Papa

Pope is the worst. And I'm like, Papa

Pope is a loving father who is doing

everything he can to take care of his

daughter. Period. In his mind, that's

where he comes from. Yes, he kills

people, but he does it for the right

reasons as far as he's concerned. And if

you look at it from his perspective and

feel compassion for where he is

standing, you know, for me, he's written

from a very loving place. And that makes

him more three-dimensional than if we

just made him sort of this villainous

man who came in to destroy his

daughter's life. He's not trying to

destroy her life. He's trying to save

her. Cyrus is not trying to be evil.

Cyrus is just trying to be recognized.

And so you have to really look at

characters like that or else they just

become

stereotypical or one-dimensional or

cliched and they're not interesting.

Nobody wants to watch that. It's it's

fascinating how often something that

could be really really interesting gets

ruined by someone's inability to have

compassion for their own character.

So for me, that's one of the biggest

qualities

when I'm writing character descriptions.

I try to write them to be about the

world of the character. They have

nothing to do with how the character

looks. And the reason why my character

descriptions have nothing to do with how

the character looks is how can you

possibly know how the character looks? I

mean, I sometimes write things like, um,

he makes you want to lick him. Like, I

think I wrote that as the character

description for Denny or one of the

characters that we wrote. And I thought

that was a great description to say that

someone was attractive and handsome, but

I never said he was handsome. I He had a

quality that made you want to lick him.

Whatever that was, I had no idea. So, we

looked for an actor and we found

somebody, but that was one of many

pieces of what we said. I never like to

say someone's beautiful or someone's

tall. You know, unless the tall has to

do with the medical disorder we're going

to give them, there's really no point.

It's very important to sort of let an

actor show up and define what the

character looks like for you. And I

learned that on the Pilot of Grays. You

know, a lot of different people read for

the part of Dr. Bailey, who I had

described as a short, tiny, adorable

blonde woman with curly hair. Um,

including some short, tiny, adorable

blonde women with curly hair. And you

know, Sandra O was one of the people and

she was amazing. She was a very

interesting Dr. Bailey. Although the

minute I saw her as Dr. Bailey, I was

like, she's Christina. And Shandra read

for that part and all kinds of other

women. But the minute you saw Shandra

Wilson, you went, "That's Dr. Bailey."

And that was my first lesson in never

ever defining a character by how they

looked because you can't possibly always

be right. And so finding people and just

sort of going that's who it is. That's

who it is makes it really interesting.

What's interesting about taking a real

life person and using her as the

inspiration for for Olivia Pope was in

the end what I decided was the only

thing I could keep was the job. You

know, you really can't take a real life

person's life and turn it into a show.

It's too personal. So, in the end, I

just kept the work. So, frankly, I was

imagining every aspect of Olivia Pope's

life because there was nothing left. Um,

there couldn't be anything left of Judy,

mainly because it was just it was going

to be too juicy, frankly, to take

someone's personal life and put it on

screen that way if it's going to be

these intimate moments lived out loud.

What was great about it was that, you

know, it allowed me to build from

scratch a character who had this same

kind of job and lived in this kind of

way.

And that was a lot of fun. It's never

clear to me how I'm going to come up

with a character's name. It never really

just happens in some way, but it also is

never this very mannered thing. What I

love is that I pick great names because

they always end up being popular baby

names like Addison, and that's lovely,

but then it makes it harder later. I do

know that I have given up several of my

favorite baby names to characters, and

that I can't use them. Um, and Olivia

was one of them. Olivia was one of those

names that I thought was just a great

name. Um, and it felt like I always like

to pick a name that has a nickname to

it, something that you could sort of

shorten and make easy, but something

that also had a formality to it. and

Olivia felt like something that a

pretentious parent would call their

child, but also, you know, somebody who

has like higher aspirations for their

child. I don't mean pretentious, but

somebody who has a higher aspiration for

their child would name their child, but

also you're allowed to have like cute

nicknames like Livy or you could just

call them Liv if you're just close

friends. It gave her different people to

be in my head perhaps. And I wasn't sure

if we were going to use any of those

nicknames, but I liked them. And Pope

was short and sweet and I don't know, it

felt very powerful somehow to me. I knew

almost nothing about Olivia's backstory.

I think I probably knew that

she had been in an affair with the

president. Did I? I didn't. I think I

knew that she'd been in an affair with

the president. I don't think I knew a

single detail about that affair. I don't

think I knew when it happened. I don't

think I knew how long it had gone on. I

don't think I knew much of anything

really other than that she'd had an

affair, that she was out of it, and that

she was trying to build a life for

herself. That was it. And that was kind

of a relief because it allowed for this

blank slate and a person who was trying

to live life as a blank slate. And you

had this character Quinn who kept trying

to find out more and is Olivia a good

person? Is she not a good person? What's

she really like? That made for an

interesting journey because we weren't

sure as well. When we began the show,

her character really sort of, you know,

thinks that she's a person who wants to

uncover the truth, who wants to stand at

the heart of being a good guy. You know,

she's she wears the white hat. That's

sort of what she spends her time saying,

and she feels very strongly about it.

And the reality of the situation is is

what she need and you know, she wants to

help people with their scandals and fix

people's problems. What she needs is

a way to fix her own problems in a lot

of ways. And I think her her greatest

fear is that she's going to be exposed.

It's hard for me to talk about or

quantify how much my original Olivia

Pope changed when she became Carrie

Washington's Olivia Pope. mainly because

I can't even remember what that was

before. It's been so

she it's so much a part of who it is

now. Carrie being Olivia is is is just

the way it is. I do remember that she

was

probably softer

in a lot of ways. I remember that I had

a whole thing about, you know, Carrie is

very very very um she's very attractive

and not in a bad way. She's just a

beautiful person, a beautiful woman. And

I remember thinking she's too

attractive. I wanted her to to be less

overtly pretty because I thought maybe

that might make her Washington life

harder. like there might be something

about that that might make her

Washington life more difficult um if she

were

attractive or if she you know like if

you look one way or you look another and

I thought that might be interesting but

then there was something about Carrie

herself when she came in and the edge

with which she played the character that

gave that character

uh a toughness that I thought surpassed

anything I had imagined for the

character at all. and a chip on her

shoulder that came from people expecting

something of her because of the way she

looked, which I thought was really a

really interesting way to play Olivia

Pope. She, you know, she played her as

if she was tired of being or used to

being, you know, having assumptions

being made about her. And it's very much

the way she plays the character and not

carry at all. It was like a I watched a

transformation happen which was just

astounding. And so it was really

When I'm developing an ensemble of

characters, I don't necessarily think

this character has to be like this or

this character has to be like this. It's

a little bit like putting together a

band. you know, you want everybody to

sort of harmonize well together and not

in the sense that everybody has to get

along, but that there has to be a tune

going on there that's interesting. So,

you know, if we think about Scandal, you

have, you know, Olivia who is sort of

your lead singer and she works really

well, but then you have to have, you

know, Huck who's odd but wise and I

always call him her, you know, attack

dog, but he's odd but wise. He really

does provide all kinds of strange

wisdom. You have Abby who is loyal,

especially in the pilot, loyal and quiet

and and sort of there. Harrison who's

who's the smart one who's sort of saying

everything fast and sort of leaning into

everything. Quinn who's new. You know,

you have everybody sort of working in

concert with one another so that you can

sort of see who they are. And when you

put them all together, they form a very

nice group of people. I think when

you're forming an ensemble, it's

important to have somebody in that

ensemble who is the voice of

I don't want to just say dissent for the

main character, but you need somebody

for the main character to both be able

to talk to and somebody for who sort of

make sure the main character knows

what they're doing wrong. And that

doesn't necessarily have to be the same

person, but you do need those two people

in that world. You also need the person

who's going to make sure that we know

what is right and what is wrong in the

world. Um on grays that person is the

chief. Anything the chief says you

believe without question. It's very

interesting. He can say the sky has

turned purple and everybody's like oh

yeah the sky is purple. But if Alex said

it you'd be like I think he's lying.

It's very interesting. You have um the

sort of moral compass people who you

know Bailey Dr. Dr. Bailey is the person

who can sort of fight with Meredith and

tell her what you think she's doing

right or doing wrong. Um, Alex is the

person that Meredith speaks to and she

tells her secrets to. So, you have to

have those people or else it doesn't

necessarily lay out. And in a lot of

shows, it's very, you know, looks very

different. It can be, you know, like

kind of a total stranger that somebody

talks to. It can be their, you know,

kidnapper. It can be their somebody in

prison with them. It's always a very

different look. But you need those

people or else you're not hearing what's

going on for real. It's just somebody

talking to themselves.

It's really interesting when you watch

some shows and you realize that for a

lot of characters, things happen around

them, but they don't happen to things.

Try to make sure your characters are

happening to things. They are the ones

making things happen. For better or for

worse, they could be destroying the

world around them accidentally or on

purpose. But if they're the ones

happening to things and making things

happen, then at the very least they're

active in their worlds. When I'm in a

series, I feel very protective of my

characters. You know, I'll be reading a

script or going through or listening to

a pitch and thinking, "Well, that's not

fair. My character is just sitting there

on the sidelines and and we all know

that she's much smarter than that or

she's stronger than that or she's

supposed to be growing." whatever it is,

I feel defensive for them and protective

of them because they're

they're my babies and you want them to

sort of get their due. And I feel that

for all of them and I I truly I mean

when I say the worst fights we've had

are the ones in which people insult, you

know, Cyrus or Papa Pope, that's true

because I feel very protective of those

characters. You really have to be paying

attention to who your characters are.

You have to, when I say you have to have

compassion for them, you have to care

about your characters enough to want to

make sure that they're sort of doing

okay. Yes, it's a little much to spend

that much time thinking about your

characters, but you do have to pay

attention to how they're progressing in

the world and to not um sort of look

away and then look back and discover

that they haven't been doing anything

for five episodes except sort of

standing on the sidelines.

I think it's important to be open to the

possibilities of where your character

can go and what your character can do.

Uh, a character like Quinn went from

being the most innocent girl in the

world to being a much darker character

with a much darker um life and a much

darker image in terms of what she could

do. And if you're going to let your

character evolve, one of the things that

you really need to think about is how to

do it naturally. You can do it in an

episode and it can feel really natural

or you can do it in a season and it can

feel really natural. But you have to

figure out how to make sure that the

moments that your character is

experiencing feel realistic. You know,

jumping through time or even just having

something happen over the course of one

episode really can be beautiful. I mean,

you can do it perfectly. You can have a

pilot in which somebody evolves, but it

has to feel natural and you have to have

it be based in their character and not

just for story sake. Melly Grant's a

great example, mainly because in the

pilot, Melly Grant had, I think, two

lines of dialogue. And I probably had

plans for her to come back maybe once or

twice. There were no real plans for that

actress. And I remember telling my

casting director, "We need to get

somebody who can act just in case, but I

don't know. Like, it might be a bigger

part, maybe not, maybe a scene or two."

And what happened was is that every time

we used her, the actress, she became

more interesting. And the more I thought

about what that role would be, how it

would be to be first lady in a world in

which you knew your husband was this

person and how it would be to be around

Olivia Pope and did she know and did she

she just became more interesting. So

it's very fascinating to watch how that

role has gone from being a tiny role to

being a gigantic part of the show mainly

because of how it was inhabited by that

actor. But also, you know, once you

start to think about the possibilities

that a character can bring, you have to

really leave yourself open. You know,

the stories that get told are the

stories that get told, and you have to

be willing to let the stories unfold

with that character. You can't say to

yourself, "Well, I was only going to do

two lines if that's where your story is

taking you." It allowed for more

possibilities for Olivia, for me, for

storytelling. And that's where the most

conflict lay in terms of story for the

characters. I mean, where was Olivia

going to find more conflict than with

the wife of the man she'd been having an

affair with? Also, what was amazing

about creating that relationship between

Olivia and Melly and those characters

and watching that character development

was watching these two women go from

being women who barely knew each other

um and had preconceived notions of one

another and clearly Olivia is a person

who felt guilty and Melly is a person

who hated her. watching them come

together and become

very good friends, very close friends,

almost sisters in a way, um, bonded by

being suffocated by this very needy man,

which is what they've come to realize.

And there's a great moment when Olivia

says, you know, Melly did the other half

of this relationship. I never had to do

that. That's what she's basically saying

to him when she breaks up with him. and

she's realizing that Melly did a lot of

heavy lifting and that Fitz was he was a

lot of work and it's a very interesting

dynamic that I don't think I'd ever

really encountered before on screen and

I I had a ball with it because it was a

great way of letting those characters

develop and evolve and not just be two

women catfighting over a guy. They

became two women struggling for their

own identities in spite of this man.

You know, the fact that all of the

women, not all of the women, the fact

that many of these women have their

liquor preferences and Fitz loves a

scotch and so actually Abby is now a

scotch drinker. They all have their

liquor preferences. It's a very specific

thing and it's a it's a character trait

and the reason why I picked it is

because I wanted them to have in the

beginning Meredith and Christina drank

because you never saw women drinking on

TV. Women were always very nice and they

were lovely. I mean really that long ago

I can't believe I'm saying it like that,

but that long ago women weren't the hard

drinkers on TV. They never sat in a bar

and belted back some drinks and then,

you know, without like passing out or

having to be taken care of. So, they

were sort of hard drinking, hard

driving, hard playing surgeons. So, I

picked tequila cuz tequila seemed like a

great drink for them. As we moved

forward, what happened was Olivia Pope

was somebody who drowned her sorrows.

Like, she had emotional problems. And

the best way for me to sort of exhibit

that is is, you know, we all know those

women who spend way too much time with

their bottle of red wine. We all know

those women. And it was a great way to

exhibit that. Um, the scotch was uh in

our writing circles, scotch felt like a

a way of um like its success and not

necessarily in the best way, but it was

sort of people's way of saying like,

"Oh, I've made it." And so the scotch

was for that. So the women all had their

and the hooch felt like that was her

like down home backwoods roots come come

out to play and so it felt like

everybody had their little piece and it

all turned out to be alcohol but but

something you can physically do on

camera and that was part of it. You want

to find something that can be visual and

on camera and it doesn't necessarily

have to be your characters getting drunk

but it speaks of something. For Olivia

Pope it was a level of taste. you know,

we created this wine called Dublet that

she drinks that um was supposedly this

very rare, expensive kind of wine that

she loved so much and it was became a

method of bribing her. People would show

up at her door, I found some bottles of

dublet. It became a way of hanging out

with her father because he would talk to

her about wine. Oh, look, I bought a

vintage Jubilee. It became a way of

watching her be miserable and drown her

sorrows when she drank directly from the

bottle with um one of her um clients.

You watched it become the agent that

described what was happening in her

life. It was perfectly set for that.

Meredith Tequila was the same thing.

Melly the Hooch was a perfect perfect

metaphor for everything that was wrong

with her life. And when you watched

Olivia Pope go searching for that bottle

of hooch and she finds it and said with

such relief and then drinks it, you know

exactly what's happened. She's felt as

suffocated as Melly has and you

understand where she is emotionally. So

literally we use those bottles of liquor

as as benchmarks for who our characters

are and where they are emotionally in

time.

When I create characters and they end up

dying, people always want to know how,

why, when did you know that was going to

happen. You know, it's not like you cast

people for a series and think like

they're going to die this at this point.

But when you're planning your season,

you do sometimes know when someone's

going to die. You know, the character of

Denny, who was played by Jeffrey Dean

Morgan, who was amazing, was called on

our season board. He was called Dying

Young Guy. And the story went Dying

Young Guy Dies Young. That's all that

was on the board from the very beginning

of the season. Dying young guy dies

young. And we put it on the board and we

put the time that Dying Young Guy died

young and we left it there. And it was

incredibly difficult for Dying Young Guy

to die young because we really liked

him. But we knew that was going to

happen. We knew that Bomb Squad guy was

going to blow up. He was made to blow

up. It's literally all he was there for.

And it didn't help that we cast somebody

that we loved. We still had to blow him

up. So, you know, sometimes when you

hire somebody that they're going to die.

Sometimes you don't know that and it

becomes a really good story and you

realize that, oh, this story would be so

much better if this person died. Now, we

work in a hospital, so people die all

the time. Or on Scandal, for instance,

Cyrus's husband, James, was not made to

die. Cyrus's husband, James, was

delightful and we loved him. And when we

came to the place where it felt really

true that Jake would kill Cyrus's

husband, we were a little bit devastated

to have to do it. But it was also the

perfect story to tell at that time. So

you you calibrate what feels right at

what time. And sometimes you have to

kill somebody. You don't have a choice.

You know, they're gonna leave the show

and you're like, "Ugh, what am I

supposed to do?" So you h like the idea

that you can either make a meal of it or

they just disappear suddenly, which I

always think is a terrible way to go. Um

is a thing that you have to decide how

you're going to do that too. So those

were the hard choices to make like how

to do it, how to make it work, how to

make it effective. if it's written in

ahead of time, if you know it's coming,

if that's the plan, in a lot of ways,

while it's a bummer, it's also great

because you already have a chance to

sort of weave it in naturally. When it

comes to exiting a character,

the choice between killing a character

and writing them out is always fraught.

Interestingly enough, I don't

necessarily prefer killing a character

versus writing them out. It depends on

the situation. You know, think of a

character like Christina Yang. For me,

Christina Yang needed a happy ending and

she needed to live forever. So,

Christina Yang

gets written off into her most um

happiest circumstance. She gets her own

hospital with a room full of 3D heart

printers and she's going to, you know,

get everything she ever wanted. She gets

her chocolate factory. Um Derek Shepard

cannot leave Meredith Gray. He cannot

leave and walk away from his wife and

children because that would make him a

jerk for all times. So story-wise, he

has to die, which is the worst, but also

the best possible narrative that you can

come up with that's going to make the

entire, you know, storyline of those two

characters true. If he is the man who

we've said he is, he's not going to

leave unless he dies.

I think it's important when you're when

you're developing your characters to

really know what they want and what they

need, which is sort of how I look at it.

Um, which is, you know, what they want

is what they think they want and what

they need is what you think they want.

Um, well, what you think they should

have.

It's interesting like how you know what

those things are really have to do with

what story you're telling and how you

know what story you're telling has to do

with what those things are. So it's sort

of a chicken and the egg process. But

when you really think about like what's

lacking in their lives

um how lonely they are you know for for

Olivia Pope for instance there's a real

quality of what she wants she thinks is

to break open scandals and get to the

truth. what she needs is some sort of

truth and honesty in her own

relationship. When I was developing the

characters for Grace, you know, there

really did come a moment when it was

clear that sort of um Meredith wanted a

home and Izzy wanted a brain and George

wanted courage and Christina wanted a

heart. Um it works quite well and it it

sort of brings you to every space you

need to be in. What's wonderful about it

is that it makes things very easy when

you're trying to explain who your

characters are and where they need to

go. So, when you're writing a season,

it's really nice to keep people focused

on what's important. You need to keep

focused on the fact that Christine is

worried she might be heartless or that

other people think Christine is

heartless. You need to be focused on the

fact that Izzy doesn't like people

thinking that she's stupid. You know,

that really informs how a character

behaves or how a character reacts to

things. And so that was perfect for

So, a pitch,

for those of you who don't know, and why

should you know? Because they're the

worst. A pitch is when you go into a

producer or a studio or a network and

you tell them the story of whatever idea

you have. You say, "I have an idea for a

medical show about four young surgical

interns who blah blah blah blah blah

blah." A pitch and it's usually, you

know, 5 to 10 minutes long and you give

them all the details of the show and in

television they'll tell you whether or

not they're interested in buying that

show and thus hiring you to write that

script or not. That is a pitch.

Pitching is probably

the single most important thing that you

can do once you've gotten in the door.

You know, you want to get your chance to

write a television show, you want to get

your chance to to develop something. You

have to pitch. You you can't just do

whatever. You have to walk into the door

and say, "Here I am. Here's my idea, and

here's how it's going to work."

That is the most important thing you can

do. And if you're bad at it, it is a

giant challenge. So you really have to

figure out how to do it and how to do it

well.

Often times what makes a really bad

pitch are two things. One, no sense of

structure.

Two, something you cannot follow. If you

can't take me from a plot a point to

plot b to plot c point and I don't know

what's going to happen or I have no

sense of where we're going or where

we've been, that's terrible. If I'm

lost,

um, or

just

too much, like if it goes on for too

long and it gets sort of painfully long,

you're doomed. You want to be able to

get in, speak your piece, let them ask

you questions, and then you can

elaborate all you want to, and get out.

You start with the premise, you know,

you tell them what the pitch is is

about. This is a show about a group of

young surgeons. Then you tell them what

the world is going to be. You know, you

give them like a paragraph of what the

world is going to be about. Then you

introduce the characters. You tell them

what the plot is going to be. Then you

tell them the plot. Then you tell them

what you told them. Then you tell them

how funny it's going to be or how moving

it's going to be or how great it's going

to be. Then you tell them how many

episodes you can come up with. Basically

like this is endless amount of episodes

because we can do blah blah blah blah

blah. And then you thank them and you

leave. It's it's actually quite simple,

but it feels difficult. I think it's

incredibly important to know as much as

you can about your idea before you walk

in the door and pitch it. You don't ever

go in the door sort of vague, you know,

I want to do a show about Martians and

that's all you know. But you also don't

go in the door and say, I want to do a

show about Martians and their names are

Joe, Sally, Tom, and Eddie, and they

live at 4525. You know, you don't do

that either. That's way too many

details. So, you want you have to be

able to know all the details, but know

which details to share. And then knowing

all the details allows you to answer any

questions they may have.

For me, a really good pitch is about

character. If you come in and you can

tell me

how the story that you're pitching is

affected by the character or resonates

with the character, I am there for you.

Like I am I am with it. It's really hard

for me to get excited about somebody who

comes in and just tells me it's a

detective show and she solves the crime

and that's it. Well, I don't know what

I'm supposed to care about. I need

something to hang on to emotionally that

I know is going to carry us through and

I need to be intrigued by that

character. So, you really have to bring

character to me for me to be interested

at all. Um, everything stems from

character as far as I'm concerned. So if

you can't bring me the character then I

cannot sort of become excited about what

you have to offer.

I think the thing that makes a strong

pitch is the ability to really capture

the listener's imagination almost

immediately.

I think you have to be a good

storyteller even in a pitch. You have to

be able to talk in in sort of images so

people have something to envision when

they're listening to you. You know, it's

very hard to just tell a story about

something. I'm going to tell a story

about blah blah blah and not have

people's eyes glaze over as they're

listening to you. My biggest tip, and

I'm going to tell you this, and then

you're going to know it, and then the

Studio Network are going to know it, and

then it's never going to work again for

me, but that's okay. Is I always say

things like, "It's extraordinarily

moving. It's incredibly funny. It's

incredibly romantic.

I never tell you what's romantic or

what's moving or what's funny because

you don't necessarily need to bring

examples. If you say something's incred,

it's going to be incredibly funny. If

you then try to tell them what's

incredibly funny, they will never think

it's as incredibly funny as you've said

it's going to be. So, you never tell

them what it is exactly that's

incredibly funny. We're going to have

the scene, it's incredibly funny, where

the two characters meet. Move on. You

don't then pitch the incredibly funny

scene. We're going to have this scene

where it's incredibly romantic. The two

characters make up. Don't tell them what

the incredibly romantic thing is because

it'll never be as romantic as they've

imagined in their head. In a terrifying

sequence, the two characters finally

save themselves. Don't tell them what

the terrifying sequence is. Just say

that, you know, like make sure you're

painting a picture, but not too specific

a picture because they will pick up

those details and focus on just that.

Did you say they were going to hang off

a cliff? How are they gonna hang off a

cliff on a television show? and that's

all they'll be thinking and then your

pitch is dead. So you have to stay in a

sort of a paint a picture but not too

specific a picture zone. It's very

important.

I have a couple of personal pet peeves

when it comes to pitching. uh and and

they're just personal. But one is

pitching actors as if they're already in

the roles because they're not. And you

never know when you're walking into a

room what relationships that studio has

with that actor, whether it's good,

whether it's bad, whether they can work

with them, whether they can't. Um it

also sort of sets a a tone. It you're

saying already this is what the actor

look this is what the character looks

like. this is who the character is

without actually knowing that. And that

can either be a turnoff for a studio. It

might sometimes it might work, but

sometimes it doesn't. So, that's one.

And two, don't pitch music. Don't say,

"We're going to hear this song when we

open." And the reason you don't do that

is because you don't know the musical

taste of the person you're pitching to.

So, basically, you're walking in and

you're taking a gamble that you're going

to say, "It's going to be Jennifer Lopez

and we're going to have Madonna." And

they might love Jennifer Lopez and

Madonna, but they might not. You don't

know. And you don't want to be in a

position where you've then placed them

in a weird where suddenly all they're

thinking about is Jennifer Lopez and

Madonna. Will that work? Can we do that?

Can we afford Madonna? Can we afford

Jennifer Lopez? And then suddenly that's

all they're thinking about. They're no

longer thinking about your pitch. You've

just removed any chance for yourself to

actually get heard based on the story

merits alone.

So that's mine. That's my piece of

advice.

I think it's important to find a way to

relatably market the show to the person

that you're trying to sell it to because

that is when you're talking to business

people that is all they're trying to

think. How are we going to market this

show? It's nice to bring them an answer

to that question right at the beginning.

I often have seen

I've seen many times that a show gets

sold because they can come up with a way

to market it. Sometimes to the detriment

of the show because they've come up with

a way to market it but they don't know

what the show really is. But if you can

walk in with a way to market a show and

you have a good show idea, you are good

to go. When

I pitched Grey's Anatomy, we called it

um Sex in the Surgery. I think that's

what we called it. And it was a way of

sort of comparing the show to Sex in the

City at the time, which had been like

the show for women. It was something the

studio had come up with at the time. And

it felt like a very easy and concise way

to explain what the show was and the

audience that it would appeal to and how

to understand the show to a group of

frankly at the time guys who were buying

the show um at the network. And so we

wanted to make it simple for them. It

was a nice way of selling it for them

and a nice way for them to turn to their

bosses and say, "This is why we want to

buy the show." That was why we did it.

It was a sales tool. Now, it wasn't my

favorite way of selling the show. And

then getting to hear people refer to it

that way, you know, afterwards was a

bummer. Not because I didn't like Sex in

the City, but just I didn't want us to

be like labeled in any way before we

came out. But it worked.

So, there's a thing. But you do have to

be conscious of what's going to work for

other people versus what's going to work

for you. I also called the show Virgin

Surgeons for a long time because it

everybody laughed when they heard that

and they thought that was very funny.

And I thought, well, if that's going to

make people buy the show, great. I just

want them to buy the show. And once the

show was bought, I was like, great. We

can then make the show we need to make

and make it the way we need to make it

so they can see what it really is.

There's a there's a trick that I learned

when about giving speeches which is is

if you can give your speech at double

time speed with music playing really

loudly then you can give your speech

under your your speech under any

circumstance. So, if you can turn your

like pitch into a speech that you can

give at double time speed while music is

playing really loudly, doesn't matter

how stressed you are in that room, you

can deliver your pitch calmly. No matter

what face they're making, no matter how

annoyed they are, no matter if they take

phone calls while you're talking, it

doesn't matter. You can do it. So, it's

sort of like put yourself under the

highest stress situation in practice so

that you can be prepared to do it in a

less stressful situation.

It actually works too, which is

fascinating

for me. getting better at the pitching

process had a lot to do with getting

better and more comfortable

um basically in my own skin in general

like getting more confident with the

television writing in general

and also just getting more confident

with public speaking practicing public

speaking more which I think for anybody

is helpful in any area of your life. I

began to practice pitching in front of

my friends. Like I would gather a group

of writer friends and practice pitching.

That I think is probably a great thing

for anyone to do. You know, get a little

group of peers together. All of you

maybe want to be writers. Get together

or all of you are writers who want to be

working writers. Get together in a group

and say, "We're all going to practice

pitching." And then you can do your

pitch in front of them and they can do

their pitch in front of you. You can

give each other kind, constructive notes

and try to use that as a way of figuring

out what you need to do. And a lot of it

can just be maybe don't even give me

notes, just practice. The very act of

saying your pitch aloud to an audience

can sometimes tell you what's wrong with

your pitch because you can sometimes

feel it just by the energy in the room.

Oh, they're not paying attention as

much. They're fading out. They're

they're starting to shift. You can feel

when the energy is waning. that can be

really helpful to you. So just

practicing can be helpful.

One of the things that I recommend when

pitching, especially when you go in to

see a studio exec who's been doing this

all day long and they're bored and

they're bitter or they're tired or

they're whatever,

I always had like a little bit of a

routine in my head planned for how it

was going to go because frankly, some of

those people can be mean, not purposely,

but because they've had a long day and

they're not in the mood. food and

they're not your people, frankly. So, I

always tried to come in with two

thoughts in my head as I got better at

this. One, I always tried to think of

something I was going to compliment when

I got in that room. I always tried to

make it their shoes, which always made

it really awkward when they weren't

wearing shoes or when they had on

hideous shoes. Um, but it gave me

something to focus on, like, I love your

shoes because you always have to make

some sort of small talk before you pitch

your shoes. Nice plant. Something like

that. decent small talk because then you

just get that over with. Then I have you

have to have like sort of a small story

about yourself because they want to know

about you. Two smart details about

yourself that sound slightly

interesting. Tell that story. You're

done.

I will tell you I am a terrible pitcher.

I mean, and I mean terrible. I'm known

for being awful. like sweating. Um I

don't I'm not anymore, but like on the

pitch for Grey's Anatomy was probably

one of the worst pitches in the history

of all pitching. Like sweating monotone.

If you asked me a question or spoke

while I was pitching, I would blank out

and have to start over at the beginning,

which I did twice. I mean, I was bad.

So, there is hope for you if you're

terrible at pitching. But know that what

saved me was my pitch was great. Like

the content of my pitch was well thought

out and was great. The way I pitched was

a hot mess. I I truly pitched it like

this. There is a show about a girl. She

is a surgeon. Her name is Meredith. She

like literally with a monotone full

panic speaking as fast as I could with

sweat pouring down my face. So

you can read your pitch. You just

shouldn't.

Um and I really can't believe they

bought it. Like I truly can't believe

they bought it because it was terrible.

But those things are very hard for me

because my brain does not want to. It's

like a disconnect for my brain. But it

is important to know how to get your

ideas out and to get everybody to

understand them.

I think I've seen pitches be anything

from people come in with like funky

interesting PowerPoint presentations

with pictures of actors who they, you

know, who are representative of their

characters and they have really funny

things to say about them even in a

drama. Um, it's almost like watching a

comedy set. I've seen people give

pitches where it's very quiet and very

um, simple and very earnest and there's

not a picture involved. I've seen people

come with crazy props. I've had pitches

where people have come in and wept in

the middle of the pitch for reasons

completely unknown to me, total

breakdown, but the pitch was so good, I

did not care. You know, it's because I

know how hard it is and I know how

stressful it is. That is not a place

that a writer should be. I think it's

fascinating when people buy really

fancy, well done pitches from people who

cannot necessarily write or run a show.

And I've seen that happen a lot. And I

think it's because people are great

performers. But that doesn't necessarily

mean that they can really do a show. I

think that there are many, many, many,

many awkward people who huddle in

corners, who are nerds and with their

nose in books like me, who don't want to

stand up in front of people and perform,

but who can write the heck out of

something. And I'm always a champion of

those people because I don't necessarily

think that pitching is a productive

example of what you're capable of as a

writer. I really just don't think that

writers should be giving pitches. To me,

you can overlook a lot of things because

of the way they approach character and

story. If they are good, they are good.

If you are a good writer, you are a good

writer regardless of how you pitch. And

a lot of people will see that. That is

not to say you shouldn't be trying to

hone a pitch and try to become really

great at a pitch, but if you are a good

writer, that will show

A one-hour drama is generally

um five acts of a show. Um you know it's

a one-hour drama separated into five

parts

probably about 55 pages. Um although

they can be longer. I think my pilot for

Grey's Anatomy might have originally

been 72 pages long. Um they tend to be

long but between 55 and 60 pages long.

Um divided pretty much evenly into five

acts. There's sometimes a teaser for

some people at the front. Um, for

scandal, if you look at scandal, that's

what you see when you see like there's a

little bit of scandal and then you see

the the little photo snaps and then the

word scandal appears on the screen. What

happens before that is called the

teaser. Um, and that's pretty much how

it's structured. You know, it's it's

very clean. At the end of every act, you

want to have something um happen that

turns the story. um meaning that the

story should then sort of head in a new

direction each time you hit the end of

an act. In act one of your story, you

really need to introduce your characters

um in an exciting way and set up your

world in an exciting way. It should be

visual. It should be um intriguing and

it should draw the audience in. You

introduce your characters, you set up

your world, and you present your

problem, whatever your problem is going

to be. It doesn't have to be um

necessarily something big and dramatic.

Sometimes it can be something very

quiet. It just depends on what kind of

show you're doing. Think about things

like the show Parenthood versus, you

know, Grays versus, I don't know,

Breaking Bad. They all have very

different ways of presenting their

problem, but present your problem. Um

and then in act two, you really want to

sort of step things up. You want things

to get worse. You want the situations,

and by get worse, I mean escalate. Your

situations escalate. Um, things heat up

for your characters either in a good way

or a bad way. You start to expand your

world a little bit. You meet more

people. You you understand the world

better. In act three, which is the

center of your your show, uh, it sort of

spans the right in the middle of your

show, the middle 11 pages, I'd like to

say. You want things to sort of start to

peak. Things get really hot. Things

either take a turn for the worse or a

turn for the most exciting as sometimes

we like to say and you you sort of get

either really worried or really

frightened or really engaged or it's

sort of that moment when you're thinking

like hold on to your seats. At the end

of that um the story usually turns in a

different direction. I always like to

say like a surprising a surprising turn

that you weren't expecting to go in. In

a procedural sometimes that's when the a

new piece of evidence pops up, you know,

and that's what I like to joke in act

four. That's when sort of the ticking

clock happens when you know that you

have this amount of time to do

something. For many shows when there's

no ticking clock, it's really when the

characters start to really reveal

themselves as who they really are. Um,

you start to hear more about them.

Somebody's secret comes out, somebody

tells you something about themselves,

you become closer to them, and that sort

of helps them.

It's sort of the moment that sort of

pushes them to whatever action they're

going to take, which usually happens

moving at the end of act four, moving

into act five, which is when they really

sort of hit their moment of victory.

I believe that you shouldn't be writing

your script unless you have an outline.

So obviously you should know where every

act should end, but even before you

start writing your outline, it helps to

have a rough idea of where you want your

axe to end. And I always say it should

end on a moment that makes people go,

"Oh," or, "Wow," or "That's

interesting." It just has to make them

want to stay around and watch. Even in a

non-commercial world, even in a

streaming world, you want people to lean

forward a little bit every once in a

while and want to stick with you. It's

important to remember because, you know,

even if you're watching a show streaming

and it's going continuously, you don't

want a flat show. You want a show that

has ups and downs and places for people

to go emotionally. It's a nice way to

remember how to do that if you're still

sticking with the fiveact structure. And

at the end of every act, something has

to happen to turn the story in a new

direction.

If you have an A story line, your A

story line is always the story line

involving your main character. Um, your

B story line is always sort of the

secondary story line. Sometimes your A

story line and your B story line are

equally as large depending on what kind

of show you have. Maybe you have a show

with two leads. Um, or your B story line

could be a little bit smaller than your

A story line. And then you have your C

story line, which is, you know, some

people call it the runner, which is a

smaller story line that's not really,

you know, going to overtake any story.

It could be three scenes. It could be

five scenes. It could be just be a

little tiny thing. Could be a couple of

lines of dialogue and, you know, every

once in a while. The a story line is

really the story you're telling in your

show. So that story line, obviously,

there's at least a scene and act. And I

say that because sometimes people have

really long scenes in their show. So I

don't want to tell you you have to have

like three scenes in an act of that. If

you have really long scenes in your

show, maybe you only have a scene and

act because it's five pages long or

whatever. But you at least have a scene

in act, possibly two, possibly three,

but whatever they are, they further that

a story. Your B story,

one scene and act for sure.

That's just happening, you know, helping

that story along. your C story, maybe

three scenes total the entire episode.

The smart way to go is to try to make

your A story and your B story and your C

story intersect so that you're having a

scene that functions for all three of

them. That's always a good way to go or

not. You know, try to have a scene that

services all functions. But you really

want to make sure that when you're

telling your story, you are servicing

the story that you need to tell and

you're not losing it somewhere, which I

think I also see very often in people's

scripts. You know, they're telling a

lovely story about their main character

and then suddenly they disappear for an

entire act, like they've forgotten that

they were telling that story.

Structuring your your script really

means making sure that you are servicing

the story you are trying to tell. And if

it's if it's got some element of solving

something or or finding something or

doing something or carrying something

out, make sure that it feels logical

like that the steps that are being taken

make sense and that you have room for

those.

There are absolutely all kinds of times

when I diver divert from the structural

rules. There are times when we tell

stories backwards. There are times when

we tell stories that are just about one

story line going straight down. There

are times when we've told um stories

with no sound. There are times when

we've I mean we've done it all over time

and broken every rule because you can.

But in order to break those rules, you

have to understand what the rules are.

And I always think it's really amazing

when somebody writes a pilot that's has

nothing to do with any of the rules. I

actually think it's awesome, but in

order to do that, you have to really be

wellversed in what the rules are first.

So, I highly recommend you spend some

time really just understanding what all

the rules are and how they work and what

the structures are so that when you

decide to blow them out of the water,

you know what you're doing. Otherwise,

sometimes you can end up with something

that feels a little bit messy.

I think there's something to be said for

taking chances. Just know what chances

you're

I definitely have an incubation period

with everything. Not just every show

idea, every script I'm supposed to

write, every scene I'm supposed to

write. I sort of knock it around in my

head until I know. There there aren't um

checklists that I go through in my head

to say, "Am I ready to write this

story?"

there aren't um rules that I follow that

you know very specific rules. Writing

doesn't work that way. I think that

there are there are checklists and there

are rules of things to do to keep

yourself disciplined, but those don't

have anything to do with actually

writing. So, for me, I like to let an

idea simmer in my head until either I

can't take it anymore or I've been given

a deadline for something. deadlines are

wonderful for making you get get your

act together. And then I just start

writing. Um, and that that is the way of

the world. And either you'll hit a point

where you can't write about it anymore,

meaning it didn't work, or you find

yourself in a great space where you're

just flying with it because it's working

perfectly. What's funny is I wrote the

pilot script for Scandal in four days

and a year because Judy Smith and I met

um the year before and then I basically

thought about it for a year and then I

went away and wrote it in 4 days mainly

because I didn't have any time. Um, but

also because I kept

trying to figure out how I was going to

approach the story and I wasn't totally

sure the best way in or who

how or when to come into the story at

all. You know, Judy had told me all of

these different aspects of her job and

they were all fascinating and I couldn't

decide how much to incorporate, how

little to incorporate, what parts to be

inspired by. And so I just thought about

it for a year and then sort of a year

later I was done thinking truly and I

thought well I better go write this now

and I went away for 4 days and wrote it.

To me the process of writing a drama

goes like this. You have an idea. You

turn that into a premise. You do a bunch

of research. You've really thought about

your characters. you feel sort of ready

to start writing. That's the point at

which I think you write a beat sheet.

And a beat sheet is where you decide

what all the beats of your story are

going to be. You know, Meredith is going

to be um she's going to sleep with Derek

and kick him out of her house. She's

going to go to work and she's going to

discover that surgery is hard. You know,

all the they meet Dr. Bailey and she

gives them the rules of the world. Those

are your beats. You put all those down

on paper as best as you know them in one

or two sentences, maybe even one or two

words. For me, sometimes I just write

one word down on a page. A beat sheet

really is a precursor to an outline. You

write your beat sheet. That beat sheet

becomes an outline. The outline becomes

your pilot. You know, having a beat

sheet is a way of knowing what your

moments are going to be, what the

important moments are going to be. From

there, you need to decide what your

scenes are. From your scenes, you decide

what your outline is. So, the beat

sheets really after you've decided what

your story is, it's your first way into

your story. It's your first way of

deciding what your story is going to be.

I try to really step into um a drama

knowing from the very beginning what the

last scene is going to be. You know,

obviously you should be breaking down

all of the beats of your drama, you

know, in each act. Make it like a little

chart with five acts, you know, little

lines between each act and writing down

every beat, important character beat

that you think is going to happen, every

action point. But it's also really

important to really be able to visualize

what that last scene's going to be. What

are you writing towards? What do you

want to get to? That really helps you in

defining what those beats are going to

be in breaking down your story. When

you're writing your beats, your beat

sheet or your you're breaking down your

acts and figuring out what you want to

do. There's a lot of ways you can do it.

Um, if you don't have a lot of space,

you can take just a sheet of paper and

you could, you know, divide it into five

sections and write down your beats there

and sort of use that to break your

story. I do that a lot because it's

helpful on a plane or something like

that. You can take a big giant

whiteboard and separate that into five

sections and break your story that way.

That's really helpful when you're in a

group because it means that you're not

alone. Another way that a lot of people

do it that I actually like that's non-

techy, but you know, if you want to be

old school is write it on note cards and

then you can move the note cards around.

So, you write each beat on a note card

and the note cards get to be sort of

moved around like a puzzle piece as you

figure out how you want to do something.

It's probably my favorite way. Um, but I

don't do it very often anymore. And then

a lot of people have use computer

programs that do the same thing. Um, I

find those a little a little much

because I feel like there's nothing

better than sort of writing something

down, staring at it, erasing it, and

going back. But for some people, the

computer program part works great.

However you're doing it, you need a

physical representation that allows you

to step back and stare at that board and

go, "Does this work? Does this not

work?"

Your outline can be as detailed as you

want it to be. Some people write

outlines that are 25, 30 pages long.

Those are very intense outlines, but

they make writing a script very easy.

Some people write very brief outlines

that are like five pages long that are,

you know, a page an act. It just depends

on who you are and how you're going to

do it. The more detailed your outline,

the better shape you'll be in. Um, you

write your very detailed outline, you

have an outline, you go over it several

times, you decide that it's right, and

then you write your script. That's

really the best way to go if you're

starting out and you want to do, you

know, you want to do a job that you feel

is going to work. To just like throw

yourself in and write a script is harder

simply because you don't know where

you're going and you don't know what

you're doing and you don't have a

compass to get you there. Having a

guideline saves you when you decide, I

have no idea what happens next and I'm

exhausted and I don't want to do this

anymore. I personally am not a person

who writes outlines. My staff, my

writing staff writes outlines, and

that's really necessary and really

important so that we all know we're all

on the same page. I have not written an

outline unless we were doing sort of a

group, right? Everybody was going to be

working on a script together. I have not

written an outline in since the pilot of

Grey's Anatomy.

Now, that's just how my brain works. My

brain is and I had to write an outline

for the pilot of Grey's Anatomy. That

was a development process. But that's

how my brain works. I do find outlines

to be extraordinarily useful because

they really are about everybody being,

you know, having the same understanding.

And since I don't I don't have to have

other people have the same understanding

as me when I'm writing something, you

know, it's the only person who has to

prove it is me. It's fine if I don't

write an outline. But I really do think

an outline is so good for everybody

going, "Oh, we understand what you mean.

Oh, we get this. Oh, we sign off on

this. Oh, we see your vision." Like I

think that's very important and I fully

support it. Like there's something about

it. It's really hard for me to write

outlines because I'm always waiting for

everything to be fully formed in my

head. But I I do it when we're doing

something as as a group.

There was a time when every episode I

wrote really started with a theme and

every story line sort of stemmed from

that theme. And on Grays, that's still

um very much the way of the world. We

try to have a voice over that happens

from Meredith and that voiceover sort of

speaks to the theme. The medical cases

sort of have to be part of that theme,

you know, um

I don't know, loneliness or overwork or

whatever have to sort of be part of that

theme. And then the stories that are

going on with our characters need to

reflect that theme as well. It's not as

it's not as um intense as it used to be.

And I think for really good examples of

how that worked, you really need to

watch the earlier seasons because as

we've grown and as the stories have

evolved, what happens on a show that

gets, you know, has been on the air

longer and longer, the audience knows

everyone so well, there is not

necessarily the need to sort of stay

within that structure as much anymore.

Everybody knows everybody already. It's

almost like there's a shortorthhand. You

know, I often joke like if people don't

know sort of this information already,

it's too late. You know, we're in season

13. But in the beginning of the show,

it's a really good example of how to lay

things out and how to structure things,

especially in act one. And um especially

in season 1, you can really see the

structure of using a theme, laying out

the medical stories based on that theme,

having the voiceover relate to it, and

having all the character arcs sort of

fall in line with the theme. It's very

clearly

So to me, a lot of what writing is is

very much like being a runner. You know,

if you don't run every day, running is

incredibly hard. Those muscles do not

know what they're doing. If you exercise

those muscles, those muscles have muscle

memory. So if you run every day, running

becomes a lot easier, right? It's the

same with writing. So to me, I always

have this idea of writing as being like

there's a long hallway to the door where

when the door opens, that's when I

access the place where it is to just

easily get to the creative space until I

get to that door. I'm basically just

sitting at my desk staring at the wall,

feeling really bitter and sorry for

myself. And to me, when I think of that

hall, like if you're jogging down that

hall trying to get to that door, the

hall is incredibly long and it's filled

with, I don't know, candy and pictures

of Idris Elba and phone calls I need to

make and television shows I need to

watch and times I need to sit around and

feel sorry for myself. And then finally,

you get to the door and it takes

forever. But the more I go down that

hall, the less interested I am in the

food and the address and the phone calls

and the pity. And I get to the door

faster and faster and faster until, you

know, now because I do it every day and

the muscle memory is really like there

and honed. I get to that door

immediately. So it's not a big deal

trying to get to the door anymore

because like a runner I'm like perfectly

fit mentally in that sense as a writer.

And it's the same as being, I don't

know, a sprinter or something like I'm

good to go. That's what it should be

like for people, you know? It should be

that if you're exercising that muscle,

you can get there faster and faster. So

the discipline actually has a point.

It's helpful.

I used to think that there was like a

special like magic golden hour in which

I wrote better than any other time, but

that time keeps changing. So I no longer

think that that's true. It used to be

that I wrote the best at night. Like it

had to be midnight and everybody was

asleep and every the world felt silent.

And now I wake up at 5:00 a.m. and I get

a lot of writing done, but I also write

really well in the middle of the day at

the office. What's happened is really is

that I started writing while wearing

headphones with music blasting in my

ears. And now as long as I am wearing

headphones with music blasting in my

ears, I can write at any time of day

anywhere like any place becomes my

office as long as I have those

headphones on. And that is the greatest

gift I have given myself. Not purposely,

but like some sort of Pavlovian animal.

Like, as long as I have the headphones

on, I can write. What I think is

interesting about playing the music in

my headphones is, and this is just a

theory I have. I have no idea if it's

true. I think a lot of people think,

"Oh, she listens to music and it

inspires her in this way or that way." I

don't think so. I think the music

actually just occupies that piece of my

brain that would normally be thinking,

"Oh, I need to go eat some cake or I

have to do the laundry or there's going

to be a phone call or oh, I didn't do

this or that." It just occupies that

other part of my brain that would be

spinning while I was trying to write.

It's fully occupied. I don't think about

anything else but the writing. It's very

interesting, but it works for me and it

makes complete sense. I think what's

wonderful about being able to write

anywhere as long as I'm wearing my

headphones is that I don't need anything

particular to be in the environment when

I'm doing it. Um, I can write in a park.

I can write in the hallway outside my

daughter's preschool while she's

figuring out whether or not she's going

to stay in the classroom or like come

outside and decide she can't like

metriculate. Well, I can write in a

doctor's office. I can write in the

airport. I can write on soundstage. I

can write anywhere

because of those headphones, because of

the noise cancelling headphones. I

highly recommend people try it. Now,

what's really good, too, and I found

this. I have a couple of friends who do

this. I have a couple of really great

writer friends with really great shows

who say like they have to have like one

comfortable chair. One of them has this

ratty chair that I swear like something

like there's a rat living in that chair.

It's so old. But they love their chair

and they can't write anywhere but that

chair. There's something about having a

habit, any kind of habit, any kind of

small ritual, even if it's like I'm

going to drink a cup of green tea before

I start writing that's about sort of

flipping that switch in your brain to

the writing space that I think is

important. So, if it's curling up in

your old ratty comfortable chair or

putting on your headphones or drinking a

cup of tea, whatever it is,

do it. You know, I don't think that

there are any bad ways of getting there.

Don't do anything unhealthy. But I don't

think there are bad ways of getting

there.

When I'm in the office, I am sitting at

my desk writing. And so you'd find on my

desk I it's very interesting because I

have my desktop computer which is often

playing the cut of a show. You have my

laptop computer which is often has the

script up that I'm writing. I often have

like an iPad up which is playing some

music very loudly. Uh, unless I'm

wearing my headphones at the time. And

then there's just a lot of paper for

some reason, which is odd because I

don't necessarily spend a lot of time

with paper, but I know that I have piles

of paper on my desk, a couple of books

I'm planning to read, um, and lots of

post-it notes around of things I'm

supposed to be reminding myself to do. I

write do all of my writing on my um

MacBook Pro. Is it a MacBook Pro?

That's not a MacBook Pro. It's a MacBook

something. I do all my writing on my

Apple computer or my little MacBook

thing. And I

change it out every once in a while. I I

break them. I mean, it's very

interesting. I think I burned up one of

my computers, literally. like I finished

a season and my computer started to

smoke cuz I think I turned them on for

too long. But I do and I love them.

They're very handy and I write

everywhere. So, and what's great is that

I can sort of transfer everything from

my desktop to my my laptop to my, you

know, in the car, out of the car,

wherever. So, it's not necessarily about

which machine I'm using, just that I'm

on my computer. I use Movie Magic

screenwriter to do all my screenwriting.

Most people do not. Um I think I might

be single-handedly keeping them alive

with my five shows. Maybe not. Pro maybe

a lot of people use it. I don't know.

But I love them. I think they're

awesome. And there's a notes there's a

place where you can make notes in there

which is just sort of built in which is

fantastic. Um I know a lot of people use

Final Draft and I think Final Draft is

great but for me somehow I started using

Movie Magic screenwriter and it stuck.

Putting yourself in a schedule really

does help. If you tell yourself, I need

to do write for two hours a day and then

I need to have my meetings for this much

time a day. Like scheduling your time is

very important and not having not

allowing for it for the interruptions

that generally try to come. That is very

helpful. And it's hard. I mean, we all

have a million other things that need to

come in. I have three kids. Like it's

not the easiest thing in the world, but

making a schedule at least gives you a

much better chance of making it. One,

two, if you know at least what needs to

be done in terms of the writing, like I

need to get through act one, I need to

get through act two, you at least can

make a list of those things and try to

do those things that day. That's

helpful. Um, so that you know, you have

a schedule of the time you're going to

do it and the tasks that need to be

completed. Knowing what tasks need to be

completed is a really good way of

focusing yourself, especially when it's

harder. The best way to keep from

procrastinating is to have a deadline.

And the best way to get something done

is to know it has to be done, period.

There's just don't give yourself any

other options. I think it's easy to not

do something when there are excuses

made. And so, I just don't allow for

excuses. It makes psychologically it

makes a big difference. I don't I don't

know if that explains it for you or if

that makes it easier for you, but if you

just don't allow yourself to have any

excuses, it has to be done. If it's not

done, the crew doesn't have anything to

shoot. If crew doesn't have anything to

shoot, you're going to get fired. It

makes it fairly easy to get it done.

I decided a while ago that I don't

believe in writer's block. Now, writer's

block exists, but the best way I had to

combat the idea of writer's block was to

deny its existence entirely. Um, mainly

because it's so damaging. I I've really

I used to go through periods where it

was really bad. So, I just decided that

I don't believe in it anymore and that

it doesn't exist. And by the way,

through periods of time where I really

can't figure out how to write something

or what to write is to just write

something else. And part of what's been

wonderful for me is because I have other

shows and for a long time, you know, I

had sometimes I had three shows,

sometimes I have two shows, but because

it's been, I don't know, eight years of

me having more than one show, I get to

go back and forth between different

projects and switch my brain over to

something else. So I can tell you with

total assurance that if you are writing

something and your brain gets stuck and

it can't go forward that you can then

switch over to another medium or another

topic and write about that and that will

unstick your brain on the thing that was

hurting. That's what works really

nicely. So I could write Grey's Anatomy

and my brain could get stuck and I could

go and work on Scandal and somehow that

unsticks my brain on the Grace thing or

on the novel or on whatever it is you're

writing. So, if you're having a hard

time with one thing, let it go for a

while and go write something else and it

will help the other.

I write my episodes in order. I'm not a

person who writes um I'll write this

scene over here first or I'll write the

scene over here first. If I'm writing

something, I write I start at the

beginning and I end at the end. It's

very satisfying that way because when

you type, you know, the end, you're

done. Um, what's what happens for me is

most of the time when I'm writing an

episode, there is a piece of the episode

that's what started the episode in the

first place, like some image that came

out of the episode and that's the germ

of the episode that then sort of spreads

out. But I definitely start at the

beginning and get to the end. And if I

don't know what the scene is, I can't

move on to the next scene.

I think if I had any thing to tell you

about your writing process, it's that

you need to let it be your own. You

know, somebody else will tell you that

they wrote a script in a day, and

somebody else will tell you that they

can only write at night, and somebody

else will tell you that they say all

their dialogue out loud like I do, or

somebody else will tell you, you know,

that they write in a group. Whatever

works for you is what works. There is no

one way to do this. Going to film school

might work for somebody. Not going to

film school might work for somebody.

Reading these books could work for

somebody. Not reading these books. It's

not like there's a science to being

creative. Otherwise, being creative

would be called science. You know, just

do what works for you and keep going

forward. As long as you're continuing to

write, as long as you're creating

something, then you're being creative

and you're getting something done. Don't

ever feel like you're not following a

rule and thus not doing it right.

Every pilot is different. Every pilot

has incredibly different elements. Every

pilot, you know, especially now with so

many shows on the air, there is no sort

of one pilot which is really amazing and

great. You can do almost anything. You

know, all bets are off. However, I think

every pilot needs to have compelling

characters, a compelling story, uh,

compelling dialogue, a great opening,

something that's really going to pull

the audience in. You know, attention

spans are shorter these days than ever.

You can turn and watch anything. So, you

want an opening that's going to make

somebody say, you know what, I'm going

to sit here and I'm going to watch this.

Not for any reason other than it's good.

So, in order for that to work, you

really need to feel like the opening is

special. And you need an ending that

suggests that what's to come is going to

be interesting as well. And you really

need to think about those things when

you're doing it.

I used to think that there were mistakes

that could be made in a pilot, you know,

really.

And and I think a lot of people think

that there are these big mistakes that

can be made in a pilot, like killing off

a character or um having someone move

completely. I think that there are

expensive choices that people can make.

I don't necessarily know that they

continue to be mistakes. Um killing off

one of your main characters in a pilot

used to be like something that was never

done. I think you can do it now and I

think it's interesting. I think famously

on, you know, Lost had a character that

was supposed to die really early on um

and in the pilot and they didn't kill

him and because they, you know, you're

not supposed to kill somebody and the

pilot was still great either way, but

you know, that was a pilot in which that

character was engineered to die in the

pilot and I think it would have been

cool to see what would happen if he had.

Now you could probably kill that

character and get away with it. I think

sort of doing something where you use a

really expensive set in a really

expensive location for your pilot that

then you somehow transport everybody

someplace else for the next episode is a

problem unless money is not an issue. So

there are expensive choices. Are there

are there choices that are just wrong?

Maybe not anymore.

What I think is interesting about the

shows, even the ones that are in, you

know, Grae is in a setting that people

know. People, everybody thinks they know

what a hospital is like, but I feel like

we're doing what I call back of the

house um work at Grae. Nobody knows

really what it's like to be in an O.

Nobody knows what the doctors are

talking about while you're out and under

the knife. That's what we're showing.

We're showing the stuff that you're not

supposed to see. And scandal is

basically based on the premise that all

of this stuff is the stuff you're never

supposed to know about Washington.

One of the things that we try to do in

order to keep people educated is I don't

know if you'll notice all of the shows

have built into them

a new person. I like to say like a a

person who represents us, you as a

viewer, the new person in the world. So

that you we have someone who does not

know what's going on when we start a

pilot. For me, I found it's a very

effective way. Um

um Pete Noak and How to Get Away with

Murder, he made Wes be our new person

who are watching the world through. For

Grays, you know, we had our interns.

Scandal had Quinn. You have somebody

who's walking through the world who does

not know what the world is and therefore

needs things explained to them. Maybe

not in big giant chunks, but there are

things that they don't understand. And

in order for them to move forward in the

story, those things have to be

explained. It helps because it makes it

feel like we're not stopping to explain

things to the audience. We're just

telling the silly girl who doesn't know

what's happening or the person who needs

to go and do something what it is that's

happening. And it makes us feel a little

bit smarter and a little bit more safe

as an audience because we're with the

characters on their journey versus

behind them.

I um wrote several different openings

for The Scandal Pilot and I wrote them

over the course of a year. You know, I

always say the scandal pilot took a year

and four days because I really wrote the

pilot in four days, but I also wrote

these two other opening three other

opening sequences that sort of led to

this moment. And

mainly because I couldn't figure out how

I wanted to introduce Olivia Pope, but

also because I couldn't figure out how

which Olivia Pope I wanted to introduce

to the audience. You know, there's an

Olivia Pope knowing all of Judy's

stories. Did I want to introduce Olivia

Pope before she'd made it to the White

House? Did I want to introduce Olivia

Pope after she'd left the White House,

but before she'd really started her

company? Did we want to meet Olivia Pope

sort of in progress, you know, already

as Olivia Pope? It felt like we had a

lot of options there. And so one of the

openings was

really about Olivia and Harrison. I

think you we come upon her and she's

running through an airport and she's not

running very fast because she's in

terrible shape. She looks great but

she's in terrible shape and Harrison

literally sort of picks her up and runs

with her and you sort of get this sense

of their friendship. You know, they're

on a plane and they open pieces of gum

and they give them to one another. like

they're just very in sync and then

suddenly they're in a boardroom and

they're lobbying to get a job and you

suddenly understand that this job that

they're lobbying to get is something

that people like and they're you feel

like they're very young people their age

shouldn't be getting and Olivia gives

sort of the speech of her life about how

they're going to take their client over

and how they're going to handle this

client and how they're gonna you know

you know you want to give us this client

and we wouldn't be standing in this room

already if you hadn't already decided

you were going to hire us so don't

pretend you're not going to and you're

going to pay us this money and we're

waiting for a check please basically and

they get the job and you sort of cut

back to see Abby and Huck um sort of

they're all waiting back in their own

office trying to figure out if they've

gotten this job and they're all very

nervous because it's clear that if they

don't get this job they're going to be

broke and Olivia and Harrison arrive

back at the office. I don't know if they

were called that then, but back at the

office and with a check and everybody's

really relieved. And that was like the

original opening and it was fun and it

was young, but it wasn't dynamic enough.

It didn't um give you real sense of

excitement. It felt sweet. Um and

honestly, given the network we were on,

it felt a little too young. And so I

thought this isn't for us. So then I

wrote another one and the next one felt

correct in age. They were on they were

in New York. They were sort of going

into working their way into a fancy

apartment building and you weren't quite

sure why. And they sort of muscle their

way past a dormant verbally. They on the

way in the elevator all the way up

they're sort of having kind of a

conversation like the one she was having

with Steven in the pilot that you see.

They stand outside an apartment door and

Olivia says, "No matter what we see

inside, nobody says a word. Nobody

blinks. Nobody makes a face. Nobody acts

shocked. Nothing." They get into the

apartment and you realize that they're

standing in front of a man who's holding

a butcher knife and he's covered in

blood and on the floor is his very dead

business partner. And they you watch

them and he's hysterical like freaking

out. And you watch them handle the

situation and sort of cover the whole

thing up, take care of the body and get

it out of there. And she says to the man

at the end, you know, you don't, he

says, "What do I do now?" And she says,

"You go home and you kiss your wife and

you play with your kids and you never

think about the fact that you act

shocked on Monday when someone tells you

that your business partner has been

murdered and you don't tell anybody. Not

your priest, not your lawyer, not your,

you know, baker. You don't even whisper

it to God that you have, you know,

murdered your friend and you keep it to

yourself and you suffer with with it for

the rest of your life. And you thank

everybody. You thank God at night that

you have us basically." And it's a

really very clean like stark scene and

we ended up using it by the way that

very notion of that scene at when Quinn

is left with a dead body at the end of

um season one of Scandal. That's

basically the scene that we use when

Quinn is left covered in blood standing

there calling Olivia to help her.

What I loved about it was that it gave

you a very stark sense of what they did

for a living. Maybe too stark. like I

think you felt like maybe they were just

gangsters almost um and that they did a

lot of sort of wet work in the CIA sense

for a living and I didn't know that

that's where we wanted to go so quickly.

It also made me made it very clear that

Olivia Pope was maybe not somebody who

wore the white hat and who was maybe not

one of the good guys and that got in the

way. It was also not clear who was in

charge in that scene. you know, the guys

were doing as much work as she was. And

while she was the talker, they were the

muscle. So, it it it didn't give us a

sense of her power.

And finally, I came up with the version

that you see now, which is we needed an

outsider to tell us how important Olivia

Pope was. We needed someone to show us

who Olivia Pope was. So, you now see her

through the eyes of Quinn, and you don't

actually get introduced to Olivia Pope.

you have somebody else introduce us to

Olivia Pope. You know, Quinn and

Harrison talk about Olivia Pope and they

make her seem larger than life. They

talk about this world. They did the

thing that I've been saying, this is the

world we want to see. They basically

say, this is the world you're going to

see if you want in. You know, this is

the magical world you're going to get to

enter if you say you the magic words.

And basically at the end of that scene,

Quinn says the magic words, I want to be

a gladiator in a suit. And she's in and

we're in at the same time. and you feel

like you're starting a journey. And I

wasn't absolutely sure it was going to

work. I mean, there's a lot of

incredibly fast talking in that scene.

There's a lot of, you know,

it feels like a Washington world when

you start and you're asking the audience

to enter a world that feels very rare.

And in order to do that, that scene has

to work perfectly. And those two actors

were amazing together and really sold

it. I really knew that the opening that

we ended up using that I ended up using

in the pilot of Scandal was the correct

opening because I understood after a

while that one I needed an outside

person to enter our world for us and

show us what the world was. You know,

first I showed it being sort of young

and cute. Then I showed it being really

dark and no matter what I did, I wasn't

explaining the world correctly. So I

needed somebody to sort of show us what

that world could be. And two, I

understood that in order for Olivia Pope

to have the um

the the quality that we needed her to

have, in order for her to feel like an

icon, in order for her to feel like

somebody that everybody knew about but

nobody knew, uh I needed her to be

somebody that other people could talk

about. And you can't have a character

like that talking about themselves

because then they just seem like a jerk.

you needed to have other people talking

about her and you needed somebody who'd

never met her to sort of gasp at the

mention of her name. And in order to

make that happen, I really needed to

have a scene in which two characters

were having a conversation that did not

include her. And that was, you know, the

way it that was just the way it felt

right. And the minute I hit upon the

idea, first of all, the scene wrote

itself. I wrote that scene in like three

minutes or something. It was the fastest

scene I've ever written. And second of

all, it just it worked. It made it clear

immediately who Olivia Pope was, what

the world was, how you were going to

enter the world, and how exciting it

well dialogue is almost everything I

think what a character says and what a

character does not

say tells you everything you need to

know when you're watching something and

so when you're writing something you

really want to be careful about the

words you choose I think a lot of people

get lazy about what they let a character

say or what they let a character not say

I think that you know Breaking Bad had

some of the best dialogue I've ever seen

I always say the I am the one who knocks

speech might be one of the best things

I've seen in a long long long long long

time it's

lovely there there are wonderful moments

in a lot of things I think there are

some shows that you you know that I

think you should watch for the moments

when characters don't say anything I'm

very excited right now about shows where

there are scenes in which everything is

conveyed but no one has said a word um

that might be why I like the crown so

much right

now The West Wing was fantastic with

language you know you really understood

the characters based on how smart they

were with their

language there's there's a lot of really

good stuff out there right now I mean I

think you should just watch a bunch of

different shows and see how they use

dialogue and pay attention to what

feels um real and what feels stilted pay

attention to those moments when you

think my God everyone's telling me

exactly how they feel and instead of

showing me and see how that engages you

or disengages you from a

show I try really hard to think of my

dialogue as being the conversations that

real people have you know

even even the more sort of loud

Shakespearean bigger characters that I

have they speak in a way that those

kinds of people would speak I suppose

you know a Cyrus Bean who has lots to

say or a papa Pope who has more than

enough to say for them that that charact

the characterizations of what they say

that's real for

them and then everybody else I really

just try to make it seem like people are

having conversations the kind you would

overhear someone having if you were

hiding in a closet in their house or

something I think you have to if you are

looking to make your dialogue sound

authentic if you want your dialogue to

have a real quality that doesn't feel

cliched or or like what I call TV talk

you know I'm always saying that sounds

like TV if you don't want it to sound

like TV really listen to the

conversations of people around you you

know become an EES dropper just do it

it's first of all it's incredibly fun

but second of all you'll start to hear

how people talk you know people don't

talk in complete sentence sentences

people don't always know exactly what

they're going to say people use the

wrong words people drop out people talk

over one another and people say some

really crazy stuff sometimes nobody says

all the perfect things at all the

perfect times and when you've heard

dialogue

before it's a cliche already if anything

you've ever heard anybody say is a

cliche so don't say it but if you think

about yourself as being somebody who

listens to people conversations and

becomes very versed in like having an

ear for how people talk or says all your

dialogue out loud while you're writing

it which is something I do to make sure

that it sounds like something someone

would say or you get somebody else to

read your dialogue out loud for you

because then you can really hear how it

sounds those are all really good ways of

making sure your dialogue starts to

sound natural

I think one of the most

important rules or my rules anyway in

dialogue is human beings rarely say

exactly what they

mean people rarely say here are my

emotions and here's why I feel those

emotions and here's what my therapist

told me to tell you about my emotions so

you know there's text and there's

subtext the text is you know the stuff

we really say the subtext is what we

really mean when we say it I don't think

that people's subtext should be written

as dialogue ever if you can find another

way to convey that subtext visually

silently or just using the text to do so

do it but really be mindful of not

allowing that subtext to be text it's

always really painful when you're

watching a show and someone says don't

you see my heart is broken and here is

why my heart is broken and here's what

you've done to it and my therapist told

me blah blah blah blah and my heart is

it's too much it gets really awful

Shakespeare can get away with it you

cannot neither can I you know we really

want to stick to a world in which we're

allowing the actress to convey those

things that we're trying to tell not say

them I think when you're writing

dialogue you shouldn't be trying to

write like anyone and you shouldn't be

thinking every character needs to sound

like me you know I hear my character

sounding very different you know Papa

Pope I think sounds very different in

the way he talks than somebody who's

much more hesitant um and I think that

comes from thinking about who your

characters are people are much more

verbose than some people it just feels

natural that some of them have more to

say than others and you have have to

think about that Christina Yang is far

more sarcastic and cutting in cold than

Dr Bailey is how does that happen that's

that's in the word choice you're

choosing think about the word choice and

how you're using words with them it

doesn't have to be your own voice it

just has to be a true

voice when you're thinking about your

characters when you're thinking about

who a character is and what they're like

George O

Ali very um ner nous guy terribly

awkward almost always saying the wrong

thing almost always feeling like he

needs to backtrack when he's talking um

Christina Yang very precise in what she

says and very sure that she needs to

make sure that she know that you know

that she thinks that you're stupid you

know when she's insulting you George Ali

on the other hand everything was very

apologetic and it was just the tone that

he took you have to think about who your

character are and make the dialogue fit

the personalities that you've given your

characters you know the Bailey when a

perfect example is Bailey biley would

have these Aras where she would rant

about things and she would be very tough

on people and she had very clean sense

of who she was but then when we took

that character back in time and we

showed her showed you her as a resident

that Resident that was Dr Bailey was

very mumbly she was very hesitant she

was terrified and shy and it played play

in her language and the way that

character

spoke I'm always writing dialogue with

my actors in mind once we're cast you

know once we've cast a show I can't hear

anything but my actors and that makes it

fun because you already know what they

sound like and you already have sort of

a vision of them in your head so

whenever I'm writing I hear their voices

in my head sometimes and that makes it

really

and more interesting for me in terms of

dialogue I I work under the theory that

dialogue is text the dialogue exists as

the dialogue exists we're not changing

the dialogue there's no reason to change

the dialogue I am a writer you are an

actor so while I will never tell you how

to act you will never tell me how to

write we let each other do our their

jobs and so I love being surprised by

what they do with the words but I want

to hear the words and they bring so much

to those words that sometimes it's the

opposite of anything I ever imagined a

scene would be but it's always so much

better so much richer so much more

original than I ever imagined so I love

that

So looking at the pilot of grays and

thinking about the structure,

interestingly enough, it feels like it's

a good example of how one how to lay

something out. So if you think about,

you know, there are five acts in a pilot

and every act is roughly 11ish pages,

although could be a little bit longer,

could be a little bit shorter.

So, act one is really the introduction

of the characters, the introduction of

the world. I've said that you really

want to start your pilot out with an

exciting um opening. And by exciting, I

don't mean everything's have to blow up.

I mean exciting in that you want an

opening that makes someone lean in.

Uh and I often say this because I feel

like people don't get this. A cliche is

anything you've heard or seen before.

So, don't do it. You know, I would say

any line of dialogue that you've ever

heard anybody say before is already a

cliche, so don't write it down. It

shouldn't be done. Any scene, don't do

like, "Oh, I've seen this scene before,

so it's a really cool idea, so I'm going

to just do something like that." Do

something original. If you've seen it

before, why would you do it again?

Someone's already done it. Granted,

there's almost nothing new under the

sun, but there are different

interpretations and different ways of

thinking of things that are new. But

you're not, your goal isn't to copy

somebody that you admire. your goal is

to be the thing that other people would

admire themselves. So, if you think

about at like act one, um act one is

really all about finding your is setting

up a world, introducing your characters,

and then having your inciting incident.

What's your pilot going to be about?

What's your inciting incident? Um in

Grays, it's Meredith finds out, there's

two things actually. Meredith finds out

that Derek Shepard, the guy she slept

with at the very beginning of the pilot,

is one of her bosses and one of her

doctors at her hospital. Um, and she's

horrified because she's, you know, very

interested in being professional and

being a surgeon is her biggest hope. The

second thing that happens is, and it's a

smaller one because it goes with our B

story, George Eli tells a patient that

the patient's going to be fine. And he

basically sort of gets under Burke, Dr.

Burke's skin, and you realize, and Burke

is basically declares, "You're going to

be my guy." And you realize that George

is in trouble. So those two things have

happened. And once those two things have

happened, the pilot is on its path. You

know, everything is set up set up. One

of the things I like to say to my

writers when we're making scenes happen

is you have to think of the worst thing

that can happen to your characters, make

it happen, and then go from there. And I

don't necessarily mean always just the

worst, but I mean the most extreme. Like

what's what's your worst case scenario?

If George is going to tell a patient the

patient's going to be fine, well, the

worst case scenario is that the patient

dies on the table and George has to tell

the patient that the patient's family

the patient died.

Um, George is doing an appendecttomy,

you know, he's forced to perform the

first surgery in front of everybody and

he basically freezes, humiliates himself

and is now declared 007, which means

like licensed to kill in front of

everybody and is now the biggest loser

of the bunch. You know, you want to

figure out what's the most humiliating,

most painful way for somebody to have to

deal with something and then have them

go from there. Otherwise, you're sort of

doing a things are mild. You know,

things are kind of happening. They're

sort of interesting, but not really. And

even if you're doing the happier version

of that, what is the most interesting

way, the most exciting way, the most

conflicted way something great can

happen? or even just what is the best

way something can happen. But don't go

for the eh story piece.

Like there's no reason for it. Like

every scene should be kind of the most

interesting you can come up with.

What?

Katie's parents have questions. Do you

talk to them or do I ask Burke?

No. Burke's off the case. Katie belongs

to the new attending now, Dr. Shepherd.

He's over there.

All right. It's a nice confession.

48 hours.

So, act one, you have your inciting

incident. You've introduced your

characters. You've got your plot going.

Things are interesting. Act two, I

always say things get worse. No matter

what the show is about, things get worse

in some way. Um, in act two, we get to

know our characters better. We have them

all come together in a way that allows

them to meet one another. That doesn't

necessarily always happen in a lot of,

you know, in everyone's pilot. This kind

of pilot, all the characters sort of

come together so that they can meet and

I establish where they're going to hang

out, which is for me the tunnels.

They're all going down there. They're

sitting on those gurnies and they're

talking about what life is like in the

hospital. That's that's sort of their

talking place. Katie Bryce has her

seizures and that's like things get

worse. George is picked to do the

surgery, the appendecttomy, and he fails

horribly. things get worse and that

happens right away. So, we're only two

acts in and he's already humiliated

himself and been called 007. Meredith

is, you know, sort of feeling a little

bit okay. She gets upstairs and Katie

Bryce is seizing and she freezes and has

no idea what to do. Also, Derek won't

leave her alone. So, we've already

already had her encounter that guy and

he kind of won't leave her alone.

What took you so long?

She's having multiple grandma seizures.

Now, how do you want to proceed?

Dr. Gray, are you listening to me? She's

gotten dasipam. 2 milligrams of

dazzipam. I just gave the second dose.

Dr. Gray, you need to tell us what you

want to do. Dr. Gray.

The end of act three. And and then you

get to act three. And so she goes

outside. She throws up. She gets in

trouble. But the end of act three, which

is sort of past our midpoint, which is

our midpoint, past our midpoint, sort of

right sits right in the center of your

show. She's feeling like a terrible

failure. George is feeling like a

terrible failure. Um, it's kind of great

because we kill George's patient

and it's not about, and it's

interesting, it's one of the first times

you see somebody get killed and it's not

about, oh my god, their poor family.

It's really about poor George. Like a

patient dies on a table and we don't

think, "Oh my god, that poor guy." Even

though we've met him, all we really

think is poor George. How's he going to

deal with this?

So, we watch poor George and they've got

this girl who now is in a worse medical

condition and Meredith doesn't know what

to do and everybody's worried about how

they're going to treat this girl and

it's really about Meredith feeling like

a failure as a doctor. They've been

yelled at. And I actually, which is

interesting, it's always good to have a

ticking clock at the end of act three.

Derek actually says the clock is

ticking,

which now when I look at it makes me

laugh, but he literally says the clock

is ticking. But you want to sort of set

in motion that things have to speed up

and move forward.

I need you to find out why Katie is

having seizures.

I know you're tired, you're busy, you

got more work than you could possibly

handle. I understand. So, I'm going to

give you an incentive. Whoever finds the

answer rides with me. Katy needs

surgery.

You get to do what no interns get to do.

Scrub in to assist on advanced

procedure. Dr. Bailey is going to hand

you Katie's chart. The clock is ticking

fast, people. If we're going to save

Kat's life, we have to do it soon.

So, in act four, you sort of watch

Meredith and Christina try really hard

to figure out how to solve the case.

It's my little procedural moment,

although they're basically mocking their

patient at that point. And that's really

all they do before they realize what's

going on. But what you really see in

three and four is the next sort of level

of inciting incident. Meredith has

basically said, I'm at the beginning of

the show, I'm too professional to want

to be anywhere near a guy.

Um, I'm sort of too good for this. Get

away from me. She says it again in the

second act. She says it to him. In the

third act, she says basically, you know,

this isn't working for me. In act four,

she says, "If we figure out the surgery,

you can have it because I don't want to

be anywhere near him." Right.

Mhm.

They figure out the surgery and she

steals the surgery from Merida. I mean,

from Christina. When she's offered the

surgery, she takes it, which is a great

moment because it means that our

character is not 100% good, 100% bad. It

makes her a little bit more interesting

than a show in which someone's just a

straight hero and always sort of doing

the right thing. Mhm.

And I did that on purpose because I

didn't want us to feel like what heroes

all of these people were.

It felt very important to give somebody

a little something interesting. And I

think in this day and age especially,

you don't need characters to all be

perfect and lovely.

Now, I think there's a push right now

for everybody to be as dark as humanly

possible.

Um, we're not all living in Game of

Thrones, you know, like I don't think

that that winter is not always coming

for everyone. And while those things are

so amazing, you just really have to

figure out what show you're telling. You

know, don't pick here's the trend and so

this is where I'm going. Just figure out

what feels right for you and how can you

make it the most interesting. To me,

what felt like the worst case scenario

is they actually solve the case.

Meredith gets picked for they they do

get picked for the surgery, but Dererick

picks the wrong person. And instead of

it being Meredith going, "Oh, no, not

me, Christina." She just takes it.

Right. Like that to me felt like much

more complex than anything else

and it was going to cause the most

trouble. I discovered that moment in the

writing like while writing the scene. It

was not my plan. I didn't have a whole

plan for it. I just discovered it while

writing the scene as being like, "Ooh,

that's so much better than watching

these two have an argument for some

other superficial reason." And it also

highlighted the difference between

somebody who came from a surgical family

and was kind of surgical royalty and

somebody who worked for it, right?

Which turns out to be a theme that I

like to write about for some reason.

Um, it's just in there. Privilege versus

non-privilege.

I'll tell him I changed my mind.

You know, don't don't give don't do me

any favors. It's fine.

Christina,

you know what? You did a cutthroat

thing. Deal with it. Don't come to me

for absolution. You want to be a shark,

be a shark.

I'm not. Oh, yes you are. Only it makes

you feel all bad in your warm, gooey

places. No, screw you. I don't get

picked for surgeries cuz I slept with my

boss and I didn't get into med school

cuz I have a famous mother. You know,

some of us have to earn what we get.

At the end of act four, what the other

thing that happens is that George gives

the bad news to the family and it's

devastating for him. And we sort of

watch him do the hardest thing he can

do, but also learn from it. So, it's

sort of a down moment for everybody. And

then in act five, everybody climbs back

out. Derek says, "Take the surgery. You

earned it. Take your thing." Meredith,

Christina have had their fight and

they've talked their way through it. Um,

George is sort of doing his best to pull

himself together. You're you're watching

our characters climb back up and then

you have the surgery. What's interesting

is is that nothing's really solved.

Christina I mean Meredith still stole

Christina's surgery.

Mhm.

George still is the worst surgeon there

as far as he's concerned. Nothing's

really gone well except Meredith has

seen an amazing surgery and has realized

that despite everything, it's worth it

to be there. So everything's sort of

left open-ended and and we just sort of

walk away on that point. It's not a very

it's oddly not a very satisfying ending

in that sense until you get to the end

where when you realize that the reason

why she's so desperate to be a surgeon

and desperate to be good at it is

because her mother,

you know, you then reveal that her

mother is in a nursing home and has

Alzheimer's and doesn't even remember

the fact that she used to be a surgeon

and it's the secret Meredith's keeping.

Yeah. So, everybody's been judging her

for having this surgeon mother and

getting everything she's ever wanted,

and her mother doesn't even know who she

is.

It's a It's a nice little structure, I

think.

I think that the idea of revealing a

secret at the end of a pilot

has become a little little overdone at

this point,

but I do think knowing what your

character secrets are before you start

writing,

even if you're not going to reveal them

in the pilot,

are helpful. It's helpful just because

it allows you to understand who your

characters are.

Um,

it just gives you a deeper sense of

them. And sometimes when you start to

really think about what are my character

secrets, what what don't other people

know about them, it allows you to come

up with more story points that you never

would have thought of before.

It adds extra twist twists and turns.

these twists, um, the mom reveal, uh,

Derek picking Meredith to work with

them, George's patient dies. Do you kind

of put a mandatory like amount of twists

into that or do you think ahead of the

twist or do you just try to let them

come naturally when you're writing a

pilot or even writing any episode of the

show? I think the reason why I think

about act breaks is because it allows

you to think something big needs to

happen every at the end of every act.

It allows you to to not get sort of

stale. It allows you to think I have to

be building towards some piece of story

turn um every act break. That way you're

not sort of staying steady, stable,

nothing's really going on.

And I've seen a lot of people try to

make something exciting happen at the

end of an act just for excitement's

sake. Yeah.

And you can't do that. It has to

actually have been placed, planted, and

build from there. You need to plant

something and then pay it off. You can't

just have ooh um suddenly the hospital

explodes for no reason. You really need

to plant things so that when these

things happen, we're watching character

growth.

Mhm.

And if it's built in character, you can

get away with almost anything. Trust me,

we have the hospital. But if you really

build it in character, if you make it

about character, we'll buy a lot of

you'll buy a lot of goodwill and people

will buy anything.

Going back to the characters backtories

because, you know, we see Meredith's

secret at the end that her home life is

her mom has Alzheimer's, you know, and

she visits her in the nursing home. Do

you have an idea for the other

characters about what their home life is

when you write the pilot or?

So, for Grace, I really did for Grace I

did a lot of work. It was my first, it

was my sort of first time out doing this

kind of thing and I really wanted to

know as much as I could.

And so for Grace, I knew who George was.

I knew that he came from this big

family. I knew that he was from Seattle.

Um, Christina, I knew that she was from

Beverly Hills and I knew that she had um

her mother had married this guy and she

had a sister. Like I knew that Izzy was

from a trailer park. I knew everything

about these people and I'd worked really

hard at it. I remember when Burke

finally says, "My mother owns a

restaurant in Alabama." It's a big line

for us in the on the show because I had

been walking around saying that for like

a year and a half

and people were like, "Why do you keep

saying that?" And I was like, "I don't

know. It's just very important. Burk's

mother runs a restaurant in Alabama and

stuff like that." Those details were

very important for me and they were very

internalized. I noticed when I was

reading through the pilot of Grey's

Anatomy that there were several omitted

scenes and I was just curious what which

scenes do you find get cut the most? Is

it that kind of sort of backstory things

that feel needless once you start to go

into breaking the actual story?

H

and it might be different from Grey's

Anatomy from other ones.

Yeah. No, no. thinking I think in a lot

of ways there are you're probably

reading one of the more final drafts of

the the probably the re-shoot draft when

we inserted Alex draft because what ends

up getting cut from the pilot that you

view are things that feel like I always

realize sort of as you move along the

stuff that always ends up getting cut

from the show is generally in act one

and act two it's all the setup that you

think you desperately need

you think you need all of this stuff

that has to be told that needs to be in

there so that people understand what

show you're doing and what it's about

and what the world it's a ton of stuff

that generally even when you're in

seasons three and four when you're

editing an episode you're like half of

act one doesn't need to exist and you

toss it

because people are the audience a is

smarter than you think you have to

always remember that visuals are far

stronger than words on a page so what

someone is looking at will always give

convey 10 times more than what you've

written and you don't necessarily need

to explain every single thing to an

audience.

Now, I caution when I say that because

then there are the people who don't

explain nearly enough

and then they go, you don't have to

explain everything to an audience and

then nobody understands what's going on.

So, I'd rather you air on the side of

telling a little bit too much and then

going back and editing for yourself than

not. Mhm.

But there's a tendency to tell way too

much

in story and give way too much to um

away to the audience early. Like you

want them to know every single thing

about a character right away. And think

about the notion of a series.

You have at least 13 episodes in a first

season, maybe 10

for a short one to tell people who these

people are to unfold them for the

audience. You don't need to tell them

everything in the first episode. You

just need to tell them enough.

When you are going from having written

the pilot, breaking it with your

writers, and you're putting it together.

Um, with Grey's Anatomy especially, it's

a very serious show. They're dealing

with very, you know, life-threatening

situations and the um the relationships

are all very serious. But I loved how

your choice of music sometimes would be

dichomous to what was actually happening

in the scene. And I was just curious,

you know, where did that come from in

you? And at what point did did that

start to develop for you?

It really came in the pilot. I mean,

part of what happens in the pilot is

these are people who don't quite care or

get that these are human beings on their

table. They're much more interested in

the science of the bodies on their table

than they are in the people on the

table. So, I wanted to find a way to

capture that. Like, for them, this is

about the adrenaline rush and the

excitement. It's not about whether or

not this human being lives or dies. And

there needed to be a way to capture that

because at a certain point in the show,

you always want to then find a way to

remind them, no, these are human beings

who are living and dying because that's

part of the lesson. In people who

care a little bit too much about getting

to cut someone open, you have to

remember that you're cutting a person

open. That's someone's mother, someone's

father, someone's kid. Yeah.

So, the music often to me helped really

highlight that. The music gave a way to

make the irreverence that they feel

towards these people's bodies um real.

It made it feel fun. It made it feel

exciting and kind of sexy, but then it

also captured some of the wonder and

some of the pain of it. And so, the

music was the music was really fun to

place. I mean, I think that was part of

it um in a lot of ways. It also made the

show feel very very different from other

shows because we didn't do musically

what other shows did. Plus, there is a

lot of humor in that in that pilot. I

mean, a lot of that pilot's very funny.

George provides a great deal of humor.

Um, and Derek and Meredith have a great

deal of sort of romantic comedy stuff

going on until things get serious.

So, I'm wondering what what started like

down this road for you? Were you trying

to tell a story about hospital dynamics?

Was it like the first instance? with you

thinking about the character of Meredith

doesn't someone in like her mother's

shadow or where did where did this

kernel of an idea even come from?

Ah that's a good question. Well you know

I had written one pilot prior to writing

Grays and it would had been about war

correspondents and it was about women

who and I this really was the germ of

the idea for war correspondents as well.

It was about the fact that I loved the

concept of women who were really

competitive, loved their job, sort of

drank too hard and played too hard while

covering war. And that element of those

kinds of women, those were the kind of

women I knew. Like these were women who

like they loved working probably more

than they loved anything else. Then we

went to war, so not such a great idea.

But then when I came back and thought I

want to write something else, applying

that same theory to surgery felt

completely right because surgery is a

lot like that. They work too hard.

They're there for ridiculous amounts of

hours. They're always on their feet.

There's not enough women in the field.

There's a battle for supremacy. It felt

really interesting to me to see a bunch

of women who were scientists who were as

hardcore for science as these people

were for journalism.

And I just liked that feeling. like a

bunch of overly smart people fighting

for their space. That was really where

it came from. It didn't come from any

other spot but that and then you know

Bailey is the generation above them

fighting for that space in a world

that's completely male and then there's

more women on their level and then as

you watch there's definitely more women

below them. Mhm.

So, I'm wondering kind of where you saw

Meredith when you wrote it versus when

you brought the actress in, how Meredith

changed and how that informed the rest

of your first season.

You know, it's interesting. I feel like

I feel like Meredith was definitely

maybe,

and this is weird, louder

than um the Meredith I ended up having

as a character. Ellen Pompeo, who plays

Meredith, has a a very like still, quiet

quality that conveyed. She conveys so

much with her eyes and her face in a way

that was

beautiful and very unexpected. In a

weird way, Meredith had to say less

um in order to convey as much as she

did, which is really lucky considering

we have a show in which people wear

masks all the time.

I had not I had not even thought about

that. But what was also interesting is

that I'd written the pilot and kept

saying I I really want somebody like

that girl who was in Moonlight Mile. I

really want somebody who's like that

girl in Moonlight Mile. That was Ellen

Pompeo.

Yeah.

Um so in a weird way that was a person

who was in my head when I wrote the

pilot. So it made it very simple.

Cool.

More interesting was um Sandra O being

Christina Yang and Shandra Wilson being

Dr. Bailey because neither one of them

had anything to do with what I pictured.

um

really at all. And so to have Sandra O

inhabit the character of Christina Yang

completely changed what I had thought

that character was going to be in every

way, shape or form in the best way

possible. And she really did bring the

other half of that character to that

character. I mean

I always say like the character was like

an uninflated balloon until she came in.

And Shandra Wilson, that character was

the only character in the script, I

don't know if it's still in there, but

you can see it. who had a a description

that involved how she looked. Um, she

was blonde with curly hair and like she

looked like a sort of a cherub and

completely different Shandra Wilson who

came in and just killed it and had a

very different attitude. I thought there

was sort of a perky evilness to the

character and Shandra Wilson brought

like an exhausted anger to the character

that was kind of nononsense and lovely

and so that character became a very

different character. Suddenly, I

remember big like she collects Hmel

figures and she, you know, when we sort

of got to the episodes where we talk

about her being um called Mandy and

wearing cornrows and being a mumbler who

wears glasses and you start to see who

she was when she was younger, you begin

to understand that that character really

was built on the stuff that Shandra

brought, which was really interesting.

The hospital is in Seattle and I was

just curious if you put a lot of thought

into the setting or if it was just kind

of like you needed a big city or that

you picked.

Well, Seattle was interesting. We wanted

a big city. I'm from Chicago and so I

wanted it to be in Chicago, but

er was in Chicago. Chicago Hope was in

Chicago. Like everything was in Chicago

at that time. And so getting something

that was in Chicago was not going to

happen. Everyone was like every hospital

is in Chicago. Um, New York felt too big

somehow and not replicatable.

Replicable.

Yeah.

Replicable. Not replicable in Los

Angeles. Um, and Seattle felt fresh to

me.

It also, when I really thought about it,

New York felt wrong, Boston felt wrong.

Seattle felt like a city that I hadn't

seen on television a lot. And it felt

young and it felt new. And given now

thinking about the tech stuff that's

going on, it felt like, oh, you know,

like there's new stuff happening there.

Business is moving there, things are

going on up there. And so it was kind of

fun to think of that as a place where we

could do something.

And it turned out to be perfect

because it did allow for this ferryboat

obsession that I began to have when we

made the pilot. Um, but this idea that

there are woods and there's a city and

it was beautiful and it had every

element that we kind of needed to make a

place feel particular and special and

grounded in place. The one thing I was I

wanted to talk about which I thought was

interesting to note when you're making a

pilot is you really do need to think

about setting. And I don't mean setting

in terms of location, what city, and

being in Seattle or anything like that,

but setting. You know, when we opened

the Pilot of Grays, we're in Meredith's

home, her mother's home. And one of the

reasons why I set that there, you know,

there was there were a lot of drafts of

the pilot in which she was in a hotel

room.

Um, she's in a hotel room forever. And

then it became really clear to me that I

needed to do something different because

I needed to ground her in who she is.

setting that scene and setting all of

that in her house um began to be about

setting it in her like in in the burden

of who she is, of where she comes from,

of her mother's memories, of all of that

stuff. I I don't know if you if you

watch the pilot really carefully, there

are post-it notes everywhere that her

mother is kind of stuck to remember who

she is.

There's little things like that. And

that placement really began to be about

who this character was, the O. So you go

from there to, you know, the city to the

O so that you're really paying attention

to what the show is about as opposed to,

you know, sometimes people write pilots

and it takes them forever. It would take

them forever to get to the O or forever

to get to something that seems or looks

like where our character um should be or

who our character is. You have to think

about your first 10 pages being all

about who is my character? How do I

reveal my character as best as I

possibly can? And using place is a great

way to do it.

That's all.

I love that. Thank you.

So, we're talking about the um script of

Scandal, the pilot script of Scandal.

And one of the things I always think is

helpful for anybody who's thinking about

writing a pilot script is to take a

pilot that you know well, um, for me it

was the Westwing script,

uh, and break it down and figure out

sort of what the beats of it were and

just examine it and sort of you sort of

dissect it. So then you can understand

how it was made in a lot of ways, how it

was put together. And it's something

that it's sort of reverse unwriting a

script in a weird way. And it helps you

when you're trying to figure out how to

write your own script because then you

can sort of see why things happened the

way they did and how something was

built. It's almost like taking a house

apart piece by piece to see how they put

it together. Um, and so I thought we

would do that with the scandal pilot

because I thought that would make for a

nice example of how things are done

because I know how it was done.

Um, so looking at it, you know,

interestingly enough, if you look at the

we have a board here and I think using a

board is always the best way to do this

because it's a nice big visual and it

helps you. So we divide it into five

sections and each section represents an

act of the script by acts and you sort

of write each one of your beats sort of

going down. Who's going to write on the

board?

I do.

Perfect. Let's do it.

We only really have this story really

only has it has three story lines, I

suppose.

So, we'll give three each of the story

lines a color. Okay.

Does anybody Does anybody know what the

three story lines are? But really, do

you when you look at it, what what do

you think the three story lines really

are? The threads of the stories are.

Well, I think there's the story line

with Amanda,

um, finding out about Amanda, which then

leads into the story line and the reveal

of Olivia's relationship with the

president.

That's one.

That's one.

And then I would say the other one is

probably the Sully, the Captain Sully

storyline, which is Olivia and her team

investigating or rather trying to handle

his issue um, as far as what happened

with his crime that was committed.

Yes. And I feel like more of a sea story

would be Stephen proposing to Georgia.

Yeah. I really always say the sea story

is is life at the shop in a weird way.

Um which is sort of Quinn's entry into

the world, how Quinn feels about the

world, the Steven stuff, the fact that

Abby sort of has feelings for him, those

small beats.

So those are exactly right.

So let's give each one a color. You can

choose whichever color makes you happy.

Oh, perfect. Um,

interestingly enough, act one only has

three scenes in it. Really, if you look

at, if you think about the scene that

takes place inside Olivia Pope and

Associates, which we call OPA, um, it's

just sort of one big flowing scene. The

camera never stops moving.

Okay. So, looking at this, you know, you

have the opening scene, which I feel

like, oddly enough, while you're meeting

Harrison and Quinn is the introduction

of Olivia Pope.

Yes.

Uh, and it's, you know, Harrison and

Quinn are sitting there talking about

this mythic figure, Olivia Pope. And so,

that's that's the first beat. You know,

Harrison and Quinn discuss Olivia Pope.

So then was Quinn a character you

created when you realized you really

needed someone new or was she always a

character in your mind and you chose her

to be a newcomer?

Quinn was not always a character I had.

Quinn became vitally important when I

decided I needed somebody to be our way

into the world. She was interestingly

enough you know Quinn is the audience

and if you watch the pilot or you're

reading the script you realize that

she's asking a ton of questions.

Yeah. And it's funny, I, you know, I

rewatched it this morning because I was

like, I want to be able to explain this

perfectly, but re-watching it, I mean,

she truly is leading you on, you know,

through a journey by asking like,

you don't have clients. Yeah.

Does anybody go home? Does anyone have a

personal life? You don't solve cases,

you know, like sort of the way she asks

all the questions

is very clear. Is Olivia a good guy or a

bad guy?

Why does she have me here? All the

questions she asks really affect the

audience and make us understand who who

Olivia is, who Quinn is, who the world

is, what the world is.

It helps.

Totally.

When you introduce a character this way,

because honestly, the best way to meet

somebody is in action.

You know, usually you'd meet somebody

and they'd be, you know, jumping off the

side of a building or whatever it is

they do and it has to be sort of a big

entrance. But when you do this, when you

make somebody seem larger than life by

having everybody talk about them, when

they show up, they better be amazing. So

you have to see them doing something

that feels really big.

Next scene you see is Olivia Pope. You

meet Olivia Pope, you see her in person,

and you see her in action,

which is in red, too.

Now, seeing her in action, you see that

she's in the middle of sort of dealing

with this big situation.

So, you know, looking at meeting Olivia

Pope, you're in that elevator. you get

this great dynamic between she and

Stephen. One of the things I love about

um the way the pilot lays out and one of

the things I feel like I learned to do

was to because it's a workplace drama

and because you have so much that you

have to get out at the same time is I

always try to interlace something

personal the stuff the information you

need to know I want it to happen at

work. So if you notice Olivia is talking

about you know his personal life. Why

haven't you proposed? What's going on

with your girlfriend? why, you know, why

are you scared to ask her to marry you?

While at the same time, Steven's talking

about the fact that they're $3 million

short and they're going to get killed

and why isn't she paying attention to

that? It's a great way of sort of

getting all the personal information out

and having these sort of side

conversations that need to be had while

also, you know, forwarding the work

story. It tells you a lot, too. It tells

you that she is calm, cool, and

collected. He is scared. She's in

charge. He is not. And it gives you a

sense of power. Who has power and who

doesn't? And I think those things are

very important when you're first meeting

a character. You needed you need a way

to establish who's the more powerful

person in the room, how they are sort of

perceived by everyone um and what their

mindset is and attitude. It really does

help you sort of understand who they are

a little bit. You don't know anything

about her right now. In the first scene,

all you've heard is you're going to love

working for Olivia Pope. She's mythic

and amazing. And now she cares about her

friend getting engaged. and she's very

cool about the fact that they're $3

million short. Then she goes into that

room with those, you know, two guys,

Vlad and Oscar, and she sort of explains

to them why they're going to give her

this box even though it's $3 million

short. And she's very calm about that.

She threatens them in a way that feels

very um smart because she's clearly used

her connections to do something. Picks

up the box and they go. It's really

simple. The first version of that scene

I wrote, um, Vlad and Oscar were holding

guns on them or on one another and she

sort of talks them through it and sort

of diffuses the situation.

I think I liked the second version much

better simply because it became about

Olivia's negotiation skills and about

her ability to um, sort of use her

connections to solve a problem. And it's

very, you know, she's short, sweet, she

walks in, she goes.

Yeah.

So that's sort of our second scene. You

meet Olivia Pope. immediately pope in

action and I sort of take the elevator

and the the sort of warehouse room and I

put them sort of as like subsets of that

because it's kind of one thing.

And what was the decision to make like

Oscar and Glad or Vlad? It's a very one

closeended situation. Um, and what was

the decision decision to do that instead

of like, you know, bringing in the sole

story there and introducing Olivia with

the main

interesting

case? Um because I knew that the main

case was going to be fairly serious.

I wanted something that we could have

fun with in the beginning. You know, you

can't really have fun with Sully in the

beginning. It's

it's a really serious case. He's a guy

who's been accused of murder and you

want to love him and you want to have

compassion for him. You couldn't sort of

mock him in the beginning and I wanted a

case that felt lighter.

It also tells the audience that we're

going to have light, fun cases down the

line. You're seeing a serious story, but

they're not all going to be serious. M.

So, it gives a sense of there will be

different tones,

which I thought was important as well.

And I didn't want to go super wacky, but

I did want people to know there's a

certain lightness to this that can

exist.

One of the things that you find out very

quickly is she solves cases. Like, she's

very

she does what she needs to do and she

does it swiftly. The other moment that I

like is when we get to the next scene

when you see her and she sort of you

discover there's a baby in the box and

she hands the baby back and she says,

"Don't let the FBI know."

You understand that she works under the

radar.

It's one of those things.

So then we go to you sort of meet the

gang, the introduction into the world.

Mhm.

So now Oliv um Quinn and Harrison are

walking into OPA and there's sort of

that long walk down that hallway and

Harrison basically makes it clear that

he knows that he's a part of the gang.

He says she's going to tell you that

you're showing too much cleavage, you

know, but it's going to be okay. And she

walks into the room and the first thing

Olivia says is too much cleavage.

And I did that purposely because I

wanted it to be clear that like they're

very tightly mixed. They're they're a

team

and Quinn's the outsider.

So, you have that moment and then they

then Quinn makes the stumble of saying,

"I'm excited about working for the law

firm." And then they tell her what they

do.

Yeah.

Very simply, I think three lines.

Then the case is solved because they

give the baby back, which is one more

way in which they explain what they do.

I tried to come up with as many

short interesting ways to explain what

they do in that scene because you don't

have a lot of time.

Quinn asks all the right questions

and she is us in that world. And you

have to think about it like that. You

have to think if I were entering that

world for the first time, what would I

want to know?

And even if you're not using a character

to do that, you should be thinking that

for your audience.

Where is my audience now? What are they

thinking? What are they feeling? What do

they need to know in order to understand

what's going on? It doesn't have to be

everything explained all at once, but in

order to understand what's going on,

what do they need to know?

And one of the things I think I'm proud

of the way it worked is they're sort of

having a light fun thing and she pops

she pulls a baby out of the box.

That is because I have a theory that you

have to have a baby in every pilot.

I'm not joking.

Um I I seriously have a theory that

babies are good for pilots. And I don't

know why, but every pilot that has a

baby in it always works. You just have

to watch pilots and you'll see there's

something about baby face in pilot that

that somehow works for America. I've yet

to figure it out. put in the baby.

The needle just ticks up.

But there's a joke that like we're

always like, "You got to have a baby.

Where's the baby?" And I was like,

"Well, fine. We'll find a way to put a

baby in the pilot."

Fun in there.

Put it in.

It's a joke, but it's true. I mean, it

go look at pilots.

So, everything, you know, comes through

and everything feels a little bit light

and a little bit fun and the world is

fast-paced and you have, you know, she

pulls a baby out of the box and you're

sort of like, these people are are kind

of crazy, but it feels a little bit fun.

And then a man walks through the door

covered in blood and he's limping and it

suddenly turns very very serious very

fast. Yeah.

And they all turn very serious very fast

and very professional very fast. And you

get a sense that as light and fun as

things can be, they know their job.

And there's this what I love is there's

a great moment when um Columbus Harrison

whips out his phone, takes a photo of

that guy, and then just says, "Welcome

to Olivia Pope and Associates." But it's

the sort of the whipping out the phone

and taking the photo which that act sort

of makes you understand that they know

their job.

And that's the end of act one. It's very

simple. So case is solved and then the

entrance of the real case.

Things get serious.

We've got incoming. It's after hours.

Take a message. We're going home.

Not on the phone. Here. You want to talk

to him?

You have to help me. Somebody has to

help me. Please. My girlfriend.

She's dead.

Please think I killed her.

Welcome to Olivia Pulp and Associates.

Now, what I always do with these beats

when you're making, you know, when

you're putting things on the board and

and making this happen is I take these

these moments and I um use them to then

build and decide what my scenes are

going to be. You know, you sort of start

to build them out. You say, "So, the

entrance of the real case is coming.

Well, what does that mean? How is that

going to work?

How are we going to introduce that

character? What's the world going to

be?" But you know those are the things

that sort of need to happen in the first

act. You know that you need to have like

a mythic like I knew I wanted to have a

mythic discussion of Olivia Pope. I need

wanted to meet Olivia Pope in action. I

needed to introduce the world and meet

the gang and see her solve something

quickly. And then I needed to introduce

the real case. And so that's just a very

clear line of what needs to happen in

act one.

Why did you choose not to introduce the

White House storyline in act one since

it seems like it's a big part of

Olivia's character? Um, the reason I

decided not to introduce Well, there's

one thing. There's a tiny tiny mention

of the White House in the moment when

Quinn is standing there with the gang of

people. She says, you know, I'm a fan of

yours since you were at the White House

or something like that and it's one tiny

mention

and it's purposeful.

I really didn't want this to feel like

it was a story about that. and you you

want to feel like you're in the you're

outside of that world so that when it

starts to creep in, you sort of are

intrigued and then it becomes really

really invasive.

By the end, you're like, "Oh, it's going

to be a fullscale war with the White

House

and that's awesome, but you don't want

that to be the only thing."

Yeah.

I also wanted people to want to watch it

because they wanted to watch it, not

because we were going to tell a White

House story,

right? And and calculatedly at the time,

no, like I said, nobody was looking for

political stories and they really there

was an I a feeling that having a

political show wasn't going to work.

And I thought, well, we'll sneak it in.

act two. Now we have basically the

presentation of the facts.

And by that I mean that's and that's

Sully, but it's also intermingled with

the

the definition of how the world works at

the same time because every single time

we talk about Sully, we also then have

Quinn asking questions that tell us more

about how the world works.

And in presenting all the facts, you see

how the world works, you know, and I,

you know, those scenes are, you know,

Abby tells us, you realize that Abby is

a person who gives you the facts. She

has opinions about people that aren't

necessarily, you know, things that

you're supposed to say.

And then Olivia starts to explain to

Quinn what they do

at the same time by saying like, "We

listen, we talk, we make a decision."

Like, she literally explains how this

goes down by explaining it to Quinn

and they vote and you realize that the

vote doesn't really matter because

Olivia once again establishes the fact

that she's in charge.

Um, they take his phone. All of those

things happen.

They get the war room. all all those

things happen.

Then they go out on their investigation.

Um in the film version of the pilot,

they um you see Olivia go first to David

Rosen's house and then you see Abby go

to the cop's house, but in the script I

did it the other way around and I can't

remember why and I don't remember why it

worked better when I was editing, but it

just happened that way. You then you see

them out on the investigative road, I

would say.

And that's that's still in a weird way

it's still part of how it works, but

it's it it's a little bit larger than

that. So, you know, you see Abby at work

doing what she does,

you know, out investigating. You see

Olivia out doing what she does, and we

introduce a character, the a state is he

the he's a district attorney at that

point.

Was it hard to find distinct roles for

each of the characters to fill within an

investigation?

No. What was interesting was it made it

possible for me to decide what I needed

in the show.

So, I knew I needed an investigator. I

knew I needed somebody who could be an

actual lawyer in court if we needed it.

Um, Harrison was sort of our flashy guy.

Steven was kind of her partner, like

they were going to be partners in crime.

They went out together. He might be the

kind of the muscle if they needed it,

but not really.

Um, and Huck was that guy who hacked and

put things together and carried, you

know, fixed the guns and all of that

stuff. So, everyone had a role except

for Quinn, who we made get coffee for an

entire year, which was purposeful as

well. Um, so out of the investigative

road, you know, we go see David Rosen,

we go see the body. You're still

learning more about the case. David

Rosen was not supposed to be a series

regular. He was once again just a a

character to fill out our world and make

us understand what was going on. But he

also was in fact our villain. He wants

to put Sully in jail. But once again,

you really establish the respect that he

has for Olivia. So you can tell that

they're even though they're

at odds,

you get that relationship real fast.

You understand that he's the, you know,

that he's an adversary, but he considers

her a worthy adversary. Yeah.

And that they um because they spar back

and forth, you understand they have a

history. Mhm.

One of my pet peeves when I'm reading

people's scripts is they have people who

clearly have known each other forever

speak about things as if they're just

speaking about them for the first time.

Yeah. You know, a couple who clearly

spent the entire night sleeping next to

one another will then get up and the

first time you see them for that day,

they'll be talking about something as if

they hadn't been talking about it all

night or all morning

or for 20 years

or for 20 years. Right? You want to feel

like if somebody knows somebody, you

want to feel their familiarity in the

way they speak and relate to one

another. So, you know, here I wanted to

establish the fact that he's sick of

her. You know, they've been doing this

forever and he's sick of it. And it

helps.

Do you have any dialogue tricks that you

kind of use to that end?

I don't, but I I think it's about

thinking about how you talk to people

that you've known forever. Don't provide

me with exposition that you wouldn't

provide a person you already know with,

right? And you have to think about how

am I going to get this information out

without um sounding like I'm announcing

a fact that's completely new to someone.

You already know them. They already know

you. And if you sometimes I think it's

best to almost pretend you're coming in

on the middle of a conversation.

It's helpful.

Yeah, makes sense.

Uh so after we meet our villain, then we

come back to OPA. No. Well, there's a

little coming back to OPA, but we also

see out on the investigative road, you

know, it's Abby, it's it's Liv, it's

Steven going to see um the coroner. Once

again, you get a little personal

information in. He's he lies and says

he's getting married even though we all

know he's not. You understand that he's

a little bit of a [ __ ] It's kind of

great. Um and then we're we're still

going back and seeing Quinn and Harrison

at OPA. She's continuing to ask

questions and telling us how our world

works, right? You guys don't try cases.

You don't go to court. all those things.

And it goes on, I want to say like

almost the entire act. Finally, they get

to the end of that investigative part.

And when they get to the end of that

investigative part, they stand there and

they stare at the board and you feel

like you you realize a couple of things.

One, we've established how we build our

cases. We fill up the window with as

many pictures as possible. And that is

our case.

That's how we're going to look at our

cases every week.

That's our device. And that device

really is useful to us because it tells

the audience this is our, you know, this

is our world.

Yeah.

They stand there, they look at the

board, and Olivia says, "We need more."

And you understand that she still thinks

they think the guy is innocent. I mean,

guilty and she still thinks the guy is

innocent.

Then she gets the phone call and you're

not clear on why she's walking away and

leaving them to do work. But really,

we're introducing our B story.

Right. Mhm.

Question about the a case with solely.

How did you decide this was the best

case to showcase in the pilot? Like what

made it, you know, really show off what

OPA does?

I chose this case because a I thought a

murder was a very good way to go. For a

long time, it was a different kind of

murder.

I mean, I wasn't sure what we were going

to do in terms of what the murder was.

He was was he going to be guilty? Was it

going to be that he was innocent? I had

no idea how I was going to do it. In the

end, what I wanted was I wanted somebody

that we would love and that we would be

rooting for.

You know, I felt like

there's nothing more um especially at

that time period of time when we made

it. Don't Ask Don't Tell had just kind

of really ended and soldiers were still

not totally sure. Gay marriage hadn't

been made legal yet. All of those

things. And there was something about

this idea that you had served in a war,

that you were a hero, that you had all

these values that I don't I don't need

to agree with, but a lot of people do.

And he was this man who was holding on

to a secret. Like that felt very kind of

lovely. And also matched the idea that

he had a secret that he needn't be

ashamed of

matched Olivia Pope to me.

Yeah. So that helped.

Yeah. Also, the idea that, you know, he

was somebody who loved another person

who was killed and he didn't have

anything to do with it was great. It was

hard to get the studio and network to

understand that I was never going to

solve that crime

because that wasn't the issue, you know,

like that wasn't the issue. We're never

going to find out who killed Paige. And

we don't care who killed Paige.

It's very much like we don't care

necessarily whether or not the patient

lives or dies. We care about how our

doctors feel about how the patient lives

or dies when you're talking about grays,

right?

um we care about the person whose life

we're trying to fix, but once we really

get emotionally invested in Sully, you

don't you stop noticing that you're

worried about who killed Paige.

You just know he didn't and you're

relieved.

So that's really what happens. She says,

"We need more." Meaning the case in act

two, you leave it open-ended and saying,

"We don't have enough case."

She gets a call and we introduce our B

story.

So, let's switch Olivia Amanda Fitz to

green instead because we we made it we

already used our red and we like our red

where it was. So, while you do that, I'm

just going to explain using a you know

this moment when she goes to the park

and you're not sure who she's meeting or

why.

You realize she's standing in front of

the White House um and she's talking to

a guy and they never actually say who

they're talking about. Once again, it's

another way of introducing a mythic

character who we are talking about, but

you don't know who. And so, you're

wondering who they're talking about. You

can imagine, but you don't know. We're

once again introducing somebody we don't

see. And they do a lot of he he he, but

they don't say who he is. And it's not

until the very end in the last line, you

tell the president of the United States,

you know, what she wants. That scene

basically spins us off in a whole new

direction. It also tells us she's a

different kind of power player. And it

it makes you feel like on top of the

work that she does at OPA, she has a

different sort of secret level of work.

You didn't ask me here to talk about

Sully St. James.

He needs a favor.

I don't work for him anymore.

He trusts you.

I don't work for him anymore.

And yet you came when I called.

What?

There's a girl, an aid, going around

saying she's sleeping with him.

Is she

live? Clinton. Monica Lewinsky. John

Edward's real hunter. Is she?

No. You know him. He's not that guy. I

need you to shut her down.

I need to see him.

Li, that's not possible.

You want me to shut her down? Then I

need to look him in the eye and know

he's not lying.

He's not.

Look, the man's schedule is insane. He

has no time to see her.

He wants the favor. He wants my

services. I do not work for him anymore.

So, you tell the president of the United

States to make time.

the top of act three, Olivia is getting

ready to go to Camp David and she's in

her office and she's walking out and

Abby and Steven are asking her a million

questions and they're a little bit

jealous and it's clear that they weren't

part of her White House life and they're

not part of whatever story she's talking

about now. And you understand that she's

keeping a secret.

Whatever is happening and whatever she's

doing is going to be secret from them as

well. It's not part of OPA. And so she's

heading out. You can sort of get a

little glimpse once again as we're

putting two stories together that Abby

likes Steven, you know, from the look on

her face, which which was really

important. We did most of the Abby likes

Steven by the way Abby looked at Steven.

There's not a lot of conversation about

it.

And Steven's talking about whether or

not he should propose, whether or not he

should get married. That's pretty much

what's happening in that scene.

And she goes to Camp David. Regarding

the proposal with Stephen, um you

mentioned earlier that with Scandal, you

really didn't think about the

backgrounds of the characters because

you didn't feel like it was important.

So, what made you decide on that story

for Steven about proposing to his

girlfriend?

What was really important about Steven

proposing to his girlfriend? There were

two things. One, I was really interested

in Olivia having a work husband and no

one feeling like, oh, something romantic

is going to happen with them. That was

very important because for some reason

if you put a man and a woman in a story

together, everyone's like, they're going

to fall in love. And I was

I'm tired of that sort of cliche. And I

really wanted to see what happened when

two people were really truly friends.

Um, and I loved that friendship

together. So that was one. But two, more

importantly, I wanted to watch her make

somebody else have a normal, happy life

that she sort of felt she was never

going to have.

Yeah. The idea that she would pick out

an engagement ring and encourage him and

then go to the restaurant and say, "You

can do this. Get down on one knee and

propose." That whole thing and then

watch him propose and be happy when she

knew that that would never happen with

Fitz felt very important. It felt like a

great juxosition of of her dreams versus

her reality.

Yeah.

She could make she could fix anybody

else's life. She could make it happen

for anybody else, but she couldn't make

it happen for herself.

So, that was why. And I think it's

important when you're writing your your

pilot to try to think of those things

like how am I going to illustrate her

hopes and dreams without it being you

don't want to hear your character say I

wish that somebody would marry me. I

wish I could get an engagement ring and

I wish they'd get down on one knee. You

never want to hear that when somebody's

saying what they want directly speaking

everything they feel.

It gets sort of

boring and it feels it feels

heavy-handed. You want to find other

ways for it to happen without them

having to say it. The less your

characters can say, and the more you can

show, the better.

Then there's the scene where you see

Abby going to the museum

and talking to the girl about Paige, who

is the victim, trying to find out more

about her. So, another investigative

beat.

This beat was written for me at sort of

late when I, you know, I'd finished the

script, I think, and I'd realized that

there was something missing. I didn't

have a way of explaining why Abby knew

that Paige was a [ __ ]

which is what she comes in and screams.

Yeah.

I just it was she talks about it, but I

we didn't see it. And I thought it was

very important for us to see this beat.

It was also kind of cool that this is

the second time in the script that we've

seen Abby be a little bit of a strong

man. You know, like she when she's

walking up to take the photos of the

body,

um she sort of blackmails a little bit

the the

officer to get by. That's my favorite

scene.

Yeah. And then once again, it happens

here,

right? There's the scene and the poor

girl starts crying about her dead friend

and instead and you really do it's it's

surprising even when I'm watching it

this time after all these years to see

this moment where instead of comforting

her in any way, she just says, "You can

cry, but I'm still going to ask the

question."

It's great because you want to

underscore who the character is. And in

those two scenes, you know exactly who

Abby is

um in terms of how she works. And it's a

great balance between clearly the way

she feels about Stephen.

It keeps her from being soft as far as I

was concerned and it made her feel like

a much more three-dimensional complex

character to know that in her work

that's who she is.

Then we go to Camp David. Camp David is

great because and this is

um we meet we meet the love interest, we

meet the president, we basically meet

the B story big time in a lot of ways.

You know, we get to Camp David. We we

briefly meet the first lady, which

doesn't actually signify anything except

we understand that the first lady

doesn't know anything supposedly. She's,

you know, saying, "I'm going to fix you

up with somebody. I know you've been

perpetually single. It's very small."

Um, you understand that they had

problems cuz it's kind of mentioned by

Cyrus that, you know, it's not like it

was. They're so close. And everything

about that conversation that she has

with Fitz, everything that's said in

those two scenes, because there's one in

the house and one on the, you know,

walking down a road, every word I wanted

to be something that if you went back

and watched it again,

you would understand that Fitz and Liv

were having a very different

conversation than you thought they were

having the first time.

Yeah. The line is something like, you

know, I've only loved one woman before.

Yeah. Yeah. and and basically even when

he says um you should come back to the

White House, you know, we we couldn't we

can't do it without you. And she says,

you know, I've never left your side, you

know, one of those things.

Every single thing that's said is really

just about something else that Cyrus is

completely missing.

Um which is important.

How difficult was it to write that

scene? That had to be one of the hardest

ones, right? Because there's so much

subtext that you're trying to work into

that dialogue where you're trying to

have double meaning by almost every

single sentence. That was a really

difficult scene to write because in a

lot of ways I had to keep going back and

pulling things out, right? Because you

don't want to give it away. I really

didn't want to give it away. And um when

you're watching the pilot, you'll notice

there's a moment when we cut really

wide. And that's because the looks on

their faces tell everything, too. Like

it's really the dialogue was really hard

to make

to make clean.

And I think you you just don't want to

give anything away. Mhm.

And so I went back and I rewrote it

several times and a lot of it was me

just cutting pieces of dialogue out till

they're saying basically almost nothing.

Her name is Amanda Tanner. She's 27.

I've got rumors she might be talking.

And you can't fire her.

Not without a nightmare on our hands.

Look, as yet she hasn't gone to the

press. I'd like to put a stop to it

before she does.

It's not right. Makes me look like a

dirty old man. I have to ask.

No,

I never. I would never.

No. You've known me a long time. Longer

than most.

You know I did not fall for some young

girl. You know there's only one person I

love.

Millie and Fitz are happy together. Liv.

You'd have no reason to cheat.

I'll handle it. Consider it handled.

You should come back to the White House.

We need you on our side. I like working

for myself, but I've never left your

side.

The

band is back together.

In the Camp David scenes in the script,

I wrote all this stuff and I about

Olivia spilling coffee on herself.

You'll notice in my false start, I think

in every last one, Olivia spills coffee

on herself.

This I wrote because for some reason it

seemed very important to me as her a

character trait. Not because, you know,

you always see in romantic comedies how

the women are super clumsy and that

drove me nuts.

But because she was so perfect and

because I constantly, if there's

something to be spilled on myself, I

will spill it.

And it felt to me like I wanted her to

feel

like us.

Yeah.

And so I kept trying to figure out what

was going to make her feel like us. And

and at the time I had like gone through

an entire meeting with a coffee stain on

myself and I thought, well, that's what

she's going to do. And there's just no

way for Carrie Washington to spill, you

know, it just didn't mentally it never

worked for me. When I once I cast the

role, that woman did not spill coffee on

herself. And so it ended up coming out.

I also felt like once we got to the

image of her taking her blouse off and

putting her jacket on, it felt

gratuitous

once you've envision it really when it

was not sort of a practical thing

when a woman when especially when she

didn't seem like someone who would spill

coffee, it I so I just removed it. Mhm.

Okay. So,

she comes back from Camp David and

that's when our story turns on the a

case with Sully because Paige is a

[ __ ] Abby says

Giddily. Yeah. And in this act, I'm

really walking a fine line. It's a

balancing act. You don't want to get too

into one or two into the other because

the minute you introduce the White

House, you're intrigued and you want to

know what's going on, but you don't want

to lose your case.

You don't want to stop thinking about

the A case at all. It's really important

to keep the balance going.

And you're really starting to ramp up

the the B case a lot. So, we've met the

president, you know, Olivia's love

interest. We find out that Paige is a

[ __ ] And it's kind of a crazy scene

because Abby basically runs in, screams

pages of horror a couple of times, and

then runs back out again. But, it tells

you everything you need to know. And I

wanted that scene to be like that

because when people are presenting

investigative information, it can get

really sort of stale. You know, we've

all seen a million cop shows, a million

detective shows, a million lawyer shows

where people come in and they say these

very wrote things and you think like

once again we're hearing about something

and I wanted it to be

funny and I wanted it to make be

something that you remembered. So I we

wrote the scene in which she was just

giddy with excitement because she found

this information out. Do you also think

it helps with just showing like the

relationship between OPA like how like

into it they are like with the

investigative beat like you know like

it's not like delivered dryly like she's

excited to present this to the team and

it also shows more into her character.

There are things Yeah, I think there are

things that you can put in that make

thing that are really helpful in terms

of making your group seem like a group.

One of the things that I wrote into the

sec I think it's the second script that

I wrote into the second script was the

fact that and it's not discussed in

dialogue but they all share a stick of

deodorant in one scene.

Yeah, I totally remember that.

You know, and it's gross, but it's

awesome because they've clearly been

there for way too long and they're all

clearly stinky and so they're just

passing around a stick of deodorant and

putting it on. They all change their

clothes sort of in front of one another

because they need like fresh shirts and

things, but it doesn't feel mannered and

they never discuss it.

So, and I wrote a little bit of that in

stage direction so that there would be

just a little of it

to give them to give the actors some

business to then build on.

You don't want to give too much. I

always think it's important to not fill

your script with too much stage

direction so that the actors feel like

they're being forced to do something.

Right.

Frankly, I feel like it's important to

not tell the actors how to play

something as much as it is to tell us

what we're supposed to be seeing

visually in terms of location, um,

action and things like that. You don't

want to say, "She sits here, she stands

here, she does this here." And very

rarely do I say how something is

supposed to be said. Only if I'm

concerned that a reader will never

figure it out. Mhm.

And often times I go through and I

remove that stuff before we give it to

the cast.

I noticed in your dialogue actually to

that point um that a couple of times you

would um put put the line in all capital

letters. And um I noticed that two of

the actors interpreted that so

differently. One person yelled and then

one person just got really intense and

kind of quiet. And I love that you had

sort of you had written that in there as

if something happens with this line.

Right. Yeah. And I I sort of put in, you

know, this is what I intend hopefully.

And these actors honestly are amazing.

They play every comma. Yeah. Every

ellipses. I get a call, they're like, I

see there's an ellipses here now. And

it's it's wonderful because they're very

committed. If you're lucky enough to

have actors that are so committed, you

want to be really careful with your

dialogue. I try to be very precise with

my dialogue because they ask questions.

Yeah.

So, it's important.

So, the case turns. She says page is a

[ __ ] And then right at the end of the

scene, Olivia says, "Quinn, find out

every everything you can about Amanda

Tanner and then come with me." And

that's pretty much all she says. And

you're not quite sure what that means.

But then the next thing you know,

they're standing in a park and she's

sitting down next to a woman with a dog

and you realize it's Amanda Tanner.

And Olivia proceeds to to sort of

eviscerate this poor girl by telling her

that her life is over and she's going to

destroy her if she doesn't get out of

town.

And it's for me it was the scene that it

was a it was a very easy scene to write.

It was one of the first things that had

come to my mind when I thought about

this show um this idea of this. And I

remember you know speaking of research

asking Judy Smith a lot of questions

about this scene because Judy had a lot

of strong feelings about these kinds of

moments. But she talked about how you do

research and find out things about

people and what you do with the

information. And I wanted to know how

this would work. And she said, you know,

you you don't want to threaten anybody

and you don't want to do anything that

feels illegal and you don't, you know,

you you just don't want to do that and

you don't want to on behalf of your

client get your client in any kind of

trouble. You can't possibly behave in

that way. And so I wrote the scene very

carefully, you know, and I don't know if

Judy approved completely, but she I did

try to follow the rules that she gave me

of how you have a tough talk with a

client with with somebody who's sort of

bothering your client.

But it also tells you a lot about Olivia

because it means that Olivia can be like

surgically strike when necessary. She's

a person who can save a baby and isn't

that adorable? She can help a guy like

Sully who's you think is sweet and her

gut tells him she's innocent and oh poor

guy. and then she can destroy a poor

innocent girl on behalf of the most

powerful man on the in the free world.

So that was important.

Do you think it was important to have

things like saving the baby and the kind

of good side of Olivia before you have

this scene? Because I think in other

ways this scene could kind of maybe turn

us against Olivia if we hadn't already

gotten invested and liked her. Well, the

essence of the pilot now, once I decided

to insert Quinn, the essence of the

pilot, the journey you're actually on in

the pilot is Quinn's trying to figure

out is Olivia Oliv the Olivia Pope I

worship, is she great like I always

thought or is she a terrible person? Is

she good or is she bad? Is being a

gladiator in her suit worth it or not?

So, literally, she starts out thinking,

"This is the greatest thing that ever

happened to me." And then she's

questioning it and then she gets to this

point and she thinks, "My god, these are

terrible people."

Yeah. So that's the journey that we're

on. That's why Quinn is there witnessing

it.

And you have to really think about that

because to me Quinn's the audience

when she does that. The look on Quinn's

face is what should be the look on our

face.

Yeah.

And that helps us because it tells us

it's okay to think that.

Yeah.

If we didn't have anybody else there,

the audience is left to think, are we

supposed to like her now?

Right.

Yeah.

But Quinn tells us it's okay if we don't

like Olivia Pope right now.

Right.

She's our moral center. I'll give you

some free advice. Hand in your

resignation. Then pack up your dog and

your things. Get in your car and go.

Find a small city. Minneapolis maybe or

Denver. Get a little job. Meet a boring

boy. Make some friends. Because in this

town, your career is over. You're done.

Why are you doing this to me? I'm a good

person.

You know who else was a good person?

Monica Lewinsky. And she was telling the

truth, but she still got destroyed.

If you get subpoenaed in front of a

grand jury, you can testify as an

officer of the court that I was working

on my own. I didn't blackmail or

threaten her. If you don't get

subpoenaed, this never happened.

It's handled.

You know, the next thing we see is Quinn

in that bathroom crying, I think. Yeah.

Mhm.

And she questions it, right?

And it's really wonderful to have this

moment where Quinn is questioning,

how can Olivia be this person? Is she

really good?

Um, so Quinn cries in bathroom and Huck

basically

becomes the voice of reason.

It was brilliant. Actually, I when I

read it, I saw that you had originally

written it with Olivia, and I loved that

it changed to Huck because once again,

it gave

us an opportunity to hear about Olivia

in the third person. Yes.

Um rather than have her as a person

standing there saying, "You can't cry."

There was something very powerful about

hearing Huck say that and sort of speak

from his place.

What was important to me when I changed

it was, you know, when you have a

character tell you about themselves,

they are not reliable narrators. They

never are because we don't know them

well enough. But to have somebody come

from the outside and say, "Here's the

deal. Here's what I think." Especially

someone like Huck say, you know, we're

all stray dogs. This is how this works.

They're basically saying, he's saying,

she's as mythic to me as she is to you.

I'm as messed up by this as you are.

Like, deal with it.

But he's been there longer. So, he's

like a voice of experience.

And it allowed Olivia to stay this sort

of mythic figure.

Yeah. for to realize that that's who she

is for all of them.

Yeah.

Did you also want to use that spot

because obviously Quinn and Huck end up

having a very serious, you know,

relationship going forward. Was that in

your mind at the time when you were

doing that?

Absolutely not.

Oh, interesting.

I had no idea.

Fascinating.

And I think when the pilot aired, that's

the one thing we had to cut out. Like it

was a little bit long.

Yeah.

Um and I had to lose I think I had to

lose one scene and I think that's the

scene we lost and we put it in the DVD

and it's in all the you know, if you

watch it on streaming or anything, it's

always there.

Fascinating. But it wasn't in the

original pilot that aired on television.

Oh wow. Cuz it's such a powerful scene.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know. It was my favorite scene.

Um it was my favorite scene and it

killed me that it wasn't in the pilot

and it's really it was really important

to have it in the script as well because

for the reader, you really weren't sure

like where you were emotionally. So to

have Quinn question who she is at the in

the end of the script and the end of act

three, Quinn questions who she is at the

end of act three and then at the top of

act four she's questioning Olivia, her

place here and whether or not she wants

to even stay and Huck basically lays

down the law,

right?

You still don't know whether or not you

feel good about it, but for some reason

I feel like you feel comforted. Mhm.

That was my goal anyway to make sure

that you felt a little comforted by

this.

Um, then you go to Olivia, which I

really love. This is another scene I

really love. And this falls under the

Amanda Tanner storyline,

where you realize that Olivia is as

unsure of herself as Quinn is

because she picks up the she's watching

the president on television. She picks

up the phone and she calls him.

One of the things that was really

interesting was is I had a big problem

in the beginning which was he was the

leader of the free world and it is very

hard to get in touch with the leader of

the free world.

The president of the United States

didn't have a cell phone. He didn't

email. You can't just show up at the

White House. He's literally supposed to

be the leader of the free world. He's

the busiest man on the planet. How do

you get in touch with him? And so I

loved the idea that her connection to

him was limited to watching him on

television a lot of the time. Yeah.

And so I came up with this idea that she

would call him and say, you know, "Did

you buy her a dog?" And he says, "What?"

And she's and he says, "No." And she

says, "Turn your head a little to the

left so that she can look him dead in

the face on a television screen."

Which is one of my favorite things that

that I feel like really worked in terms

of being clear how removed you are from

the office of the president

um in that scene. and you know she has

to call Cyrus to get to him which means

there there are barriers

and those barriers will become even

greater you know as things progress

so there's the scene where you realize

that she's unsure of herself and then

feels reassured by him like I did the

right thing then you come in and you

find out that um Sully's the Sully story

is growing it's the same scene but in

the same scene we then switch to talk

about the Sully story

she hangs up the phone um Stephen comes

in and says The Sully story is growing.

Abby comes in and says that Sully knew

that Paige was a [ __ ] Basically, Sully

knew that Paige was sleeping with other

guys

and that the gun,

the fingerprints on the gun or the

bullets on the gun, whatever it is,

match Sully's Sully's hands. Yeah.

Uh so that was a problem. So then you

have this moment where they go and they

confront Sully.

This is the first time Olivia Pope has

decided Sully is guilty. And in a larger

way, this is the first time Olivia

Pope's gut is wrong. Like she just she's

she's she's flipped.

Yeah.

The person who's guil innocent is guilty

and the person who's guilty is innocent.

Did you purposefully put that kind of

near the um the scene with her looking

talking to the president on the phone to

try to like show that she's becoming

more unsure of herself? Well, they're in

the same scene on purpose because

she's been sort of poisoned in a in a

lot of ways

so that she gets off that call with the

president and she's already decided to

she's allowed herself to be reassured.

And so she's already living in this

world in which she believes the wrong

thing. And so when they come when they

come in and tell her this information,

she's already in that world of believing

the wrong thing. So she believes them,

walks in to see Sully and dis doesn't

believe him. Right.

So, it's already the he made her, you

know, distrust herself.

The world is already turned on its axis

in a different direction.

Olivia following her gut is such a large

part of her character. I was curious

when you decided that would be such a

like a main character trait for her. Was

it early on

that also that's that's another thing

that came from research. The idea that

Olivia Pope would follow her gut was

something that Judy Smith said to me

early on about how she did her job. Mhm.

those ideas, those things that you get

from those conversations. Judy Smith sat

there and talked forever about, you

know, what she did for a living and how

it worked. And one of the things she

said was, "You have to trust your gut.

Your gut will tell you everything you

need to know." That little piece of

information stuck with me forever. The

other piece that stuck with me, which

she says in here, is do not lie.

If you lie to me, I can't help you.

So those two things were the things that

I held on to. A lot of what Olivia says

in here about how you do your job, I got

directly out of Judy's mouth.

So, and then Judy, you know, helped is a

consultant on the show and would read

the scripts and go, "That's not how you

fix that. That's not how you'd fix

that." So, it was really helpful to hear

her voice in terms of research. It's

really important.

In act four, you know, Olivia talks to

Sully. We realize that she's mistrust

mistrusted herself twice now with the

president and with him.

Basically, then he kind of convinces her

with his very heartfelt statement of, "I

didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't

do it." And she says to her team, "Get

some more evidence."

Which means that Sully gets another

chance.

And that's sort of we're we're in a

great place because she's sort of

teetering on the edge of losing herself

entirely and not losing herself.

Then we have what I call the pause. And

for me in the script, this was always a

problematic area.

So, and I'm gonna tell you what I think

the pitfalls of this area are. There's

this long pause in the script where

Olivia then stops everything she's doing

to pull out some engagement rings and

give them to Stephen and tell him how he

has to pick one and propose and they've

made him a restaurant reservation with

his girlfriend and

and this must happen. And it's not this

is in the script. She'd pauses to tell

Abby that Stephen's not the man for her

and that he's useless and that she's

going to be fine without him and it's

all going to be lovely. It felt like in

the when you shot it, it sort of stopped

the show dead.

You're watching this moment happen and

you're going,

you know, you have to really be mindful

of those things because at this point

you're in act four. Things need to be

moving at a fairly quick pace because

your audience is really they're already

leaning forward. they already want to

know what's going to happen next.

Mhm.

So to sort of stop the show for a very

slow emotional moment when you have this

very fast-paced going is a problem,

right?

So what I ended up doing is I had Olivia

give um Stephen the rings and say pick

one and he does. And instead of Abby

having the conversation with Olivia and

instead of Olivia noticing how Abby

feels, we just see Aby's feelings from

as she looks in the window as they have

a conversation,

which in the end once again more

powerful. It was much more powerful to

see how Abby felt than to hear Abby

talking about Stephen in the first

place.

That was a lesson that I learned just

making this.

Then we have this time cut that happens.

And in that time cut, and it's a short

one. And it's a very slight thing.

Olivia goes through the lobby. You hear

arguing. Amanda Tanner is there. She's

demanding to see Olivia. She seems

somewhat hysterical. And it feels very

jarring purposely.

Um because you want to feel like out of

nowhere, here comes this girl. And she

has this sort of hysterical outburst.

Olivia tells her she can't possibly be

there. The girl screaming, "I'm not

lying. I'm not lying." Indirect um it

should feel like it's almost like the

Sully scene. Sully is saying, "I'm not

lying. I'm not lying." And she says,

"Maybe I believe him." Amanda says, "I'm

not lying. I'm not lying." She says,

"Get out of here."

Yeah.

The elevator doors closed on her. The

elevator doors open on the cops coming

to arrest Sully.

Mhm.

So, you want to feel like things are

starting to spit out of control. That

was another reason I had a problem with

putting my emotional scene there, which

I had no other place to put it.

Yeah.

Um, is because things are really

starting to heat up. The cops are

arriving and she's saying, "You can't

come in." And all these things and then

we stopped for a ring.

So she the the Amanda shows up, Olivia

kicks her out, the cops show up, Olivia

doesn't let them in.

Yep.

In act two when we meet our villain that

we we did something very important which

I forgot to mention

in act two when we meet our villain we

started our ticking clock.

He says this is how much time you have

to solve this problem or I'm going to

win. Basically

he wanted no time. She wanted 48 hours.

They negotiated and she got 24 hours,

which is how much time she has to find

something good for Sully or he's going

to be arrested.

So now when we hit um this moment when

the cops show up in act four and Olivia

won't let them in, he's basically saying

it's time. She's saying we have I think

she says we have two more hours and he

says, "Well, that's all the time you

have and then we're going to arrest

him."

And so the cops are basically standing

outside the door. She she's like,

"Stephen, we you know, we're running out

of time." So then you have Abby and

Steven's outside the bar where they're

going to check the alibi that Steven

said he, you know, that Sully was

supposed to have and they feel like they

don't have anything and then they

realize there are security cameras

up, you know, at the top. Then you have

this bribe moment which was me um where

they bribe the the guy who runs the

security cameras. I really tried to find

a way to make that interesting because

I've seen that a thousand times. So the

$500 in the pizza was basically just a

fast way to sort of enter that scene.

Harrison entering with a pizza at $500

saying I have $500 in a pizza versus

just let us see the videotape which is

then what's said anyway. But you want to

add just a little piece of humor or a

little piece of energy to a scene like

that

because when they're short like that you

you can't make them, you know, some long

scene.

But I also didn't want to make it

boring. And I love that you also have

Stephen say, "We have a ticking clock

here."

Yes.

Once again,

once again, I like to say the words,

"This is a ticking clock."

Um, Olivia also says, "Call get Abby on

the phone. Tell her we've been invaded.

Tell her time is up."

So,

it's it's very important for people to

get a sense of urgency about what's

happening. And I think a lot of times

people don't want to insert that sense

of urgency. And I'm not sure why they

have a hesitancy to do so, but it's

important for the audience to feel like

they're understanding the journey you're

on, sometimes they don't even understand

that, oh wait, we're in a moment in

which time is up.

There's a there's a point to be made

that whenever you're writing an episode

of television and there are any factors

that need to be understood, the medicine

is terrible. The patient might die if we

don't blank. You have to explain it in a

very simple fashion. Explain I always

say like explain it to me like I've

never heard of whatever it is we're

talking about before. And if you can't

do that, then you shouldn't be doing it.

And it's not that you have to dumb

things down for the audience. The

audience isn't stupid. They're happy to

learn. But you have to remember that

you're throwing a ton of information at

them and you have to in one sentence

tell them what's happening.

So that they're with you. You don't have

a lot of time.

It's not a movie.

So then they have this moment and then

they come back basically with their

answer.

Yeah.

So, the end of act four is

case solved.

Well, Sully's alibi solved,

but not one.

And do you typically try to do that in

each episode at the end of act four?

There's sort of a resolution for us as

the audience. Um, what the what Olivia

was out to accomplish, even though it

might not end until act five.

Interestingly enough, no. Usually what

what tries I try to do is to have and

this is what this really is is all seems

lost.

Uhhuh.

You know, case solved, but alibi solved,

case not one is all seems lost.

Because they know for sure, they

definitely know that he is innocent.

Yeah.

You know, we absolutely know that this

man is innocent and yet they have no way

of helping him

and he is he'd rather go to jail than

tell the truth. Yeah.

So all is lost. So you could we call it

the all is lost moment, but that's for

me what that really is.

Yeah.

Sullivan St. James, you have the right

to remain silent. Anything you say can

and will be used against you in a court

of law. You have the right to an

attorney. If you cannot afford one, one

will be provided to you by

Hey, you seen Olivia?

Sy was just arrested. Olivia went to the

police station.

Oh,

what's up? I'm on my way there.

I got a strange call from some girl

named Amanda Tanner.

What about her?

She's in the hospital. She tried to kill

herself.

So, you know, in act three, we sort of

have filled out our stories in emotional

and um investigative ways. In act four,

it's really about growing our characters

emotionally and then heating up the

investigations and ending sort of in an

all is lost moment. You know, he hating

up or taking clock or all is lost

moment. Act five, the Sully's alibi is

solved, but the case is not one, which

is an all is lost moment. And then to

top off that all is lost moment, um

Quinn is on her way to the police

station and Huck comes in and says

Amanda Tanner tried to kill herself.

So, another thing is all is lost. Things

have gotten worse on every front.

And you have to think about how those

things can get worse. They need to be

able to affect your main character,

but they also need to be sort of

effective emotionally because so Sully

turning himself in makes you love him

even more. It's an emotional moment.

Yeah.

You know, he, you know, stands up and he

says, "I'm a hero." and he walks down

the hall and he turns around and he puts

his hands in the cuffs and you think,

"Oh, this poor man. He cannot figure out

how to be himself."

You know, how can we help him? And then

when you find an Amanda Tanner tried to

kill herself, you're thinking, "Oh my

god, this is terrible. She must be

telling the truth or it's really going

to hurt the president or Olivia Pope's

got work to do." Whatever it is, you

think that turns the story in a

different direction. Those moments have

to not be just

and it's over. You know it, you know,

the all is lost moment has to fe make

you feel like there's a little bit of a

twist

We're in act five. They're in the police

station. They have no no idea what

they're going to do about Sully, but

basically they decide, let's try to keep

the press at bay, you know? So, it's

sort of a it's sort of a holding pattern

beat, as I like to call it because you

you have to keep the story alive, but

you don't really have anything to do.

Like you you can't leave that all is

lost moment and then not come back to it

until Olivia has her moment. You have to

say here's what happens when somebody

gets arrested

and you have to remember that you have

to say those things mainly because you

have to think logically what would

happen next. They take him to the police

station. They'd be worried about the

press and then Olivia gets the page that

basically says that Amanda Tanner tried

to kill herself. So the next time you

see her, Olivia's at the hospital

talking to Quinn and you don't question

why Quinn's at the hospital. You don't

question any of those things. So then

Olivia and Quinn are at the hospital and

Quinn is trying to convince Olivia that

she believes Amanda Tanner. And Quinn

says the most important thing, which is

that I trust my gut. And my gut says

she's telling the truth.

Which is what Olivia which is what makes

Olivia stop and say, "Why do you trust

your gut?" Mhm.

And I love that because now we've

watched Quinn learn from Olivia

all the way through.

Moments like that, those call back

moments, that's what I like to call

them, call back moments, are really key

because they really make the story feel

like they have a a full circle quality

to them.

I like that you also learned something

about Olivia there as well, that for as

much as she trusts her gut, she's really

willing to listen to people when they

trust theirs.

Yes. Yes. She trusts me. It also sort of

says like you trust the idea of trusting

your gut so much that if somebody else

says that they trust theirs, you'll

listen,

right?

Which I think is important. And then

basically

this was fascinating to me. I kept for

some reason I don't know why the phrase

sweet baby was the phrase, but it was

cuz nobody would I can't really imagine

calling someone sweet baby. It sounds

like a really weird thing to call

somebody. It sounds a little creepy. But

some for some reason at the time it

worked perfectly in my head. Like the

music of it worked perfectly in my head.

And so I introduced this phrase in this

scene and there's no relationship

anywhere else in the show. It hasn't

ever been said before. We've never used

it before. It's not one of those moments

where you hear it and we all go, "Oh."

But she hears it and goes, "Oh." So

we're now referring to a moment that's

happened way before the show has ever

started.

And that's a that's kind of a a gamble.

Like you're not I wasn't 100% sure the

audience was going to go with us on that

because they don't know what we're

talking about. But he she says it and it

stops Olivia enough to make Olivia stop

and just walk away.

Yeah.

And the next time you see her, she's

standing in the Oval Office.

What's really good is that after that,

it's basically Olivia becomes um a

little unhinged.

So the story starts, you know, story

starts to unravel fairly rapidly because

now everything else that you see is

basically the truth and it's all kind of

about Olivia.

Yeah.

In a weird way. So we have that moment

and then Olivia goes to the Oval Office

and the truth about the president is

revealed and Olivia's truth is revealed.

Mhm.

One of the things that we did in that

scene that I thought was important to

setting up a world and making a world

very clear was the moment when Fitz

points upwards

and they look up and there's the cameras

above them.

That was just about

making you understand the idea of the

lack of privacy involved with being the

president and the idea that they're

always being watched

and the secrets and the scandal aspect

of everything.

You wanted to feel like that. And so I

wrote that in on purpose. Mhm.

So then you get this idea about that and

then they're discovered by by um Cyrus.

So then their secret is now out a little

bit more. It feels odd now knowing what

I know

um what we all know. But the idea for

Olivia that because Fitz didn't tell

Cyrus,

the relationship couldn't possibly have

been very important to him

is a big moment in this episode because

it's what fuels her rage,

you know. So Olivia leaves there sort of

enraged. The affair happened with Amanda

Tanner. He didn't care enough about her

to even say anything to Cyrus.

Meaning she was just another girl.

I just want to say that we can hear you

screaming.

Mr. President,

you want to go clean up?

Sorry.

You have lipstick on your mouth. You

need to clean up.

Mother of God.

You didn't know.

He tells you everything.

Didn't tell me this

because it didn't matter enough.

I have to go.

And it's also the moment that a lot of

things come come back for us. You know,

she says, "Did you give her that dog

again?" But she realized that for her

that's the ultimate affront. She starts

talking about sweet baby which is

clearly you begin to understand that's

something that he must have said to her.

Um she says that girl tried to kill

herself. I believed you. I trusted my

gut. Like you realize that a lot of this

was built on the stuff that he'd said to

her and that that that's what's going

on.

Was there any worry about making the

president

more likable since we over the course of

the episode we discover he's committed

two affairs on his wife? But we want to

root for Fritz and Olivia it almost

feels like. So is there any question

about

making him giving him something really

redeemable?

What makes you think that you want to

root for Fitz and Olivia?

Because you want Olivia to be happy and

it seems like to be happy she wants to

be with Fitz. And we can all see that

seems like a bad situation

but it seems like that's what she wants.

And she also says you're a good man. She

tells him that he's a good man and you

want to believe that.

She says, "I wanted you to be a better

man."

Yeah.

Um I think that and this was really this

is a very interesting discussion because

I've had this discussion a lot.

Um and I this might be the perfect place

to sort of explain. It's really

important to me when you're watching the

show that you fall in love with the

terrible man that Olivia falls in love

with. You go on the love affair journey

that she does

so that you fall into the same pit that

she falls into

and then you are pulled out of the same

pit that she has pulled out of. You

know, people say, "Why make us fall in

love with Fitz and then make us hate

him?" Because that's what happens to

her.

In this episode, I don't think that

there's a single thing in here that's

makes him irredeemable. He seems to love

her dearly.

Um, he never says, "I had of an affair

with Amanda Tanner." He never says

anything. Actually, if you notice, he

literally never says anything about it

in that scene.

All he does is kiss her. And in the

middle scene, he basically says,

"There's only one woman I love." So, he

hasn't done anything. He's literally a

blank slate that every woman fills. And

I've noticed this fills with their own

expectations.

Yeah.

And it's fascinating to watch because

people tell me all kinds of different

things about that character.

I can't decide if that's just, oh, I'm

such a great writer or the magic of Tony

Goldwin. And I'm pretty sure a lot of

it's the magic of Tony Gold.

It seems like throughout the pilot, you

know, you've set up Olivia as like

almost like superhuman, like she's the

hero without any like flaws whatsoever,

and then you introduce this flaw and

it's not like tiny. It's like a big big

thing.

So, I'm just wondering, can you talk a

little bit more about like did you

receive like any kind of like push back

on this or like is it is it I just don't

know. Like it's so great and so huge. I

can only imagine like trying to like

push that through the barriers, you

know.

Well, it's interesting. I one I think

it's not necessarily that she I mean she

does seem super human and part of why

she seems super human is because she has

this big issue. So because of that she

is now cold. Like I'm always like Olivia

is dead inside because of that. Like

she's holding herself together as best

she can. Um, truly, you know, she's

doing her best to sort of remain,

I don't know, nonemotional because she

it's like if she felt it, it would all

explode.

When I wrote the pilot, um, one of the

first notes I received, and I can say

this because

nobody who was there before is there

now, except for the wonderful president

of the network, who actually was the one

person who was like, "This is the best."

Um, when I wrote the pilot, the first

note I got, the first phone call I got

said, "Can Olivia not be having an

affair with the president? Like, can she

just be very disappointed in him because

they are friends?" And I remember like

putting down the phone and like laughing

for like a full minute cuz I thought,

"But that's the show for me. That was

the show." and picking the phone back up

and sort of saying, and I guess I can

say this because it's not a we're not in

a family room, but saying Olivia is

gonna have sex with the president on the

Oval Office desk at some point this

season, and if we don't do that, then I

don't have a show. Like, I don't know

how to write the show unless that's

going to happen. That's the moment I'm

writing towards as far as I'm concerned.

And they were sort of appalled and

unsure if that was going to work. And I

get it because we all hold the office of

the presidency to be a certain thing.

And at the time, you know, we had this

amazing president in office and it all

felt very

I don't know. I think it felt very scary

to suggest something like this.

I felt like it felt very true. I also

knew that because I knew where I wanted

to take him in that first season, you

were going to be rooting for them at a

certain point. And while you may not

have been rooting for them now, and

while a lot of people might have their

own feelings about her, I I really feel

like this idea that a woman had to be

perfect would was a problem. Like the

idea that she could be somebody that you

absolutely loved who was also having an

affair felt interesting to me. And we

did get push back. I mean, a lot of

people said like, "This is a woman who's

who's stealing someone's husband. This

is a mistress. This is a you know, why

are we liking her?" And I would say

because she's a human being, you know,

everybody has value. And to me that was

interesting.

I remember Tony saying to me when he got

the script, this character is so complex

and there's so much there in so little.

You know, there's not that much of him

in this, but there's so much there.

For me, there's something great about

the fact that he lies to her because it

tells you what to me what happened after

she left. In a lot of ways, it allowed

him to fill in the blanks anyway of what

happened after she left because they had

this great love. It was obviously very

important. And to me, the most telling

thing he says is, "You left me."

And she says, "Because I wanted you to

be a better man. Because I wanted you to

be blah blah blah." Not because you said

you wanted to be a better man. Because

you said any of these things, but

because I wanted these things for you.

So what he did after she left is his own

business, I think. And when you call in

a fixer to fix something, you don't say,

"Yeah, I did it." It also goes to the

aspect that Olivia says to Sully, which

is, "Do not lie."

And that's the first thing Fitz does is

lie.

And she says, "If I lie, if you lie, I

can't help you."

And that in the end of the episode, she

says, "Amanda Tanner just became my

client." So, it's all tied together in

that very clean way.

Yeah.

So, we have this moment where Livby goes

to the Oval Office. we have this moment

where you've realized that the president

has in fact lied to her and you know

technically he was a client. So this

client has lied. So now one we've

revealed her affair. We've revealed her

secret. Her secret's been found out. The

president has lied to her and she's

incredibly hurt when she leaves. We

leave that moment and right before it

happens, you know, right when she's

standing in the Oval Office, she's

clearly upset. Before we know what she's

upset about, she gets a phone call and

it's Steven. And you don't know what he

needs, but you hear her sort of saying,

"I'll be there. I'll take I'll take care

of you." Basically,

coming off of this incredibly emotional,

painful moment, she arrives in a

restaurant and stands in a coat check

room and basically holds her best

friend's hand and convinces him and

tells him and encourages him to go ahead

and propose to his girlfriend.

And what's really sweet is that she is

able to take any personal issues that

she has and shove them all down and give

somebody else what they need and fix

their problem in spite of whatever's

going on with her. And as I said before,

you know, we use Steven's ability to

propose to his girlfriend even though

he's afraid to be sort of the the life

that Olivia is never going to have. You

know, the get some normal of it all is

about that. and and the idea, you know,

Stephen keeps saying, "I'm not a good

guy." And Quinn is keeps questioning,

"Are we the good guys? Are the bad

guys?" You know, is that what's going

on? You know, what are we?

Then you have the scene where um Olivia

goes straight to see Sully in prison and

she sits down next to him and she

basically says the thing that we all

understand to be true, which is that who

you love doesn't have to be a secret.

That's the key line of the whole scene.

and you think that she hasn't made her,

you know, made it through to him and she

has.

For me, that scene is the scene that all

that needs to happen in almost every

episode.

That's where your A story, your personal

story and your your A story, your Sully

story, and your B story, your personal

story merge.

Whatever's happened to her in the B

story affects the A story. And whatever

happens in the A story affects the B

story.

And so what's happened to her with the

president has given her sort of the

emotional knowledge to go to Sully and

lay it bare. And that in turn makes

Sully tell her his name is John Latimer.

I think that's his name. And I do love

him. And from there we go into Sully

making a speech in front of the press,

standing up in front of the press in his

little military dress uniform and

stating, you know, for the record that

he is um a proud gay soldier

and you know that his you by doing that,

you know that his alibi has been placed,

you know, put forward. You know that

he's going to not be charged with

anything. I think you hear somebody a

reporter saying it and then we sort of

have these beats that very clearly um

wrap up little, you know, the pieces of

our story. We see um Steven with Abby

telling her that the other soldiers are

a nice touch and he puts his arm around

her and with a couple of looks you

understand that Abby still deeply likes

him. You have a moment with Quinn and um

Harrison where she says again, "Is

Olivia a good guy? One of the good

guys?" And he says, "She's not one of

the good guys, she's the best guy." That

happens. So these are like our last

things where we sort of keep our stories

alive.

Then you see Liv standing at her

television set watching that same press

conference again, press conference that

we knew. And Cyrus comes in and says,

"He wants to see you. We all know who he

is. We all understand what's going on."

And she says, "You better tell the

president of the United States that he

better hope to God she doesn't want to

come forward with her story because

Amanda Tanner just became my client."

Which basically sets in motion the rest

of our season.

You know, we've solved our case, but

then we've said, "Here's where we're

going forever."

And you know, we haven't solved anything

with Amanda Tanner. We haven't even seen

her since she left the the on the

elevator. Oh, no, in the hotel in the

hospital room, but we do know that she's

okay and that she's now Olivia's client

and that she's going to be protected and

that we have a giant launching point for

wherever we're going next.

Yeah.

So, at the end, you know, you have this

moment where Olivia tells Cyrus that,

you know, he better hope that Amanda

Tanner doesn't want to come forward with

her story. And we understand that while

we've closed a story for the episode,

we've launched into a story that's going

to take us through the season.

And we've left the audience with

something that makes them lean forward

and go, man, I wonder what's going to

happen next.

And you, you know, it doesn't have to

be, you know, as big as I'm going to

take on the White House to be your

story, but it does need to be something

that makes people feel interested. And

it really shouldn't be something that

comes out of nowhere. You know, I've

seen pilots where, you know, you have a

whole show happen and then the suddenly

at the end something that comes

literally out of nowhere that has

nothing to do with anything you've been

watching happens and it feels very

jarring instead of exciting. And you

want something that doesn't feel you

want it to feel organic. It can be

surprising, but it should feel organic.

And it's always helpful when that

happens. The other thing to really think

about is that if you really look at

this, the end of the pilot truly is when

Olivia holds Steven's hand. Um, no, is

when Olivia sees um, Sully in the prison

and he says, you know, his name is John

Latimer and I do love him. That's really

the end because he's finally admitted

who he is. We know that this, you know,

the story is going to be um, fine. He's

going to admit his alibi, but then we

need sort of the wrap-up beats. We need

the satisfaction of seeing Sully in his

uniform and coming forward. We need the

satisfaction of seeing Abby and Steven

as Abby feels good about what's happened

as she watches this thing go down. And

we need to see Quinn and Harrison

because we saw them in the beginning.

And we need to see Quinn's decision

about how she feels about what's gone

on.

And you see that she's happy and she

likes it there and she's going to stay.

You know, I think she says gladiator in

a suit at the end and you realize like

she feels like she's one of them now or

at least she wants to be

and then you go to Olivia. So it's a

very simple thing and then just for the

record you'll note that she turn Olivia

turns off the television at the end and

the screen goes black and then in the

next episode it starts with her turning

on the television and the screen comes

up. Like that's how we start and end and

start

just for holding the audience in.

Really the thing to remember is that the

stuff that you set up in your first and

second act really need to have

resolution. You don't want to have

things here that don't have any

resolution. even even the stuff that

you're introducing, the idea that Olivia

um solves cases, that she solves cases

fast, that she's slightly um under the

radar of the government, that you know

there she says the FBI is sick of me.

You know, we come back to the place

where now she's going to take on the

White House. Everything sort of has to

feed into one another. Everything you

learn about Olivia tells you more about

who she is. You don't know very much

about Huck. You don't know very much

about um Harrison. You don't know very

much about Abby, but everything you

learn about them by the way they behave,

by their dialogue, is supposed to tell

you who they are. And I really tried to

go through and hone everyone's dialogue

so that what they said told you who they

were

and you should really just be looking at

those kinds of things and the shape of

your pilot. Like when I say that four

was problematic, you can see, you know,

from this that four was problematic. See

how many things happen in four versus

three versus two versus one. I packed a

lot of things in there and I I you know

it worked. It ended up working in the

end, but it was a very very hard thing

to balance

and you really have to figure out how

you're going to make all those things

work. And that's that's a show.

I'm the kind of person who doesn't like

to move forward until I'm happy with

what I already have. So, I'll spend a

day writing, say I'll write like 10 or

15 pages, and then before I can move on

the next morning, I have to make sure

that the 15 pages I wrote is perfect for

me and then I move forward because I

don't ever like to then finish a script

and then have to go back. So, to me,

it's I never even really think about it

as editing or rewriting, but clearly it

is. You just want those pages that

you've done to be perfect and then you

can move forward and those pages have to

be perfect and then you move forward and

those pages have to be perfect. So that

when you get to fade out, you don't have

to do anything else. To me, that's

always the best feeling. And also

because I'm a fast writer, it it helps

to continuously do that. Go back and

hone and make everything work because it

keeps everything fresh in your head. and

then you don't end up um in some place

where you wrote something really fast

and then when by the time you go back,

you've you've already sort of lost the

thing that was you were doing. It's just

helpful for me when I'm sort of going

back and editing before I can move

forward. You know, you want to make sure

the scenes resonate. You want to make

sure the dialogue is as original as you

can possibly make it. You know, I like

to go through and hone. I don't like the

characters to say too much. Like the

overly

the overly like verbose dialogue can

really be a problem. And while my

characters talk a lot, I try to go

through and keep it spare for them. Even

the ones where they have huge

monologues, they're they're spare huge

monologues. Um, you want to make sure

that all of your scenes are sort of set

in the right place in terms of how

you're describing them. I like to go

through and I like to remove the stage

direction that I put in that suggests

how the actor should act something

versus where they are in space and

what's going on with them. I think you

know when the pages that you're writing

are right. When when you get ready to go

forward, there are no more sort of

unanswered questions or mistakes left

behind. you know, you're going forward

and you're not thinking, well, this

scene's not going to work or these beats

aren't going to work or how can I tell

this part of the story if we haven't

discussed blank already. So, you know,

in the pilot episode of Scandal, you

couldn't possibly have gone to act two

and um had them start investigating if I

didn't have Sully come in at the very

end of act one. or if we hadn't

introduced Quinn the way we had, we

would not have really been able to set

up this idea that she was worshipful of

Olivia Pope. So I, you know, you'd have

to come up with a way of really bringing

Quinn in and really building up that

scene. You you want to make sure that

the scenes you have really resonate so

that when you move forward, they're, you

know, they're all sort of falling into

place.

There are two ways that I sort of like

hear my scripts. One, when I'm writing a

script, I say all the dialogue out loud

while I'm writing it. Now, I think I've

already said that I wear headphones. I

wear noise, big giant noise cancelling

headphones on my head while I'm writing

and there's usually music blaring in my

ears while I'm writing. So, I can't hear

myself saying all the dialogue, but I

can feel myself saying all the dialogue.

So basically, I'm acting the entire

script out as I'm doing it. I can't hear

it, but the poor people who are sitting

right outside my office can hear it. So

they've they've experienced this

terrible acting that I've been doing. I

do it because it's fun, but I also do it

because it's how I know the scenes are

working. I think when I'm writing and I

have my headphones on and I'm I'm saying

all the dialogue out loud, basically I'm

acting out the show. I mean, any kid who

has put up tied a pillowcase around

their shoulders and pretended that they

were a superhero knows what I'm talking

about. Like, I'm play acting the entire

thing. I'm playing every character in

Scandal and I'm doing the whole show

from beginning to end as I write it.

And I'm imagining that I'm those

characters.

It works. It sounds silly, but it works.

It's how I know the things are true. I

don't have to hear it because it's sort

of like being somebody who can't sing

trying to sing a Broadway show. Not

good. I'm not an actor. But it does

allow me to to feel my way through the

show and to imagine, you know, I'm a DC

fixer living in Washington. I'm Cyrus

Bean. I'm I'm, you know, Melly Grant.

Whatever it is. I get to stand in the

character shoes a little bit more. It's

how I know the pacing feels right. It's

how I know the dialogue is right. It's

how I know if a fight feels true or um

an emotional monologue is actually

emotional. It's how I know if something

is funny or not. And to me, if I can't

say it out loud and have it feel like

natural conversation, then I know

there's a problem. We also um do writer

table reads for every draft of a script

that we do um for the shows. So we'll

sit around the room as you know all the

writers and we'll read those scripts

aloud and everyone will play a part

except for me. I just listen. Someone

will read the stage directions.

Everybody takes a part. Everybody acts

it out and everybody throws themselves

into it and acts as hard as they

possibly can. That for me is really

valuable because then I can really hear

a script and figure out what's wrong.

Oddly plotwise. That's when I know, oh,

we need to cut this scene or we need to

move this scene here or that scene

there. Somehow that helps me. It's much

more helpful for me than to sit and read

someone's script and give them notes.

Hearing a script somehow brings it to

life in a way and makes it more

threedimensional for me. And I can very

quickly tell you what's wrong with it

much more so than if I'm just reading

something on a page. Which is why we

also then have actor table reads for

every single script that we do because

that also is sort of like the third

layer um to make sure that it all works.

a really good example of how things can

change. We did exa we did an episode for

scandal that was about Abby discovering

that Cyrus was sort of seeing seeing

another candidate behind Fitz's back and

it was the Frank where he discovered

Frankie Vargas and Abby sort of knew she

had this information and she knew that

she could use it against Cyrus and take

his job and she's sort of trying to

decide whether or not she's ready to be

a monster and she says you know

shouldn't I do this because if I don't

somebody else will do it. And but she

says, "How do the monsters sleep at

night?" And it's one of my favorite

episodes because it's really this giant

evolution for this character. The first

draft of that episode that came in that

we read at the writer's table read, Abby

ended up with Cyrus's job, but somehow

the way and it was literally the

perspective from which it was written.

Abby didn't

Abby didn't do any of those things that

got her the job. they happened to her as

opposed to her being her own agent of

change. And so, and it wasn't it it was

subtle, but it was very clean that like

Fitz chose to give her the job. Somebody

else chose to help her make a decision.

She didn't do any of the things herself,

and it didn't work. And I thought it has

to be her conscious decision that she's

wrestling with. Reading things out loud

really changes things. It's It was sort

of the way even the language laid out

because you don't It was subtle. It

really was a subtle um layering of

things because Abby was doing all of the

same things, but when you hear it out

loud and you're hearing what's said and

how it said, suddenly you realize that

she was being much more passive than it

seemed. And so, you know, we had to

change the language.

When you're going through your script

and you're looking for things to cut, I

often try to cut the things that don't

affect your plot and don't affect your

character arc. You know, you really, if

you're telling a story about um solving

a case, you know, if there's a case

involved in your show, you can't cut

anything that's invol that requires you

to solve the case obviously or your

audience won't understand what's going

on. If you're talking about a character

arc, if you're talking about, you know,

the crown and whether or not, you know,

you're watching the crown and you're

talking about the crown and whether or

not she's going to uh make it through

her coronation or something, you can't

cut the scenes that are about her fears

and her worries and her concerns because

those scenes are the scenes that really

make this the episode resonate. You you

have to really think about what are the

things that are most important. If this

wasn't in the show, could the story

still be told? which means that what you

end up cutting are your darlings because

that's why they're there. You've written

these scenes that you think are

delightful and wonderful and isn't this

funny and isn't this cute and isn't

this, you know, sharp and isn't this

witty. That's why they're in this in the

script. They don't have anything to do

with the plot. They don't necessarily

have anything to do with the character,

but you have you're having a hard time

getting rid of them because they're so

fabulously written. I have a whole file

folder full of those scenes and those

moments that I keep because I think,

well, maybe I can use them someday. And

telling myself that I can use them

someday is what helps me. I'm never

going to use them, but it helps me to

think that maybe one day I'll use them.

When I write a draft of a pilot and I'm

looking for notes, for instance,

Scandal, the first person I showed it to

was my producing partner, Betsy Beers,

because I wanted to know what she

thought of it. So, I showed it to her

and I showed it to a couple of writers

who work, you know, in Shaoland that I

know and love and really like their

opinion. It's nice to have someone step

outside of what you're doing and see

what's going on. And so, they gave me

really interesting notes. Some of them,

you know, most of them were small, but

they were things like, I don't

understand what's happening, you know,

when Olivia is going to see David Rosen,

you know, what are what is she asking

for and why? And so then you would learn

to clarify why does she need the 48

hours? And it was, you know, she needed

it for these particular reasons. It it

was tiny clarifications that really sort

of honed things down and helped them.

Um, it was adding the the interesting

moment where Abby goes to the museum to

meet the young woman to say, "Tell me

what went on between um, Paige and and

this guy that she was seeing." Like,

what? Why didn't she go to the thing you

thought she was going to? And getting

the information on Paige, you needed to

see that scene so you could understand

what was happening. Those notes are

really invaluable and really great to

have. I think it's really important to

not apologize or explain or discuss your

script before you give it to somebody

because then you're already handing them

a preconceived notion of something. I

don't even say it's about blank. I just

say here's a script because otherwise

you're not getting a true reading. If I

handed them a script and said it's about

a DC fixer um and she's having an affair

with the president, they go in reading

the script with that information. So,

when you hand someone a script, you want

to hand them your script to read with as

blank a slate as possible. Don't

apologize. Don't ask for, you know,

don't say, "I'm so sorry. It's not

complete, or I'm not sure it's going to

be good enough." Don't give them

information about it. Don't tell them

what it's about. Don't give them your

opinions. Don't ask them to look for

specific things. Just hand it over. And

then when they're done reading it, ask

them what they understood. Ask them what

they thought it was about. Ask them what

was confusing. and then listen to what

they have to say without answering their

notes with your answers. I think it's

really important when people give you

notes to not say, "Well, I did that

because bl, you know, blah blah blah or

that happened because blah blah blah."

It doesn't matter. If somebody is giving

you a note, what they're really saying

is, "I didn't understand why you did

something."

You know, you have to I'm fascinated by

the number of people who get notes and

don't understand that the note means

whatever you did wasn't clear. It

doesn't mean, you know, your idea is not

a good one or, you know, this doesn't

work. They're not saying you're stupid.

They just mean whatever you did wasn't

clear. And that does that doesn't mean

you shouldn't um stick to your guns on

the creative idea behind it. It just

means you need to make it clearer so

that they understand it.

I think what's really important when you

get notes is to remember that people

aren't necessarily experts at giving

notes. Not even executives are experts

at giving notes. And they're as nervous

to offend you as you are nervous about

being offended. So sometimes it's this

very strange dance. So a note can be

posed as a question. We were wondering

why they're not asking you a question

for real. They're giving you a note. So,

there's never a question involved. Um,

sometimes they'll pitch you a solution

instead of telling you what the problem

is. That solution really is your it's

your job then to figure out what the

problem is. It's not to just take

whatever solution they give you. Um, or

they'll tell you what the problem is

flat out and you may not agree with what

the problem is, but you need to listen

to what they're saying the problem is

and then figure out what it is they

don't understand about your script. I

think every note you get has to come

down to what don't they understand about

my script? And if it's if somebody says

the whole thing moves too slowly and

your thought is well it's not supposed

to move too slow and they don't

understand that my script moves

lightning fast. Well then your script

doesn't move move lightning fast. It

just doesn't. If they're not

understanding that the script's moving

lightning fast then it's probably not

moving in a lightning fast way. But

there are, you know, you have to really

hear what someone's saying and be

willing to take it in and not respond,

not be worried about responding to their

notes in the moment. Just sort of taking

all the notes in and saying thank you

and then going away and figuring out

what you're going to do. Whether it's

the notes are from a friend or from an

executive. You don't respond to the

notes when you get them. You say, "Thank

you so much. This is really helpful."

Because that allows your brain a chance

to absorb the notes. No one's trying to

insult you. they're all trying to make

help you make your work better. And if

you approach it from that perspective in

your head that everybody just wants to

help you make something better, then it

becomes a very very productive process.

I think

so. When we made the original pilot of

Grey's Anatomy, Alex Karev was not one

of the characters on the show. He didn't

exist. And I was perfectly happy with

that concept. But then the head of the

network, Steve McFersonen, said, "You

know, you need a guy. You need a guy in

turn who's kind of a macho presence on

the show. You don't have that right now.

You know, you have Christina, you have

Meredith, you Izzy, you have George. You

need a guy who's like just a jerk,

maybe." And I think he thought he would

be somebody's love interest. I'm not

sure what he thought he was going to be,

but he just wanted that sort of macho,

overly confident, jerky kind of guy. And

he was right. we needed that sort of

male surgeon that you hear about all the

time. And the more I thought about it,

the more I agreed. And so I sat down and

I looked at the pilot, really looked at

the script, really looked at the pilot

and thought, how can we find ways to

insert somebody into this show that's

already been filmed, by the way, that to

make it feel organic?

And, you know, some of it was just

pickup shots. We did a couple of shots

to put him in the gallery scene with the

kids while they were watching the

appendecttomy happen. We shot a shot of

him in the spinound O when Richard was

saying his opening O speech. We did a

couple of those. Then we um added in a

couple of scenes. A scene where he calls

Meredith, he insults Meredith by calling

her a nurse. Um a scene where he insults

her again. So, a couple of scenes where

he's just a little bit jerky. And then

there's one big scene that we put in

where Meredith is sort of challenged by

Richard. Well, everybody's sort of

challenged by Richard to say what the

common causes of posttop fever are. And

Alex is humiliated and Meredith wins

that sort of moment.

That was key because you had a victory

for her over the jerky guy. You

introduced the character. You knew who

he was and it added something very

specific to the show. In the first

version, the victories don't belong to

Meredith. They're sort of a general look

at these residents and they're kind of

all having a feeling of victory. And in

the one with Alex, the victories really

belong to Meredith. She sort of bests

Alex and then goes into that surgery.

Whereas before, it was sort of an Izzy

moment and people felt generally good.

It was non-specific and left you feeling

a little a little less excited, I think,

than you do when you watch it happen to

Meredith. Especially given that we gave

Meredith voice over. It's very focused

on her and who she is. You need that in

order to follow our main character's

journey to where it needs to go. I had

to lift other things from the show in

order to make it work, but now I can't

even remember what those things totally

were. And I'm really glad we did it

because it it I mean obviously 13

seasons later there's Alex Karev, but it

also just brought something different, a

different energy to the show that was

necessary. It was a really good call. I

think it's probably the best note I've

ever gotten. Adding him in was possibly

the smartest thing we ever got to do.

There was always a point for me in the

um writing and rewriting and editing

process of a script when I realize that

the script is done, that there's nothing

else I can do, that there's no more to

be said. And sometimes I'll sort of go

through it again and again and like look

at it and sort of try to tweak

something, but after a while you just

realize it's cooked. Like it's been

cooked, hand it over. That's always sort

of the best moment in a weird way, like

you're sending your baby to school

almost.

I look forward to that. Like I'm not a

person who hangs on to a script way too

long and doesn't want to give it away. I

am thrilled when you can put a script on

its feet and watch it get shot and have

it come out of the editing room. It's

exciting.

the thing about your pilot and when

you're planning a series, the thing that

you really need to understand and know

is that in the first se of your show,

you made this pilot and then you get to

episode two. And a lot of people don't

understand what episode two is. Episode

two is just episode one all over again.

You don't make some completely different

show. You basically need to reiterate

what episode 1 was in a new way, but

it's still episode 1 all over again.

Don't veer off course. Don't go in a

whole new direction. Don't tell us,

"Wait a minute. It's not a show about

scandals. It's a show about racetracks."

It's the same show all over again.

Olivia Pope, she's got scandals. She's

having an affair with the president.

It's a secret. Quinn's new. There's a

case of the week. Literally, same show.

You need to do that so that people

understand what they're watching and so

they feel like they can trust what

they've seen and that they want to come

back.

When you make a show, you promise the

audience something. You promise the

audience that they're going to see a

show about uh DC fixer who is involved

in a scandalous relationship with the

president of the United States. You need

to fulfill the promise of that show

every week. You can't take that away

from them. You can't deny them that. You

can't suddenly not show them that show.

You and if you're going to change what

the promise of premise of that show is

and the promise of that show is, you

have to do it in a very smart way and

you have to do it over time. You have to

give them what they've asked for and

then change the story maybe in the next

season. You can't just do it suddenly.

Grays, same thing. You have to give them

what you've promised. People get very um

disappointed in you if you say, "I'm

going to give you a show about the Queen

of England, the Crown." and then you

give them a show about the guy that

works in the basement of the castle. You

know, that's not what they signed up

for. People want their promise

fulfilled. So, if you know that the

promise of your show is she's a DC fixer

who's engaged in an illicit affair with

the president of the United States,

that's the promise of our show. You just

have to check in with yourself every

episode as you break story. Are we

talking about a DC fixer who's engaged

in elicit, you know, illicit

relationship? Yes or no? If you're

veering off course, which it's easy to

do, you either have to be doing so

consciously or you need to fix it.

We didn't do so. I mean, we didn't do it

at all, I think, in the first season of

Scandal until we got to the end when we

veered off the course of fixing somebody

else's scandal in order to flash back to

show you what had happened between Fitz

and Liv. And that was purposeful because

we knew that we it was time to tell that

story to catch everybody up to where we

were emotionally.

But that was a conscious choice and we

had earned that right by then. But you

need to earn it. You have to get your

audience to go with you. People watch

one out of every four episodes that you

create that you write. So they don't see

every single thing sometimes. And you

want to make sure that they know what

they're watching and that they love it

enough to go back and binge watch so

that they're there for you. That's

important.

We'll have these big brainstorming

sessions at the beginning of a season

and I always try to say that every idea

we have should be used that season so

that when we end the season, we should

walk away having no idea what we're

going to do the next season. Um, I

remember the first season of Scandal,

you know, we ended that season with,

"Who is Quinn Perkins?" And I remember

the studio on the network saying to me,

"Who is Quinn Perkins?" and me saying,

"Well, when you pick us up, you'll find

out. Give us a second season." And they

gave us a second season. And I remember

sending a memo out to all my new writers

saying, "Great. We'll see you on this

day. And by the way, if anybody has any

ideas who Quinn Perkins is, that would

be awesome because we really do need to

know because none of us have any idea.

And it was great because we really did

end the season going, we need to end it

on something exciting, but none of us

have any clue who Quinn Perkins is or

what that story is going to be. You want

to sort of leave it all on the table

when you walk away at the end of a

season. Otherwise, what are you saving

it for? I mean, you might not get a next

season, so don't save it.

I think this might be one of my most

important points. So, I'm going to sit

up for it.

If you put something in your show, there

better be a reason for it. I don't care

what it is. I don't care if you put a

puppy in your show. We put a puppy in

Grays. What did we do with that puppy?

We killed that puppy. You put a puppy in

your show, you better kill that puppy.

You don't put something in your show for

no reason whatsoever. I watch this

happen again and again and it drives me

crazy. Stories have to have a reason and

the things that you use in your stories

have to be there for a reason.

Everything should exist for a point. You

know, we never just throw something in

our show and then it doesn't pay off.

You know, the planting of something in a

story, the the appearance of something,

the planting of something in a story and

the payoff of something in a story are

kind of what I live for. You know, we

get really excited when I don't care if

it's four seasons later when we say,

"Oh, we're going to pay off this

moment." It's the best thing ever. Um,

planting and payoff are what story is

really all about. And it's that old um

theater statement, if there's a gun on

the wall, at some point in that play,

that gun is going to go off. That is

really what storytelling needs in order

to work. So, you can't have a character

call somebody sweet baby in the pilot of

Scandal and not have it come back at

some point to explain to you what sweet

baby means. You can't have a bottle of

hooch and then not have it come back to

bring you full circle to understand why

that bottle of hooch means so much. Why

is it there? Why are you using this to

tell story? How is it affecting the

characters? If you bring something in,

if you plant something in your show, it

better pay off. It's also just a really

good way of making your story feel like

it has a point. Even when you're having

a hard time figuring out every aspect of

it, it gives you a shape.

I think that part of what helps you have

a long lasting series or what can help

you have a long-lasting series is the

ability to be versatile and um make

adjustments when necessary.

Because I think part of at least what's

helped me is thinking of every season of

every show as being a new show almost

with the same characters, but just not

thinking, oh, I have to do the same show

I did last season. So, we never get old.

I think of how can it look different um

visually, how can we use different kinds

of music? How are we going to tell story

differently? What are we going to do

about pacing? What about tone? Um, how

are the character arcs going to be

completely different? How are my

characters going to grow and change? I

think the characters should change over

the course of time. They shouldn't

remain the same people that they've

always been cuz that's boring. I feel

like you want to see an evolution. So,

to me, having your characters evolve

helps the show keep going because people

want to watch that happen as opposed to

them becoming a little bit bored by

seeing the same thing over and over and

over again.

Scandal was a show that really did start

out having a procedural element. And I

don't I don't know that I ever thought

that we would completely lose the

procedural element. And I part of me

doesn't feel like we really have. Part

of me feels like the procedural element

has become sometimes the client is just

Olivia, sometimes the client is just the

White House. But what we really started

with was a very clear every week in the

door walks a case of the week. You know,

something happens. And I loved that um

part of the show. But what began to

happen was the you know every season the

larger more personal part of the show,

the story that we had been telling in

the background would overtake um our

show in a big way and we would think

we're not going to be able to finish

telling our season unless we put the

procedural elements down. And frankly, I

don't know how Olivia could be going to

work and doing this this other stuff

while all this stuff is going on. And so

we would sort of abandon it sort a

partial way through the season every

season. And then we reached a season

where we thought, well, we can't do it

at all right now. There's just no time.

What was interesting about it was

part of me had felt like we were

slipping in the procedural element. When

I wrote the pilot, I was like, we're

slipping it in so that we can tell this

other story.

But then the more we told the procedural

stories, the more interesting they were.

these elements of people's lives that

are, you know, Olivia Pope comes into

your to your life on your worst day and

fixes it as best she can became really

really interesting to me because because

it's impersonal because she doesn't know

you because you're opening your home to

somebody. It was a really fascinating

way of looking at something and I began

to miss it, you know, when we take it

out. However, it just allows for so much

more. And the stories we began to tell

are just so much bigger. You know, Papa

Pope showing up became about something

so much larger than just a small story.

It became about, you know, her entire

identity. The expectations of the

network have stopped being you need to

be the exact same show you are every

single season, the way they used to be

in the old days. That's probably the

biggest difference, but we never

suffered that difference.

Um, so that's probably the biggest

difference for most shows. It also

allows for a certain there's a certain

freedom. Um, just because there are so

many shows on the air, people are more

willing to take leaps creatively because

they want something that people are

going to want to watch.

Safety is no longer valued.

When I'm thinking about how to plan out

my series, when I'm thinking about

Grace, when I'm thinking about Scandal,

I don't know that I'm thinking this is

what I want the audience to get or this

is what I'm trying to convey. I think

I think I'm mostly thinking about here's

the story I want to tell. Here's what I

need to happen to these people. You

know, the more you think of your

characters as actual people who have

needs and less as plot devices, the

better off you're going to be. They're

not devices to deliver a message to the

audience. They are people who have to go

on a journey. And if you think of them

that way, you're more likely to write

something that resonates and that feels

realistic. I believe people will follow

you if it feels like what's happening to

the characters feels emotionally honest.

I mean, you really can make almost

anything happen.

They'll buy it. the audience will buy

whatever story you want to tell if it

feels like it's true and um emotionally

sensible for the character. But if

you're saying to yourself, they're going

to go to the moon and it has nothing to

do with who these people are or

emotionally what they want or why

they're doing it, there's no reasoning

for it, you can't sell anything. And I

find it interesting because there's a

lot of people who write all of their

plot points out, but they can't tell you

why their characters are doing anything

that they're doing. And without that

character motivation, you have no story.

I think for myself, when I'm watching

shows, I get excited for the same reason

I get excited writing shows. I get

excited by the vulnerabilities of other

characters, by the secrets they're

keeping, by the way a story is told, by

the moments where

where the thing that people have been

hiding and holding on to, by the moments

when those things explode, you know, by

I mean, in the writer room, I call it

the red wedding of it all, which if you

watch Game of Thrones, you know what

that is. If you don't watch Game of

Thrones, go watch Game of Thrones. Um,

and I won't spoil it for you, but it

really those moments in which all of the

characters have been building up to a

certain moment and all of the needs of

people have been coming towards

something and it pays off in such a

beautiful way. I I love that stuff. I

think that when you're with characters

and you're watching them on a journey

and you're watching them head towards

something and then unexpectedly

things unfold, those are the things that

you live for when you're watching a

show. So to me, character is the reasons

why people do things that also make them

feel natural and not like a cliched plot

point. Because people can do things that

you absolutely know that they're going

to do and you know why they're going to

do them, but because of who they are and

why they're doing them, you can't help

but watch anyway.

So, in looking at um I think it's the

season 3 premiere of Scandal, and we're

probably in I think it's probably the

third scene. You're standing in the

airplane hanger.

You know, Olivia is with her father and

he's basically told her that she needs

to get on the plane and disappear for

the rest of her life, which ultimately,

by the way, becomes the entire point of

the season for him, that he's going to

get her on that plane. The scene is

really important because it has to

convey a lot of stuff. We've only just

found out that this man that we've been

seeing on and off for quite a bit of

season 2 is actually her father, which

has kind of never occurred to most

people. So, this scene has to convey an

entire backstory of a relationship in

one scene. And it also has to give us a

whole bunch of other information about

him because up until now, he's just been

sort of a shady figure. We've known he's

kind of bad. We've known he's been sort

of moving pieces on the chessboard of

their political lives, but we haven't

known who he really is. So, then he

shows up. He basically says, "You're

going to get on this plane. I'm

furious."

And then you discover basically based on

what he says that he knows everything

about her. He knows that she's slept

with the president. He knows that she's

fixed an election. He knows everything.

And he basically lets her know that he

is such a power player in this town that

he knows exactly what they're going to

do to her to destroy her. He's a better

fixer than she'll ever be, basically.

And the way he speaks to her, not just

the way, you know, Joe Morton, who's an

amazing actor, acts the scene, but the

language he uses to speak to her,

suggests that he is the one person in

this world who is far more powerful than

she is in terms of how he perceives her.

And what I really loved about putting

this scene together was it's the first

scene that you watch her, you watch

Olivia Pope become like a little girl.

Like she literally language-wise never

gets to finish a sentence really and

then starts to become this very sort of

I mean yeah there's literally not a

sentence in here that she finishes

herself. She becomes this kid when she's

talking to her father. She starts to

mumble. She sort of um never really gets

anywhere. And it's one of the first

times I've truly had to write a lot of

stage direction in that because it was

important to me that we understood that.

I think I say, you know, right before

our eyes, Olivia gets smaller and muted

because you want to understand the power

that her father has. Olivia's inability

to finish a sentence, Olivia's inability

to interrupt, Olivia's inability to do

anything but mumble. I mean, she mumbles

twice as good, basically. She can't even

raise her eyes. That silence conveys her

lack of power. It conveys her lack of

authority and it conveys how much she

both respects and fears her father,

which I thought was necessary. You know,

there are people who are 60 and still

can't stand up to their parents. And

Olivia is that one of those people. She

her father is everything. And to have

that be a thing that happens that she

reverts to a child in the eyes of her

father is easily conveyed by her

silence.

You raised your skirt and opened your

knees and gave it away to a man with too

much power. You're not rare. You're not

special. Your story is no different than

a thousand other stories in this town.

So, you know how this goes. You could

call this in your sleep. First, they'll

smile, be warm, sympathetic, on your

side, letting you know that they will

fight for you. They will lull you into a

false sense of security. And then once

your belly is exposed, they will gut you

and everyone you know. And they will be

swift about it. And by the time you

realize you should be fighting back,

well, you're already bleeding to death.

That is the presidency versus you. Whose

victory do you think they will fight

for? Whose body do you think they will

bury?

He would never.

He would never. You and I both know that

he is not in charge. He is never in

charge. Power is in charge. Power got

him elected. I know more than you could

possibly imagine.

And not only does he tell her that he

knows that she slept with the president,

he tells her that he's disappointed in

why she slept with the president, which

to me is for me was a mind-blowing

moment even when I was writing it

because you kind of discover this idea

that not only is he disappointed in her

for being, you know, somebody's

mistress, he's saying if you're going to

be someone's mistress, at least aim

higher for what you want for being

someone's mistress. Don't just try to be

first lady, you know, secretary of

state. Something better than that should

be your goal, which is awful to say to

your daughter in in a lot of ways. Aim

higher. And then he calls her mediocre,

which is I think her worst fear and

which he has raised her to believe that

should be her worst fear. So then he has

reduced her to nothing more than a

child.

And then he packs her up and he's

telling her to get on this plane and he

tells her what he's going to do with her

and he gives her her instructions. It's

it's pretty devastating because you see

her become the child she was. And to me,

you begin to understand so much about

her. You understand why she has the

affair with the president of the United

States in the first place, frankly. You

understand why power is so important to

her. You understand everything you need

to know about her psychology in this one

scene. I hope if we've done it right.

And it's I don't know. It's one of my

favorite scenes in terms of just

watching it play out because the two of

those actors, those two actors really

throw themselves into really making it

happen.

He told you that you would be first lady

and you believed him. Did I not raise

you for better? How many times have I

told you you have to be what?

You have to be what?

Twice.

What?

Twice as good.

Twice as good as them to get half of

what they have. Sleeping with that.

For God's sakes, you know, to aim

higher. At the very least, you could

have aimed for chief of staff, secretary

of state, first lady.

Do you have to be so mediocre?

Very powerfully. One of the things that

the scenes, one of the things that this

scene is meant to convey is

a shift in the show in its entirety. Um,

for the first two seasons, we've watched

Olivia Pope wearing the white hat and

striding along and we've watched her

sort of step into a little bit of

darkness when you find out sort of what

role she's played in the election and

what her relationship has been like with

Fitz. but she has been a woman of color

living in a world that feels very um

modern in the sense that she is sort of

a a new school postracial blackness.

That's kind of what she's living in. And

I always told my writer room that when

this scene happened, we got this, you

know, we we got to this point in the

show and I said to my writers, "This

scene, Papa Pope, is where blackness

shows up." And I by that I meant old

school I don't trust anybody. My

daughter shouldn't be dating a white man

blackness. The kind that that's that's

different from the kind of of you know

it's it's an old school generation.

You know, Papa Pope's the brother from

another planet. It's an old school

generation of of thinking about race in

America that she doesn't necessarily

have, but he does. and it's political as

far as he's concerned and to him there

is an otherness to that to race and he

feels like an outsider and he's raised

very differently and as we go forward

you know in the show you start to see

these moments where you know the

president offers him this amazing glass

of scotch and says like do you know blah

blah blah and he says no I'm from

Detroit like are you it's like there's a

ridiculousness in his mind to this very

rich world that these people live in

this privilege that he disdains and and

he's been raising his daughter to be

better than this, to get somewhere. And

so to come back and find her in this

place where she is fully immersed in

this world, um fully involved with this

man, sort of having her life be almost

ruined is appalling to him. And so I

I've always said season 3 is where

blackness shows up and he shows up and

he shows up furious. And that's what

this scene is. And at the beginning of

the season, very tellingly at the end of

the scene, he says, "You are getting on

that plane come hell or high water." And

that is basically his goal for the

entire season. We watch him work at it

and we watch him win.

And I've always thought that that was a

really interesting example, frankly, of

knowing where you are going with your

season and getting there. I've gotten a

lot of reaction to this scene. I mean,

there's been a great deal of reaction

that's come from this scene. There there

are other scenes that I hear about a

lot. This might be the one that people

comment on in its entirety the most

perhaps. It's fascinating to me that

when the room got the scene and we

talked about it, there was a a very

mixed reaction. I mean, my room is a

very um

culturally diverse room. There's a bunch

of different kinds of people in that

room from all ages, all races, all

religions, all cultures. truly. And what

I found really interesting is anybody

who was um who'd grown up in a world in

which they found themselves to be a

minority got the scene immediately. They

absolutely understood it. And anybody

who didn't had a lot of questions and I

thought that was interesting. I mean

truly interesting. Not in a good or bad

way. I found it fascinating. And that's

and there were a lot of arguments about

the scene. And as I have said about any

scene, any story we tell, I could always

tell you that in the scandal writer

room, if there are a lot of arguments

about a scene, I know that scene's going

to be interesting and it's going to

You know, it's interesting. I think that

USC was really instrumental for me in

getting me contacts and getting me

acclimated. I came to Los Angeles not

knowing a single person and getting an

internship, getting to know people,

getting the introductions to things. USC

was very helpful for that.

Here's what I think because I think film

school is invaluable in that it's a it's

an amazing little lab, but and I did

learn I did come in knowing a lot about

production because of it and that was

really helpful as well.

But I think in terms of like just

financially, if you are

hurting for money, if you have to take

out a lot of student loans, if there's

not a scholarship waiting for you and

you are worried about that, and frankly,

it's different now. Student loans back

when I went to school cuz I'm an old

lady and when you might be going to

school now are just different. So to me,

if you have to make the choice between

going to film school and coming out to

LA and getting a job as a PA on a set or

getting a job as a PA, you know, in some

writer's office or something like that,

get the job because I think that there

is a lot to be done with you writing at

night and getting a job during the day

and working your butt off and making

contacts that way. I think it's very,

very, very expensive to go to school

right now. And while I think that

everybody should get a college

education, I'm not necessarily sure you

need a film school education.

A thing that I think can be really

helpful for people when they get a job,

and people don't seem to know this right

now, and it's feels very obvious, if you

get a job in the industry making someone

coffee, making someone copies, running

someone's errands, you better make the

best coffee they've ever had. and it

better be with a smile. The ones who

seem flatout pissed that they're there

or frustrated or lazy or entitled, you

want them to go away because you think,

man, they're just sucking the air from

the room. You better run those errands

as cheerfully as you possibly can with

the most energy. And the reason is is

because the entitled sort of I can't

believe I'm doing this thing is

very gets very old very fast. Now, I say

this and I can say this because when I

got my first job as an assistant, I was

the most spoiled, miserable, like

pathetic assistant in the world. Like, I

had the most sour look on my face all

the time. I used to drive around the

corner from the studio and cry all lunch

hour because I had to like do all these

terrible things like feed the fish. And

I was like pathetic. I mean, it was

embarrassing. I embarrassed myself,

frankly, all the time. And I cannot

believe I didn't get fired really fast.

I was very lucky that they were nicer to

me than than I would have been. But I do

think that there's something about

this job that it's a hard job. You want

to get noticed and you want people to

notice you because you have a great

attitude. People who have a great

attitude are the ones that I always end

up saying like, "What's your script

about?" You know, like or what are you

doing? What are you interested in? Those

are the people who get noticed and get

their scripts read and get advice and

get get a chance because you you think

like, man, they're working hard.

I know people use the term networking a

lot and they talk about how important it

is for them to network. What I found,

and this is this is my advice coming

from watching all of the the younger

people in my office and how they're sort

of getting things done. They've made an

incredible network of their peers. And

what's really great about that is, you

know, you come to this town, you meet a

bunch of other people your own age,

everybody starts to get jobs. Those

people get other people jobs, they get

other people jobs, and as th as they

rise, those are your peers. So suddenly

your friend who you were an intern with,

you know, 10 years later is president of

a network or something. That happens. I

mean, and that's how it goes. So you

really want to make not you don't want

to spend your time trying to suck up to

people who are me. You want to spend

your time trying to make friends with

the people who are your peers because

those people as they rise will take you

with them. That's really what you want

to do. That's the most important thing.

And yes, while you do want to get to

know some people who are on the rise in

other places um or who are already in

higher positions, it's not really about

that because the junior agent who's

struggling to make it is more likely to

represent you than the person who runs

CIA. Much more likely. And they're the

ones who are going to bust their butts

to get you something because they want

to succeed as well. That's the important

person to get to know.

Here's

the deal. If you have fingers and can

get on the internet, you can find a ton

of those resources because they're out

there. I know that Sundance tries to do

it. I know that Women in Film tries to

do it. You should really be looking. Um,

I'm sure the Black Filmmakers Foundation

could be of some help. There are a lot

of places that are really trying to open

those doors and make this possible. I

think there's huge value in applying for

the writers pro programs that networks

have. Um I think three or four of the

writers I have on Scandal came from the

writer programs at ABC. And I think

there's huge value to that because

they're people that may maybe I wouldn't

have known otherwise. And I also think

there's huge value to that simply

because it is a way of getting into this

town, getting a look around, finding out

if it's for you, and getting paid while

you figure out how you're going to make

it and what you're going to do and

meeting a lot of people. And they get

access to network executives in a way

that most people never do, even when

they've been staffed on shows. So to me,

I think it's very valuable.

I think there are a lot of opportunities

out there for people and I think that a

cheerful smile and a polite inquiry go a

long way and and you know reminding

someone just saying like I understand

there's nothing right now but if there's

something available down the line can

you let me know. People love that. It

just it's not about you you know sort of

being in at someone's face all the time

or you know people always say be

persistent. I think that's always a

difficult thing to say to somebody

because be persistent can turn into

being a pain in the butt. You want to be

polite and there and remind them of your

talent without being, you know, too

much. And I think people really like

that. One of my pieces of advice is

this. Don't show up at fan events and

then try to get somebody to take your

script or try to get them to like have a

private meeting with you. It's both

um sort of inappropriate and I tell you

this with love because it's

inappropriate. We can't take your

scripts at those events. Literally

legally we can't take your scripts at

those events. So you'll always be

disappointed and we'll always feel bad.

Um and B, it's a little bit scary

because sometimes the things that we get

are not fan things or scripts. So we

can't we really can't take them. So I

think trying to not approach it from

those events is great. Like when you

come to the writer events, I think those

are the perfect times to ask more

questions about how to do it, but those

are not the time to try to hand out your

scripts like in a crowd of 500 people.

You know, try to stand out by by sort of

walking the very professional line. I

think that's my my probably my best

piece of advice because I think it can

really help you.

I don't necessarily know that I believe

in that concept of mentors in the way

that most people do, especially because

I

I always hear people go say, I'm going

to go out and I'm going to find myself a

mentor or I'm going to ask this person

to be my mentor. Mentors are people who

gradually become that person over time.

I don't think you can find one and I

don't think that that a mentor helps you

achieve your goal. I think that you sort

of look back at a certain point and go,

"Oh, that lesson that that p person

taught me got me somewhere." I don't

think that they're there's no sort of

prescribed mentor that you need to go

and find and ask. People always ask me

like, "Will you be my mentor?" And

that's a terrible question. If you have

to ask, that person can't possibly be

your mentor. It's not it it doesn't work

that way. I've met a lot of really

interesting um people over time who each

one of them has taught me something

fascinating, but I don't know that I

could name a specific person who's done

a a specific thing for me. I think

there's been so many people who have

just by example or by um just a word or

two that they've said or by just every

once in a while somebody giving me

something in a way has really helped

I think what's interesting is that

basically the best use of your time if

you want to be a writer in television is

write original work. I mean I know

people like spec scripts but that

changes. I mean there's a there's a

pendulum that swings. Sometimes they

like it, sometimes they don't. So write

yourself an original work so people know

you have a voice. Um, and then go get a

job as a PA or a writer's assistant and

stand as close as you can to a

showrunner and hopefully they will

notice you and read and learn as much as

you can and get them to read your

scripts. Like honestly, the closer you

can get to a writer's room, the faster

you will learn and know more. I don't

necessarily think that you have to be a

writer who is coming up with a

television show. I think what's

interesting right now is there are so

many shows on the air that it feels like

everybody's supposed to be out there

creating a show and that's not

necessarily true. There's something to

be said for being on a staff of a show

um that's perfectly wonderful um for

writing on someone else's show that's

perfectly wonderful. Not everybody needs

to have their own show. Frankly, if

everyone had their own show, no one

would have a show because no one would

be writing on a show. Um,

I also think that what's interesting

about the idea that everybody's always

trying to have their own show and

everybody has to have their own idea is

you lose sort of the magic of getting to

really learn and hone your craft and

figure out what you want to do and how

you want to do it. I I've watched some

writers really start out fairly rough

and grow into really amazing writers who

now have their own shows, but it took

them a while. and watching them grow and

learn and watch other people's mistakes

and other people's challenges and other

people's triumphs frankly was really

great for them and they appreciate it.

Here's what's awesome about being a

writer

in this town. It's the only job you can

do that nobody has to hire you for.

Meaning it's the only job you can show

that you can do without getting a job

for. So to be a director, somebody has

to help you. They have to give you some

money. They have to give you a camera.

They have to give you something. You

have to get actors to work with you.

Something. If you're an actor, somebody

has to want to hire you and give you a

job. Or else you're just acting in your

living room by yourself. But if you're a

writer, you can sit down in your closet

if you want to and type up whatever you

want to type up. You can write it

longhand if you have to. And the reality

of this town is is there are so few

writers for so many jobs that if you can

write, somebody will hire you. People

are dying for good writers right now.

Like there is this is a moment at this

moment in time where people are saying

to themselves, there are not enough

writers. It it's constant. It's all I

ever hear. And if you can write and

people can find your script, they'll be

thrilled to have it. I worked at um

Portals, a place that helped the

mentally ill homeless learn job skills

and find places to live. And every day I

worked there all day and it was a tough

job and it was across from a place of

questionable repute where questionable

things happened and I was a little

scared to go to work every day and I

would come home at the end of a very

long day and I would pull out my laptop

and I would work on my script. That

script is the script that got me an

agent, that got me a job, that got

things happening for me. So you go there

and you you go to work, you come home,

you work on your script, and at the end

of the day, you have something that you

can show for it, that you can hand to

somebody that says, "Look, I can write."

Or, "Look, this is a good idea."

That's the beauty of

Rules to succeed in a writer's room. If

you're new in a writer's room and you

don't know what to do and you don't know

what to say, one, be the person who

holds the marker and stands at the

board. That is always a great way to go

because it makes you seem energetic and

like you're doing something. Two, try to

talk when you're, you know, in that

room. Try to say at least one thing a

day. Three, make sure you've read the

writer room notes the night before and

be the person who when somebody asks,

"What did we say?" Remind everybody what

you said. You know, try to be useful.

Try to be helpful. Be kind and be nice.

And be the first one there and the last

one to leave always. That's what I think

will help you.

When I'm looking to hire somebody, I

like to find people who not only have a

real individual voice in their writing.

So, I don't want to read a spec script,

which is just a script written um for

somebody else's show, meaning you can

write in somebody else's voice. I want

to read an original piece of writing.

Sometimes it's an article, sometimes

it's a play, sometimes it's a novel,

sometimes it's a script, but I want it I

want it to be original. It has to be

original. Um, not only do I want to read

that and find out that you have an

original voice, but I want people who

aren't afraid of me. Um, which I found

is interesting. People come in afraid to

sort of express their opinion. They

think they're not supposed to have one.

Um, but not only are you supposed to be

afraid not afraid to express your

opinion, you have to be willing to

argue. You have to be willing to fight

for your opinion. Because to me, a

writer's room where everybody is in

agreement all the time is not a writer's

room. That's just me listening to the

sound of my own voice and that is boring

and I can't possibly be right all the

time. That's

so I always want a room in which

everybody has different opinions.

Everyone's from sort of a different

background. Everybody has different

experiences, different ages, different

everything so that people can bring that

to the table and then argue their points

of view and their ideas. That always

makes for much better television.

I think a writer's room can be a very um

wonderful place to be, but I also think

that there are so many mistakes that

writers can make in writer rooms that

I've seen over the years that I think

can really be detrime detrimental to

their career, you know, and I don't know

that everybody really knows it or

understands it.

And you have a um responsibility every

evening to go home and have come in

having read the writer room notes from

the day before to have some ideas about

what you want to talk about the next

day. Even if it's not your episode

that's being placed on the board to be

discussed. If it is your episode, you

cannot show up in the writer room the

next day with no new ideas or work. you

really have to go home and like come up

with a bunch of new pitches, come up

with a bunch of new ideas, having

forwarded your story, have things to put

on the board to fill it up that can be

then discussed or changed or challenged,

but you have to have done some work. So,

a lot of people don't seem to understand

that walking into that room, you don't

just walk into the room, throw yourself

throw yourself down in a chair and go,

"What are we doing?" You're supposed to

come in with some thoughts and ideas and

do some work ahead of time. That's

important. Another danger in a writer's

room can be someone who doesn't talk.

You can come in to the writer's room,

you can be a new writer, you're nervous,

you want to do well, it's scary.

Everybody else has already been there or

they're all more experienced than you.

You walk into the writer's room, you sit

down, and you don't say a word. Being a

writer who doesn't talk in a writer's

room is very dangerous, mainly because

after a while, people forget you're

there or worse, they start to think

you're stupid. or worse, they start to

think you don't have anything to say.

And once that happens, it's kind of over

for you. You know, they you you've given

you're given a grace period where people

sort of think, well, they're new and

they're nervous. And I always say, you

know, well, what do you think? What do

you think? What do you think? To try to

get people to talk. But after a while,

if you don't talk, I start hearing from

the other writers. They don't say

anything. They're they're dead. They're

dead in the water. They're they're, you

know, and it's it's a bummer for them

because I'm sure you have great ideas.

We hired you because we loved your

writing. Whatever you said in the

interview made us think you were

interesting. Obviously, you deserve to

be there. You know, if you've made it

into that room, if you've been hired,

you deserve to be there. Act like it.

That's really important. I think another

way that you can make a mistake in a

writer room is to talk too much.

You know, we get the writers who come in

and they won't shut up at all. And

nobody else gets a chance to talk.

Nobody else gets a chance to have an

idea. Nobody else gets a chance to have

a thought because they're so busy

telling everybody all of their amazing

thoughts and ideas. That's a difficult

one as well. I don't think that that

happens very often, but I've seen it

happen once or twice, and that's also

just deadly.

If you are coming into the writer room

every day, I'm expecting to hear

something. So, I like to hear pitches

that are they don't have to be complete.

You don't have to walk into the writer

room and say, "I have this complete idea

that goes from A to B to C to D." But,

you do need to have ideas. And it's

always important to me to have somebody

come into the room and they're going to

talk about an episode or something that

they want to do to be able to relate it

to character. I cannot

abide a pitch that comes into my room

that is simply about plot. Um, a man

wants to blow up a building and so he

does this and so Olivia does this and so

somebody else does this. What does that

have to do with anything? Like you have

to tell me that a man's wife was

kidnapped and he's devastated and that

devastation has led him to, you know,

this emotional breakdown. Like where is

the where are the emotional stakes? What

is emotional for him? What's going to be

emotional for me? What's going to be

emotional for the audience? I need it to

come from character. Like you can't tell

me that he's going to blow up the

capital because he it's going to be

cool. He's going to blow up the capital

because his heart is broken or because

he's feeling lost or whatever it is.

Everything has to come from character.

So, if you pitch me something that

doesn't come from character, I literally

say, "I can't hear you." And then I ask

somebody else for a pitch. It sounds

mean, but at this point, everybody knows

me well enough to go know what I can't

hear you means because I can't. And some

people love those kind of pitches. I've

seen it happen in other room. You know,

other people talk about it from their

rooms. I literally can't understand a

pitch that doesn't have character

involved in it because everything I

write is about character. So, to me, you

really have to pitch from character.

I learned one thing from um one of the

writers I have who's been with us I want

to say for god for like 10 years

probably the whole time. That person

came in and they sat down and started

reading the very first draft of a script

that came out, the production draft of a

script that came out, the last draft of

the script that came out, and then

watching the cut of every episode

because they wanted to figure out what

the difference was, like why things got

changed, what changed, what got honed

and cut, and then what ended up in a

final cut and why. And that person, I

have to say, learn how to write the show

better than anybody else, faster than

anybody else. That's a really smart way

to go when you come into a show that is

already running. If you really want to

understand how a show is written, you

look at what comes out of the writer

room, the very first draft, what the

production draft is, what the final

draft is, and then what the show looked

like when it went on the air. That will

tell you so much about what the person

who's running the show thinks the show

should be, because that's the show you

want to write. That's the only show that

matters, frankly. So, that was a really

smart way to go and I highly recommend

that for anybody.

There are are writers who only talk or

only sort of seem to come on. Their on

switch only happens when the showrunner

comes into the room. And then, you know,

that's hard for me because I don't ever

see it, but I hear about it from all the

other writers. That's a problem as well.

A writer's room shouldn't and needn't be

a competitive situation. You know, this

is not survivor. We're not fighting for

our lives in there. Everybody is sort of

there to do well. And I think that if

you're you're being supportive and

you're doing well and you're talking in

the room and you're showing yourself to

be productive and you're working as hard

as you can, you're going to do okay. The

other thing that a writer really needs,

once again, is to sit in a room and hear

other people's ideas and not just shoot

them down, but build on them. Or if you

don't like what someone said, be able to

find another solution to their problem.

The people who just shoot down other

people's ideas are the people who get

fired the fastest in almost anybody's

writer's room. From what I hear, that is

that is a big one. If you are just the

naysayer in the room, nobody wants you

there because you feel unproductive.

Writer's

rooms have very different quirks. Uh,

the Grey's Anatomy writer room is a

little bit like a very large

kindergarten. And in that I mean or

maybe like a like a day room in a

nursing home. In that I mean there are

lots of arts and crafts going on. There

are people who knit. There are people

who are painting by numbers. There are

people who are doing like all kinds of

elaborate art projects. There's a

treadmill in there and people are

running on it. Like that room is always

active. There's always stuff happening.

It's kind of hilarious. The scandal room

is very different. It's a smaller room.

There are less people. Everybody's sort

of sitting around with their feet up on

furniture and there's a lot of eating

that happens in that room and they never

leave. But they're a very tight-knit

group of people. The etiquette really is

like if everybody has their seat in a

writer's room, which some writer rooms

everybody goes and they sit in the same

place every single day, don't be the

person who decides you're going to sit

someplace else. It's deadly. It's just

deadly. For some reason, people get

really quirky about things like that.

You know, in our writer rooms, if

everybody eats lunch together, which

like a scandal, everybody eats lunch

together. You can't be the person who

doesn't want to eat lunch with everybody

else. that always, you know, feels weird

to everybody. That person doesn't even

eat lunch with us. Like, if that's the

vibe, you sort of have to fall into the

culture. Um,

I don't know. It just feels like, you

know, on Grace, we used to have

something called Scotch Tuesdays where

we'd all taste scotch on Tuesdays. Um,

for some reason, we thought it was

interesting, mainly because people kept

giving me bottles of scotch and I didn't

know what to do with them. Uh, but you

know, there are little things that

happen that just are like how the

culture is.

We did bake offs. We were just very

nerdy at Graves in a way that was very

interesting, in a way that is fun, and

nerdy in a very different way over at

Scandal. And you you have your

personalities and it works.

When you're writing a movie, what's

wonderful is that for

364 days, you can um think about writing

your movie and then spend a couple of

months writing your movie. With

television, every eight days you need to

produce a script. And if you're doing

that for 22 episodes, every eight days

for 22 sets of eight days or whatever,

you have to produce a script. That is

not a joke. And it must happen. You're

in eight days in prep, eight days in

shooting, eight days in post-production.

And it has to continuously happen or

else the trains stop as we like to call

it. And if the trains stop, production

stops and money keeps getting spent

while everybody waits for you, which you

can do. So it is a continuous um race to

keep ahead of production, to have

scripts ready for people to shoot. And

you have to have the ability to keep

producing scripts and making something

happen which is very different from

movies where you write one and then

people think about it for months and

then they give you notes and you think

about it for months and then I don't

know there's months of pre-production

and then months of prep, you know, like

preparation and discussion and

rehearsals and then you shoot a movie.

Movies can take years. One script could

take years to get made. Whereas

television, it's immediate,

which is both terrifying and exciting.

There's something really wonderful about

the idea that I could have an idea like

Olivia Pope gets kidnapped on a Monday

and by the next Monday I've sitting a

table read where Olivia Pope gets

kidnapped and by the next Monday Olivia

Pope's being kidnapped. You know, it

that's thrilling, but it is very

immediate.

I would highly recommend people get a

non-writing producing partner. I think

it's invaluable if you can find the

right person. I don't know how um a lot

of people do their jobs without it.

Betsy and I talk about this all the

time. She's my non-writing producing

partner and she and I go, "Why don't

other people do this more?" And it's

starting to become more and more

frequent, but I highly recommend it.

Having a non-writing producing partner

in Hollywood is very rare, I think, for

television shows. And for me, it has

been invaluable simply because my

capacity for shows, well, not even my

capacity. We have so many shows. Um, and

we want to make more shows that I'm not

creating, but we also want to make shows

that I am creating. And on the ones I'm

not creating, it's sort of like being

the grandmother. You get to hold the

baby and love the baby, but then you

have get to give the baby back and go

home. But I still have my own shows that

I'm still overseeing on a day-to-day

basis. That's hard. That's a lot of I

think we're going to have six shows on

the air at a certain point this year.

That's a lot of shows. And in order to

do that, you really need to I couldn't

imagine doing all that by myself. to

have a non-writing producing partner who

is doing a lot of the heavy lifting on

the side of of dealing with the studio

and the network of dealing with the

production side makes things a lot

easier for me so that I can really help

direct story and be on the storytelling

side.

The best thing anybody can do who works

in television if you get a show is sit

down with your line producer and be

absolutely honest with them about what

you know and what you don't know and

what you need from them. Say to them, "I

need to know when something's too

expensive. I need to know when I'm doing

something crazy. I need you to give me

the fences to play within so that I can

know what I'm doing." A lot of people

don't do that. and the poor line

producer is trapped with um this sense

of I've got a crazy writer on my hands

who doesn't know what they're doing or

who does know what they're doing and

doesn't care how much money they're

spending because you they're never quite

sure. I have been very fortunate to work

with some really amazing line producers

who are creative, who are bold, who have

walked into my office and said you are

going to kill me but or I am going to

kill you if you don't. And that has been

invaluable for me because it's really

been an education. Having that education

has made all the difference for me. If I

don't get those answers or that

feedback, I have no idea that anything

is wrong or that we've gone too far or

that we're overbudget. Just knowing

those things and having those answers is

important. I personally feel like every

writer who gets a show needs a blind

producers boot camp just to make sure

that they know what they're doing and

what's going on. A lot of writers have

no production experience whatsoever,

which is dangerous. I mean, it's the

thing of where I say the line, you know,

a lot of writers walk into a set and

don't understand how a set works. You

have to walk into a set and understand

how a set works. I'm irrelevant on a set

because I don't have a job when I'm

standing on set at all. I always say

when I'm standing on a set, I'm the only

person not working. Um, but a lot of

writers don't quite understand how that

all works and they need to.

Aside from all of the usual, you want

people who are talented, you want people

who have something unique and bring

something to the table. For me, I always

want an actor that sparks something in

my imagination, obviously. So, when

you're casting a role, it's never really

about how someone looks specifically. I

never ask for a type. Um, any sort of

kind of actor can come in for a specific

role. It's not about that. So, it's

really about somebody who sparks

something in my imagination that makes

me feel like I can write for them. But

then once you found somebody, there's

always what I like to call the vetting

process. For me, that's really about

finding three people in town who can

tell you that the actor is a good

person. And that's because I have

learned that you end up working with

people for a really long time. And you

want to work with people that you like.

and a creative process. I mean, it's

very intimate, interestingly enough. You

spend a lot of time with people. You

spend a lot of time sort of inside their

head and they're inside of yours. It's a

very um special relationship when it

works. And you want it to work. And for

the other actors on that set, you owe it

to them and to the crew and to the

writers to have people there who are

excited about being there, who are fun

to work with. because a lot of times the

mood of the actors and the the

temperament of the actors determines the

temperament of the set sometimes. So for

me it's all about like we find these

great actors and then I'm like are they

also great people? And we've been really

fortunate.

So there is a lot of sex on our shows

although there isn't interestingly

enough.

What I think is interesting is that

people seem to think that there's a ton

of sex on our shows. We're a network

television show. All of our shows are

network television shows. So, there is

no sex on our shows because you cannot

show sex on television. Um, what you can

show is sexiness on television. And I

actually take great pride in that

because I feel like we have found a way

to depict intimacy and a ton of sexiness

and convey to you that all kinds of hot

hot things are happening without

actually showing any body parts or

depicting any sex acts. You might think

you've seen us depict some sex acts, but

we have not. I think what's great is,

you know, cable you can show anything.

we can't and that makes for a lot of

creativity and we've done things that

I think make it hotter because you can't

you have to use your imagination to

figure out what's going on and I like a

horror movie what your imagination fills

in is often far more graphic and far

more interesting than what you'd

actually see. So, in a lot of ways, I

think our scenes can be perceived as

being much hotter than the ones you see

on cable because you can't tell what you

don't know what's happening. You have to

imagine it. I have a lot of rules about

the way we do sex scenes in Shaand. You

know, in a lot of shows, it's about

displaying pieces of the woman's body,

whether she's really naked or not. You

know, it's all her naked back, her naked

stomach, her naked thighs, whatever it

is. In Shaoland, I say to every single

woman on our shows, you can do a sex

scene in a snowsuit if you tell me

that's what you want to do. I really

don't care. Your body needs to be

covered from neck to ankles. Fine. We

will figure out a way to make this work

because I want everyone woman to feel

comfortable. Like you don't ever want to

feel like you've been treated badly in

that way because I think it happens too

many times. And the directors really get

the direction that the woman on the set

gets to decide how she wants the scene

to go. She needs to feel 100%

comfortable. Um, sometimes I appear on

set and I call myself the human chastity

belt. Um, but the directors really work

with us and work with the actors to make

sure that they feel comfortable and that

what we're choreographing because a lot

of times it's not written. I've written

in scenes. This sex scene should happen

in whatever way our lead actress and

actor feel comfortable. Just make it

sexy. I mean, I've written that so that

nobody feels like they've been forced to

do anything. And sometimes I've been

very specific about what we want to see.

It just depends. And there's always a

meeting ahead of time to discuss what

it's going to look like.

A set is not about the director and a

set is not about an actors. A set is

about the crew. They're the ones running

it. It's their set. They're the experts

there and everybody else is kind of the

guest. Do you know what I mean? And it

it's really important that their work

get the respect it deserves so that

things can actually run smoothly and

frankly look good, happen, be on time,

work. And I think that a lot of people

don't necessarily know that coming in.

If you're if you're a writer coming in,

you don't necessarily know that. If

you're an actor coming in, you don't

necessarily know that. And if you're not

in this business, a lot of times I don't

think people necessarily think about how

extraordinary extraordinary the craft of

the crew is. So to me, that is

everything. In episodic television, the

crew stays the same, the cast stays the

same, the writers stay the same. What

changes are the director and the guest

stars really. So basically, you become

this really great family. Um, I've never

had a show go less than six seasons. So

for me, everybody's, you know, it's

becomes this very big extended family

that, you know, and we've had people,

you know, go from one show to the other

show to the other show. So it's kind of

lovely to know all these people for so

long and to get to work with everybody

in this way. And in Shaoland, it becomes

like one big Shaoland family. We have

five crews right now and that's

fantastic.

What is a showrunner?

A showrunner is

I'd say a lot of people say it's

different things to different people,

but to me a showrunner is somebody who

keeps a show running. They keep a

television show running. And that is a

very important way of putting it. Um,

and most of the time a showrunner is a

writer. Not necessarily always the

creator of the show, but always an

executive producer. Um, and they're the

person who's responsible for basically

keep the keeping the trains running on

time, making sure the scripts happen,

making sure you're staying sort of on

budget as prescribed by the line

producer, making sure the actors are as

happy as they need to be, working with

the crew and the line producing side of

the team, talking to the studio and the

network, making sure the writer room is

moving forward. um making sure that the

scripts are creatively what the studio

and the network are hopeful for, but

also protecting the the creative vision.

It's a big job. I'm a fairly fierce

showrunner. I like to say for me, I feel

like my best work is about being keeper

of the story. Like my commitment, my

real most important job for the audience

is to be fully committed to the

storytelling. And so when it comes down

to it, that is where my allegiances

always have to lie, the story. And so

that is where all my decisions come

from. There can be a big conflict when

you're a showrunner between the creative

and artistic side and the financial side

and the sort of business side of things.

You know, there's the financial side.

You're given a budget for every episode.

It's like a little movie. You have to

stick to it. you're given sort of a

mandate by this the studio network of

what they want creatively and I don't

mean they're dictating to you what the

episode should be about but say you've

been you've promised them a show about

Meredith Gray she's a surgeon she's

working as hard as she can to make it as

a surgeon you can't then deliver them a

show about Meredith Gray who's become a

surfer and she's working as hard as she

can to surf and not going to the

hospital very often for instance and

then you have your creative side which

is you have to follow the story as the

story is dictated in your creative

spirit and soul and as the characters

drive it and all of those things have to

work together. Now, a lot of it is for

me sticking to the storytelling.

Storytelling is the most important

thing. I have to follow the characters,

but I also have to stay within the

millions of dollars of budget that I've

been given for this season. And I cannot

go over that because if you go over that

then you are being fiscally

irresponsible and you are messing with

the studio network's money.

I think the skills necessary to be a

successful showrunner really have to do

with the ability to communicate.

Honestly,

what happens to a lot of people is they

get afraid. And this frankly is for

everything in life. People get afraid.

And so because they're afraid, they stop

communicating. Their fear makes them

shut up. They think if I say less,

people won't know that I don't know

anything. When the best thing you can do

is say, "I'm the showrunner. We're

$100,000 over budget. I don't know why."

And then you say, "I don't know why. I

don't know what's happening. I'm

confused." The best thing you can do is

admit you don't know stuff. Or to admit

that you want to do something and you

can't explain why. You just want to do

it. The honesty that comes with that of

continuously talking and opening your

mouth and saying what's going on is

priceless. Because what all people want

is information. And if your information

is I don't know, that's even better than

silence because silence makes people

think you're crazy. You don't know what

you're doing. You're you know anything.

And that's dangerous

when you're overbudget on an episode.

when your budget is sort of stretched a

little too much and things are going

bad, you can either have the

conversation that makes you seem

irresponsible or you can have the

conversation that makes you seem

creative. And I think that there are

ways to do that.

The key to working with your studio is

to make them your partner, not your

keeper. And I think a lot of people make

the mistake of making their studio their

keeper and treating their studio like

they're their keeper. And it's a

terrible, you know, clashing

relationship. I think it's important to

speak to your studio and to talk to the

people at your studio as if they're your

creative partners and say, "Here's what

we want to do. Do you guys like this

too?" Because if you do, then they

understand why you're overbudget. And

you say, "If you like it, too, then

maybe we could do it this way. What do

you think? How do you feel about this?"

If they have been included in the

process, in the thought process, they

are more likely to be happy to sign off

on a higher budget. If they have not

been included, they are less likely to

sign off. They need to be part of the

process. It's a much more intelligent

way of approaching things. It's much

more mature than sort of stomping your

feet and closing your door and saying,

"You give me what I want or else." That

doesn't work. It's not it's not a mature

or actually functional way of doing

anything. And most people try to do it

that way, I think. And that's what gets

you into trouble in the early days. Once

again, communication is always the way

through.

As I've gone along more, I've also tried

to really learn how to empower the

people under me because I want them to

all know how to run shows. I've been

able to empower people and say like you

run you run this room, you do this job,

you you know to make sure that I'm

valuing the people who are working there

and delegating in a way that's in a way

that makes sense because what are what's

my value? Like what am I being asked to

do? What am I really supposed to be

doing? I'm supposed to be the

storyteller. And if I'm spending most of

my time explaining to somebody why the

budget is too high or something, that's

not really what ABC hired me to do, you

know, it's not really what's what's

going on there. I really should be

working as hard as I can to make the

best story possible. So, I try to I try

to do the pieces of my job that I am

best at and then try to find like Betsy

Beers, who's my producing partner, I try

to get her to do the pieces of my job

that I am not the best at. And we've

sort of come to that over time simply

because otherwise I'm not going to have

time to tell story. We have too many

shows. I think leadership is really

about making sure that the people who

work work with you and for you

feel valued and feel like they are also

getting opportunities. You know,

a lot of ways leadership is about making

sure that you're not working in a in a

hero model where everything depends on

you so that everyone's like, "Oh,

Shondaanda." That's not interesting. And

it's not interesting for them and it

shouldn't be interesting for me.

Everything should be a team model. Like

everybody is valuable and everybody is

necessary for Shaan to succeed and

everybody should have that feeling. If

they're not feeling that then there's

something wrong with the way I'm

leading. So to me, making sure that

everyone feels valued probably is the

most important thing.

The best thing to remember about being

incredibly busy and you know coming up

I'll have six shows on the air. Two of

which I've created and four of which you

know we're executive producing. The best

way to stay organized is to remember

that the busier you are the more

productive you are in an interesting way

to and to keep your time very clearly um

managed. I've stopped reading emails

almost entirely except for once a day.

And I get 2500 emails a day, which is

why I've stopped reading emails. One,

I've realized that most of the emails,

even the work ones, are pointless.

People send emails to send emails now,

which is fascinating. So, one, I've

stopped reading emails, which used to

take up ridiculous amounts of my time.

Two, I've really started to close the

door to my office and give myself the

hour I need to focus on whatever it is I

need to focus on. And I say the door to

my office is closed. Do not bother me

unless it's, you know, the president of

the network. Um, three, I've really

tried to spend time doing the things

that I know are necessary and thinking

of it that way. You know, what are the

things that the day cannot go by without

me doing? Other than that, everything

else is extra. And then I'll have these

pockets of time where I'll discover, oh,

wait, I have some time here. I've also

truly learned that the work will always

be there tomorrow. So, I try to go home

every night and put everything down and

I don't answer any emails after 7:00

p.m. or phone calls after 7:00 p.m. And

I do not work on weekends if I can help

it. I write on weekends because I always

write on I write every day, but I don't

work on weekends and I try really hard

not to. Um, mainly because I'm already

up at 5:00 a.m. doing things and if I

did that, I would be burned out beyond

belief, which is what I was before when

I started doing this.

You have to be a really good leader. You

have to be able to create a family um

amongst your crew, amongst your cast.

You have to make people feel welcome if

you can.

There's there's so many qualities and

you have to be a good writer. You have

to be able to get into that writer's

room and keep the room moving forward.

You have to have a sense of story

structure. You have to be able to write

and I mean really write. You have to be

able to rewrite.

The

most important thing, and these are all

these things I'm telling. You have to be

a business person. You have to be a

mother. You have to be a a I don't know

a therapist. And you have to be able to

write really quickly because the worst

thing that can happen is to have a

showrunner who can't write fast. I can

write a draft in 5 hours if I have to.

But there are some showrunners who they

cannot do that and therefore none of the

other things matter because they can't

keep the room running on time at all.

And you can only buy that if

frankly if you're me like I can I can be

like we're not going to get a script for

four days but I can I've earned that

right. You don't earn that right from

the beginning. You have to prove

yourself

in terms of working with younger writers

empowering them and sort of raising them

to be the next generation of

showrunners. I think that's important

for several reasons. But the biggest

reason I think is because

you know this is a town where it's a

smaller town than people think. You know

people think of Hollywood as being this

big fancy place where there's all these

opportunities. It's in a weird way a

small town and the opportunities can be

limited mainly because it's insular.

People hire who they know. They hire

their friends kids. So that's what sort

of perpetuates the image of it being a

town where it's hard to break into and

that there's not a lot of diversity.

It's not it doesn't look like the normal

world.

So part of what I'm interested in doing

is making opportunities for people who

wouldn't necessarily find their way

through the door. And I think that it's

important because finding your way

through the door isn't as easy as saying

to your friend's dad, "Hey, I'd love a

job." if you don't know anybody in this

town.

And sometimes it's not that easy to get

your script read or to get a way in. So

to me, part of what happens for me, it's

about training people. And what I see

happen a lot is people say, "Well, that

person was great when they came in, but

they don't have enough training. They

don't know enough." So I say, "Let's

train them. Let's get people in the

door. Let's get women. Let's get people

of color. Let's get people, you know,

who haven't necessarily normally had

access." and anybody who doesn't have

access by knowing somebody already

through this door and give them the

training they need. And that has worked

like gang busters for us.

I think I wanted to be a showrunner

because

I wanted to run my own show. You know, I

I felt like I really knew and understood

it. I felt like I was working really

hard at it and I thought I would enjoy

it. I mean, I honestly felt like it was

a challenge that I thought I would

enjoy. I don't know that I think every

writer could or should be a showrunner.

I don't necessarily think it's that much

fun. The thing to remember though is if

you don't want to be a showrunner or

don't desire to be a showrunner, you

will always be working for someone else.

And if that's okay with you, then great.

Um, but if it's not okay with you, then

you need to be a showrunner. And anytime

anybody tells you you can create the

show and someone else will run it, don't

worry, it's going to be fine. They're

not telling you the truth. Because the

thing to remember is that a showrunner

can always um take over. That's why

they're the showrunner. I don't know

that I knew that I would be a good

showrunner except I felt like I knew the

show better than anybody else. I mean, I

remember with Grey's Anatomy that people

would say to me, "What color shoes is

Meredith wearing?" And I'd be like,

"Zebra print loafers." Like, I just knew

in a strange way, which was very

bizarre. But I felt like I had

internalized that show in such a way.

I'd spent so much time thinking about

it, I would dream about it, that it was

literally like it was all I did for for

a while cuz I was so intent on being

good at it that it felt like a natural

thing for me to do. I learned everything

I know about television while making

television, including how to write a

television show, including how to write

a television series, including how to

write television for more than one

season, two seasons, three season, four

seasons, whatever. I feel like I've

learned everything I know about TV on

the job. So, I definitely think

learning how to be a showrunner really

does take the doing. You can't really

read a book about how to be a showrunner

and truly learn how to do it. It's you

can't learn how to put out a fire by

reading about how to put out a fire.

There has to be a fire for you to put

out for you to really understand what

it's like to put out a fire. Don't set

fires, but you know what I mean. Um,

yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot you

can learn about the technical aspects,

but I do think you need to actually be

doing the job to figure it out or at

least be working directly under somebody

who's doing the job and get to watch

from very close up what it's like. When

I was starting out and my first show in

Grey's Anatomy season 1, I worked with

James Priet, who was our showrunner, and

he was great. He taught me everything.

A couple of the things that he taught me

that I feel like are the old school

lessons are you never put your name on

someone else's script even if you've

rewritten that script. Mainly because

you are it's your job to rewrite that

script. It is your job to put you know

to put your um computer put put your pen

so to speak on everyone else's script.

It's how it works. If you're not

rewriting their script then you're not

doing your job. So there's absolutely no

reason why you should be taking credit

for the thing you were supposed to be

doing in the first place. It's

interesting having been, you know,

having done this for so long to discover

how much I know, you know, we have these

moments now where things will happen,

you know, like a crisis will happen and

they're not they're not considered

crises anymore because I can solve them

in my sleep. Like I can go, we're going

to do this, this, this, and this. Don't

worry about it. This will happen and

this will happen and it's 10 minutes.

Something that would have taken us days

to figure out how to solve or handle

takes 10 minutes now because we're so

used to doing it. We're so used to

handling it. And it's because we have

all this experience now. It's old hat.

And I I turned to Betsy one day and I

said, I think we're now the

establishment. We're like the old guard.

We could teach anybody how to do this at

this point because we're not even

worried anymore when something happens

that needs to be fixed. and she laughed

and she said, "Yeah, I I think this is

it. Like, we're the we're the old

people." And that's it's kind of great

to realize that nothing phases us

anymore.

The sentence I don't like the most to

hear from people is I want to be a

writer. You either are a writer or

you're not a writer. You may not be a

working writer, but you either are a

writer or you're not a writer. It's like

when people say I want to be a singer.

Either you can sing or you can't sing,

right? you either you write or you

don't. So to me, it's just you're a

writer. Go write. Prove yourself to be a

writer. Nobody has to pay you in order

to write. You have to just find the time

and do it. Even if you like have like

five kids and you work a job, you can

find 10 minutes a day to write something

down. Really, you really can. And it's

it doesn't have to be the greatest thing

in the world. You don't have to be the

most thrilled by it, but you have to be

able to access your creative space. Even

just 10 minutes a day for yourself. Even

if you're just waiting for people to

like like your kids put all them in the

bathtub and you write for 10 minutes a

day or you know you're on the subway,

you write for 10 minutes a day. Whatever

it is, find yourself a little bit of

time to write every single day. I'm sure

there are excuses that are acceptable

for not writing every day. Absolutely.

But once again, I say a writer is

someone who writes every day. So if

you're not going to write every day,

then you cannot call yourself a writer.

The same you just can't. And it's fine

and there's nothing wrong with that.

It's just it's the idea that you need to

make peace with that reality. Like you

can decide that you're not going to

write every day. And there is nothing

wrong with not writing every day, but

then don't run around and call yourself

an aspiring writer because if you really

wanted to be a writer, that is what you

would be doing.

I don't think you ever find a work life

balance. And I think it's a falsehood to

make anybody feel like they're supposed

to find a work life balance. There's no

good way to be a great mother and to be

great at your job at the same time and

to feel like you are going to kill it at

both and be amazing at both and never

feel guilty about sherking one duty or

another. Like work life balance is a lie

that we are fed to make us feel bad

about ourselves. I feel like it doesn't

exist. There are always going to be

times when you feel like a terrible

mother and there are always going to be

times when you feel like you're terrible

at your job. That is just how it goes.

Also, for most women, going to work is

not an option. So, I always feel like

this how do you achieve work life

balance thing is really disingenuous.

Most women have to go to work to feed

their families, to pay their bills. I am

fortunate that I have a great job and

I'm excit but most women have to go to

work to feed their families and pay

their bills. So to then suggest that

it's sort of like a a work life balance

thing is a choice. It's not a choice.

You have to go to work. You have to take

care of your kids. You're going to feel

guilty either way. It's okay. Like

that's how it should be. It should be

okay to not feel like you're getting it

right all the time cuz nobody ever is.

I don't think I ever really thought

about the fact that there weren't many

black women writing television. I don't

think I ever thought about it at all. I

mean, I think growing up, the concept

that there weren't any black women doing

television really came down to the fact

that I didn't realize that this was a

job. And part of that comes from the

fact that it didn't seem like a job

where there was access available to

anybody but guys, white guys who knew

other white guys in a lot of ways. It it

is a buddy system town in that sense. So

when I got here, I don't know that I

felt um influenced or intimidated by the

fact that there weren't any black women.

I think I was a person who's very lucky

because I went to college um at

Dartmouth, which is uh for better, for

worse, in its best ways, a place I

loved, but it's a frat boy town. And I

was very used to sitting in rooms full

of white guys. And that was awesome for

me in the sense that I am not a person

who has ever felt uncomfortable in any

room. I belong in any room that I enter.

And I know that and I think for a lot of

women, for women of color, um, as well,

there is a sense of, um, discomfort when

you enter a room full of straight white

men and you think to yourself, do I

belong in this room? I I'm the only

person who's different in this room. Do

I belong? It's never occurred to me that

I don't belong. So, that's been really

helpful for me. And I think that's the

my favorite piece of advice to give

anybody. Remember that you belong in any

room that you enter. And if you don't

feel like you truly belong, act like you

belong. Part of it is simply, what's the

alternative?

I mean, I don't know how you can go

through life walking into rooms and

allowing other people to feel like or to

make you feel like you don't belong.

That's crazy. Because if they can make

you feel like you don't belong, that

means that they get to have everything

and you don't get to have anything. That

is unacceptable.

I mean

that is unacceptable considering where

we are in this world right now. So to me

you have to belong in every room. That's

not an option

to me. Badasserie is a little bit about

having just a little bit of swagger.

like getting to feel

like you like yourself, like you're into

yourself, like you think that you're

kind of all that. Like there's nothing

wrong with thinking that you're amazing.

And it's interesting how much women are

unable to take those compliments in and

to feel good about themselves because of

it. and and how it's not just women,

frankly, it's a lot of people who feel

like there's something wrong with not

sort of displaying humility and

humbleness 100% of the time. Whereas,

you should feel like it's okay. Like, I

don't know, there was this moment in my

book, and I sort of discovered it while

I was writing it, where I said people go

to therapists. They pay people to teach

them to like themselves, to be into

themselves, to think that they should

love themselves. And we're taught that

we're not supposed to suggest that those

things are things that people should

want us to do. It's crazy. Like, come

on. There's nothing wrong with having a

little swagger. Own it. As Muhammad Ali

used to say, it's not bragging if you

can back it up. And there's something

good about enjoying your

accomplishments. Not in a rude way, but

just enjoying it a little bit. having a

little swagger and getting to appreciate

anything that you've done. Um, that is

good. I try more to appreciate the

moments when I feel like I'm a little

bit of a badass and things are working.

It's harder. I mean, I think it's hard

for anybody, but it's hard. But there

are these moments when things get really

when things are really good and things

are really fun and you can you can allow

yourself I can allow myself to look

around and go, "Yeah, this is good. I'm

a badass. I'm enjoying this." A lot of

times it's it's at work when you're

realizing that, you know, you're the

boss and that's not a bad thing and

you're in like my work is fun and I feel

lucky. That helps sometimes when it's

hard, when you're there too long,

whatever, to think like, "Dude, this is

such a great job. You're lucky. You're a

badass. Enjoy it." And I think women

should give themselves a chance to have

those moments more in at any moment.

Like, we're always, you know, taught to

push it away and don't celebrate your

accomplishments. Every once in a while,

you should celebrate

Both my parents um are educators. They

work in the education field. And what

was great about that is having sort of

two super nerdy intellectuals for

parents meant that reading was pretty

much everything in my family. Books were

treasures in my family. My house was

filled with them. My parents idea of a

really good time was a book or a game of

chess. So, I spent a lot of time in the

library. My parents had a rule that I

could read whatever I wanted, no

questions asked. There was sort of no

censorship based on my age. None at all.

Which meant that I could sort of I

remember very clearly reading French

Lieutenant Woman when I was seven or

eight and, you know, asking my mother

about some very interesting words and

her saying, you know, the dictionaries

over there and going to look them up.

But it also made me love reading. It

made me love books. It made me love the

written word. And that is everything. I

think if you don't grow up with that

around you, finding your sense of

storytelling and finding your love of of

language and of words has to come from

someplace else. It has to come from

outside. I was lucky enough to have that

around me all the time. Writing felt

like something I could do mainly because

I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

I graduated from college and really felt

lost. I mean truly felt lost. The idea

of going to get one of those jobs that

all my friends went to get. I remember

doing the interviewing process in New

York and sitting in these meetings and

people talking about things that sounded

unbelievably boring to me. I mean,

working in these offices and doing these

things that I'm sure I would have been

fine doing. I just didn't want to do

them.

And

I'm kind of an overachiever, but I

wanted to love what I did. So, I

literally moved to San Francisco and

lived in my sister's basement and got a

job at an advertising agency to just

make a living and I was miserable.

And then I read somewhere, I think it

was the New York Times, was an article

that said it was harder to get into USC

film school than it was to get into

Harvard Law School. And I thought, well,

my parents will have to support that

because it's hard to get into. It's

graduate school and it's education. And

so I applied and I got in and my parents

were supportive because they thought,

well, she can teach. She gets out, she

can teach this weird thing she wants to

do. And it seemed exciting at the time.

I mean, I think a lot of independent

filmmakers were starting to come out and

Sex Lives and Videotape had just become

a thing. And that felt exciting. And so

I went to film school thinking, "Let's

try this." And really fell in love with

it. I don't know that I ever doubted I

could pursue something. And I think that

is because I was raised by parents who

were very

positive in a lot of ways. And even

though they weren't necessarily thrilled

that I wanted to make a living out of

being a writer, they were also people

who said, "The only limits to your

success are your own imagination." I

mean, my father said that to me so much

that I could say it in my sleep at this

point. And I believed him. I mean, I

truly believed the idea that the only

limits to my success are my own

imagination. I'm pretty sure that if I

wanted to be an Olympic figure skater

right now, if I started working, I could

do it. And I'm not joking. Like, I I

that much believe that if I like believe

I can do it, I can do it. Now, I'd

probably be terrible at it, but I

believe that I could probably make it.

So there is this idea that I really did

get raised with this thought that there

were no barriers, there were no hurdles,

they're just hills.

And that's probably been the most

powerful lesson I've ever been taught.

So there's not a lot of times when I

felt like I can't do this. I I'm

discouraged. I want out of this town. My

relationship with ABC happened because I

had been writing movies. I had an agent.

I said, "I I think I'm interested in

writing TV because I've been watching a

lot of television." And they sent me

they were going to send me, I think, on

meetings with a lot of people to see

what places I wanted to write TV at. And

I think I just went to see ABC Studios

at the time and immediately

um it felt right. We had a great

relationship. We had a great

conversation. It just felt like, oh, I

want to work with this studio. And the

studio then takes you to the networks to

pitch shows. And the first place they

take you at ABC studios is to ABC

network to pitch your shows. So I would

go and pitch shows at ABC. And so that's

just how that happened. The first pilot

I wrote was about um war correspondents

and it was really this amazing pilot as

far as I was concerned about women who

sort of drank a lot and had a little bit

too much fun covering war. and they were

very competitive and they weren't sort

of the women you'd normally have seen on

television before. You know, there was

one of the women had a child and she

kind of wasn't interested in talking to

her child as much as she was

photographing all of the things that

were happening around her and that

seemed controversial. But what was great

about it to me was that these were the

kind of women I know, except for the

fact that they were covering war, but we

were at war. And suddenly it became a

little bit tasteless I think and truly

so to see these women having so much fun

covering something that was actually

happening to American soldiers. And so

we didn't get to make it which was such

a bummer. Also being my first pilot it

was I mean I made a fake city. We bombed

it. There were sieges. We had a giant

stadium full of hostages. I mean it was

a little bit it it was a $10 million

movie. It was not a a small pilot. So,

um, I mean, it was probably a $50

million movie, but we ended up sort of

going, that's not something that can be

made right now, but I took the idea of

that, these competitive women who love

their jobs more than they loved anything

else, who were had a little bit too much

fun at work, who drank a little bit too

much and had a little bit too much sex,

and put it into the world of the

hospital, which also felt like a really

great environment because at the time

there were very few female surgeons. I

don't think I knew that Grey's Anatomy

was a hit in in the sense of really

knowing and I feel I feel fortunate

about this. I don't think I knew that

Grey's Anatomy was a hit until probably

season three and maybe the end of season

3 mainly because I was busy making the

show. You know, we were lucky. We're on

a small lot. It was this bubble of a

lot. We all just stayed in our little

soundstages and our offices making our

show really hard. We worked too many

hours a day and it wasn't really hitting

me how the outside world was absorbing

the show at all. And

we went I think we went to New York or

something as a cast and we all were

staying in this hotel and we said,

"Let's go to dinner." And we walked out

of the hotel and there were hundreds of

people outside the hotel and they were

screaming our names. Not just the

actor's names, but my name too. And

everybody got really scared and we all

ran back inside and looked at each other

and said, "What do you think is

happening?" And this is like maybe the

end of season two, maybe middle of

season 3. Like, "What do you think is

happening?" Middle, it was the end of

season two. "What do you think is

happening?" And I said, "I don't know

what's happening." And we were like

nervous. And somebody said, "I I think

those people are here for us." And I was

like, "Well, they're screaming our

names." And we were like, we all were so

freaked out that we just went back

upstairs and ordered room service

because none of us could figure out like

how did we get this popular without any

of us knowing about it. It was very

strange. But we'd had our heads down

working so hard that none of us had

really noticed. The fact that people

knew who I was still didn't register

anything for me at the time because on

our show we had Sandra, we had Shandra,

and we had Shondaanda was me. And so we

always joked that anybody was going to

interchange our names at any time. And

if you were yelling Shondaanda, I was

pretty sure you were yelling for Sandra

or Shandra. So it never occurred to me

for a really long time that anybody

actually knew who I was. Um that didn't

happen till that didn't occur to me

until later. I think it's

it's a very strange thing to be a writer

and to have somebody know who you are by

looking at your face. I mean, I think

any writer in the world goes, I would

love it if people knew my name, right?

You you want that. You want somebody to

say, "There's James Patterson." You

know, when you see a book, like, you

know who James Patterson is. That's

that's the goal. Stephen King, you don't

want people to know your face. You want

to be able to walk around without people

knowing your face. That's never been a

thing that I thought was going to

happen. And having it happen was

stunning in a lot of ways. Interestingly

enough, I think the things that I wish

that I had known then that I know now

are none of them have to do with

writing. All of them have to do with the

business side of this industry. Um,

mainly because what was wonderful about

then and now is that now I know enough

to be afraid and know all the pitfalls

creatively. Then I was a free spirit. I

didn't know anything. So, I didn't know,

for instance, that I could be fired when

writing a television show for not doing

what the Sure Network wanted me to do.

So, I just behaved like someone who

couldn't be fired. I didn't know that

you didn't do something in this way, so

I did it that way and it worked.

The things I wish I did know are things

like um sort of how to get things done

better or how to run a show. They're

they're all things that really have to

do with the education that comes from

years of doing something. But then

I kind of love the fact that I sort of

walked into this and learned how to

write television by writing my show. One

of the things that's most meaningful for

me is when

I don't know young women come up and

tell me that they became doctors because

they watch Grey's Anatomy or when

someone will come up and tell me that

they found the language to come out to

their parents because of Grey's Anatomy

or more when parents have language come

out to their children because of Grey's

Anatomy or when a woman of color will

come up to me and say, "I feel seen

because of scandal." like those are the

moments that feel really really powerful

to me and um

make me feel good like I'm doing a good

job at least um and like make me want to

keep writing because somebody is getting

something from it. You know, most of the

time I'm not thinking about the audience

in that way because it's it's hard to

think about the fact that there are

people out there who are watching and

sort of depending on it in a in a way.

It's a lot of pressure. Most of the time

I'm just thinking, let me just tell a

good story. That's my job. Keep your

head down and tell a good story. But it

but it's nice to know that you're

helping somebody out there every once in

a while. That feels that's a really

powerful feeling and it's a big

responsibility. Here's the thing I

always think about when I think about

myself as a writer. And I feel like

sometimes people are surprised when I

say this and I am always like, why are

you surprised? I feel like I just got

started. I mean, I just figured out how

to really do this. And I'm still

figuring out how to do this. Every time

I write something different or something

new, it's a discovery. Oh, you can do

this with television or oh, you can do

that with television. Nobody knows what

they're doing. Nobody. Nobody's 100%

sure and 100% confident that they know

everything. I certainly am not. So,

in a weird way, I'm still teaching

myself to be fearless and I'm still

discovering things and I'm still

learning as I go. And if I just feel I'm

just now starting to feel like I'm

comfortable and competent in the job,

then I have a long way to go towards

feeling like I've really mastered it.

And that's exciting because otherwise I

might as well quit. I always say I'm

going to write Grey's Anatomy until I've

run out of ideas for Meredith or I'm

going to write television until I don't

have any more ideas for shows.

That's what drives me. I have stories to

tell. I'm a storyteller. As long as I'm

telling stories and as long as I feel

like I'm telling them well, then I'm

going to want to do this.

So, now it's over. You've taken the

whole class. You're done. You've gone

through the whole thing. I'm hopeful

that maybe you have a script out of it

or you're going to have a script out of

it. What should you do now? Well, keep

watching the class. Refer back to it

every once in a while. Come back every

time you have a new idea, a new script,

a new question. Come back when you need

to be inspired.

Make sure that you keep writing.

Remember what we've said. A writer

writes every day. Remember what we

talked about with dialogue. Whenever

you're feeling stuck, come back and like

check out a class every once in a while.

It helps. So, I'm really glad you were

here. I'm really glad you came. I'm

really glad you spent time with us. I

sort of can't believe that I got to have

this opportunity to sit and talk to you

and tell you about story and dialogue

and character. It was really fun for me,

much more fun than I even thought it

would be. and I was excited to do it in

the first place. Now, if you're feeling

really good about everything, what you

should be doing right now is turning me

off, going to your computer, and sitting

down to start writing immediately. I

hope it works for you. I think you're

going to find the stuff that you learned

so useful. And frankly, I can't wait to

see the television you produce because I

look forward to watching it. Have fun.