The future of storytelling

Cyndi Stivers: So,
the future of storytelling.

Before we do the future,

let's talk about what is never
going to change about storytelling.

Shonda Rhimes: What's never
going to change.

Obviously, I think good stories
are never going to change,

the need for people to gather together
and exchange their stories

and to talk about the things
that feel universal,

the idea that we all feel
a compelling need to watch stories,

to tell stories, to share stories,

sort of the gathering around the campfire
to discuss the things that tell

each one of us that we
are not alone in the world.

Those things to me
are never going to change.

Like, that essence of storytelling
is never going to change.

CS: Okay. In preparation
for this conversation,

I checked in with Susan Lyne,

who was running ABC Entertainment

when you were working
on "Grey's Anatomy"--

SR: Yes.

CS: -- and she said that there was
this indelible memory she had

of your casting process,

where without discussing it
with any of the executives,

you got people coming in
to read for your scripts,

and every one of them
was at the full range of humanity,

you did not type anyone in any way,

and that it was completely surprising.

So she said, in addition
to retraining the studio executives,

you also, she feels,

and I think this is, I agree,

retrained the expectations
of the American TV audience.

So what else does the audience
not yet realize that it needs

SR: What else does it not yet realize?

Well, I mean, I don't think
we're anywhere near there yet.

I mean, we're still in a place in which

we're far, far behind what looks
like the real world in actuality.

Like, I wasn't bringing in
a bunch of actors

who looked very different from one another

simply because I was
trying to make a point,

and I wasn't trying
to do anything special.

It never occurred to me that that
was new, different, or weird.

I just brought in actors because
I thought they were interesting,

and to me, the idea that it
was completely surprising to everybody,

I didn't know that for a while.

I just thought, these are the actors
I want to see play these parts.

I want to see what they
look like if they read.

We'll see what happens.

So I think the interesting thing
that happens is

that when you look at the world
through another lens,

when you're not the person normally

in charge of things,

it just comes out a different way.

CS: So you now, you have
this big machine that you run,

as a titan, as you know,
last year when you gave her talk,

she's a titan.

So what do you think is going to happen

as we go on.

There's a huge amount of money involved
in producing these shows.

While the tools of making stories
have gone and gotten greatly democratized,

there's still this large distribution,

people who rent networks,
who rent the audience to advertisers

and make it all pay.

How do you see the business model changing

now that anyone can be a storyteller?

SR: I think it's changing every day.

I mean, the rapid, rapid change
that's happening is amazing.

And I feel the panic is palpable,

and I don't mean that in a bad way.

I think it's kind of exciting.

The idea that there's sort of
an equalizer happening

that sort of means that anybody
can make something is wonderful.

I think there's some scary in the idea

that you can't find the good work now.

There's so much work out there.

I think there's something like
417 dramas on television right now

at any given time in any given place,
but you can't find them.

You can't find the good ones.

So there's a lot of bad stuff out there
because everybody can make something.

It's like if everybody painted a painting.

You know, there's not
that many good painters.

But finding the good stories,

the good shows, is harder
and harder and harder,

because if you have
one tiny show over here on AMC

and one tiny show over here over there,

finding where they are
becomes much harder.

So I think that ferreting out the gems

and finding out who made
the great webisode and who made this,

it's, I mean, think about the poor critics
who now are spending 24 hours a day

trapped in their homes
watching everything.

It's not an easy job right now.

So the distribution engines
are getting more and more vast,

but finding the good programming
for everybody in the audience

is getting harder,

and unlike the news,

where everything's getting
winnowed down to just who you are,

television seems to be getting,

and by television I mean anything
you can watch television shows on,

seems to be getting wider
and wider and wider.

And so anybody's making stories,

and the geniuses are sometimes hidden,

but it's going to be harder to find,

and at some point that will collapse.

People keep talking about peak TV.

I don't know when that's going to happen.

I think at some point
it'll collapse a little bit

and we'll, sort of, come back together.

I don't know if it
will be network television.

I don't know if that model is sustainable.

CS: What about the model that
Amazon and Netflix are throwing

a lot of money around right now.

SR: That is true.

I think it's an interesting model.

I think there's something
exciting about it.

For content creators, I think
there's something exciting about it.

For the world I think
there's something exciting about it.

The idea that there are programs now

that can be in multiple languages
with characters from all over the world

that are appealing and come out
for everybody at the same time

is exciting.

I mean, I think the international sense

that television can now take on
makes sense to me,

that programming can now take on.

Television so much is made for, like,
here's our American audience.

We make these shows,

and then they shove them
out into the world

and hope for the best,

as opposed to really thinking
about the fact that America is not it.

I mean, we love ourselves
and everything, but it's not it,

and we should be taking into account
the fact that there are all

of these other places in the world

that we should be interested in
while we're telling stories.

It makes the world smaller.

I don't know.

I think it pushes forward the idea
that the world is a universal place,

and our stories become universal things.

We stop being other.

CS: You've pioneered, as far as I can see,

interesting ways to launch new shows too.

I mean, when you
launched "Scandal" in 2012,

there was this amazing groundswell
of support on Twitter

the likes of which nobody had seen before.

Do you have any other
tricks up your sleeve

when you launch your next one?

Or what do you think
will happen in that regard?

SR: We do have some interesting ideas.

We have a show
called "Still Star-Crossed"

that's going to come out this summer.

We have some interesting ideas for that.

I'm not sure if we're going
to be able to do them in time.

I thought they were very fun and funny.

But, you know, the idea
that we would live-tweet our show

was really just us thinking
that would be fun.

We didn't realize that the critics
would start to live-tweet along with us.

But the fans, getting people
to be a part of it,

making it more of a campfire,

you know, when you're all
on Twitter together

and you're all talking together,

it is more of a shared experience,

and finding other ways
to make that possible,

and finding other ways
to make people feel engaged

is important.

CS: So when you have
all those different people making stories,

and only some of them
are going to break through

and get that audience somehow,

how do you think
storytellers will get paid?

SR: I actually have been struggling
with this concept as well.

Like, is it going to be
a subscriber model?

Are people going to say, like, I'm going
to watch this particular person's shows,

and that's how we're going to do it?

CS: Yeah, I think we should buy
a passport to Shondaland. Right?

SR: I don't know about that, but yeah.
That's a lot more work for me.

But I do think that there are going
to be different ways,

but I don't know necessarily.

I mean, I'll be honest and say
a lot of content creators

are not necessarily interested
in being distributors,

mainly because what I dream of doing

is creating content.

Like, I really love to create content.

I want to get paid for it

and I want to get paid the money
that I deserve to get paid for it,

and there's a hard part in finding that.

But I also want it to be made possible

for, you know, the people
who work with me,

the people who work for me,
everybody to sort of get paid in a way

and they're all making a living.

How it gets distributed
is getting harder and harder.

CS: How about the many new tools,

you know, VR, AR.

I find it fascinating that you
can't really binge-watch,

you can't fast-forward in those things.

What do you see as the future
of those for storytelling?

SR: I spent a lot of time in the past year

just exploring those,

getting lots of demonstrations
and paying attention.

I find them fascinating,

mainly because I think

that I think most people
think of them for gaming,

and I think most people think of them
for things like action,

and I think that there is
a sense of intimacy

that is very present in those things,

the idea that, picture this,

you can sit there and have
a conversation with Fitz,

or at least sit there
while Fitz talks to you,

President Fitzgerald Grant III,

while he talks to you

about why he's making
a choice that he makes,

and it's a very heartfelt moment,

and instead of you watching
a television screen,

you're sitting there next to him

and he's having this conversation.

Now, you fall in love with the man while
he's doing it from a television screen.

Imagine sitting next to him

or being with a character like Huck
who's about to execute somebody,

and instead of having a scene

where, you know, he's talking
to another character very rapidly,

he goes into a closet and turns to you

and tells you, you know,

what's going to happen
and why he's afraid and nervous.

It's a little more like theater,
and I'm not sure it would work,

but I'm fascinating by the concept
of something like that

and what that would mean for an audience.

And to get to play with those ideas
would be interesting,

and I think, you know, for my audience,

the people who watch my shows,

which is, you know, women 12 to 75,

there's something interesting
in there for them.

CS: And how about the input
of the audience?

How interested are you in the things

where the audience can actually
go up to a certain point

and then decide, oh wait,
I'm going to choose my own adventure.

I'm going to run off with Fitz

or I'm going to run off with --

SR: Oh, the choose your own
adventure stories.

I have a hard time with those,

and not necessarily because
I want to be in control of everything,

but because when I'm watching television

or I'm watching a movie,

I know for a fact
that a story is not as good

when I have control over exactly
what's going to happen

to somebody else's character.

You know, if I could tell you exactly
what I wanted to happen to Walter White,

that's great, but the story
is not the same, and it's not as powerful.

You know, if I'm in charge
of how "The Sopranos" ends,

then that's lovely and I have an ending
that's nice and satisfying,

but it's not the same story
and it's not the same emotional impact.

CS: I can't stop imagining
what that might be.

Sorry, you're losing me for a minute.

SR: But what's wonderful is
I don't get to imagine it,

because Vince has his own ending,

and it makes it really powerful

to know that somebody else has told.

You know, if you could
decide that, you know,

in "Jaws," the shark wins or something,

it doesn't do what it needs to do for you.

The story is the story that is told,

and you can walk away angry
and you can walk away debating

and you can walk away arguing,

but that's why it works.

That is why it's art.

Otherwise, it's just a game,

and games can be art,

but in a very different way.

CS: Gamers who actually sell
the right to sit there and comment

on what's happening, to me
that's more community than storytelling.

SR: And that is its own form of campfire.

Like, I don't discount that
as a form of storytelling,

but it is a group form, I suppose.

CS: All right, what about
the super-super,

the fact that everything's getting
shorter, shorter, shorter,

and, you know, Snapchat now has
something it calls shows

that are one minute long?

SR: It's interesting.

Part of me thinks
it sounds like commercials.

I mean, it does, like, sponsored by,

but part of me also gets it completely.

There's something
really wonderful about it.

If you think about a world
in which most people

are watching television on their phones,

if you think about a place like India,

where that's where most
of the input is coming in

and that's where most
of the product is coming in,

shorter makes sense.

If you can charge people more
for shorter periods of content,

some distributor has figured out
how to make a lot more money.

If you're making content,
it costs less money

to make it and put it out there.

And, by the way, if you're 14
and short attention span like my daughter,

that's what you want to see,
that's what you want to make,

that's how it works,

and if you do it right
and it actually feels like narrative,

people will hang on for it
no matter what you do.

CS: I'm glad you raised your daughters,

because I am wondering how are they
going to consume entertainment,

and also not just entertainment,

but news too.

When they're not, I mean,
the algorithmic robot overlords

are going to feed them
what they've already done,

how do you think we will correct for that

and make people well-rounded citizens?

SR: Well, me, and how I correct for it

is completely different than how
somebody else might do it.

CS: Feel free to speculate.

SR: I really don't know how
we're going to do it in the future.

I mean, my poor children have been
the subject of all of my experiments.

We're still doing
what I call "Amish summers"

where I turn off all electronics

and pack away all their computers
and stuff and watch them scream

for a while until they settle down

into, like, an electronic-free summer.

But honestly, it's a very hard world

in which now, as grown-ups,

we're so interested
in watching our own thing

and we don't even know
that we're being fed, sometimes,

just our own opinions.

You know, the way it's working now,
you're watching a feed

and the feeds are being corrected so
that you're only getting your own opinions

and you're feeling more and more
right about yourself.

So how do you really start to discern?

It's getting a little bit disturbing.

So maybe it'll overcorrect,
maybe it'll all explode,

or maybe we'll all just become,

I hate to be negative about it,

but maybe we'll all just
become more idiotic.

CS: Yeah, can you picture any corrective

that you could do with scripted,
with fictional work?

SR: Well, I think a lot about the fact
that television has the power

to educate people in a powerful way,
and when you're watching television,

for instance, they do studies
about medical shows.

I think it's 87 percent,
87 percent of people

get most of their knowledge
about medicine and medical facts

from medical shows,

much more so than
they do from their doctors,

than from articles. Right.

So you want to be accurate.

So we work really hard to be accurate,
and every time we make a mistake,

I feel really guilty, like
we're going to do something bad,

but we also give a lot
of good medical information.

There are so many other ways
to give information on those shows.

People are being entertained

and maybe they don't want
to read the news,

but there are a lot of ways
to give fair and unbiased information

out on those shows,

not on some creepy, like,

we're going to control people's minds way,

but in a way that's sort of
very interesting and intelligent

and not about pushing
one side's version or the other,

like giving out the truth.

It would be strange though

if television drama was how
we were giving the news.

CS: It would be strange,

but I gather a lot of what
you've written as fiction

has become prediction this season?

SR: You know, "Scandal" has been
very disturbing for that reason,

and we have this show
that's about politics gone mad,

and basically the way
we've always told the show,

you know, everybody
pays attention to the papers.

We read everything.
We talk about everything.

We have lots of friends in Washington,

and we'd always sort of done
our show as a speculation.

We'd sit in the room and think,

what would happen
if the wheels came off the bus

and everything went crazy?

And that was always great,

except now it felt like the wheels
were coming off the bus

and things were actually going crazy,

so the things that we were speculating
were really coming true.

I mean, we had, our season this year

was going to end with the Russians
controlling the American election,

and we'd written it, we'd planned for it,

it was all there,

and then the Russians were suspected
of being involved in the American election

and we suddenly had to change
what we were going to do for our season.

I walked in and I was like,

"That scene where our mystery woman
starts speaking Russian?

We have to fix that and figure out
what we're going to do."

That just comes from extrapolating

out from what we thought
was going to happen,

or what we thought was crazy.

CS: That's great.

So where else in US or elsewhere
in the world do you look?

Who is doing interesting
storytelling right now?

SR: I don't know, there's a lot
of interesting stuff out there.

Obviously British television
is always amazing

and always does interesting things.

I don't get to watch a lot of TV,

mainly because I'm busy working,

and I pretty much try not to watch
very much television at all,

even American television,

until I'm done with a season,

because things start
to creep into my head otherwise.

I start to wonder, like,

why can't our characters wear crowns
and talk about being on a throne?

It gets crazy.

So I try not to watch much
until the seasons are over.

But I do think that there's a lot of
interesting European television out there

I was at the International Emmys

and looking around and seeing
the stuff that they were showing,

and I was kind of fascinated.

There's some stuff I want to watch

and check out.

CS: Can you imagine,

I know that you don't, like, spend
a lot of time thinking about tech stuff,

but you know how a few years ago
we had someone here at TED

talking about seeing,

wearing Google Glass and seeing

your TV shows essentially in your eye?

Do you ever fantasize when, you know,

the little girl who sat
on the pantry floor

in your parents' house,

did you ever imagine any other medium,

or would you now?

SR: Any other medium.

For storytelling, other than books?

I mean, I grew up wanting
to be Toni Morrison, so no.

I mean, I didn't even imagine television.

So the idea that there could be

some bigger world,

some more magical way of making things,

I'm always excited
when new technology comes out,

and I'm always the first one
to want to try it.

The possibilities feel endless
and exciting right now,

which is what excites me.

We're in this sort of Wild West period
to me, it feels like,

because nobody knows
what we're going to settle on.

You can put stories anywhere right now,

and that's cool to me,

and it feels like once we figure out
how to get the technology

and the creativity of storytelling
to meet, the possibilities are endless.

CS: And also the technology has enabled
the thing I briefly flew by earlier,

binge-viewing,

which is a recent phenomenon,

since you've been doing shows, right?

And how do you think,

does that change
the storytelling process at all?

You always had a bible for
the whole season beforehand, right?

SR: No, I just always knew
where we were going to end.

So for me,

the only way I can really comment on that

is that I have a show that's been
going on for 14 seasons,

and so there are the people who have
been watching it for 14 seasons,

and then there are the 12-year old girls
I'd encounter in the grocery store

who had watched
297 episodes in three weeks.

Seriously, and that's a very different
experience for them,

because they've been inside of something

really intensely for
a very short period of time

in a very intense way,

and to them the story has
a completely different arc

and a completely different meaning

because it never had any breaks.

CS: It's like visiting a country
and then leaving it.

It's a strange --

SR: It's like reading an amazing novel

and then putting it down.

I think that is the beauty
of the experience.

You don't necessarily have to watch
something for 14 seasons.

It's not necessarily the way
everything's supposed to be.

CS: Is there any topic that you
don't think we should touch?

SR: I don't think
I think of story that way.

I think of story in terms of character
and what characters would do

and what characters need to do

in order to make them move forward,

so I'm never really thinking of story
in terms of just plot,

and when writers come
into my writer's room

and pitch me plot,

I say, "You're not speaking English."

Like, that's the thing I say.

We're not speaking English.

I need to hear what's real.

And so I don't think of it that way.

I don't know if there's a way to think,
like, there's something I wouldn't do

because that feels like I'm plucking
pieces of plot off a wall or something.

CS: That's great. To what extent
do you think you will use,

you know, you recently went
on the board of Planned Parenthood

and got involved in
the Hillary Clinton campaign.

To what extent do you think
you will use your storytelling

in the real world

to effect change?

SR: Well, you know,

that's an intense subject to me,

because I feel like the lack of narrative

that a lot of people have is difficult.

You know, like, there's a lot
of organizations

that don't have a positive narrative
that they've created for themselves

that would help them.

There's a lot of campaigns

that could be helped
with a better narrative.

The Democrats could do a lot

with a very strong
narrative for themselves.

There's a lot of different things
that could happen

in terms of using storytelling voice,

and I don't mean that in a fiction way,

I mean that in a same way
that any speechwriter would mean it.

And I see that, but I don't necessarily
know that that's, like, my job to do that.

CS: All right.

Please help me thank Shonda.
SR: Thank you.

(Applause)