YouTube Scriptwriting Framework — Step-by-Step Guide & Transcript

[00:00] I'm a professional YouTuber and script writer with over 30 million views, and throughout my four plus years on YouTube, I found that writing killer scripts is one of the hardest things to learn, and also one of the most important if you want to blow up your channel. So today,

[00:13] I'm going to share with you my tried and tested process to write killer YouTube scripts that go viral every single time, just like all of these videos here that I've helped write. And it all starts with writing a hanger hook for your video. Your video's hook is the first 15 to

[00:26] 30 seconds of your video, and this is honestly the most important part of your script, because if you don't get viewers well hooked, then they're just going to leave and it doesn't really matter what you do with the rest of your video. So it's absolutely crucial that you get this right.

[00:38] And to get it right, there's three main parts that every single viral hook uses that you're going to want to use. Number one is payoff, which is basically just saying whatever's going to happen in your video. And this is super important to include because when viewers click on your video, they're

[00:50] basically expecting to get a video that's about whatever your title and thumbnail shows. And if they don't get that confirmed right away, they're just very likely to click off because subconsciously they think their time is going to get wasted and maybe even that they clicked on the wrong video.

[01:02] For example, when you clicked on this video, you expected a video about writing YouTube scripts that get a ton of views. And in literally the second line of the video, I confirmed this to you by saying, Today, I'm going to share with you my tried and tested process to write killer YouTube scripts that go viral every single time.

[01:17] Or in this MrBeast video about 50 YouTubers fighting for a million dollars, literally the first line of the video is Justin saying that I've gathered 50 of the biggest YouTubers on this planet, and whichever one lasts the longest in this queue, wins that million dollars for their subscribers.

[01:31] And these two examples aren't to say that your payoff has to be within the first one to two lines of your hook, but it should be there pretty early, otherwise, again, viewers are just going to click off. Number two is context, which is just any extra information you can give viewers to make the

[01:43] payoff make more sense. This could be a reason for doing what you're about to do, or some extra background information, or really anything along those lines. For example, in this Iman Ghazi video about making 10k a month as a student, he starts off with a reason for making the video, saying that, quote,

[01:58] Ladies and gentlemen, absolutely everyone wants to know how to make $10,000 a month as a student. The only issue is there's a lot of BS out there. Or, like I did in this video you're watching right now, where I said that I found that writing killer scripts is one of the hardest things to learn,

[02:12] and also one of the most important if you want to blow up your channel. With this extra context in the hook, now there's more of a reason for viewers to keep watching and the payoff makes more sense. And number three is social proof, which is basically just credibility or getting your viewers to trust you.

[02:26] If you're making entertainment-based content, you probably don't need this, but if you're making educational content like I am, then you definitely need to give your viewers some reason to trust you or just something to back up whatever you're saying. One example is when I started off this video by telling you that I'm a professional script writer and YouTuber with over 30 million views.

[02:41] Because considering you still watching that made you trust me and know that whatever information I about to give you is actually legit and I actually know what I talking about so your time not going to get wasted And realistically with the amount of bad actors out there especially on YouTube if I hadn done that you probably would have clicked off and said wow this guy an idiot Together

[02:58] you'll want to include all three of these elements in your hooks in whatever order you want. Your hooks in general shouldn't be very long probably 30 seconds or less so just play around with them and figure out what sounds best. And now that you have banger hooks for your scripts you're

[03:11] definitely not going to have viewers leaving after a few seconds anymore. However if you want your videos to go really viral, you actually need to keep viewers watching for the entire rest of the video. And doing this requires a really solid structure for your script.

[03:23] See, most YouTubers will have their hook and then just go ahead and write the rest of their video from a blank canvas. Not only is this bad because it takes a long time, but it's also super messy and disorganizing. You end up with a script that kind of just goes every which way, which doesn't keep viewers

[03:36] engaged. Instead, you're going to start by sectioning out your video into, well, different sections or headers or chapters. And these sections should be in a logical order that helps the story progress further. For example, let's say that I'm making a video called I Built a Secret Room Underwater in 24 Hours.

[03:51] I might section it out like this. First, we find a location, then we plan out the design, then we gather the materials, after that, we build the room, and after that, we make it fun, and finally, the room is finished, so as a cool twist, of course, I invite my mom over.

[04:05] Notice how each section flows logically into the next. You wouldn't start building the room before you got the materials, I definitely wouldn't be inviting my mom over before the thing gets built. This logical flow throughout our script keeps viewers watching as we work towards the final goal of the video,

[04:19] which is the whole reason they clicked in the first one. Or, if I'm making a video called How to Build a $1,000,000 Business as a Teenager, I'd probably section it out like this. First, you take a business model, then you say your pricing, then you do outreach,

[04:31] then you maybe get your first customer, then you hire some employees, and finally, you scale and get more customers until you reach $1,000,000. Again, each section is in a spot that makes logical sense. We're not jumping around randomly, and viewers can follow the story from beginning to end

[04:44] to, again, get to that final goal, that payoff that we set up in our hook. And the great thing about starting with an outline like this is that it's super easy for us to start writing and not lose focus when it comes to the actual words we use in our script.

[04:56] So naturally, next you're going to start writing your script. And honestly, if you want to write scripts that help you go absolutely viral on YouTube, I wouldn't worry too much about the actual words that you use. If you have any really solid structure and either really good information or really good entertainment value in your videos,

[05:10] that's going to shine through way more than the actual specific words and the way you arrange your sentences. It's really not that deep, just write in a way that sounds like your voice or like you would talk, and then either make it educational or entertaining. If you want, you can even do what I do and start with bullet points to give yourself even more structure before you start writing.

[05:27] And now, once you've written the actual content of your script, it's pretty much 90% done at this point. But wait we not done yet and you probably don see it but there actually a huge problem with every script that gets to this stage in the script writing process that pretty much every single small YouTuber doesn fix and as a result really stops them from growing and engaging viewers with their scripts like they should But before I tell you exactly what it is and how to fix it

[05:49] I first want to tell you about an AI tool that makes it way easier to write better scripts faster that actually work. Meet Lex.page, the sponsor of this video. Lex is a modern AI-powered writing tool that makes it really easy to write, well, anything. And it's just so powerful when it comes

[06:04] to writing retention optimized YouTube scripts. See, I've collaborated with Lex to create a custom prompt that will train you on the exact script writing process that I'm teaching you in this video. And when you sign up using my link in the description, you'll get immediate access to this exclusive prompt

[06:18] and an exclusive discount code. With my custom prompt, all you have to do is give the AI some context about your video, answer a few questions, and bang, you've got yourself a decent first draft and structure, big new hours of outlining and brainstorming content for your script.

[06:31] Then once you start writing the rest of your script, If you're ever feeling stuck or want more information or just want to help make part of your script better, all you have to do is ask the AI and it will intelligently solve your problems and help make your script better in whatever way you ask it.

[06:44] I've honestly used so many AI tools to write scripts in the past, and the vast majority of them have been pretty shit, so I was really impressed with how well Lex worked and the way that I was able to apply it to actually the video you're watching right now. And as a bonus, you can even use it to grow up your channel in ways that aren't related to script writing.

[06:59] You can also generate SEO optimized descriptions, options for clickable titles, and so much more. So if you want to level up your script writing workflow, then sign up with my link in the description or the QR code on screen, and use code NATEWEALTH at checkout for an exclusive 10% discount code off your first month.

[07:15] Now at this point in the script writing process, you might think that your script is basically done. But as I mentioned before, there's a huge problem we haven't fixed yet that plagues 99% of new YouTubers and basically ensures that they don't go viral or engage viewers with their scripts.

[07:28] See, if we want to keep viewers watching until the end of our videos, we need to keep them in a flow state with our clips so they don't even stop to think about clicking off. And it's honestly pretty easy to keep this flow state going if you just give good information

[07:41] or good entertainment value in your videos. Except when you're transitioning between sections of your video. Yeah. When you go from segment to segment in your video, the energy and flow completely changes and it's very easy for viewers to snap out of their flow state and feel like, you know

[07:56] what, I've gotten enough out of this video. probably nothing else to look forward to, I'm going to go look for another video and then dip. This is called segmentation loss and it will absolutely destroy your video's retention if you don't go ahead and fix it while you're writing. So how do you fix it? Well, luckily for you,

[08:11] it's actually pretty simple. We just have to use a technique called a re-hook. A re-hook is just a little chunk of text that goes in between segments of your video and usually goes something like, and this section of the video you just got was good, but what's going to come in the next section

[08:25] builds off of this last section and is even better Now obviously you not going to say it like that so let me give you an example Earlier in this video I had a session about writing viral hooks and once it finished I said something like and now that you have banger hooks for your scripts you definitely not going to have viewers leaving after a few seconds anymore

[08:41] However, if you want your videos to go really viral, you actually need to keep viewers watching for the entire rest of the video. This makes viewers subconsciously think, wow, that last part of the video was so good, but now that I have the information from that chapter, I guess I need the information in the next part too,

[08:55] if I want to get what I came for when I clicked on this video. For another example, in this police body cam video where cops find a murderer's hideout, segment one of the video has the cops showing up to a house after getting a call,

[09:07] and before the video transitions to segment two, the narrator goes, Initially, the cops had no idea what could have possibly happened to Benny, but as they explored the house more, a clear picture would slowly be painted of exactly what had happened.

[09:21] This again re-hooks viewers so they don't feel like they've gotten everything they need out of the video and keep watching because we've informed them that there's more to come in the next section that builds up to the final goal that they came for. Now once you've used re-hooks between each segment of your video to

[09:36] keep viewers engaged till the very end, there's only one thing left to do to maximize your chances of going viral and that's to end your script properly. See most youtubers do one of two things at the end of their videos. Number one is just wobble on about thanks for watching guys I make uploads every week about

[09:52] tech and business videos and thanks for for John for the idea also I have a Twitter account and blah blah blah which you obviously shouldn't do because number one nobody cares and two because nobody cares they're just gonna leave

[10:05] which is gonna hurt your retention which is gonna hurt your video and number two is literally nothing and to just end the video which isn't half bad because you do keep viewers to the very end but a better option is to still keep your outdoor short but then send viewers over to another one of your videos. What this will do

[10:20] is get viewers on what's called a watch time journey. So let's say someone watches eight minutes of your video, you send them to another video and they watch four minutes of it, that's now 12 minutes of watch time. And YouTube recognizes that your initial video started that watch time

[10:33] journey and kept viewers on the platform and as a result, the algorithm will push out your first video more. And what's even better is if you actually do this with every single video on your channel because what's going to happen is someone watches your video, you send them to another,

[10:45] they watch that video, sends them to another and another and another, and you get viewers on this watch time journey of just binging your entire channel. Every single video gets rewarded if one video goes viral and it's just really, really good for you. And if you're stuck wondering exactly how

[10:58] to send viewers to another video in the most efficient way possible, well, it's actually with a re-hook. Let me give you the tip. And now that you know how to write banger YouTube scripts, you're also going to want a banger edit to go along with each script if you want to maximize your chances of going viral. So check out this video next if you want to learn four genius

[11:14] editing tricks that I use to get way more views on my videos and my clients. And also remember to use code NateWalt at checkout to get an extra 10% off of Lex.