How to Write a Script So Good Viewers Can't Stop Watching

[00:01] for your videos. If you want your content to perform better, you need to storytelling. Now look, I've studied literally thousands of videos. And it turns out if your scripts are not working, there's three massive mistakes

[00:14] these three things, your retention and views will skyrocket immediately. These are the three biggest script writing mistakes holding back your videos with fix each of them. By the way, I'm Callaway. I have a million followers.

[00:29] I've done billions of views and content is all I do all day long. All right, the many people make is writing with bad story flow. And what I mean by story flow is that the flow of the points in your story is not clear enough or easy

[00:43] other words, it's hard for the viewer to stay hooked throughout because you're need to be there. This is called the story flow problem. Now, to help visualize the concept of story flow, think about it like this. When you're

[00:57] want there to be a clear through line that people can follow to get from the beginning to the end. You give context, introduce some conflict or question, more context, more conflict or question all the way through until an ultimate

[01:10] resolution. Now, the story does not need to have a straight predictable line down. That would be way too boring. But there needs to be a clear through line can follow to finish the story

[01:22] happened, but this happened, so this happened. There needs to be a logical flow. A story flow problem is when that line connecting the plot of the story is broken because you added things in that have nothing to do with the main

[01:35] premise. Extra details, disconnected tangents, broken plots, distractions. There are all sorts of elements that people throw into the story that And this is a super common problem that trips up a lot of people. So, pay close

[01:48] exactly how to assess when you're making this story flow mistake and the tactical talk about this stuff, I use the words script writing and storytelling a bit interchangeably. In this case, they mean the same thing. Script writing is just

[02:03] writing down the words that you ultimately tell for your story. Okay, so so far we walked through what the story flow problem actually is. It's when you it harder for the viewer to get through from beginning to end. Let me give you a

[02:16] so you can understand what I'm talking that I was telling you a story that went like this. One day there was a prince his way to find a house in the woods so he could visit the sorceress. With him

[02:30] he had his trusty steed, a horse, and several other woods animals that became his friends. The fox, the goat, and the raccoon. You see, when he was raised, he was taught to love animals. He spent a lot of time in the stables and in the

[02:43] woods training them and learning to communicate. His favorites were always and powerful, and that's why he walked with one. Now, he had been walking in the forest for several hours when he and his group of animals wandered upon a

[02:56] strange looking tree. All right, you see what happened there? You were on a clear path. The prince walking to a house in the forest with animals. Clear path. But then I veered you off that path to throw in all these unnecessary details about

[03:09] the prince's background and loving animals and working at the stables. didn't need to be there based on the purpose of this plot. And what this does in practice is that it caused your brain to hop storylines. We went from the

[03:23] journey in the forest to his background in a flashback. Simply put, a percentage of people listening lost connectivity to the original thread. And the problem with that is that it makes it much harder for me to get everybody else back

[03:35] you have to remember the details that I said a while ago. Great storytelling is like hypnosis. You want the viewer or listener to forget where they are and get fully immersed in the one single plot you're focused on. The more red

[03:49] herrings or unnecessary details you throw in, the more fragile and surface level that hypnosis becomes. And the more that hypnosis breaks, the more because of confusion and the worse it does. Now, you might be thinking

[04:01] something like this. Listen, crazy guy that waves his hands around. I'm a tax accountant. I sell tax services to small business owners. What does this have anything to do with me getting more small business owners to pay for my tax

[04:13] services? And that's a great question. The answer is that you also are struggling with this story flow problem in your content without even knowing it. and you're writing a script, your job is to get your potential buyer into that

[04:27] hypnotic state. If you are able to hook them and get them to start going down saying, the worst thing you can possibly do is throw some detail in that breaks them from the hypnosis. Because when you throw extra details in, that creates a

[04:41] people make this mistake and throw in all these extra details, makes a lot of start talking about a topic you're excited about, especially when you know a lot about it, people tend to get over excited and share more than necessary

[04:55] because they want to prove that they know stuff. Most people think more is the case when it comes to script writing and storytelling. Because the problem is adding extra unnecessary details is kind of like throwing barrels at someone

[05:08] that's trying to walk down the sidewalk. It forces them to look, jump, react, and they're actually on. Okay, so the big question is, how do we fix this problem and improve your story flow? The good news is the tactics for this are

[05:20] your script, I want you to read back is that after you read the first line, you want to gut check if you're curious And that's super helpful for comprehension. But I want you to add one

[05:34] more question to yourself on top. I want you to read every single line and ask yourself this. Is this line a necessary piece of context or an intentional step in the logic flow I'm trying to make to get someone's understanding of the story

[05:48] to go up? Or is it a distraction and an unnecessary detail? If you're talking about tax strategies for saving money, don't also go on a super long tangent about some new tax bill and the politics that got it enacted. Save that for

[06:02] another video. See, storytelling and script writing is a lot like taking a younger, they would give you a word bank, but intentionally put a bunch of extra words that you weren't supposed to use. It's the same thing here. Your job

[06:15] as a script writer or storyteller is not to use every word or fact at your disposal. You're only supposed to use the ones that are necessary to maximize comprehension. That whole process I just described is called improving your story

[06:27] flow. And I guarantee if you add that as a layer towards the end of your script All right, the second major script writing mistake is called the I'm going to share a ton of tactical improvements to your scripts that will

[06:41] reality. If the viewer does not understand the words you're saying in the script, they're never going to get immersed in the story. They have to understand what you're saying. So, your job as the storyteller is to communicate

[06:54] your points in a way that retains 100% of the meaning behind the words that especially with educational content, the goal is to demonstrate how much more you And the logic is because when they realize how big of a deficiency they

[07:10] it. But this is actually the wrong approach. People do not feel good when they feel dumb. Your job with content is to make them feel smart. So the truth is the goal is not to demonstrate how much more than them you know. The goal is to

[07:24] demonstrate how big of a gap you can help them close on that piece of content to help them. And that's all about them actually understanding what you're saying. This is why so many people like this channel. I spend an enormous amount

[07:38] of time compressing my complex ideas into the simplest form so that everyone atomic messaging. If you want your scripts to perform better and people to actually watch, follow, subscribe, and buy, you need to learn how to do the

[07:52] same thing. Compress your words for maximum comprehension. Okay, so the actually look like? I'm going to give you five super tactical, quick hit ways to increase the comprehension of your scripts. The first is to use simpler

[08:06] words. Big words are only valuable to the people that know them. To solve for this, you should just write with simpler words. You want to target a sixth grade vocabulary, nothing more. Again, people are not buying you because you know

[08:19] from you because they're trusting that they will understand the words you do the gap on a painoint. Now, the easiest way to simplify your words to a sixth grade reading level is to actually be in sixth grade. That was a joke. The second

[08:33] easiest way is to just put your script in Claude and tell it to rewrite the whole thing in a sixth grade reading level without removing the meaning or examples you used. Now, the second way to increase comprehension is to use

[08:45] fewer words. And by this, I mean shorter sentences. Most people have weak attention spans and below average brain function. That's just the truth. The more words you say per sentence, the more they have to store, remember, and

[08:57] then think back to connect with the rest of what you say. It's just more load on the brain. Make this easier for them by using shorter, punchier sentences. You wouldn't speak in a run-on sentence, so don't write in a run-on sentence. Quick,

[09:09] short, punchy staccato. That's what you want. Now, the third way to increase comprehension is to use simpler and clearer phrasing. You want to use active voice. The dog jumped instead of passive voice. The jumping was done by the dog.

[09:22] this for you in one click. It really is a cheat code for writing. The fourth way to increase comprehension is to restate things twice. The second time saying it in the most rudimentary or simple way possible. See right there, I went to use

[09:35] the word rudimentary, but not everybody knows that word. So, I added or simple understand. This is how you should approach writing scripts. It's not that I have the world's biggest vocabulary. I have to actively reduce it down to the

[09:49] simplest, lowest common denominator to make sure everybody can understand making content is actually pretty hard for smart people with big vocabularies down. It's a muscle they've never used before. The juice in making content is

[10:03] the ability to do this on demand. It's called distillation. Lastly, the fifth tip that seems to help comprehension is by naming things. You'll notice I do this a lot. Atomic messaging, story flow. These are terms that I just made

[10:16] up, but I wanted to put a stake in the ground around my frameworks and concepts People can relate to a single word name name your frameworks and concepts, and I guarantee the recall will go up. All

[10:29] script writing mistake, and this is a huge one that almost everyone struggles you're a business owner trying to get better with content, I built a free community designed to help you specifically. It's called Wavy World. We

[10:42] have over 27,000 other entrepreneurs all helping each other try to get better at content. We've got tutorials, guides, frameworks, all types of stuff. I just better. If you want to join, it's completely free. There's a link below in

[10:54] and final big script writing mistake that people are making is the speed to value problem. And the name on this one kind of gives it away. Most people that value or the mention of value quick enough before the viewer bounces. Now,

[11:08] the obvious tactical solve here is to get to value quicker. But let me explain what getting to value actually means. The truth is people are watching videos entertainment value or they want

[11:20] want to walk away knowing their time was well spent and they got something out of it. The biggest difference between traditional story formats like books and movies and all the ones online on social media is the amount of time you have to

[11:33] communicate that there is value. The traditional story follows a basic story is set, some middle where conflict resolution happens. And this is because with books and movies, they are made

[11:47] assuming they have you captive for the entire duration. You bought the book, to be long and drawn out and really stitch the full story following that arc. But on social media and online content, this is not the case. You got a

[12:01] lucky slot machine pool for your video to show up in front of someone for free, and you have to earn the right for them to keep watching. Because of this, you need to demonstrate value or incoming value as soon as possible. Content is

[12:13] basically a race to see if you can signal value before they lose interest. Now, it turns out there is a much better script writing formula or approach to making sure you have high speed to value before they bounce. I'm going to walk

[12:25] All right, so the first piece is the hook. And we all know the hook, but the important part is that you want to do two things. Establish context and then aggravate the pain point or tease the benefit in the first two to three

[12:37] seconds. The best scripts are both clear on the topic and tease the value full deep dive on all the mistakes and a ton of double clicks on that, so you can find those in the description. All

[12:50] section is the body. We'll call this the first body. And once you establish the context and the incoming value, you want to follow that story flow process that this video, layering on the additional details, context, facts, and examples,

[13:05] but only using ones that are absolutely critical to create that smooth, clear and then we have the first body. Now we have the rehook. And this happens about 20 to 25 seconds into a short form video and maybe 2 to 3 minutes into a YouTube

[13:20] video. A rehook is the reagravation of the painoint originally triggered in the hook by showing that there's a better solution still out there. Your goal with this in the viewer's brain. Hey, what I said is good, but what's coming next is

[13:33] great. This rehook opens a new loop and then rehooks them. So, so far we have the hook, we have the first body, and we have the rehook. The next section is the second body. And the second body is repeating the same approach as the first

[13:45] body. Clear story flow. Distilled details, context, examples, anything that's important to say so that they have a clear flow through the story. And you repeat this back and forth flow. Rehook body. Rehook body. As long as you

[13:59] have valuable context to say. For a YouTube video, you might rehook four or five times. For a short form video, probably two rehooks at the most over a 60 to 90 second video. At the end, you add the outro. And the outro is either

[14:11] you summarizing the value stated or extending the value ramp. You triggered quite have enough runway to get through the full value, so you lead them to a lead magnet or some dock where you can give them more value off platform. This

[14:24] is the general script writing flow for maximizing speed to value. It's hook where you say the value in the first 3 seconds. First body, clear story flow, rehook, second body, etc. Outro. If you follow that rough schematic broadly,

[14:37] there, that will make sure you're triggering the value early, reminding continuing to hit that until the end. All right, guys, that's all I've got for this video. We covered the three really biggest script writing and storytelling

[14:50] mistakes that are probably holding back your content from performing better. mistakes we went through and the tactical fixes for how to solve each the story flow problem. And

[15:02] specifically, this refers to when people add too many additional details and the through line of the story is broken or jumpy. It's just not clear for the to end. The way to solve this is to audit every line of your script after

[15:15] you've written it. And really ask the question, is this line adding a detail, clarity, or direction that we want to go in, or is it a tangent, confusing, and clear ones, delete the distractions, and you'll be better off. Now, the second

[15:28] comprehension problem. And this is really the viewer not understanding the word you're saying. They're confused and then they bounce. Now, in this section, five specific tactics for how to approach increasing the comprehension.

[15:42] was the speedtovalue problem. And with this one, the viewer is just not getting a hit of the value or what the value is going to be quick enough before they bounce. To solve for this, you want to follow the rough story outlined

[15:55] format because there are plenty of other story formats that are more granular video you're making. What I described is more a layer, an approach, an architecture for how you should think about speed to value. Hook, mention the

[16:09] value. Body, make it clear. Rehook, re-trigger the value. Second body, make it clear. Outro, summarize or extend the value. That's more of an architecture for how many times you should infuse value into the story. Now, as always

[16:23] because I'm trying to make it easier for business owners to make better content, That's all I'm doing. I give away all the game for free on this channel because I really want to see more people win that are small business owners. If

[16:37] benefit from being able to make better content and get more leads for free, Wavy World. It's the best place to aggregate all entrepreneurs that help each other with content. It's free and there's a ton of helpful stuff in there.

[16:50] this one. We will see you on the next one.