What makes a good script... a good script?

The other day I was sitting on a call with my team of writers.

I was getting them to explain their approach to writing scripts and how their thought processes.

As each of them explained their writing process, it got me worried.

And while one of my writers was mid-sentence, I blurted out:

“Do you guys actually know makes a good YouTube script?”

— Dead silence —

Everyone paused and thought for a second.

And then we went around the room taking turns to explain what makes a good YouTube script for businesses.

Writer 1, “The script needs to be educational and entertaining enough so that it keeps the viewer watching.”

Writer 2, “The script needs to have the viewer want to watch from start to the end.”

Writer 3, “ This is kinda vague but it must leave the viewer satisfied after watching.”

None of them were wrong.

But none of them had the same answer as I did.

This is an extract of what I said,

“A good script is only a good script if it meets the audience at their current awareness and sophistication level. The awareness level of the audience will tell us what kind of hooks will be effective, what kind of content they are currently watching and how we can beat that. The sophistication level of the audience will tell us what specific language we can use. Do we crack more jokes, or do we use more niche specific language to appeal to a certain demographic. Or do we need to use more storytelling and personal examples. Awareness levels and sophistication level will give us a high level overview of whether the script will perform in the market that we are writing in. If the market is highly sophisticated then we need to use a ton more storytelling and visuals to explain. If the market is very unsophisticated and not competitive, a simple script that just presents the facts can be considered a good script. And that’s why before we even talk about writing the script, we have to very clearly define the state the audience is in, and meet them directly there.”

Awareness and sophistication levels are concepts that originates in direct response copy, but if applied to any level of writing can drastically improve the level of script.

These are relatively complex concepts to grasp, but necessary if you want to go viral in competitive niches.

Hope this was informative, will write a full newsletter dedicated to this topic.

Bryan

P.S. I’m still taking scripts to review. Reply to this email to get your script looked at by the scriptwriting goat.