Start With An Emotion

Last week, I was on a call with Devon talking about the script for his next video.

Before our call, I wrote up a rough outline for how I think that the video could flow, a couple points I thought were solid and places where I wanted some of his input.

We got on the call, he pulled up the script, looked at it for 2 minutes and asked me,

“Bryan, what’s the emotion you want to the viewer to have at the end of watching the video?”

“Urm…”

I thought for a while.

I read through the initial outline that I’d written, and was trying to find a single word to describe how the viewer should feel.

But I didn’t come up with anything.

The next 50 minutes turned into a discussion around a single word:

Emotion.

When we were doing research for examples, we kept asking ourselves whether it brought out the desired emotion.

When we were structuring each point, we asked the same thing.

And by the end of the call, we tore my initial script into shreds, and came up with something completely fresh which was now vibrant with energy.

It felt like we were saying something different and crafting a new narrative around a topic that many would consider “saturated”.

Now… I wouldn’t consider myself the perfect scriptwriter in the world (I’m no Stephen King).

That’s why working with seasoned veterans in the content game is always so eye-opening to me.

You get to see content through their lens, and get feedback that not many people would get access to.

And more importantly, you raise your personal standards for what kind of scripts you will put out into the world.

The main lesson that I learned from Devon, was that an instinct that every scriptwriter/copywriter needs to have before they start any piece of writing, is to start with the emotion.

Every masterful piece of writing brings out some sort of emotional reaction from the viewer.

Whether that is shock, outrage, happiness, sadness, fear, disgust or surprise.

If you want your writing to leave an impression on the reader, it needs to elicit some kind of reaction.

So… when you’re about to script your next video, define the emotion, and work backwards from there.

Hope this helps,

Bryan

P.S. I’m still taking in scripts to review, will do it completely free if you reply to this email :)