Welcome to the YouTube Scriptwriting Newsletter!

In today’s edition:

• The top 10 most common scriptwriting mistakes

• How to avoid them

• And much more…

Deep Dive

The Top 10 YouTube Scriptwriting Mistakes

Crafting a winning YouTube script is an intricate balancing act.

Nail it and your content goes wildly viral, building a loyal fanbase.

Mess it up and your account may never get seen on the YouTube homepage.

To spot potential landmines before they destroy your efforts, let’s run through the 10 most common YouTube scriptwriting mistakes - and how to cleverly sidestep them:

1/ Not Writing Scripts in the First Place

Unless you are Alex Hormozi or Tony Robbins, improvising videos off-the-cuff is playing with fire, especially if you are investing thousands per video.

The script maps out:

• The key storytelling bits

• The informative sections

• The payoffs

Even spending some time writing an effective hook and bullets for your main talking points is better than not planning at all.

How to Avoid:

Write a script!

You need to spend 5-7 hours per script to give yourself time to ideate, write and refine it.

No two ways around it if you want a viral video.

2/ Getting Straight into Writing

Not planning the outline of the video is the biggest mistake you can make.

It is one of the biggest reasons why we run into writer’s block.

We are trying to envision how the overall video will look like, while at the same time figuring out what the next word should be.

The result?

Pulling all your hair out before you get to the last letter.

How to Avoid:

Plan out your target avatar first.

And then list out the key talking points as well as the emotional story beats of your video.

Only then you get into scripting.

3/ Overlooking the Hook

The hook is the most important part of your video.

It is the difference between your video getting pushed to the homepage vs not getting any views.

Yet, most creators will spend less than 10% of the scripting time refining the hook.

How to Avoid:

Spend 50% of your scripting time refining the hook.

Get feedback from friends and family.

Look at winning hook formats and emulate them.

4/ Writing for Everyone

If you write for everyone, you write for no one.

You need to define your target audience for your video.

The video should appeal to one specific person that you have in mind.

And if you appeal to that person, other people are likely to have similar wants, dreams, desires and fears.

How to Avoid:

Understand your target audience before writing.

Conduct 1-1 interviews and ask them what kind of content they want to watch.

Know them better than they know themselves.

5/ Mismatched Expectations

Clickbait is 2015.

We now know that we need to have a hook that is aligned with the title & thumbnail.

Not having a hook aligned with the expectations set in the title & thumbnail is a recipe for disaster.

How to Avoid:

List out the questions that a viewer may have when seeing a title & thumbnail, such as:

• How did you do it so fast?

• Did it really happen?

• Why should I listen to you?

And then just answer those questions.

6/ Superficial Stories

Your viewers can choose between watching your video, or Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Mr. Beast and a million other channels.

If you don’t have a compelling story that hooks the viewer, you will not get any views.

Tell a story that is emotional, entertaining or inspiring.

How to Avoid:

Gauge audience interest in your video by doing market research.

Ask friends and family if they would be interested in the story.

7/ An Uninteresting Payoff

The payoff is the ultimate reward that the viewer gets after watching the video.

Think of the payoff as the candy after going on an aggressive cut.

Or the final reveal at the end of a murder mystery book.

If the payoff is boring, the viewer will either not watch till the end, or leave the video unsatisfied.

How to Avoid:

Plan out 100 possible payoffs your video could have.

Present it in an interesting and exciting way that subverts viewer’s expectations.

8/ Rambling with No Open Loops

It is easy to get carried away when we are writing YouTube scripts.

And we often end up talking about whatever we want and end up forgetting to recapture our audience’s attention.

Remember - attention spans are less than 8 seconds today.

How to Avoid:

Use curiosity gaps and open loops to re-hook the viewer.

For e.g.

‘This next point is by far the most important, yet the most overlooked.’

9/ Forgettable CTAs

Your CTAs need to be impactful and, well, get your audience to take action.

That could be to subscribe to your channel, watch your next video, or buy your digital product.

Either way, you need to give them a good reason to do the action you tell them to.

How to Avoid:

Use the Hook-Gap-Action Framework for your CTAs:

Hook - Catch the viewer’s attention again

Gap - Show them they have a knowledge gap

Action - Tell them what action to take

For e.g.

“Congratulations! Now you know how to write a viral YouTube script!

But there’s something I didn’t tell you.

Everything I’ve just said in this video is completely useless.

If you don’t know how to film, edit and create a killer title and thumbnail. That’s why I created a video explaining just that. Click it right here and I’ll see you there.”

10/ Going with the First Draft

Your first draft will never be perfect.

It doesn’t matter if you are the next J.K Rowling or Stephen King.

Everyone edits their work.

How to Avoid:

Write your first draft.

Look away for an hour so you can get a fresh pair of eyes.

Re-edit it.

Repeat until you’ve got a viral banger.