How to write a script so good viewers can’t stop watching

Today we're talking about script writing for your videos. If you want your content to perform better, you need to improve your script writing and storytelling. Now, look, I've studied literally thousands of videos. And it turns out if your scripts are not working, there are three massive mistakes you might be making. If you solve for these three things, your retention and views will skyrocket immediately. These are the three biggest script writing mistakes holding back your videos, with tactical examples and tips for how to fix each of them. By the way, I'm Callaway. I have a million followers. I've done billions of views, and content is all I do all day long. All right, the first script writing mistake that so 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 enough for the viewer to follow. In other words, it's hard for the viewer to stay hooked throughout because you're adding all this extra stuff that doesn't 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 writing a script to tell a story, you 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 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 from beginning to end that the viewer can follow to finish the story logically. This happened, then this 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 premise. Extra details, disconnected tangents, broken plots, distractions. There are all sorts of elements that people throw into the story that actually make it harder to understand. And this is a super common problem that trips up a lot of people. So, pay close attention to this. I'm going to explain exactly how to assess when you're making this story flow mistake and the tactical solves to fix it. And by the way, when I 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 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 throw a bunch of extra junk that makes it harder for the viewer to get through from beginning to end. Let me give you a practical example of this in real time so you can understand what I'm talking about when I say story flow. Imagine that I was telling you a story that went like this. One day there was a prince walking through the forest. He was on his way to find a house in the woods so he could visit the sorceress. With him 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 woods training them and learning to communicate. His favorites were always the horses because they were so strong 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 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 the prince's background and loving animals and working at the stables. These are unnecessary details that 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 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 to that original plotline because now 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 herrings or unnecessary details you throw in, the more fragile and surface level that hypnosis becomes. And the more that hypnosis breaks, the more people that churn out of your video because of confusion and the worse it does. Now, you might be thinking 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 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. Because when you make a piece of content and you're writing a script, your job is to get your potential buyer into that hypnotic state. If you are able to hook them and get them to start going down the rabbit hole of whatever you're 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 story flow problem. Now, the reason people make this mistake and throw in all these extra details makes a lot of sense when you think about it. When you start talking about a topic you're excited about, especially when you know a lot about it, people tend to get overexcited and share more than necessary because they want to prove that they know stuff. Most people think more is always better, but that's actually not 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 that's trying to walk down the sidewalk. It forces them to look, jump, react, and distracts them from the walk that 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 actually very simple. After you write your script, I want you to read back through line by line. The common advice is that after you read the first line, you want to gut check if you're curious enough to want to go to the second line. And that's super helpful for comprehension. But I want you to add one 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 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 another video. See, storytelling and script writing is a lot like taking a test when you were a kid. When you were 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 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 flow. And I guarantee if you add that as a layer towards the end of your script writing, your retention will go way up. All right, the second major script writing mistake is called the comprehension problem. And for this one, I'm goi

working, there's three massive mistakes you might be making. If you solve for these three things, your retention and views will skyrocket immediately. These are the three biggest script writing mistakes holding back your videos with tactical examples and tips for how to

fix each of them. By the way, I'm Callaway. I have a million followers. I've done billions of views and content is all I do all day long. All right, the first script writing mistake that so 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 enough for the viewer to follow. In other words, it's hard for the viewer to

stay hooked throughout because you're adding all this extra stuff that doesn't 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 writing a script to tell a story, you

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

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 from beginning to end that the viewer can follow to finish the story

logically. This happened, then this 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 premise. Extra details, disconnected tangents, broken plots, distractions.

There are all sorts of elements that people throw into the story that actually make it harder to understand.

And this is a super common problem that trips up a lot of people. So, pay close attention to this. I'm going to explain exactly how to assess when you're making this story flow mistake and the tactical solves to fix it. And by the way, when I

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 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 throw a bunch of extra junk that makes it harder for the viewer to get through from beginning to end. Let me give you a

practical example of this in real time so you can understand what I'm talking about when I say story flow. Imagine that I was telling you a story that went like this. One day there was a prince walking through the forest. He was on

his way to find a house in the woods so he could visit the sorceress. With him 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 woods training them and learning to communicate. His favorites were always the horses because they were so strong 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 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 the prince's background and loving animals and working at the stables.

These are unnecessary details that 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 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 to that original plotline because now

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

herrings or unnecessary details you throw in, the more fragile and surface level that hypnosis becomes. And the more that hypnosis breaks, the more people that churn out of your video because of confusion and the worse it does. Now, you might be thinking

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

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.

Because when you make a piece of content and you're writing a script, your job is to get your potential buyer into that hypnotic state. If you are able to hook them and get them to start going down the rabbit hole of whatever you're

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 story flow problem. Now, the reason people make this mistake and throw in

all these extra details, makes a lot of sense when you think about it. When you 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

because they want to prove that they know stuff. Most people think more is always better, but that's actually not 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 that's trying to walk down the sidewalk. It forces them to look, jump, react, and distracts them from the walk that 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 actually very simple. After you write your script, I want you to read back through line by line. The common advice is that after you read the first line,

you want to gut check if you're curious enough to want to go to the second line.

And that's super helpful for comprehension. But I want you to add one 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 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 another video. See, storytelling and script writing is a lot like taking a test when you were a kid. When you were 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 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 flow. And I guarantee if you add that as a layer towards the end of your script writing, your retention will go way up.

All right, the second major script writing mistake is called the comprehension problem. And for this one, I'm going to share a ton of tactical improvements to your scripts that will help you immediately. Here's the 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 your points in a way that retains 100%

of the meaning behind the words that you're saying. See, most people think, especially with educational content, the goal is to demonstrate how much more you know than the person that's watching.

And the logic is because when they realize how big of a deficiency they have, they'll pay you to try to close 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 demonstrate how big of a gap you can help them close on that piece of content

as a demonstration for how you're going 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 of time compressing my complex ideas

into the simplest form so that everyone can understand them. I call this process 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

same thing. Compress your words for maximum comprehension. Okay, so the question is tactically, what does that 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

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

words they don't know. They're buying from you because they're trusting that they will understand the words you do say and that that will help them close 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 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 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 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, 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. Again, Chad GBT or Claude will solve 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 the word rudimentary, but not everybody knows that word. So, I added or simple after to make sure everybody could 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 simplest, lowest common denominator to make sure everybody can understand everything I'm saying. The truth is, making content is actually pretty hard

for smart people with big vocabularies because they struggle to dumb themselves down. It's a muscle they've never used before. The juice in making content is 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 up, but I wanted to put a stake in the ground around my frameworks and concepts so it's easier for people to understand.

People can relate to a single word name more than a long definition. So, try to name your frameworks and concepts, and I guarantee the recall will go up. All right. Now, before I go on to the last script writing mistake, and this is a

huge one that almost everyone struggles with. If you're watching this video and 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 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 made it because I wanted people to get better. If you want to join, it's completely free. There's a link below in

the description. All right, the third 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 make content are not getting to the

value or the mention of value quick enough before the viewer bounces. Now, 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 for value. Either they want entertainment value or they want educational value. But either way, they 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 communicate that there is value. The traditional story follows a basic story arc. Some beginning where some context

is set, some middle where conflict occurs, and then some end where a resolution happens. And this is because with books and movies, they are made assuming they have you captive for the entire duration. You bought the book, you bought the movie, so they can afford

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 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 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 through exactly what that is right now.

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

seconds. The best scripts are both clear on the topic and tease the value incoming allin one. And if you want the full deep dive on all the mistakes and ways to actually do the hook, I've made a ton of double clicks on that, so you

can find those in the description. All right. Now, after the hook, the next 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

we talked about as the first point in this video, layering on the additional details, context, facts, and examples, but only using ones that are absolutely critical to create that smooth, clear through line. Okay, so we've got hook 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 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 the rehook is essentially to trigger this in the viewer's brain. Hey, what I said is good, but what's coming next is 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 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 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 you summarizing the value stated or extending the value ramp. You triggered a painoint through the video. You didn't 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 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, obviously there's a ton of nuance inside there, that will make sure you're triggering the value early, reminding people of the value in the middle, 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 mistakes that are probably holding back your content from performing better.

Now, as a summary, these were the three mistakes we went through and the tactical fixes for how to solve each one. The first mistake or problem was the story flow problem. And 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 viewer to be able to go from beginning to end. The way to solve this is to audit every line of your script after 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 distraction that we don't? Keep the clear ones, delete the distractions, and you'll be better off. Now, the second

mistake, which is a huge one, is the 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, if you go back and listen, I broke down

five specific tactics for how to approach increasing the comprehension. And lastly, the third mistake we covered 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 approach. I don't even want to call it a format because there are plenty of other story formats that are more granular

that differ depending on the type of 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 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 guys, the reason I made this channel is because I'm trying to make it easier for

business owners to make better content, get more leads, and grow their business. 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

that's you and you think you would benefit from being able to make better content and get more leads for free, make sure to subscribe, but also join 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.

All right, that is all we've got for this one. We will see you on the next one.