How To Write A Killer Script That Keeps Viewers Hooked

today we're talking about writing killer scripts the reason winning creators go viral so often is because of their script writing you might have a great video idea but how do you actually write a script with a compelling story that keeps people hooked the entire time this is an art I've analyzed hundreds of the top creators across every Niche and they all run the exact same script writing process so in this video I'm going to break it all down this is the proven five-step framework for how to write killer scripts that keep viewers hooked by the

way I'm Callaway I've done over a billion views I have a million followers and this stuff is all I do all day long all right let's dive in now before we get into the script writing framework there is a critical first piece that you have to understand and this alone will level up your script writing in a massive massive way winning on social media is all about hacking human psychology this is the game within the game it is the most important building block in content now content psychology really boils down to one single principle expectations

vers reality expectations are what people think is going to happen reality is what actually happens when reality beats expectations and things go better than expected people are happy they keep watching and you win but when expectations beat reality and things go worse than expected people are not happy they stop watching and you lose it really is that simple this give and take is why you feel so good after giving a public speech because your expectations are super low cuz you think you're going to bomb and then after you go and it's fine you feel great

because reality Beats meet expectations now I start here because understanding this expectation vers reality psychology concept will influence every decision you make when you're writing a script that really is where the sauce lies it is the black magic that makes all this stuff really work and if you understand that the script writing process that I'm about to go through becomes way easier okay so these are the five script writing steps in the process number one is packaging number two is outline number three is intro number four is body and number five is outro I write

every single script in this exact same order now let's take each one quickly and break down how to do it your job when you're writing the script is to make sure the first few lines of the intro confirm and ideally beat their expectations set by the title this is called click confirmation it's one of the most important principles to winning on YouTube so if Mr Beast has a title that says I spent 100 hours inside the pyramids then right away in the first sentence and ideally the first intro he's going to show you and tell

you that he's in the pyramids this would meet expectations now to exceed expectations he would also add on something like I have unprecedented access to explore pieces that have never been explored before and this takes base expectations the pyramids and then beats them unprecedented access this positive gap of reality beating expectations hooks the viewer and it turns out this is exactly what Jimmy does in every single video it's exactly what every winning Creator does in every video so before you write any script you need to have your video packaging dialed so you know what to

put in the intro to get this confirmation and the package of the video is made up of the idea title and thumbnail now the idea is a oneline sentence describing what the video is about more importantly this is the pain point that you're trying to solve for your ideal viewer Avatar or it's the rabbit hole you're trying to create so they go down the loop if you don't have a good base idea that something they'd actually want to watch it's going to be so much harder to write a killer script because they're not going to

be interested in it okay now next and most important in this packaging is the title it's critical that you have the title established before you write the intro I'm not going to cover how to write a good title in this video because that's a whole other psychology can of worms if you guys are interested in that let me know in the comments and I'll make a video on titles but the most important thing to know about the title is that you're trying to trigger a click curiosity Loop does the title alone get the viewer curious

enough about the paino or problem that they cannot resist clicking and they have to find out what you have to say and also based on that title what expectations should a viewer have coming into the video if they did click because slight tweaks in the title wording can completely change the incoming expectation and again the whole point is to have reality beat expectations you don't know what reality should be with the click confirmation if you don't know what that expectation is now again if you're bad with titles you could use tools like one of 10

vid IQ spotter Studio view stats there's so many tools that allow you to remix titles and optimize them for YouTube that's what I'd recommend I have a full team that kind of does the ideas and titles for me but if you don't have that using one of these tools is a great way to do it now when it comes to thumbnails most YouTube experts will demand that you have the title and thumbnail solved before you even start writing this script but I don't agree with this the title for sure but I think it's okay if

you have the thumbnail loose but not really dialed and that's because the creative process and back and forth that comes with the thumbnail can be a huge inhibitor to Action Agency and creativity when you're writing your script if you have to wait and delay constantly because you're waiting for the thumbnail to write the script it's just going to slow you down and so in my opinion the title is a must a loose thumbnail idea is fine that will get dialed in over time all right let's move on to step two of the five-step script writing

process which is outline now before I start writing the actual script I really like to have a bulleted outline on the page first and this may seem counterintuitive You' think You' do the intro first and then the outline and then the body why am I doing the outline before the intro well my take is that anybody can learn how to write a compelling intro it's just a few Lego bricks I'm going to go through it in a second once you know this formula you can easily print the intro so I know in the back of

my mind that I can solve the intro the real Moe the real sauce of videos that goes from good to Great is having something actually unique differentiated and novel to say in the body of the video are your points actually unique Could you actually beat someone's expectations because your reality is so good at what you're saying now uniqueness in these points can come from the actual tip itself the process of distillation how you actually say the tip or the example that you use to explain what it is I find that writing these in a quick

outline bulleted first is a great way to gut check if you actually have something worth saying or you're just summarizing and regurgitating common things if you don't have something worse saying that's not unique but before you move forward and waste time writing a script go research more go watch other source material and try to come up with more novel points I think one of the reasons why my videos work so well is because I'm saying things that nobody else is saying I am also distilling them down and using different examples but I'm saying things that

I've never heard people say on YouTube remember the goal with script writing is to beat expectations with reality if expectations are existing based knowledge and you're just repeating existing base knowledge you will not be able to beat expectations with your reality so tactically I like to make a quick and dirty bulleted list and just write this out and zoom out and just think is this unique or not and then for each point in the list I layer on the what the why and the how the what is what it is the why is why it

matters and the how is how it fits in the overall puzzle of the story and again if I don't have unique points in the outline I'm not moving forward I'm not making the video now it's important to call out all of this the idea the title the outline is all done before breaking ground on the script itself this is the measure twice cut once of content I try to only make ideas that I feel like have a chance to do well and if it's not going to do well I don't make them I go back

to the research process okay let's move on to step three which is the intro now before I write the full body of the script I start with the intro and my ultimate goal after establishing The Click confirmation is to build a curiosity Loop you want to open a rabbit hole in the viewer's mind that they just can't help but go down each line should make them want to go to the next line now I have an intro hook framework that works every time short form long form it works every single time and you can just

copy it I'll give it to you this is exactly how to do it okay so part one is to give immediate context on what the video is about this is so the viewer can opt in and of course confirm the click so for example in this video specifically the title was how to write a killer script that keeps viewers hooked and the first three lines of my intro were today we're talking about writing killer scripts the reason winning creators go viral so often is because of their script writing you might have a great video idea

but how do you actually write a script with a compelling story that keeps people hooked the entire time so this was Tor made to establish the context and immediately click confirm that the video is about script writing and keeping a viewer hooked you want to start by bluntly stating this as quickly as possible okay now part two is to establish the common take or belief so what I like to do is establish the conventional belief on the topic people will get more eager to listen when they feel like you're talking about something they care about

the easiest way to build this common ground is by restating the common belief because chances are if they struggle with this topic they also know the common belief and that is their belief so when you restate it it helps connect in their mind that this is something they should care about and it also helps set up the contrast which is critical in part three so for the intro for this exact video I said this this is an art and it's one of the hardest things to learn when you're starting out making videos again I'm doing

this because people want you to start out confirming the belief they already believe before you offer a way to change it now the next part of the intro which is critical is building a contrarian take or contrarian approach against this common belief and the only way to build that contrast between the two is actually to State the common belief that's why you have to start there now part three as I said is by creating contrast by stating a contrarian approach so you want to offer a contrarian take or perspective that contradicts that common belief and

this will stun them and hold them into needing to hear what you have to say the best way to exceed their expectation at that EVR moment when they're first listening to the intro is by stating the common belief but then that you have a contrarian approach that they may not have heard before so in today's video for the intro I wrote this but the good news is there is a right answer I've analyzed hundreds of the creators across every Niche and they all run the exact same script writing process this formula has driven hundreds of

billions of views and it works every single time this is me contrasting against the common belief that script writing is Art I'm saying it's not it's science there is a formula and I have it now right away I've nailed the clip confirmation and I've begin to raise their expectations of what they believe is possible in the video because I offer a different solution than what they've thought of before now the last two steps can be done in either order but you have to do two things one a Lish proof for why they should trust your

new approach and two give them a plan an ordered list or steps for how you're going to do it so in today's video I wrote this so in this video I'm going to break it all down this is the proven fstep framework for how to write killer scripts that keep viewers hooked by the way I'm Callaway I've done over a billion views I have a million followers and this stuff is all I do all day long so in this case I started with my plan and then I lay it on the proof right at the

end by the end of this intro framework and I'm telling you it works for every video you have the viewer Hook Line and Sinker by the way I know this is is a lot to take in in one shot if you need help actually tactically doing this I put together a free 5-day email series which kind of breaks down more of these Advanced strategies in a much easier form to digest it's called The virality Blueprint you can grab it at virality blueprint.com all right step four in the script writing framework is the body of the

script and so what is actually happening in the viewer's brain right at this moment as the viewer watches the intro they're compiling all the previous knowledge they had on the topic plus combining it with the promises that you're making in the intro and their new expectation is that they're hoping they will learn something slightly different or better than what they already knew so for example if I'm making a video on storytelling and the title is how to become a master Storyteller and the intro is I'm going to share six new unprecedented things that will make

you a master Storyteller then the viewer has a pretty high expectation because they're compiling their mental database of all the things they've learned about storytelling in the past and they're using those as a baseline knowledge set for what they already know and so their expectation is that one of my six things or all of my six things are going to be new different or better than what they currently know that's how I would exceed their expectations now at this exact moment to really blow their expectations away the first point in the body that I share

the first thing they hear after the intro has to be amazing it has to be so good that it blows their mind that's how you really create this big gap between reality and expectations and this is so critical because if your first point of the body of your video repeats something they've already heard or is just not that compelling immediately they will get disappointed and they will lose interest in the video This Is Why when you watch a video that's just a generalized summary regurgitating things that you've already heard you usually watch one or two

points and then you bounce maybe you'll see the first point not think it's good scroll to the description read the timestamps see if there's anything unique and then usually there isn't and you leave and this is super common because creators usually don't take enough time to come up with unique different and better points in the body of their videos if you really think about it expectations are just the viewers hope that they're going to learn learn something new about the topic that they don't already know and so if you don't give them something new there's

no way you'll beat their expectations when you don't beat their expectations they leave this is why the first body point of your video has to be something new and different and my cheat code for this which is not intuitive is to put your second best body point in that first slot I'm going to explain in a second exactly why this works so well you would think you'd want the best stuff first because the viewers are decaying off the video so why hold your best thing for a second and here's why human brains work in patterns

if you show someone one thing that's amazing they'll think it's cool but if you show them two things that are amazing especially if the second thing is better than the first it creates a subconscious pattern where they have to stay to see the third because they feel this value continuing to drip up over time if you show your best thing first and then your second best thing is slightly worse it trains the viewer subconsciously that the value will be diminishing and it's not worth staying but if you slightly increase from 1 to two it creates

this pattern and they have to stay this is why most music albums put their best songs in the third third or fourth slot if you ever wondered that why did the single The Banger single with the billion streams not go first on the album you would think when you click the album and the first track is the best one that would make sense well usually the first track is an intro but it's never the single in the second slot why is that it's for the same reason the second track is always a great track but

it's not the best track and so when you listen to two and three and four you're increasing to the point where you climax the best song at 3 or 4 that builds this pattern recognition and makes people stay for the whole project now that is deep deep deep psychology that you will not hear you're anywhere else on YouTube and if you want to learn more about that psychology stuff these little tweaks that just make a massive difference this is all I talk about in my free newsletter content department and my free community for creators wavy

world the links are in the description for those for each point in the body you want to include these three things I call it the value Loop one is context say what it is and explain it as simple as possible two is application say how to do it and use as many relevant examples to kind of articulate your point as possible and three is framing say why this point matters and how it fits into the overall puzzle of the full story the context part needs to be clear concise and digestible the application has to be

interesting enough and easy to digest where they can begin taking action on their own side and the framing needs to reorient themselves so when they zoom out they can see why it's worth continuing to watch the video and this three-step frame for explaining points in the body it suits really well the way the brain processes information base facts first surface level and then slowly deepening to add inference and connect different points now as mentioned before you want to organize your points in the body based on shock value novelty and uniqueness you want your second best

point to go first your best point second your third best third and so on now the easiest way to learn how to do this tactically is just study the videos on my channel I have 23 or 24 videos every single one of them follows this exact same framework study the pacing and the rhythm of how I do this it'll get you much better when you watch you will notice this constant zoom in and zoom out I'm constantly looking at the big picture going down for the tactics big picture tactics it's kind of like a wave

this is what you want to create it adds to the comprehension it allows people to lock into the full story but then also extract a tactical piece that's how you want to layer these body points now one power tip here is how to seamlessly transition between the points in the body and the best way to do this while maintaining Max retention is called reh hooking now I talk about mechanically how to do this in other videos but this is a really really important concept you basically want to set up these mini hooks between the end

of one point and the beginning of the next one so for example you might say something like that point was super important but if you don't also couple it with this one then the magic is lost all of a sudden that makes the viewer have to hold for the next one if they liked what they heard in the first one and reh hooking really works because people's brains are on an attention delay as soon as they see something they'll have max level of interest and that will slowly start to Decay if you don't rehook them

and get their interest peing they will eventually just bounce okay step five in the script writing process is the last piece is the outro and it feels like the outro would be an afterthought like who would be listening to this point but you can add retention and shares and likes and rewatches at a much higher clip if you just do this at the very end of the video leave them with a high note you want to wrap up the video in a clean way you want to summarize those points and remind them of the paino

solve that you walk through this is the final push to remind them that we did in fact have reality beat expectations and this is like the free chocolate that the restaurant gives you when they bring the check they're doing that on purpose they're trying to remind you of the good service that they invested the whole previous two hours it's the same psychology you want to do this at the very end of the video because you want to leave the viewer with a lasting impression of wow that was an amazing video I just remembered all these

tactics that I learned the reality was much higher than my expectations and this is where likes comments shares rewatches all the good stuff that powers the algorithm it all kind of comes from leaving them with a high note now before we end this video I want to quickly share one bonus tip that will help you rev up the conversion between that attention and driving leads and actual dollars from your videos a common question I get around this script writing process is how do I include a call to action in my script without completely disrupting the

flow and making it feel like an ad and my strategy for this is what I call native embeds what you want to do when you're creating that outline is figure out proactively which point naturally suits highlighting the free resource you have as the solve and so when you're speaking about the point you want to frame the pain point and then give your own Resource as the solve it'll seem way smoother and more seamless if you do it this way so you can either open the loop with a paino and then give the solve or you

can speedrun a framework in a way that's so deep and fast that most people won't be able to absorb and then you can offer your free Resource as a way to recap to review or to compress speed of implementation if they need your help either way you don't want it to seem like you're breaking flow in the script you just want to seamlessly add it in showing it natively and then move on for example I did this twice in this video I'm not sure if you picked it up the first time was when I broke

down the super super deep psychology piece and then I said hey if you like the psychology things that I'm talking about and you want to go deeper I have a free newsletter and a free community where you can learn more I also went through the full intro hook framework and then I said if you want to go deeper I have a free 5-day email series called virality blueprint.com that you can download you may not have even picked up that I called those out but the key is these are free and they actually do solve the

paino or enhance the points that I talked about and here's one other tip that's super helpful if you want to get better at script writing but you're struggling with this there's so much to organize the intro the points actually writing it and getting the Rhythm down it's a lot the thing that would be helpful is if you could organize all your thoughts in a software and just have it do some of that work for you so I've been looking every for this and I built sandcastles sandcastles a for doing this and when you have it

it compresses 60 to 90 minutes worth of this organizational writing work down into 60 seconds it really is the most magical way to do this so if you struggle with the script writing aspect you should look at sand castles it's one of the best solves out there see I just did it again that was another native embed I tried to do that purposely cuz I wanted to see if you would catch it but that was me naturally integrating a paino that we've talked about the whole video in a way that didn't really feel like an

ad but for real if you want help writing full short form video scripts 60 Minutes down to 60 seconds sand castle. a is actually legit you should try it out all right guys that's all I've got for this video again this was the step-by-step formula for how to write killer scripts that keep viewers hooked the full time I know we went super deep into the psychology plus we broke down the full framework and that CTA conversion native Abed piece at the end this was a full Master Class if you're still with us thank you guys

so much for watching leave a comment and let me know what you want me to cover in the next video but until then we'll see you guys on the next one peace