Top Five Tips for Writing Effective Video Scripts

Video scripts bring any produced web video to life. Its absence may result in your viewers not knowing your exact message. While they may resemble commercial scripts for television or movies in some ways, they are totally different from both.

The process of writing these pieces is also distinct from academic or technical writing. Although the writer will not need many academic skills, he definitely needs to be creative in coming up with clever lines that can appeal to a wider audience.

Here are some ideas you can incorporate in building a simple yet effective pitch for your web video production.

have a definite length

The length of your video will determine how many words your script should have. This includes all headings, the body of the script, and call-to-action frames. Most video scripts come in voiceover form. In this case, it is standard to assign three words per second in your script. Perhaps, you have a minute-long video. So that would mean 180 words for your script. Even if you are not doing a type of voiceover, you should remember this guide.

draft

Write down on a sheet of paper the key words and phrases that you must work on. Think of a good story using this information. Structure is not your goal at this stage; concept is.

Read your draft out loud

Read around what you have written. Your audience will hear it and not read it. Make sure your masterpiece is appealing to their ears. Whether you or someone else does the voiceover, it helps to have text that is easy to read, pronounce, and understand. Avoid using hiphalooting words. As long as the video scripts make sense when heard, that would be enough.

Revise your draft to a final script

Now that you’ve read your draft, evaluate it. If you find ideas or words repeated many times, delete them and replace them with new and related ones. Count the number of words you have used and see if it fits the desired length of the video. Make the necessary adjustments.

Once this is done, have another clean sheet of paper. Number it from one to sixty from top to bottom. Use the left side of the paper to number. Fill each line with three words from your script. Read it out loud one more time. Check if you convey your message clearly. Again, make adjustments where necessary.

Make room for images

Designate the right side of your paper for some visual ideas. Read your draft one more time and imagine the clips or images you would like to include. Along with these, also list the transitions, special visual effects, and sound effects that you will use. Allocate the exact time for these things to happen in your video as well.

For a smooth production flow, video scripts should be revised whenever necessary. It is better to make mistakes in the draft than in the production itself.