Your YouTube Script Is Not An Article - 3 Subtle Differences

Here are some things to think about when writing video essays/documentaries.

The 2001 novel The Rotter’s Club contains the longest sentence in the English language: a full 13,955 words. This is impressive, but now pity the poor guy who had to read out the sentence in the audiobook.

I only bring this up because writing a YouTube script is all about clarity, and keeping things short. In fact, most sentences won’t need to be longer than 10 or 20 words. YouTube viewers want to be told everything clearly, and your script also needs to not sound too convoluted when read aloud.

So, here are three things to consider when writing a YouTube script.

1. Short/Snappy Sentences.

Your script is intended to be spoken aloud. So, the long meandering sentences you can sometimes expect from a feature article might not translate onto the page. You need to get to the point and highlight exactly what you are saying.

However, this do not mean that every sentence should sound the same either. One short sentence after the other can sound very monotone, and it is all about the rhythm and how it sounds too. Below is an extract from Magnates Media video about Ben and Jerry’s. (Source)

It’s the early 1960’s, and two 12 year old boys called Ben and Jerry are in gym class. Ben is arguing with the gym teacher, who is telling him he needs to run a mile in under 7 minutes. Meanwhile Jerry is struggling so much, he faints. These two boys were called the ‘slowest, fattest kids in class’. But this led to them becoming friends. And little did they know, this friendship would lead to a business worth billions of dollars.

Notice how no sentence contains more than two clauses, and there is a distinct absence of any flowery or poetic language.

2. Passive Vs Active Voice.

One of the easiest traps you can fall into is using the passive voice instead of the active voice. The active voice is more immediate and more engaging, and much more suited for YouTube.

Here are some examples (Original source)

Passive Voice - A Hard Day's Night was written by the Beatles.

Active Voice - The Beatles wrote A Hard Day's Night.

Passive Voice - The movie ET was directed by Spielberg.

Active Voice - Spielberg directed the movie ET.

As you can see, the active voice gives me a much clearer and immediate sense of what you are trying to say, and sounds much better when spoken aloud.

3. Writing In The 2nd Person.

You can almost look at YouTube videos like a conversation.

This is especially the case if you are giving advice or trying to tell your audience something that impacts their lives. So, one way that you can really make it sound like a conversation is to write in the second person.

Below is a snippet from a Rian Doris video about dopamine. Notice the constant use of the word ‘you.’ Source.

“Dopamine, the neurochemical that causes you to self-distract, overeat, and waste hours on TikTok. But what if you could leverage your dopaminergic system to propel you forward? Such that it becomes your number-one tool for hyperfocus? Well, in this video, I'm going to show you how.”

So instead of writing phrases like ‘as most people know’ it becomes ‘as you probably know’ and so on.

Other News

My channel Irish Deep Dives has been monetised! I’ve come a long way from going down to my local library so I can like and subscribe on a different computer. Onwards and upwards I suppose. Also, I’m hoping to share a newsletter on this experience in the near future.

Thanks for reading!

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