Video Scriptwriting & Storytelling

This workbook gives you structured exercises, repeatable worksheets, and production-ready templates for every module in the course. Complete each section alongside — or immediately after — its corresponding module. The goal is not to fill forms but to produce real, usable assets: a beat sheet for your next video, a voice document for a client, and a script template you will reuse for years.

Apply the Story Circle and 3-Act arc to a real video idea you are currently planning.

Choose one video idea you have been postponing — a YouTube tutorial, a brand film concept, or a product ad. Map it through all 8 steps of Dan Harmon's Story Circle. Write one sentence per step. Do not skip steps 1–2 (the setup) or steps 7–8 (the return and change) — these are the most commonly skipped and the most commonly missing from underperforming videos.

For the same video idea, fill in each act with specific content — not just labels. Act 2 (Confrontation) should have at least 3 distinct sub-points or content units that escalate in complexity or stakes.

Write three competing hook variants for your video and evaluate them against the platform and formula criteria from the module.

For the video you planned in Section 1, write three distinct opening hooks — each using a different formula (choose from: Bold Claim, Open Loop, Pain Point Mirror, Curiosity Gap, Story Drop). Each hook should be 2–3 sentences maximum and must stand alone — a viewer who reads only the hook should feel a clear pull to keep watching. Then apply the 11pm tiredness test: which hook would make you stop scrolling if you were exhausted?

Take your best hook from the exercise above and adapt it for three different platform contexts. The core promise stays the same; the length, visual cue, and urgency level change per platform.

Build a voice document for yourself or a client and apply the conversational sentence rules to a script excerpt.

Paste 10 consecutive sentences from a script you have written previously (or from a transcript of a video you have recorded). For each sentence: count the word length, mark any passive voice, flag any hedge phrases ("basically," "kind of," "really"), and circle any sentence over 20 words. Then rewrite every flagged sentence using the conversational sentence rules from the module. Compare the two versions aloud.

Complete this voice document for yourself as a creator, or for a client whose scripts you are writing. This document becomes your reference for every script you write for this voice — paste it at the top of every blank script document.

Using the beat sheet framework from the Pacing lesson, write a complete beat sheet for your planned video. Number each beat, specify the timestamp target, and write one sentence describing what emotionally or informationally changes for the viewer at that beat. Do this BEFORE writing any prose. When complete, color-code by beat type: yellow for teaching, green for story/emotion, blue for interrupt, red for CTA.

Run a complete draft through the three-pass revision system and produce a production-annotated final script with CTA.

Take a complete rough draft of your video script (or the draft you built from Sections 1–3) and execute all three revision passes. Use a different text color for each pass so you can see the layers of revision. Pass 1 is structural (section level, big moves only). Pass 2 is line-level (every sentence). Pass 3 is performance (read aloud, mark stumbles). Time yourself: the goal is to complete all three passes in under 60 minutes for a 10-minute video.

Take three consecutive paragraphs from your revised script and add full production annotations. For each paragraph, add at minimum: one camera direction, one B-roll description (specific enough to direct or source), one on-screen text note (or mark OTS: none), and one audio direction. Then review: could a director who has never met you execute these three paragraphs correctly from your annotations alone?