How to write a script: steps, formats, and tips

To write a script for a video, film, podcast, or presentation, start with one sentence that says who it is for and what they should know or do at the end. Pick the format that fits the medium: screenplay format for film, a two-column audio/visual script for most business and online video, or a plain narration script for voiceovers and talks. Outline the beginning, middle, and end before you write any lines. Then write a fast first draft for the ear, read it aloud, time it at about 150 spoken words per minute, and revise until every scene has a job. If viewers will make choices in your video, the script also needs a plan for each route, and the 33-second demo below shows one: pick a customer's problem to see the line, shot, and return point that route needs before anyone films it.

Choose the customer's issue. Each route shows the agent's scripted line, the shot it requires, and the scene where it rejoins the shared summary, and the last screen reads back the route you picked. The interface, customer, and support policy are fictional. Open the demo in a new tab.

How to write a script, step by step

These steps work for a two-minute product video, a lesson, a short film, or a conference talk, and only the format changes from one to the next.

Diagram of three steps in order: idea generation, outline creation, and draft writing. — Writing the draft comes after the idea and the outline are settled.

1. Write the purpose and audience in one sentence

Fill in this sentence before anything else: "After watching, [audience] will [know or do one thing]." For example: "After watching, new support agents will verify the account owner before they change any account details." If you need two sentences, you probably have two scripts.

For a story, write a logline instead. A logline is one sentence that names the main character, what they want, and what stands in the way: "A night-shift nurse has one hour to get a patient's son to approve a transfer before a storm closes the only road out." If you can't write the logline yet, the idea needs more thought before it needs dialogue.

Then note what the audience already knows, the words they use for the topic, and where they will watch. Engineers at a desk can take a faster script with more jargon than customers watching on a phone between meetings.

2. Choose the script format

Choose the format now, because it decides what you write down and who can work from the page.

Script formats, what each is for, and how to time it
Format	Use it for	Layout	How to time it
Screenplay	Films, short films, scripted scenes with actors	Scene headings, action lines, character names, and dialogue in 12-point Courier	About one page per minute of screen time
Two-column (A/V) script	Explainers, training, product demos, ads, documentaries	Left column: picture and on-screen text. Right column: narration, dialogue, music, and sound	Count the words in the audio column
Narration script	Voiceovers, podcasts, talks, screen recordings	Short paragraphs of spoken text, with directions in brackets	About 130 to 170 words per minute, depending on pace
Branching script	Interactive video, scenario training, choose-your-path stories	A route map, plus a short script for each route with the choice points marked	Time each route on its own

The format section below shows an example of each linear format, and the interactive section covers branching scripts.

3. Gather the material before you write

Collect what the script must contain: facts with their sources, product screens, the exact steps of a process, interview quotes, and any names you'll need to pronounce. For a training video, get the current procedure document and have the subject expert confirm it is still correct. For a story, research the world your characters live in until you can describe a normal day there.

If you still need a topic, start with the questions your audience already asks. Support tickets and sales call notes are full of script ideas. For fiction, ask "what if" about a real situation and follow the answer.

4. Outline the structure

Hand-drawn sketch of three boxes labeled beginning, middle, and end, joined by arrows. — Every script, long or short, needs all three parts.

A script needs a beginning that sets up a problem or question, a middle that works through it, and an end that resolves it and points to what comes next. In film this is the three-act structure: setup, confrontation, resolution. Business and teaching videos use the same shape with different content:

Explainer: the viewer's problem, what changes with the product, proof that it works, and one next step. Our explainer video examples show this shape in practice.
Tutorial: the finished result first, then the steps in order, then a recap of the step people get wrong.
Lesson: the question the lesson answers, the concept, a worked example, and a check for understanding.
Short film: a character with a goal, obstacles that get harder, a choice, and its consequence.

Write the outline as a list of scenes or beats, one line each. Each line says what happens and why it matters to your purpose sentence. If a beat doesn't serve the purpose, cut it now, before you spend an hour on its dialogue. For more on story shape and tension, see our guide to storytelling in video.

5. Write a fast first draft for the ear

Write the whole draft in one or two sittings without stopping to edit. A complete rough draft is easier to fix than a perfect first page. If you stall, BarkerBooks' guide to overcoming writer's block recommends the same split: draft without judging and save the editing for later. It also suggests changing your tools or your setting when the words stop.

Write the way people talk. Use contractions and short sentences, and address the viewer as "you." Read this line aloud: "It is imperative that the safety checklist is completed prior to operation of the machinery." Then this one: "Before you start the machine, run the safety checklist." The second says the same thing in 9 words instead of 15, in the order the viewer will act.

In action lines and in the visual column, describe only what the audience can see or hear. "Sarah is stressed" can't be filmed. "Sarah stares at the stack of invoices, then at the clock" can.

Let the picture and the words do different jobs. If the screen shows a form with three fields, the narration doesn't need to read them out. It can say why the third field matters.

6. Read it aloud and time it

Read the whole script out loud at the speed you'll record it, with a timer running. You'll hear what your eyes skip, such as sentences that run out of breath and word pairs that trip the tongue. If other people will perform it, hold a table read where each person reads one part.

For timing, the National Center for Voice and Speech puts the average rate of speech for US English speakers at about 150 words per minute, so a 300-word narration runs about two minutes. Our free video script timer estimates runtime at 130, 150, and 170 words per minute and flags sentences longer than 25 words. For a screenplay, the rule of thumb is one page per minute. Final Draft's blog (2026) notes that a 100-page screenplay often runs 95 to 110 minutes, with action-heavy pages running longer and dialogue-heavy pages shorter.

If the script runs long, cut whole beats before you trim words. Trimming adjectives saves seconds, while cutting a scene that repeats an earlier point can save a minute.

7. Revise with specific feedback

Give the draft to two or three people from the target audience and one person who knows the subject well. Ask questions that get usable answers:

Where did your attention drift?
In one sentence, what was this about?
What would you do next after watching?
Which line sounded wrong when you heard it?

Compare their one-sentence summaries with your purpose sentence from step 1. If they don't match, fix the structure before you polish lines. Then make a last pass for facts, names, numbers, and pronunciations. Check that anything important shown only on screen is also said aloud. The W3C's guidance on describing visual information notes that when speakers describe the visuals as a video is planned, some videos, such as training videos, need no separate audio description.

Script preparation before you record

Script preparation turns an approved draft into a document that the presenter and the editor can work from. Do it after the last content change and before anyone sets up a camera.

Lock the version. Put a version number and date on the first page, and send any later change as a new version so nobody records an old draft.
Break the script down. List every location, person, prop, screen recording, graphic, and music cue it calls for. That list becomes your shot list and your asset list.
Number the scenes when the script goes into production. Screenplays sent to readers and contests leave scene numbers off, and the production draft, called the shooting script, adds them so the schedule can refer to each scene.
Mark pronunciations and emphasis. Spell hard names phonetically in brackets, and write numbers the way they should be spoken.
Make a reading copy for whoever performs it, in large type with stage directions removed, or as a teleprompter file.
Get sign-off on the locked version from whoever must approve it, such as legal, compliance, or the subject expert.

If the script is for a training video, our guide to writing video scripts for corporate training includes a template, and our video production guide covers recording and delivery once the script is locked.

How to start a script

The first lines tell the audience why they should keep watching, so start as close to the problem as you can. These openings work for most projects:

Name the problem: "Your import failed and the error message doesn't say why. Here's how to find the row that broke."
Show the result first: open on the finished dashboard or the repaired part, then go back to step one.
Drop into the middle of a moment: start a story after the setup the audience doesn't need.
Ask the question the video answers: "What do you say when a customer asks for a refund you can't give?"

Cut openings that delay the content, such as a long logo animation or "Hi, my name is, and today we're going to talk about." For a school or work project, open with the question your project answers or the most surprising thing you found, then say what you'll cover. You can also draft the opening last, once you know what the script delivers.

How to format a script

Use the format that the people working from your script expect. These are the three you will use most.

Screenplay format

According to Final Draft's formatting guide, screenplays use 12-point Courier, a left margin of about 1.5 inches, and a top margin of 1 inch. Each scene starts with a scene heading in capitals: INT. or EXT., the location, and the time of day. Action lines describe what we see, in the present tense. The character's name sits above each block of dialogue, and a parenthetical under the name adds brief direction.

Diagram of the three core screenplay elements in order: scene heading, action lines, and dialogue. — The three elements you'll use on every screenplay page.

INT. HOSPITAL CORRIDOR - NIGHT Rain hits the windows. MAYA (30s), the charge nurse, holds
the elevator door open with her foot. MAYA The road closes at ten. If your dad goes, he goes now. DANIEL (not looking up) He just fell asleep. Maya lets the door close.

Daniel's line about his father sleeping is a refusal, though he never says no. Writers call that gap between the words and the meaning subtext. Screenwriting software such as Final Draft, WriterDuet, Fade In, or Celtx applies the layout as you type. Fountain is a plain-text markup for screenplays, so you can write in any text editor and convert the file later.

Two-column audio/visual script

Most business, training, and online videos use a two-column script, often called an A/V script. The left column describes the picture and any on-screen text. The right column holds everything the audience hears. Each row is one beat, so the editor can see what plays under each line.

Two-column script for a short software tip: 56 spoken words, about 22 seconds at 150 words per minute
Visual	Audio
Close-up of a red banner: "Import failed."	NARRATOR: Your import failed, and the error message doesn't say why.
Screen recording: the cursor opens Import history and clicks the failed file.	NARRATOR: Open Import history and click the file. The log names the row that broke.
Row 214 highlighted. On-screen text: "Dates must be MM/DD/YYYY."	NARRATOR: This time it's a date in the wrong format. Fix that row and run the import again.
Green banner: "Import complete." End card with a link to the help article.	NARRATOR: If you see a different error, the help article on screen lists the other causes.

Narration script

For a voiceover, podcast, or talk, write the spoken words as short paragraphs, one idea each. Put directions in square brackets so the reader knows not to say them: [pause], [slide 4], [show the form]. Underline or capitalize the word to stress. Write numbers and abbreviations the way they should sound, for example "about four in ten" instead of "38.7%."

How to write a script for an interactive video

An interactive script plans what the viewer does as well as what they see and hear. In Mindstamp, you add interactions such as questions and branches to the finished video on its timeline, so the script's job is to make sure the footage gives each interaction a place to happen.

Mark each interaction in the script in capitals and brackets, at the moment it appears, with the on-screen text and where each option leads:

NARRATOR: You're halfway through the inspection when the pump starts to rattle. [CHOICE at 0:42. Video holds on the pump.] Button "Stop and inspect" goes to SCENE 4A Button "Finish the round first" goes to SCENE 4B SCENE 4A ... returns to SCENE 5 (inspection checklist)
SCENE 4B ... returns to SCENE 5 (inspection checklist)

Every choice point needs these parts:

A cue: a line that names the situation and asks for a decision, so the viewer knows when and why to choose.
A hold: a few seconds of footage where nothing new happens while the options are on screen. A Mindstamp question pauses the video, so it also needs a clean frame to stop on.
A consequence for each option: a short scene that shows where that choice leads. Without that scene, the choice has nowhere to go.
A return point: the scene where the routes meet again, so you don't film the rest of the video twice.

In the demo below, a technician hears an unusual pump noise. Pick the outline you think production can film and see why the other two fail.

Only one outline has a decision cue, a consequence scene for both choices, and a merge back to the inspection checklist. The scenario is fictional and covers one script segment. Open the demo in a new tab.

Time each route on its own. The full script for a branching video is longer than any one viewer's path, so budget writing and filming time for every route.

For a question, script the question text, each answer, and the feedback line for each answer. Then decide what a wrong answer does: replay the explanation, jump to a short review, or continue. With Mindstamp questions, you can require an answer before playback continues, and video branching can send a viewer to another point in the same video, to another video, or to a playlist. The report then shows the path each viewer took. To draft a decision tree from a short description, try our free branching scenario generator. Our guide to interactive video branching covers the build, and the branch shoot plan example shows which footage each route needs.

How to write scripts that keep students watching

A 2014 study of 6.9 million video sessions on edX by Philip Guo, Juho Kim, and Rob Rubin found that the median time students spent on a video was at most 6 minutes, whatever the video's length, and that students often stopped before the halfway point of videos longer than 9 minutes. The edX producers they interviewed said planning before filming had the largest effect on engagement. For a lesson script, that means:

Plan one concept per video and aim for under 6 minutes. If you must record a long lecture, plan it as a series of short, separate segments before you record, so each one can stand alone.
Talk to the learner. Cynthia Brame's 2016 review of research on educational video recommends conversational language, such as "your" instead of "the," and a few key words on screen to point to what matters.
Don't slow down on purpose. In the edX data, engagement usually rose with speaking rate. The authors credit the faster instructors' energy and say there is no need to slow down artificially.
Remove references to time and place, such as "as we covered last week." The edX study names these remarks as a problem when old lecture recordings were cut up for online courses.
Write a question after each key concept. Brame recommends pairing video with questions that ask students to apply what they just saw. In Mindstamp, the question appears at that moment in the video and pauses playback until the learner answers. See how teachers use this on our education page.

Script writing tips and tricks

These habits save a rewrite on almost any script:

Know your last line before you write the first. The ending, whether it's a call to action or a resolution, tells you what every earlier scene builds toward.
Cut lines that describe what the picture already shows, such as "As you can see on the screen."
Give each character a different way of speaking. A new hire and a CEO shouldn't sound alike, so change their vocabulary and sentence length. Our dialogue table read example plays three versions of the same manager's line so you can hear the difference.
Leave room for the picture. Not every second needs narration, and a pause over a key visual gives viewers time to look.
Time the action as well as the words. If a screen recording needs 20 seconds to show a step, the narration over it has to fill those 20 seconds or leave a planned pause.
Keep a file for cut lines. Cutting a good line is easier when you know it isn't gone for good, and some cut lines fit a later video.

For a closer look at what separates a good script from a finished one, read our guide on how to write good scripts.

Common questions

How long should a script be?

Work back from the runtime. For narration, multiply the minutes by about 150 words: a 2-minute video needs about 300 words, and a 6-minute lesson about 900 words. For a screenplay, plan on roughly one page per minute. Final Draft's blog suggests 90 to 115 pages for a feature, and the Academy Nicholl Fellowships rules for 2026-2027 accept feature screenplays of 80 to 125 pages in 12-point Courier. For a branching video, count every route.

Can AI write a script for me?

Yes. AI chat tools can draft a script from your purpose sentence and outline, and a draft is a quick way past a blank page. They don't know your product's current screens or your audience's exact words, and they can state wrong facts with confidence. Treat the output as a first draft: check every claim, rewrite it in your own voice, then read it aloud and time it. Mindstamp's free explainer video script generator and training video script generator write scene-by-scene drafts with narration, visuals, on-screen text, and suggested interaction points. Neither needs an account.

What is the difference between a spec script and a shooting script?

A spec script is a screenplay written without a contract, to sell the story or enter competitions, so it concentrates on story, character, and dialogue. A shooting script is the version a production films from. Scene numbers are added at that stage for scheduling, and Final Draft's help article on scene numbers advises leaving them out of spec scripts.

How do I write a script with no dialogue?

Write it as a screenplay made of action lines or as a two-column script, and describe each shot in the order the viewer sees it. Use specific verbs and visible details, and add music and sound cues, because they carry the mood that dialogue would. Plan for viewers who can't see the screen: if the story or the lesson lives only in the picture, they will need audio description or a narrated version.

Sources and further reading

Zippia, script writer demographics: a profile of US script writers, cited in an earlier version of this article. We could not load the page to check its figures on October 1, 2026, so this guide does not use them.
VideoQi, how to make interactive videos: a planning guide from another interactive video platform, updated February 2, 2026.

Once your script is locked, record it, upload the video to Mindstamp, and add the questions and branches you marked in the script on the editor's timeline.