How to structure a MASSIVE YouTube script

If you need to pack a lot of information into one script, how do you structure it?

For example, a script that includes 2-3 main topics, but which also includes several sub-topics within the main topics?

No matter your niche, this will have happened to you at some point, or it will in future.

So let me show you how to structure this properly. Get it wrong, and your video will be so boring even you won’t want to watch it back.

Key Structure:

As you may know, I break every script into segments.

And each segment follows the same structure:

• Setup - where we introduce the segment and what the viewer will gain from it.
• Tension - where we deliver the bulk of the information in an interesting way.
• Payoff - where we fully reveal the information we got the viewer curious about during our setup.

Most scripts between 8-15 minutes tend to have somewhere between 5-7 “segments”.

That’s 5-7 times we repeat the process of “setup, tension, payoff”.

Simple.

But how would you approach a script in the following scenario?

Let’s say you’re making a video teaching how to create and sell digital products using AI.

There are 3 “main” parts of this video.

1. Deciding which digital products to make.
2. Learning which AI tools are needed to create them.
3. Discovering how and where to market them.

But within each of these topics… there is still a lot to cover.

For example, within “Learning which AI tools are needed”, we’re probably going to discuss:

1. What the tools are.
2. How to set them up for this project.
3. How to use them step-by-step.
4. How they integrate with any marketplaces covered in part 3.

So that begs the question - how do we apply setup, tension, payoff?

Do we use it only on the main topics, or for each of the subtopics?

Well, let me show you what I see happen all the time when YouTubers do the former…

The "Bad" Way (avoid this):

Setup:

During the setup, YouTubers often feel compelled to summarise everything that’s going to be covered in the segment.

“This second step can be broken down into 4 simple ideas:

- First, we need to learn what the tools are.

- Second, how we’re gonna set them up for the project.

- Third, how to use them to create your digital product.

- And fourth, how to upload them directly to Gumroad.”

This is bad for retention, because:

1. I’m not going to remember these, so you’ll have to re-introduce them again later. Functionally, this is wasted time.
2. It risks feeling overwhelming.
3. It also doesn’t sell the result of this part of the video, which is what setups are designed to do.

Tension:

This is the biggest problem area.

Because we’re now having to try and list multiple ideas, principles or steps all within the umbrella of a single “setup”.

And the most common outcome of this is that they feel rushed.

For example:

“First, which tools do we need?​

Honestly, ChatGPT is the best bet here because of it’s projects feature. But if you want a bigger context window, go for Claude.

Second, setting them up. Let’s say you’re using ChatGPT. You’re gonna want to make sure you’re uploading a style guide to each custom GPT you create, so if you don’t have one of those, go ahead and create it now.

Third, to create your product using ChatGPT, upload the style guide to a new custom GPT, and explain in natural language the digital product you decided to create earlier. Let’s say you were trying to code a new app, you simply tell ChatGPT to express itself using your preferred coding language.

Fourth, open Gumroad and…”

I cannot tell you how many scripts I’ve read that look like this.

It somehow manages to feel both rushed and bloated at the same time - like I’ve heard a lot of noise, but I couldn’t confidently implement anything I heard.

Payoff:

These end up becoming bloated as well, because now it feels like we need to summarise a huge chunk of information in one place.

The "Good" Way (do this)

As you’ve probably guessed by now, my advice is to treat each subtopic as its own segment.

That means going through the cycle of setup, tension, payoff multiple times within a single main topic.

It might feel a bit weird, but let me show you why this works.

Setup:

Rather than having to waste our setup explaining the structure of the next four sub-topics…

…now we can simply focus on the benefit they’ll receive by watching.

For example:

“Now it’s time to cover exactly which AI tools you’ll need to create your digital product, starting with understanding which tool has a track record of creating the most lucrative products…:

The first clause indicates that we’ve moved onto the second main topic, and the second clause focuses in on what step 1 is and why the viewer should be excited about it.

Tension:

Not much explanation needed here.

In a nutshell, all those details we had to breeze over before…

“Third, to create your product using ChatGPT, upload the style guide to a new custom GPT, and explain in natural language the digital product you decided to create earlier. Let’s say you were trying to code a new app, you simply tell ChatGPT to express itself using your preferred coding language.”

…can now be explored in more detail, leaving the viewer feeling equipped to actually take action:

Step 3 is where we're actually going to build your product using ChatGPT, and as you might have guessed, that means we're going to need our style guide we created earlier. Head into the custom GPT's settings, scroll down to the "knowledge" area, and upload your PDF. Anything you upload to this area will be referred back to by the GPT before it builds anything.

Payoff:

Now we have one of these at the end of each sub-topic, designed to pay off one specific thing.

(Rather than an enormous paragraph trying to tie together all the takeaways of the much larger, main topic.)

That's all for this week!

If you'd like to grab one of the remaining spots inside the YouTube Writer's Room and receive direct feedback on your scripts from me, click here.

Any questions? Reply to this email and I'll get back to you.

Speak soon,
George 👋