Improve your YouTube script editing with this technique.
How the "2-hat approach" saves you time and results in better content.
Proofreading YouTube scripts is hard.
But it gets easier once you start using this sneaky time-saver.
This tactic will:
Improve the final script.
Stop you wasting time.
But for anyone who saw me tweeting about this, there’s an additional realisation I’ve had about the process which affects the advice I’m about to give.
But we’ll get to that later.
Put simply, you need to proofread scripts with 2 different 'hats' on…
🌊 The Surfer’s Cap
Like the noble surfer sporting a terrific backwards cap (yew!) your job is to catch a wave and ride it all the way back to the beach.
You don’t want to spend the whole time worrying about the seaweed, because you’ll lose your balance, fall, and never ever know what it feels like to ride the wave from start to finish.
(Not a totally accurate metaphor, but you catch my drift 👀)
The first time you read your script, just READ IT. Try to ignore:
Typos.
Clumsy sentences.
Formatting issues.
Take in the flow of the script as a whole and ask yourself more broad questions about the structure of the script, e.g.
Should paragraphs X and Y be swapped?
Does the hook clearly explain the premise?
Does any section feel slow?
Have I created a curiosity gap immediately?
Am I repeating myself?
Have I included anything which previously killed my retention?
It's all too easy to get sucked into the weeds when you review a script for the first time.
But there's no point tidying up a script which may get totally reshuffled.
Or finding the perfect way to phrase something which turns out to be part of a redundant segment.
Try to "watch" the video as you're reading it and figure out what needs to change on a broad scale.
🪴The Gardener’s Hat
Once you've sorted the macro, you can focus on the micro.
Like the noble gardener who first spends their time planning the exact layout of the garden, your script is now arranged nicely.
But you wouldn’t want your visitors to leave saying:
“Yeah it was good, but if only they’d put a little more time into weeding around the rhododendron bushes.”
So get weeding.
Be ruthless.
No more “very” or “in order to” or “as a result of this”.
No more unnecessary gubbins (e.g. phrases like “unnecessary gubbins”)
No more taking a paragraph to say what you could have said in a sentence.
Get the garden looking as close to perfect as you can.
But don't be afraid to put the first hat back on when this is done. The flow may have changed while you were digging up the weeds. It may even be the case that you have to swap hats a few times.
But the time you'll save by thinking about flow FIRST is immense.
(FYI, reviewing the edited video using the 2-hat approach is also helpful)
👆The Exception
However, this is a good rule of thumb until it’s not.
YouTube scriptwriting is art, not science.
So if your script is more or less a ‘brain dump’, you might need to wear the gardener’s hat first, just for a bit.
The garden is sometimes so messy that you wouldn’t know how to start arranging it.
The board is sometimes so entangled in seaweed that you’d never manage to catch a wave.
If you really can’t get a sense of the flow because the script is so messy, it’s ok to be the gardener before the surfer.
But even if you absolutely have to start with the weeds, never negate the flow.
🔧 YouTube Script Template
While no two scripts are the same, it always helps my flow to have a clean space to write and repurpose videos. And it certainly helps to have little reminders about what I’m trying to achieve at each point in the script.
So if you’d like the template I use to write for YouTubers, click here. It’s free!
That’s all for this week. Have a lovely weekend!
George 👋