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How to write a whiteboard video script

A whiteboard video script is a weird little thing to write, since half of it is for somebody's ears and the other half is for a pen that has to draw whatever you just said. Our one rule of thumb? If a sentence doesn't give the viewer something to picture, it probably doesn't belong. Scroll down for the length math, a bunch of before and after lines, and a template you can grab.

Start with the word count

Bit of math before anything else. Narrators get through roughly 150 words a minute, so a one-minute Short is about 150 words, a three-minute lesson about 450, a five-minute one around 750. We'd pick the length before typing a single word. Chopping a 900-word draft down to 450 later is miserable, trust us on that.

Write lines that can be drawn

Try this on any line you write. Close your eyes, and if nothing shows up, your viewer's going to be staring at a blank board too. Some swaps we'd make:

Hard to draw Easy to draw
The economy faced headwinds. Prices went up, so families bought less bread.
There are many benefits. It saves you two hours every week.
Various factors contribute. Three things cause it: heat, wind, and dry grass.
This step is important. Skip this step and the cake sinks.
Communication improved greatly. A letter took weeks. A telegram took minutes.

Numbers draw well. So do objects, people and before-and-after pairs. Words like "significant" and "various"? Not so much, there's nothing for the pen to do.

The shape of a good script

  1. Hook

    Open with a question or a fact that makes people go "wait, what?" Something like "Your phone knows where you are, even with the GPS off."

  2. Promise

    One line telling viewers what they'll get by the end.

  3. Three to five points

    One idea per point. Put them in whatever order makes the answer click at the end.

  4. One example

    A real case or a tiny story (your neighbor's leaky roof works fine) so the points get feet.

  5. Ending

    Something they'd repeat at dinner. Or a single thing to try tomorrow.

Copy this template

Fill the blanks in, mumble it at your screen once, and delete the bracket labels before you paste.

[Hook] Ever wondered why ...?
[Promise] In the next minute, you will see how ...
[Point 1] First, ...
[Point 2] Then, ...
[Point 3] That is why ...
[Example] Picture ...
[Ending] So next time you ..., remember: ...

One handy trick is dropping a picture note into the text, like "show a map here". GenPixy AI turns a note like that into a picture instead of reading it out.

Read it out loud

Weirdly enough the best editor here is free and it's your mouth. Set a timer on your phone and read the whole thing at the speed you'd actually talk. Tripped over a sentence, then that sentence wants to be two. Got bored around the middle of a paragraph, then everyone else will too, so it goes. Caught yourself explaining a word? Swap in a plainer one. And if the timer says you're way past the length you picked, trim before pasting. When a script needs more time than the video has, you'll get told before anything starts.

Script questions