How to write a script that reads well on camera
Most bad pieces to camera are not performance problems. They are writing problems that only become audible once somebody reads them aloud.
On this page
Written English is not spoken English
On a page a reader controls the pace, can re-read a clause, and tolerates long sentences with several subordinate parts. A listener has none of that. They get one pass, in your order, at your speed.
So the sentence that reads as precise on screen often lands as airless out loud. The fix is not to dumb it down, it is to give the listener somewhere to breathe.
Structure it for the ear
- One idea per sentence. If it needs a semicolon, it is probably two sentences.
- Front-load the point. Say what you are claiming, then justify it. Listeners cannot skim ahead to find out where you are going.
- Signpost the turns. "There are three of these." "Here is the exception." These are wasted in prose and invaluable in speech.
- Write the numbers as you would say them. "Nineteen ninety-nine" not "$19.99", if that is how it should sound.
Format it for the prompter
A prompter reflows text to its own width, so the shape you give it in a word processor is mostly discarded. What survives, and what matters, is where the paragraph breaks fall.
- Break a paragraph wherever you intend to pause. The white space becomes a breath.
- Put each item of a list on its own line, so your eye can find its place after looking at the lens.
- Keep the lines you must say verbatim, a price, a name, a legal phrase, short and isolated.
- Delete stage directions. Anything you are not going to say is something you will accidentally read.
Read the whole thing aloud once before you record, standing up. Every sentence you stumble on is a sentence to rewrite, not to practise.
Three editing passes
First pass, cut about a fifth. Second pass, replace anything you would not say to a colleague. Third pass, read it aloud and fix only what your mouth objects to.
If you have an AI assistant in the editor, it is best used on the second pass: tightening and shortening, where the judgement is mechanical. The third pass needs your own ear.
When the script is ready, see how to record it, or start from the beginning if this is your first piece to camera.
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