How to write a YouTube script from your notes, with a template

To write a YouTube script from your notes, start with the one question the video answers. List what your notes can't answer yet, explain the topic aloud with them closed, and outline it in your own sentences. Then write the script in two columns, the way an AV script sets out a video: what you say, and what the viewer sees while you say it. Read it aloud and time it before you record.

The example below takes one short video from research notes to a finished script, then gives you a template. The last section says what Graphite does at each step, and what it doesn't.

Start with the question the video answers

A video that answers one question is easier to research, script and watch than one about a topic. "Leap years" is a topic. "Why won't 2100 be a leap year?" is a question: it has an answer, and you can tell when the script has given it.

Under the question, write who the video is for, what they'll be able to explain afterwards, and the fact that makes the question worth asking: "For anyone who knows leap years come every four years. Afterwards, they can say why 2100 skips one. 2100 divides by four, but it won't be a leap year."

Then gather the research, a short note per idea with its source. Three, checked on 28 October 2026:

The year. The year of the seasons is about 365.2422 days. A leap day every fourth year makes the average 365.25 days, about 0.0078 days too long. (US Naval Observatory)

1582. By the sixteenth century the start of spring had moved from 23 March to 11 March. Pope Gregory XIII's calendar put it back on 21 March in 1582. The day after 4 October 1582 was 15 October. (US Naval Observatory, NASA)

The rule. Years divisible by four are leap years, except century years that don't divide by 400. 1900 wasn't one, 2000 was, and 2100 won't be. (US Naval Observatory)

List what's missing, as questions

Before you write a line, list each question a curious viewer would ask that the notes don't answer yet, each small enough to answer in one sitting: "Why ten days?", not "look into the history". For these notes:

• How much does a leap day every four years overshoot in 400 years?
• Why did the calendar skip ten days?
• Did every country switch in 1582?

Answer each in your own words, from a source you can check. The first is arithmetic on the Naval Observatory's figure: 0.0078 days is about 11 minutes a year, a little over three days in 400 years, so the rule drops three leap days in that time and keeps 97. The second is in the notes: from 11 March back to 21 March is ten days. Leave the third open: it marks where a viewer would stop following.

Teach it back with your notes closed

Now close the notes and explain the answer, aloud or in writing, to someone who asks why. A first attempt might be:

We add a day every four years because a year is 365 and a quarter days long.

A good listener asks: "Then why won't 2100 get one?" If you can't answer without the notes, you've found a gap the reading hid. Reopen them, find the sentence that settles it, and try again with them closed:

A year of seasons is about 365.2422 days, a little less than 365 and a quarter. A leap day every four years overshoots by about 11 minutes a year, about three days every 400 years. So three century years in four skip their leap day: 1900 did, 2000 didn't, and 2100 will.

People rate their understanding of how things work lower after they try to explain them than before (Rozenblit and Keil, 2002), and a gap found now costs less than one found while recording. The Feynman technique guide sets out the same exercise in full.

Outline it from your own sentences

Arrange the sentences you've written, word for word, in the order a viewer needs them, under short headings, and where your notes leave a gap, write the question instead of filling it:

## A leap year that isn't
- 2100 divides by four, but it won't be a leap year.

## The year isn't 365 and a quarter days
- The year of the seasons is about 365.2422 days.
- A leap day every fourth year makes the average 365.25 days, about 0.0078 days too long.

## 1582
- By the sixteenth century the start of spring had moved from 23 March to 11 March.
- The day after 4 October 1582 was 15 October.
- Missing: Did every country switch in 1582?

## The rule
- Years divisible by four are leap years, except century years that don't divide by 400.
- 1900 wasn't one, 2000 was, and 2100 won't be.

An outline of your own sentences keeps two things you've already checked: the facts, and the way you say them. Each Missing line is a decision: answer it before you script (NASA's page says Great Britain didn't adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752), or cut that part.

Write it in two columns: say and show

Now write the script, one beat at a time: on the left, the words you'll say; on the right, what's on screen while you say them. Writing both together keeps the picture and the words in step, and the right-hand column becomes your shot list. The template below sets it out as a table, a row per beat. For this video:

1. Say: 2100 divides by four, like 2024 and 2028, but it won't have a 29 February.
   Show: February 2028 and February 2100, side by side.
2. Say: That's because a year isn't 365 and a quarter days. It's about 365.2422.
   Show: The two numbers, one under the other.
3. Say: So a leap day every four years makes the calendar about 11 minutes too long each year. By the sixteenth century, spring was starting on 11 March.
   Show: A calendar strip, the first day of spring sliding earlier.
4. Say: In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII's calendar skipped ten days to put it back on 21 March. The day after 4 October was 15 October.
   Show: October 1582, with the ten days missing.
5. Say: It also changed the rule: a century year is a leap year only if it divides by 400. So 1900 had no 29 February, 2000 had one, and 2100 won't.
   Show: 1900, 2000 and 2100, with 1900 and 2100 crossed out.

Write the Say column for the ear: short sentences, one idea each, numbers rounded unless the figure is the point. Read each beat aloud, and rewrite any sentence you stumble on.

A YouTube script template to copy

Copy this into any notebook or editor that reads Markdown; the table becomes two columns wherever Markdown tables are drawn.

- Question: <the one question the video answers>
- For: <who's watching, and what they already know>
- Afterwards: <what they can explain>
- Length: <minutes> min, about <words> words at my pace

## What's missing
- [ ] <a question a viewer would ask that my notes don't answer yet>

## Outline, in my own sentences
### <The question, and why it's worth asking>
- <a sentence from my notes>
### <Part one>
- <a sentence from my notes>
- Missing: <a question I still have to answer>
### <The answer>
- <the answer, in one sentence>

## Script
| Say | Show |
|---|---|
| <the question, in the viewer's words> | <the first image> |
| <one beat: a sentence or two> | <what's on screen while it's said> |
| <the answer, said plainly> | <the image that sums it up> |

## Sources
- <source>: <what it supports>, checked <date>

Should you script a YouTube video?

For an explainer, yes, at least in part. The YouTube scriptwriter George Blackman describes three levels: a broad bullet point per segment; bullets with each segment's setup and payoff written in full; and every sentence word for word. Whatever the level, he advises writing the setup and payoff in full, since the moments between segments are where viewers are most likely to click away, and riffing with no script only if you're vlogging (The 3 Levels of YouTube Scriptwriting, 31 May 2024). Script facts and numbers word for word too, so you can check them before you record.

How long should a YouTube script be?

As long as it takes to answer the question; the word count turns that into minutes. Across 77 studies, adults reading aloud averaged 183 words a minute (Brysbaert, 2019). At that pace 1,000 words take about five and a half minutes, and a ten-minute video is about 1,800 words, fewer if you pause for what's on screen. Your own pace is what counts: read a paragraph aloud, time it, and scale up.

Can AI write a YouTube script for you?

It can, and YouTube doesn't ask you to disclose it: its rules list "Production assistance, like using generative AI tools to create or improve a video outline, script, thumbnail, title, or infographic" among what creators don't need to disclose (YouTube Help, read 28 October 2026). Whether you should is another question. A model writing from a topic doesn't know what you found, and it states a wrong fact as fluently as a right one. Nor does it write the way you talk: in a 2026 preprint, three frontier models' rewrites of 300 personal narratives used fewer contractions and first-person pronouns, and asking them to keep the writer's voice reduced those changes without removing them (van Nuenen, 2026). Let AI ask you questions, check your explanation and point out what's missing. Keep the facts and the sentences yours.

How Graphite does this

Graphite keeps each step in plain Markdown notes, in the browser or the Mac app. What's missing, Teach it back, An outline and the Guide's draft of a script use the AI you choose: a key from any major provider or an OpenRouter account (how to get one). The worked example for a project shows the whole path.

• The question. Give the video a project of its own, started as the question it answers, and move your research notes into it.
• What's missing. On the project's page, choose What's missing in Actions or in the Guide. It sends the project and the notes in it, up to twelve, to your AI provider, and lists at most seven questions your notes don't answer yet. Add to note puts them under What's missing.
• Teach it back. Explain a note, its words blurred, to a curious student who asks why. The Guide then marks what you said against that note and the notes it links to, and each gap goes under What's missing.
• An outline. On the project's page, choose An outline in Actions, and the Guide arranges your own sentences word for word under short headings, with a Missing line wherever a reader would need something your notes don't say. Any sentence it can't find in your notes is taken out before you see it, and the app says how many. Save it as a note of its own.
• A script for a video. On that note, choose A script for a video in Actions. It sets the one note out as scenes, one for each of its sections, or for runs of its paragraphs, up to twelve. Write it myself needs no key: each scene quotes the first lines of its part, for you to write from. Let the Guide draft it sends that note alone and writes what to say and what's on screen in each scene, marked as Graphite's: Drafted by Graphite. Those sentences are the Guide's, not yours, so change them until they are. Copy the script as Markdown, or Save as a note.

Graphite doesn't make, record or edit the video, and it sets a script out scene by scene, not as a table: paste one into the template for the two columns. Research, in the Guide, doesn't search the web or read your sources; it answers from what the model knows, for you to check. Try it in the browser notebook.