I helped Sticktory grow from 19k to 145k subscribers as the channel's scriptwriter. Scripts I wrote generated over 11 million views. These videos, I scripted them:

The second biggest search engine on earth is owned by Google. It's not Google. It's YouTube. People type more than 3 billion questions into that search bar every month, and almost nobody building content thinks about it that way. They think YouTube is for entertainment. It's not. It's where people go to figure out how to do things. Here's why that one reframe is worth money. A Google search gives you ten blue links you skim and forget. A YouTube search gives you a face explaining your exact problem for eight minutes. By the end you don't just have an answer. You trust the person who gave it to you. Try doing that with a blog post. And the videos don't expire. A good blog ranks for a while then gets buried. A good YouTube video answering "how do I fix this" keeps showing up in search results for years, because the question never stops getting asked. You film it once. It works while you sleep, forever. This is the part business owners miss completely. Their customers are typing questions into YouTube right now. "How do I choose between these." "Is this worth it." "How much should this cost." Every one of those is a video. Whoever answers it becomes the person they buy from. You're not competing for entertainment. You're answering questions people are already asking. The search bar is right there. Almost nobody is feeding it.

if there’s one sure format i’d recommend for any creator in any niche, it's listicles. scripted 100 listicle videos to know they’re hacks. and they won't be patched anytime soon. no need to worry about complex YouTube storytelling structures. retention mechanics. and all that stuff we scriptwriters lose sleep over just have; • a great topic, angle, and packaging. • a good enough hook. • an okay list. • a strong cta if you make videos for business. simple.

I'm noticing a trend in the info space. The operators who are growing all stopped treating content as a marketing task and started treating it as a business inside the business. What that looks like: - Dedicated team (thumbnail designer, editor, copywriter, strategist) - Real budget - Weekly output cadence - Someone who owns it that isn't the founder Meanwhile the operators who are dying are still doing it the old way. Founder shoots a video when they feel inspired, posts it, hopes it works, and moves on. That model worked in 2021. But in 2026, the good content creators are separating from everyone else at a rate I've never seen before.

YOUTUBE STORYTELLING TECHNIQUE 11/10 — Subplots.  One mistake I see creators make in their scripts is revealing too much too early.  This hurts retention because viewers have no reason to watch the entire video when what they came for has been revealed in the 3rd minute.  So, what winning creators on YouTube do is stack open loops. When one is closed, another is opened. Until the video ends.  This works, but I noticed a problem with this approach. Before an open loop is closed, there has to be a delay in between. What a lot of creators do is stack random information just to delay closing the loop. This hurts retention, too. There’s a better way to delay before closing a loop.  And that’s where this technique comes in.  Subplots are secondary plotlines that can be introduced to delay before closing a loop.  And one way to do it is to tell a story. People love stories. Just make sure it relates to the main video and makes a point.  Other subplots formats you can use in your videos: > Mistake format. If you opened an open loop to show viewers how to do something. A sidequest talking about common mistakes is a great delay before payoff.  > Case Study format. Show someone doing or saying what you want to explain.  > Clip format. Cut in a clip. Then the payoff.  Rule of thumb: Opening a loop in your script and closing it early hurts your retention. You need to delay payoff. Use subplots.

YOUTUBE STORYTELLING TECHNIQUE 10/10 — Escalation. This is making your video progressively more exciting, interesting, tense, or important as it unfolds. In the last technique I explained, Climax, I emphasized that the climax must be the most interesting part of your video. But before you get there, you need to lead your viewers through the midpoint.  Imagine you’re watching a video about a creator trying to sneak into the White House. You’ve decided that the climax is him getting in and trying to get a pic with Trump.  • But first, he has to get past a fence.  • Get into a secret tunnel. • Fit in with everyone in the white house without being discovered. • Adopt a fake identity.  Notice how the obstacles are getting more tense/interesting?  From merely jumping over a fence to using a fake identity in one of the most secure places in the world.  That’s escalation. How do you use it? First, decide on your climax. Remember, this is the most exciting, tense, or interesting part of your video. Second, identify the obstacles, challenges, revelations, or problems that lead to that climax. Third, make sure each one feels bigger than the last. Problem 1 must be bigger than problem 2. Problem 3 bigger than 2. On and on until you get to the biggest problem/climax.  This is how you move viewers through the midpoint while keeping viewers hooked and retention high.  Rule of thumb: Small problem → Bigger problem → Biggest problem.