AI video script writing tutorial, 2026 short video complete process from topic selection to storyboard

In the short video era, whoever controls the script controls the traffic entrance. Many novices think that making videos depends on inspiration, but only after they have been doing it for a long time do they realize that behind stable output is stable scripting ability. The emergence of AI tools has greatly lowered the threshold for this matter. From topic selection, drafting to storyboards, almost every link can be accelerated with the help of AI. This article will show you the complete process that those of us who write scripts on Douyin, Xiaohongshu and video accounts have accumulated in 2026. From the most basic concepts to specific storyboard writing methods, to script routines for different video types, we will help you establish a set of working methods that can be implemented directly.

The essence of AI video script writing

Many creators' understanding of scripts is still "write out what they want to say", which is a relatively rudimentary understanding. In the true sense, a video script is an intermediate product that translates "what you want to express" into "how to shoot". It is a lens-based text blueprint. For the same piece of content, the text may read smoothly, but it may not be possible to shoot because it does not explain the screen switching, pause rhythm, and emotional ups and downs. The core task of the script is to plan in advance for the director and editor, so that the shooting process has evidence to rely on, and the editing process knows what to visually present in every second.

The role of AI tools in this matter is to accelerate, not replace. It can speed up topic selection and screening, because it has seen more hit titles than any other person; it can speed up the draft and assemble scattered keywords into a coherent oral script; it can also help you split the oral script into components according to the timeline. But it cannot judge for you which topic will be popular in your track, nor can it decide for you which sentence needs to be reread or which shot needs to be slowed down. These judgments must be made by the creator himself. Treating AI as an always-on intern will increase your productivity several times, but treating AI as a fully automatic writer will most likely produce content that can only be described as mediocre.

Three things to know before starting

Before opening the AI ​​tool, there are three things you must think clearly in your mind, otherwise all subsequent links will go astray. The first thing is the tone of the platform. Douyin prefers fast-paced and strong emotions, Xiaohongshu prefers visual sophistication and feminine expressions, the video account prefers middle-aged users and long-form content, and Bilibili prefers depth and a sense of community. The script tone, information density, and visual rhythm of the same topic on different platforms are completely different. If the instructions you feed to the AI ​​do not indicate the platform, it will give you a different manuscript.

The second thing is target users. When it comes to financial management, it is for fresh graduates with a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan and for middle-class people with a monthly salary of 50,000 yuan. The concerns are completely in two directions. The former is concerned with how to save the first money, while the latter is concerned with asset allocation and tax optimization. Before letting AI write a script, you should describe the age, identity, pain points and typical scenarios of the target user in one or two sentences, so that the script will have a sense of immersion. The third thing is the length of the video. The 15-second popular short video and the 3-minute medium video are two different creatures in structure. The former requires a one-sentence hook plus a reversal, while the latter requires starting, turning, and even bar switching. Tell the AI ​​the duration so that it can control the information density so that it won’t cram enough content into 15 seconds to shoot for 3 minutes.

How to use AI in topic selection

Topic selection is the step that cannot be left to humans in the entire scripting process, but AI can serve as a very good inspiration stimulator. My personal approach is to manually sort out the hot topics in my track in the past month, which can be Douyin hot topics, Xiaohongshu’s recent high praise notes, and popular titles from fellow video accounts, and then summarize these into a paragraph of text and feed it to a conversation model such as ChatGPT, Claude or Kimi. The instructions given to it are roughly: This is a list of recent popular titles on my track. Please help me analyze the commonalities of these titles, and help me generate twenty new candidate titles based on these commonalities, covering different emotional points and entry angles.

After you get the candidates, don’t just pick one, do a secondary screening. There are several screening criteria. One is whether you have the desire to click on the title after reading it. If you think it is bland, the audience will be less likely to click on it. One is whether the title is in line with the content direction you have accumulated. Frequent changes of tracks will cause confusion in account tags. Another question is whether this title can be shot with your existing resources. For example, if it requires appearing in a specific scene, but you have no chance to go there recently, then no matter how good the title is, you can only give up. What AI helps you do is expand the candidate pool tenfold, but the final decision must be yours.

Script drafting process after topic selection is confirmed

After confirming the topic selection, enter the drafting stage. A qualified short video script usually has a three-part structure, with the beginning three seconds, the middle body and the ending interaction. The first three seconds are called the golden three seconds. They have only one task, which is to prevent the user from swiping away. Common hooks include creating suspense, throwing out counterintuitive conclusions, raising a specific issue that users are concerned about, and showing an unexpected picture. When you ask AI to help you start, you can let it give you ten versions in different directions at once. You pick the one with the most hook, and then let it fine-tune it on this basis.

The core of the middle subject is the narrative hook, which means that every short paragraph should give the audience a reason to continue reading. It can be to bury a small suspense for a few seconds and then reveal it, it can be to draw the conclusion first and then break down the argument, or it can be to use the second-person sense of substitution to draw the user into the scene. The most likely problem for AI here is that it is written as a running account. You need to clearly tell it at what seconds to insert a reversal or a golden sentence before it can consciously lay out the rhythm. The interactive guidance at the end is not to simply add a "like and follow", but to give a specific action instruction, such as asking the user to answer a specific question in the comment area, prompting the user to save it for later review, and guiding the user to nod their picture to view the collection. The more specific the action, the higher the completion rate.

Split the script into a storyboard

The most critical step after the script is written is to split the shot list. This step determines the efficiency of shooting and editing. The standard storyboard has four columns. The first column is the scene, which describes what is shot in this shot, whether it is a medium shot or a close-up, whether it is handheld or fixed, and what the environment is. The second column is the subtitles, which are the words that appear on the screen in this shot, usually a simplified version of the spoken content. The third column is the dubbing, which is the actual lines spoken by the creator. The fourth column is the duration, accurate to seconds, which is used to control the rhythm of the entire video.

The way to let AI help you split the shot list is to paste the complete spoken script, and then give clear instructions to let it split it into a shot for each sentence or small paragraph, and output it in four columns. The drafts given by AI are often too general in descriptions of the scene, and descriptions such as "the anchor is explaining at the table" that provide almost no information often appear. This kind of place requires you to manually rewrite it into specific lens language, such as "close-up half-body, the anchor holds the phone in his right hand to show the screen, and there is space on the left side for subtitles." The AI ​​will estimate the duration according to the average speaking speed, but everyone's speaking speed is different. Some people speak faster, and some people like to pause. You need to calibrate it according to your actual speaking speed, otherwise the finished film will have an embarrassing situation where the dubbing does not match the picture.

Dubbing and subtitle synchronization tips

Dubbing and subtitles seem to be two different things, but they are actually two layers of expression of the same rhythm system. The duration of the dubbing draft must be strictly aligned with the duration of the shots, which means that when writing the dubbing draft, you should not just look at the word count, but also take all pauses, stress, and modal particles into consideration. The sentence "This is really outrageous" and "It's really outrageous" have a much different number of words but convey almost the same emotion. The latter is more suitable in a short video because the time left allows the picture to express the sense of outrageousness.

The principle of subtitle processing is colloquial and short. Written language is very awkward to read in subtitles. You need to change "therefore" to "so", "however" to "but", and "very" can often be deleted directly. It is most comfortable to control the number of words in a line of subtitles within fifteen words. If the length exceeds this length, the audience’s eyes will not be able to keep up, and they will either scroll away without finishing, or force a pause to affect the rhythm. If a sentence is too long, you can split it into two lines of subtitles, but make sure the split point is at a natural pause rather than a hard cut in the middle of the sentence. A detail that is often overlooked is that the color and position of the subtitles must be in sufficient contrast with the background of the picture. The subtitles themselves are part of the visual elements. If they are made rough, they will directly lower the quality of the entire video.

Script routines for different video types

Different types of short videos have their own mature routines in script structure. The common structure of the knowledge popularization category is to ask questions, subvert cognition, add arguments, and summarize. At the beginning, a question is asked that the audience may not be able to answer. In the middle, a counterintuitive answer is given, and then one or two arguments are used to support it, and at the end, an open-ended thinking is left. The core difficulty of this structure is that the arguments must be solid. If the arguments themselves cannot withstand scrutiny, the audience will rebound quickly.

The script structure of the plot subtype is usually foreshadowing, contrast, and explosive points. In the first half, a seemingly ordinary scene is established, which is suddenly reversed at a certain point. After the reversal, a golden sentence or picture is used to strengthen the memory point. This type of genre has very high requirements for character creation and line rhythm. It is no problem for AI to help you with the draft, but the details of the performance must be figured out by the creator himself. The script structure of the evaluation and comparison type is to get straight to the point, add points to the conclusion, expand the items, and end with recommendations. The audience clicks on the evaluation video to make a quick decision, so the conclusion must appear early. The script structure of the tutorial demonstration type is problem scenario plus solution plus step-by-step demonstration plus effect display. The core is that the steps are clearly broken down, and each step must make the audience feel that they can replicate it themselves.

Coordination skills with visual materials

No matter how well the script is written, if there is no suitable visual material to support it, the finished film will still look thin. There are two types of visual materials. One is the main shooting scene, which is the part where the creator himself appears, and the other is B-roll, which is the material used to fill in and illustrate the auxiliary scenes. The role of B-roll is to give the audience an intuitive visual reference when the creator talks about a certain concept or shows a certain scene, rather than letting the audience keep staring at the speaker.

The principle of choosing B-roll is relevance and rhythm. Relevance means that the B-roll must directly correspond to the current content. When talking about coffee, give the scene of coffee, and when talking about the city, give the empty scene of the city. You cannot use some general materials to make up the number. The sense of rhythm means that the frequency of B-roll should match the speaking speed. On average, one camera switch every three to five seconds is a more comfortable rhythm. Too fast will cause visual fatigue for the audience, and too slow will make the picture look draggy. The method of screen switching is also particular. Hard cuts are suitable for fast-paced content, and dissolves are suitable for emotional content. Too many transition effects will look gimmicky. Simple and clean hard cuts combined with precise subtitle rhythm are often the most effective. The help of AI tools in this step is mainly to note next to the script what type of B-roll is required for each sentence, so that there are clear guidelines for material collection and editing.

Common pitfalls of AI scripts

After using AI to write scripts for a long time, you will find some recurring problems. The first common problem is that there are serious routines. AI has learned too many sample essays, and it is easy to write a template draft that starts with "Have you ever had such an experience?" with a few point arguments at the beginning and "Go and try it" at the end. This kind of draft will hardly have any bright spots in the data, because the audience is tired of reading it. To solve this problem, the best way is to explicitly prohibit certain routines in the instructions, such as telling the AI ​​not to start with rhetorical questions, not to use parallelism, and not to use endings such as "Go and try it quickly" to force it out of its comfort zone.

The second common problem is that the information density is low. AI will fill the word count with many adjectives and transitional sentences, but there is actually very little effective information. Every second of a short video is expensive, and the information density directly determines the completion rate. You need to drastically cut off all unnecessary modifiers in the second draft. The third common problem is the lack of personal style. Anyone can use the manuscript written by AI, and it will not violate anyone's account, but this also means that it does not have any recognition. The solution is to add your own mantra, speaking habits, personal experience or regional expression to each draft, so that the audience will know that it is you who is speaking. The fourth common problem is the sense of mechanical translation. Sometimes AI will write some sentences that seem smooth but are awkward to read. This is usually because it is imitating a certain grammatical structure. In such places, it must be read out loud to check. All sentences that are awkward to read will be rewritten.

FAQ

What should I do if the script written with AI reads mechanically?

The root of the mechanical feeling is that the manuscript lacks personal imprint. The most effective solution is to do a second rewrite based on the first draft given by AI, adding your own real experiences, mantras, and regional expressions bit by bit. If you like to use a certain modal particle when speaking, let it appear in the manuscript; if you have a relevant personal experience, replace the general example written by AI with one or two sentences. After rewriting, read it aloud and change all the sentences that don't sound like your own words. The mechanical feeling will naturally disappear.

A short video script should be long

The number of words is directly linked to the length of the video, but the speaking speed of different people varies greatly, so we can only give a rough range. A 15-second video dubbing is about 60 to 80 words, a 30-second video is about 130-170 words, a 1-minute is about 250-300 words, and a 3-minute video is about 750-900 words. This data is estimated based on normal speaking speed. If your speaking speed is too fast, you can write more. If your speaking speed is too slow, you should adjust it downwards. The most accurate method is to read the script to a stopwatch and then adjust the word count based on the actual time used. It is easy to estimate the timeout of the finished film based on your feelings.

Can AI directly generate storyboards?

It can be generated, but the generated storyboard usually requires manual adjustment by the creator. AI is often too general in its picture descriptions, and often gives descriptions with very low information content, such as "the anchor is explaining at the table." After receiving this description, the shooting team still doesn't know how to shoot it. Based on the AI ​​draft, the creator needs to complete the scene, camera position, camera movement, and environmental details of each shot, recalibrate the correspondence between subtitles and dubbing, and re-estimate the duration of each shot according to his or her own speaking speed. AI gives you a starting point, and the final storyboard still needs to be polished by the creator based on his feelings about the screen.

Is the success rate of scripts closely related to the choice of AI tools?

There are indeed some differences between tools, some are good at creative divergence, and some are good at structural organization, but the impact of these differences on the final hit rate is far less than imagined. The core factors that determine whether a short video can be popular are the judgment of topic selection, the sincerity of the content and the patience to polish it repeatedly. Tools are only auxiliary. Whether the same creator uses ChatGPT, Claude or Kimi, if the topic selection is accurate and the script modification is careful, there will be no essential gap in the final data; conversely, if the topic selection is not accurate and the manuscript is used after just one pass, no tool can save it. It’s more cost-effective to focus on topic selection and polishing than struggling with tools.

Does writing scripts using AI count as plagiarism?

It depends on how it is used. If you use AI to help you develop ideas and draft a first draft, and then you make substantial modifications yourself, add personal experience and judgment, and check the content, the draft produced in this way is original and does not constitute plagiarism. However, if the AI ​​output is copied and pasted directly without any modification or review, in this case there is not only a risk of repetition, but also the possibility that the AI-generated content contains some expressions in its training data. A good habit to develop is that no matter how smoothly the AI ​​is written, you must read it through, modify it, and add subjective judgment. This not only ensures originality but also avoids risks at the platform level.