In the age of video, is plain writing doomed?
.. or does it offer even more tools and possibilities to become a successful writer in any industry?
Writing content for video develops skills that everyone can successfully exploit in plain writing. Scene writing, or scriptwriting, highlights narrative rules that everyone can adopt in writing any content, from brief news stories to long-form content.
For this reason, the new age of video offers even more tools and possibilities to become a successful writer in any industry.
Mobile video consumption increases by 100% year over year, and by 2022, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic — 15 times higher than it was in 2017. Is plain writing doomed?
The process by which Hollywood turns any piece of content — books and comics into movies, and then into video games, and again into video series — into video is the same by which we see articles made into webinars or training videos. These practices confirm that we truly are in the age of video.
I want to be clear on this: no writing, no video
Why are videos successful? They use images; they use flashy special effects that hit our imagination; they use sound, and voices, and people. Try to see a movie with no sound: what you get? Half the show. Try to listen to a movie without images: again you get half the show. Now try to see a movie without the script: you get nothing.
Every single video, before becoming a visual show, is born on paper. I want to be clear on this: no writing, no video. This also proves that successful videos depend on successful writing.
Even if it may seem a suggestion to become a scriptwriter, this statement reveals the right tools to succeed in plain writing. How? By incorporating the “rules” of Hollywood, which go by “storytelling,” in writing articles.
As concisely put by Dan Harmon, storytelling has two main rules, whether in video or in writing: every scene must advance the narrative and must clearly state what it wants to achieve.
In writing, these two rules translate into starting as early as possible and writing paragraphs that both answer old questions and pose new ones.
In other words, getting to the point with no frills is as crucial as making examples, using analogies, metaphors, and similes to explain the situation.
These practical rules have the ultimate goal of connecting to the audience: the writer promises something at the beginning of the article, then he or she must prove and deliver the “moral” of the story.
Video is not killing writing; on the contrary, it makes the rules of grabbing attention more evident, and shows the way to structure articles with the main goal to meet the interests of the audience.
***
Author and journalist for many decades, Nick Gandolfi thrives in the complex world of digital and content marketing where he curates the many contents and digital services which float on the web. A storyteller at heart, Nick Gandolfi published comics, kid tales, mystery novels, tech, history, and educational articles (few e-books too). Nick Gandolfi firmly believes that all stories are important because they go to the heart of things and people. This articles appeared originally on my Linkedin profile. Also, have a look at some other stories.
