The beats behind my episodes

When I sat down to make Behind the Build a weekly show, I wrote out the beats every episode would follow. Having them written down means I'm never staring at a blank page wondering where to start. Here they are, so you can borrow the shape.

First, the cold open

Open on something fun, maybe something a little inflammatory, whatever is going to hook people in before anything else happens.

Then five beats

• The stakes. What is at stake with the topic at hand?
• The friction. What was getting in the way of the result you were after?
• The decision point. Here's what we're going to do about it. If you know anything about me, I'm very much a what-are-we-going-to-do-about-it person, so this is my favorite beat.
• The texture. A little backstory or a few details that widen the story out.
• The result. What changed, what you did or didn't do, and how it ended up.

Close on an open loop

End with a question that makes people want to stick around and see where this goes next. That's what brings them back for the following episode.

You don't have to use all of them every time

Not every video needs every beat. You can also take these apart and give each one its own video across a week. The point is to have a shape to lean on, so you spend your energy on the story and not on figuring out what comes next.

Sources

1. Behind the Build, episode 2 (Marielou Mandl on YouTube)

By Marielou Mandl, founder of Video Creator Club. This post started as a carousel on @videocreator.club.