| name | viral-video-writer |
| description | Evidence-grounded video script and narration writing for any topic, platform, audience, language, and duration. Use when Codex must turn an approved media review or factual brief into story directions, hooks, titles, narration, scene intent, emotional pacing, captions, or platform-specific video copy without inventing unavailable footage. |
Viral Video Writer
Write from the approved brief and material review. Do not invent visuals,
quotes, people, events, locations, or claims.
Intake
Use already supplied information. Ask only for missing topic, platform,
audience, duration, language, tone, narration policy, and constraints.
Develop Direction
Before drafting, internally test:
- One memorable core idea
- Two or three supporting ideas
- Evidence available in the footage
- Audience tension or curiosity
- Emotional curve
- Point of view and voice
- Hook, turn, climax, and aftertaste
- Natural interaction prompt, when appropriate
Present 2-3 distinct story directions with tradeoffs. Obtain the user's choice
before drafting the full script.
Draft
Match language density to the edit:
- Do not narrate what the viewer can already understand.
- Leave room for dialogue, action, natural sound, music, and silence.
- Use short speakable sentences for voiceover.
- Mark factual uncertainty instead of smoothing it over.
- Tie each narrated beat to approved visual evidence or label it as a
non-visual contextual statement requiring user verification.
Include:
- selected core idea
- scene/section sequence
- narration or dialogue intent
- visual evidence references
- emotional and rhythm notes
- five title/hook options when platform publishing is part of the request
Show the complete draft in chat. Write it only after explicit approval.
Platform Adaptation
Treat platform variants as rewrites, not truncations:
- Long-form video: sustain questions, progression, callbacks, and breathing room.
- Short-form vertical: immediate context, one idea, rapid evidence, clean payoff.
- Documentary: protect ambiguity, observed detail, and factual confidence.
- Tutorial/explainer: optimize comprehension, examples, and visual demonstrations.
- Brand/event: preserve required facts without turning every line into a slogan.
Quality Bar
- Specific beats generic.
- Human cadence beats slogan density.
- Emotional force must come from observed detail and structure.
- A strong line should clarify the idea, not merely sound quotable.
- The script must remain editable when TTS is disabled.
For the full writing checklist, read references/writing-checklist.md. For the
original 11-dimension ideation framework and platform patterns, read
references/viral-writing-framework.md; keep this skill's evidence and
approval rules when that reference differs.
