Who it’s for
AI script writer for documentary and history YouTube channels
Hookquill researches a documentary topic before it writes, keeps each fact with its source, and plans the open loops in the outline so the story pays off what it promises. The script comes with B-roll cues and can be narrated by a studio voice.
By Founder @ Hookquill · Updated
What gets in the way
- The research is most of the work
- A twenty-minute documentary rests on dozens of facts, and every one of them has to hold up.
- Long videos sag in the middle
- Viewers stay for a question they need answered. Without planned open loops and payoffs, the middle of a long video loses them.
- Story needs scenes, not summaries
- A documentary works scene by scene. A list of facts in order is a Wikipedia article read aloud.
How Hookquill helps
- Facts kept with their sources
- It searches the web, keeps the facts that have a source, and writes only what those sources back. Add your own books, PDFs and notes as sources too.
- Open loops planned, then paid off
- The outline plans the questions the video opens and where each one is answered, and the script follows it.
- Cold opens and story hooks
- Three openings for each video, including a story cold open that starts in the middle of the action.
- B-roll cues and a narrator
- Cues under each paragraph for the edit, and a voiceover from a studio narrator, downloadable as MP3 or WAV.
Best mode: Full script. Narration is written word for word, with cues for archive footage, maps and on-screen dates.
What it looks like
Fifty-six hours into Apollo 13, an oxygen tank exploded about two hundred thousand miles from Earth.
Archive: mission control, April 1970
What brought the crew home was the small lunar module, a craft never meant to carry three men for days.
Diagram: the command module and lunar module docked
This is how it kept them alive.
Title card
How you would use it
- 1Type the topic. Read the research and add any sources of your own.
- 2Pick a cold open, then approve an outline with its open loops and payoffs.
- 3Let it write section by section; unsourced claims are checked for you.
- 4Record the narration, or make the voiceover, and hand the editor the pack.
What it does not do
It will not invent quotes or composite characters. Where a scene needs a story, it uses a sourced example or one clearly framed as hypothetical.
Questions
How long can a script be?
Up to about 30 minutes per script, planned in an outline and written section by section.
Can I use my own research?
Yes. Add links, PDFs, notes or YouTube videos as sources, and the script draws on them alongside the web research.
Does it plan the story or just write paragraphs?
It plans first: the outline sets out the sections, the questions the video opens and where each is answered. You approve it before the script is written.