Scripts & prompting

How to get great scripts — prompting, writing styles, custom scripts, and video references.

The script drives everything: footage matching, pacing, overlays, and chapter structure. This page covers how to shape it.

Writing a good prompt

Be specific about the subject, the angle, and the format:

Weak: "a video about space"
Strong: "Top 10 most expensive space missions in history, ranked by inflation-adjusted cost, with a dramatic documentary tone"

Include the things you care about — the era, the people, the argument, what to skip. The full prompt travels through the entire pipeline, so details you mention influence scenes, not just the script text.

Content type and style

Content type: Auto Detect analyzes your prompt and picks the best approach; Trending produces news-style coverage of current events; Evergreen suits documentaries, top-10s, and educational videos.
Visual style: Auto by default, or pick one explicitly — documentary, breaking news, tech news, video essay, true crime, sports, educational explainer, top-10 ranking, biography, nature documentary, business and finance, and more.
Writing style: the default is a professional, neutral, documentary-grade narrator — or pick a tone like Storyteller, True Crime / Mystery, Sports Commentator, or Sarcastic / Dry Wit, or describe your own in free text (up to 5,000 characters).
Script model: Research-grounded (default) prioritizes factual accuracy; Creative writing prioritizes storytelling flair.
Enhanced Fact-Check: an optional toggle that verifies names, dates, and claims with web search. It adds two pipeline steps and a small credit surcharge, reflected in the estimate before you generate.
CTA placements: describe where and how calls-to-action ("subscribe", product mentions) should appear — tied to emotional beats works best. Leave it empty for a single CTA at the 25–35% mark.

Attachments: script, images, reference

The + menu on the create page attaches extra material to the generation:

Copying a style with a video reference

Paste a public YouTube URL and VidNext analyzes up to 20 minutes of its narration, then writes your script in that writing style — sentence rhythm, vocabulary, energy. It never copies the reference's topic, names, or quotes. Analysis costs roughly 1 credit for short clips up to about 12 for a full hour.

The Video Reference panel with URL input and analysis costs

A video reference overrides the writing-style setting; detach it if you want to pick a style manually again.

Bringing your own script

Attach a custom script and VidNext reads it verbatim — no rewriting. The limit is 50,000 characters, with a live word count and estimated duration. A built-in Proofread action cleans up typos before generation.

The custom script panel with character counter and Proofread option

You can also attach story images — up to 10 of your own pictures that become anchor points the script is written to flow through:

The Story Images upload zone

If your pasted text doesn't look like pure narration (say, it includes stage directions or an article layout), a script check dialog offers three options: use it as a prompt instead, extract just the narrator text, or read every word verbatim anyway.

Supplying a custom script skips script generation entirely, which lowers the credit estimate.

Reviewing before production

Enable "Review script before generating" on the create page and the project will pause at Awaiting Script Approval after the plan step. You can read the full script, make edits, and approve — only then does narration and footage work begin, so script changes at this stage cost nothing extra.

Language

Narration, on-screen text, and graphics all use the selected output language — there are 32 to choose from. If your prompt, custom script, or chosen voice doesn't match the selected language, VidNext asks you to resolve the conflict before generating rather than guessing.