Frame-one hook patterns (must read silently)
Put the words on screen frame one; assume no sound.
- Open loop: "The invoicing mistake that cost me €4,000."
- Contrarian: "Posting daily is killing your Shorts."
- Problem call-out: "If your Shorts die at 200 views, it's this."
- POV: "POV: it's the 28th and three clients haven't paid."
- Number: "3 freelance-tax rules. The last one is free money." Match the hook's promise to the payoff — bait-and-switch tanks retention and satisfaction.
Retention tactics (Rung 2)
- Cut the first half-second of any dull opening; it often lifts retention noticeably.
- New visual or info beat every 1–2 seconds; kill establishing shots.
- Keep CTAs tiny — a 3-second CTA is ~10% of a 30s Short. Prefer a loop over a long sign-off.
- Build a conceptual loop so the end feeds the start (chase >100% avg % viewed).
Length selection
Design the idea, then pick the shortest complete length. Default 15–35s for most niches; go to 50–90s only if retention data proves viewers stay. Up to 3 min is allowed but rarely optimal.
Caption spec
Most viewers are on mute. Burn in captions: ~2 lines per frame, 32–42 chars per line, away from the screen edges (and the Shorts UI). Captions also get indexed for Shorts search.
Worked example 1 — blunt indie-founder voice (~18s)
0:00 ON-SCREEN: "I almost missed €4,000 in tax."
0:00 VO: "Almost missed four grand in tax this year. Not proud of it."
0:03 SHOT: fast screen-record of a messy spreadsheet
0:04 VO: "Tracked income. Didn't track the set-aside."
0:08 ON-SCREEN: "30% of every invoice -> separate account, same day."
0:09 VO: "Thirty percent, separate account, the day it lands."
0:13 VO: "Boring. Works. Saved my April."
0:15 LOOP line: "Almost missed four grand..." (cuts to frame one)
TITLE: "The 30% rule that saves freelancers at tax time" (keyword-rich for Shorts search)
CAPTIONS: burned in, 2 lines max. ANGLE: the same-day rule, not generic "save for tax."
Worked example 2 — warm studio voice (~30s)
0:00 ON-SCREEN: "How we stopped dreading tax season"
0:00 VO: "If tax season makes your stomach drop -- this helps."
0:04 SHOT: calm desk, hands, a banking app
0:05 VO: "We changed one thing. The panic went away."
0:10 ON-SCREEN: "A second account, labelled Tax."
0:11 VO: "Open a second account. Call it Tax."
0:17 ON-SCREEN: "Auto-move 30% the day an invoice clears."
0:18 VO: "Move thirty percent the moment a client pays. You never see it, never spend it."
0:26 LOOP line: "If tax season makes your stomach drop..." (back to frame one)
TITLE: "The calm way to handle freelance tax (2 steps)"
CAPTIONS: burned in. BRIDGE: pin the long-form 'full freelance finance setup' on the channel.
Both: read brand-profile + voice-builder first; shootable (on-screen text, VO, shots); one idea; intentional loop; keyword-rich title; human films/edits. Sibling short-form writers for cross- posting the same idea: reels-script, tiktok-script (adapt natively, don't reuse watermarked files).
