Writing Scripts for Text-to-Speech Narration

A human narrator reads a script and corrects it on the fly: they slow down for a clumsy sentence and mispronounce nothing twice. A text-to-speech voice reads exactly what is on the page. That makes script-level fixes the most dependable way to improve narration when you control the script.

The advice below applies to any AI voice, and it is drafting advice. Kineclip writes its own final wording for every series video, so you cannot type a respelling or a pause into a series. What you can do in Kineclip is review the audio against these rules, choose another voice in the series settings, and put clear, speakable source text into Create from source or a queued series story draft, knowing Kineclip may still rephrase it.

Write numbers the way you would say them

Different voices and tools handle these differently, which is exactly why you check them by ear. If a number is central to the video, say it in spoken form in the script.

Expand abbreviations and symbols

• Spell out “vs.” as “versus,” “approx.” as “about,” and “e.g.” as “for example.”
• Read acronyms intentionally: “NASA” is a word; “FBI” is letters. If a voice gets one wrong, separate the letters with spaces or rewrite it.
• Avoid symbols that have no natural spoken form: slashes, arrows, ampersands in strings.

Names and unusual words

These are the main source of audible errors. Options, in order of preference:

1. Avoid the word. Replace a hard-to-pronounce name with a description (“the Roman general”) when the name does not matter.
2. Respell it phonetically in the script, such as “Nik-ee”. This sometimes shows in captions, so check how the captions render.
3. Use it once. If an unusual name is required, say it once clearly and use pronouns afterwards.

Punctuation is pacing

Use full stops to create the beat before a reveal. “The door was open. Inside, there was nothing.” reads very differently from the same words joined with a comma.

Sentence length

Aim for sentences you can say in a single breath, usually under about 20 words. Long sentences with several clauses cause flat, rushed delivery, and they are also harder to caption well. Break them where a natural pause would fall.

The read-aloud test

1. Read the script aloud, at the speed you expect the voice to use.
2. Mark every place you stumble. If you stumble, the voice probably will too.
3. Mark every word you were unsure how to say. Those are your pronunciation risks.
4. Listen to the finished audio once with the screen off. Anything you noticed in step 2 or 3 is the first thing to check.

Choosing the voice

Some voices handle humour, solemn topics or fast facts better than others. The voice selection guide covers how to audition, and the AI versus human voiceover article is useful if you are deciding whether synthetic narration suits your channel at all. For platform rules on monetising AI voices, read is AI voiceover monetizable.

Include the audio check in your regular review: the pre-publish checklist lists what to listen for.

Frequently asked questions