Don’t Resolve the Tension

Singlehandedly the most important thing you can do for your channel is to increase SESSION TIME – the total amount of time a viewer spends on your channel in one session.

There are two ways to do this:

• Create long videos that people watch a lot of.
• Get viewers to watch more than one video.

In this newsletter, we’ll be talking about the latter.

Ongoing Story

You’ve heard me go on about the purpose of a channel goal, but this still seems to be one that channels often get stuck on.

Let’s quickly revise that a channel goal should have a clear start point and end point:

• Start point: I bought a sailboat with no experience.
• End point: I have sailed around the world.

The importance of the channel goal is that you now have a clear goal of where you are going with each video. Every single episode acts as a story beat/loop in the overarching channel goal.

And because every episode is connected and the overarching goal is yet to be reached, the viewer is naturally pulled from one episode to the next.

Here is an example of how this might look:

Episode 1: You buy a boat.

Episode 2: You take off full time living on boat.

Episode 3: Something happens which causes you to have to haul out.

Episode 4: You fix problem and then get back in the water.

Episode 5: You sail to your first island.

As you can see, you still have not achieved the channel goal. And yet, every episode is progressing you towards the goal.

Where Vloggers Get Tripped Up

I often see travel vloggers get tripped up in showing the progression of their channel goal in two ways:

1. They feel like nothing interesting is happening in their life.
2. Life has taken a major pivot.

My Life Is Boring

For the first scenario, part of being a successful YouTuber is learning to make the mundane interesting. I feel like this video by Sailing Uma is the most brilliant example of interesting mundanity.

This is why videos such as “A Day in The Life” or “Van Tour” exist – because creators are trying to make their life interesting.

But also…. a big part of finding a story is getting in touch with your emotional journey.

Here is an example: I started a fulltime job recently. Everyday I get up at 5:30am, work on my business for 2.5 hours and then go to work for 9 hours. Sometimes I come back and read a business book I need to get through. That is my day in, day out for the last 4 weeks.

Seemingly boring.

But on an emotional level, I am going through a big adjustment. I haven’t worked a fulltime office job since 2020. I just moved to a small town of 9,000 people after living in major cities for the past 13 years. I’ve just signed up for my first half marathon in 8 years. I have also been so worried about keeping this business going and managing all the work while also working fulltime.

Which by the way, my apologies for this later-than-normal newsletter. It’s been a big adjustment.

My point is that the emotional side of your life is often where the story lies.

Big Life Pivot

The second scenario is when life takes a pivot. You have to fly home. You have to sell the boat. Basically, life happens.

The first question you have to ask yourself is, “Is the goal the same?”

If so, then the big life event is still part of that journey and therefore a relevant story to tell.

For example, I was forced to sell my boat in 2021. My partner at the time got very sick, Covid hit, and then we were forced to sell the boat for a variety of reasons.

At the time, I still wanted to sail around the world, so I still told the events as if they were each a story beat leading to us sailing around the world.

Change in Goal

At some point though, the goal started to change.

I could no longer afford to buy a new boat, but I still wanted to adventure. I went through about a year period where I was deciding, but eventually landed on wanting to walk across New Zealand via the Te Araroa Trail (October 2025!!!).

This journey towards a new goal becomes the story.

You do need to eventually land on a new goal to keep your audience engaged, but the goal to find a goal is ….. well… the goal.

And it’s that journey towards achieving your channel goal that keeps your audience binging one video to the next.

End Screens

When channels get the first method of increasing session time right, it is typically this second aspect they miss. Let’s see where you stand.

How often do you check your End Screen Click Through Rate (CTR) on your YouTube analytics?

For most of us, probably never.

And that’s a real shame, because it’s the easiest and quickest change you can make a change to your videos to improve session time.

The ALMIGHTY Outro

The main way your End Screen CTR is increased is through a solid outro.

Your outro is similar to your packaging (thumbnail and title), as it makes a new promise about what the next video is about to offer and how the overarching story will continue to progress.

When crafting an outro, I recommend following this structure, created by George Blackman:

1. Link to current video: “This thing happened in this current video”
2. Create a Curiosity Gap: “but that lead to XYZ happening”
3. Make a New Promise: “…which you won’t get to see until you watch the next video.”

The goal of this structure is to build up tension, but not to resolve it.

An OKAY Example:

Let me give an example of this done OKAY and then this done GREAT.

• Imagine you are sailing to a new island. Just as you are approaching the narrow channel to the island, you see a giant navy ship coming through. You’re not sure if you can both get through, and you don’t have enough space to turn around. We’re left wondering, will they make it through?

This is quite a binary question “Will they / won’t they”? There is only one answer to the mystery.

A GREAT EXAMPLE:

So let me give you a better version of the same story:

• Imagine you are sailing to a new island. Just as you are approaching the narrow channel to the island, you see a giant navy ship coming through. You’re not sure if you can both get through, and you don’t have enough space to turn around. Suddenly, a smaller navy dinghy is in front of it, and it starts coming directly your way. The episode ends with someone over the loudspeaker shouting that we must stop moving and allow them to board. We’re left wondering, “What happened?” “What did they want?” “Was something wrong?” “Did they make it through the channel?”

This type of ending works because it adds another layer of questions on to the original question and encourages the audience to speculate. When they are speculating, they can’t help but watch another episode.

By the way, this actual scenario happened to me, and I wish I’d known this mechanism back then when I recorded it!

Action

Action one is to make sure you have a clear channel goal.

Action two is to actually spend time crafting a brilliant outro. You should spend as much time here as your intro, as it is the second most important aspect that can increase your session time!

By the way, my storytelling course went live! For just $39USD, you can learn everything about storytelling, and bypass trying to piecemeal advice from random sources. It will make your journey so much easier and streamlined.

For the first ten people who sign up, I am offering 25% off using the code STORYTELLINGNL.

Happy Creating & Stay Curious!