Documentaries are essentially based on real life situations or on important topics that could be historical, geographical, and political or in that case, anything serious. There is a definite way in which a documentary must be written, so that it can hold audience’s attention and maintain their interest. This report looks into the different steps to write a documentary that would interest the audiences.

1. An idea for the documentary must be thought through. The idea has to be original, as well as loaded with content that can keep them interested for its entire length period, whether a short film or feature length movie of 90 minutes.
2. The goals that are to be achieved through the documentary must be outlined at the onset in the documentary proposal (which is often serves as the “script). There can be a lot of genres on which the documentary can be based. Depending on the genre of the documentary, a set of objectives should be prepared and the documentary and the eventual filming must reflect those.
3. The subject of the documentary must be thoroughly researched and widely covered. It is not enough to load the documentary with information, as just that alone would not interest the audience. Often, a lot of information is already known to a lot of people, therefore interesting and innovative ways to present them must be adapted.
4. Communicating with experts related to the subject of the documentary would be a good idea to maintain a rich collection of resource for research purposes. In some cases, especially, historical documentaries, there is a scope of controversy with the portrayal of the content. In that case, advices and suggestions of experts in the related field would be invaluable.
5. The viewer plays an active role in the writing the documentary. An outline of what the viewer takes back from the documentary must be made. There are certain emotions that a particular documentary might bring out of the audiences. Therefore, such expectations out of the viewer must be considered and implemented likewise.
6. The documentary must be filled with the research done by the writer. More the information, richer the documentary would be. However, stuffing of information would lead to undesired consequences.
7. The sound and camera angles, along with the complete cinematography play an important role. A certain amount of information might be given away through background narrations. These things are to be thought of and implemented in the documentary.