Rated solutions: beat sheet, rung inventory, line rules
Runtime target is 1:30-2:30, about 300-500 words at 3.4-3.8 wps with a single narrator. Percentages are of runtime. Beats are ranges of pack lines and never split a sentence. A rung is one score line plus its 1-3 supporting lines.
| # | Beat | % | Lines | Job | Line rules |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hook | 0-6 | 1-2 | Name her by an observable symptom, in action, at the board | Line 1 ≤12 words, Emotion + Curiosity + Stakes (hook taxonomy), zero backstory; "let's rate them" premise by line 2; no product |
| 2 | Stake | 6-15 | 3-6 | What the mornings cost her | VOC-sourced (survey free text, threads): trips to his door, yelling, her own job; one cost per line; lands on HER, caused by the mornings |
| 3 | Rung 1 | 15-28 | 7-10 | Eliminate the commonest sound fix | Score line, honest credit, mechanism-linked fail line, optional cost-to-her line |
| 3 | Rung 2 | 28-41 | 11-14 | Eliminate "louder" | Same four-slot shape |
| 3 | Rung 3 | 41-55 | 15-18 | Eliminate the clever fix | Same four-slot shape; app or routine |
| 4 | Her rung | 55-66 | 19-23 | The one that works and what it costs | "Me." score 5-6; why it works = touch; why it fails = the beat 2 stake, now named as hers |
| 5 | Root cause | 66-70 | 24 | Name the pattern | ONE Fish-ruled line verbatim (below) |
| 6 | Reveal + score | 70-76 | 25-27 | The ten | Product named once; "ten out of ten"; "it does what my hand did, without me" |
| 7 | Mechanism | 76-88 | 28-32 | How | Wrist, vibration, gets stronger until he turns it off, silent to everyone else, three alarms, no app |
| 8 | Payoff + CTA | 88-100 | 33-36 | Her morning back + offer | Payoff on her (she stops being the alarm) or his independence; "sixty night" guarantee spoken; end card (optional, --end-card; off by default per Fish 10-06) |
Rung inventory (pick 3 + her rung; order = the score order)
Survey source: knowledge/brands/dawnbands/survey-intel-post-purchase-2026-09-04.md, "What they'd already tried" (n=134, multi-select).
| Rung | Share | Allowed category | Honest credit (what it does do) | Fail line, linked to the mechanism | Default score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phone alarm on full volume | 79% | sound | It goes off, every single time. | His brain tunes out a sound it hears every morning. (Fish-ruled) | 2 |
| Loud alarm clock | 58% | sound | It is loud. The whole house hears it. | Everyone but him. It was never about volume. (Fish-ruled) | 3 |
| Alarm app he has to solve | in 48% bucket | app | Smartest one on the list. | He has to be awake to solve it. | 4 |
| Early bedtimes / routines | in 48% bucket | routine | He gets more sleep. | More sleep doesn't make the alarm reach him. | 4 (alt to the app) |
| Lights on / sunrise lamp | not in survey | light | The room gets bright. | He pulls the pillow over his face. | 3-4 (optional; no survey share) |
| Me (knocking, shaking, trips to his door) | 90% | her | The only one that works. | It works because I touch him. And it costs me every morning (beat 2 stake). | 5-6 |
| Dawn | — | — | — | Does what my hand did, without me. | 10 |
Never a rung: smartwatch or fitness band (15%, same tactile channel, confounds the mechanism), bed shaker or pillow alarm (12%, research-only, never in copy), medication (3%, never sell the band as treatment), any brand name (feedback_dr_copy_anchoring).
Score rules
- Scores rise strictly, rung by rung. Failed rungs score 2-6, and her rung scores highest. Nothing scores 0-1: that reads as a hit job and the honest-judge frame breaks.
- Leave at least four points between the best failed rung and the band. The band is "ten out of ten". Don't use "100/10": the joke breaks the honest scale. The tested exception is a band at "nine out of ten" with one honest catch (he has to wear it).
- Every failed rung gets its credit BEFORE its fail line. Fail lines explain why it fails through the mechanism, never "it's junk".
- No dollar totals. Product-truth and the objection map ban an invented failed-alarm spend total. A price appears only inside a verbatim VOC line.
Fish-ruled root-cause and mechanism lines (use verbatim)
- Root cause: "Their brain tunes out a sound it hears every morning." / "It was never about volume." (dawn-statics, Fish 9-30). Core: sound doesn't reach a deep-sleeping brain; touch gets through. Never "can't be tuned out".
- Mechanism: "vibrates on the wrist and keeps getting stronger until they press the button" / "until he turns it off"; silent to everyone else; three alarms; no app.
Line rules (all beats)
- One sentence per pack line, 4-12 words. Score lines read as one line: "The phone alarm. Two out of ten."
- Spell out numbers with spaces ("two out of ten", "sixty night"). vo_check keeps the take and the timings aligned that way.
- Said-out-loud test, pronoun-first, literal. No similes, and no sass tics carried over from a beauty source.
- A rung is at most 4 lines. If a rung needs more, the fail line isn't sharp enough yet.
- The kid is never mocked. He is asleep, not lazy (the root cause is his brain, not him).
- Every visual intent shows the line literally. The board carries marks, never numerals or words.
Structure example (ILLUSTRATIVE: shows the shape only. These are not shipping lines. Real lines come from VOC and Fish's approval.)
- "I've tried every way to wake my son. Let's rate them." (hook, Mom uncapping a marker at the fridge board, seen 3/4)
- "Every morning I'm at his door four, five, six times." (stake; the count comes from her VOC, not invented)
- "The phone alarm on full volume. Two out of ten." (rung 1; insert of the phone ringing beside him asleep)
- "It goes off every single time. I'll give it that."
- "His brain tunes out a sound it hears every morning." …
- "And me. Six out of ten." (her rung; her hand on his shoulder)
- "I'm the only alarm that works, because I touch him."
- "And I'm late for my own job every single day." …
- "Dawn. Ten out of ten." (reveal; band resting on the counter, display dark)
- "It does what my hand did, without me." (Mom in the kitchen with coffee, his room down the hall) …
- "I haven't knocked on his door since." (payoff on her)