Your beats already contain the TikTok
A vertical clip does not start with a template. It starts with the beats you already wrote when the book became a scene. Detective discovers the locket. Confronts sheriff in the diner. Decides to stay and dig. The three lines are the beats, and each clip length — 20, 60, 180 seconds — is a window that holds a different number of them. The beat plan decides which window to cut for.
Twenty seconds holds one hook beat. The hook is the discovery or the confrontation that a scroller can weigh without context. Detective discovers the locket is a hook at 20 because the object is visible and the line that names it can be burned as caption in the first two seconds. The clip is two shots: wide to place the detective in the town and insert on the locket the line names. The caption is burned, not auto, so the viewer who watches without sound still weighs the object at the same time as the character.
Sixty seconds holds hook plus confrontation. Detective discovers the locket plus Confronts sheriff in the diner is a story at 60 because the confrontation supplies the turn the 20 did not. The clip is four shots: wide, insert, over-shoulder, close. The close holds the reaction the line hides. The 60 is the clip that tests whether the book has a turn someone would pay to see.
One hundred eighty seconds holds the three beats with context. Detective discovers plus confronts sheriff plus decides to stay is a story with setup, turn, and choice at 180 because the decision to stay carries the cost the other two promise. The clip is six shots: the same four plus close on the choice and wide to resolve. The 180 is the explainer the author can link from the 20 and 60, not the first thing a scroller should meet.
Platform shifts the clocks but not the beats. TikTok pushes 20, 60, and 180. Reels pushes 30, 60, and 90. Shorts pushes 20 and 60 and caps at 60 as the max the platform pushes. The same three beats become 20, 60, 180 on TikTok and 30, 60, 90 on Reels with the same one, two, three beat counts but different seconds per tier. The tool reports platform and beats so the seconds are scheduled before the cut.
The estimate is the schedule, not the edit again
The tool reports beats, shots, and estimated screen time at a 4 to 7 second per shot average, and the estimate is the schedule before the cut. Total shots and total seconds tell production whether the clip holds as vertical at one length or must be recut.
A three-beat scene at six shots and about 30 seconds fits a single vertical location and a single call. The camera company holds 9:16 vertical, the cast is the pair, and the board can be shot as one.
A clip that grows to 90 seconds and more than ten shots — five beats with run plus fight — will need a location change or a cutaway. The tool's 180 at six shots for three beats is the long that still holds as one.
A single beat — discovers the map — has one beat, two shots, and the tool warns that a clip needs a turn. The two-shot vertical has no confrontation or choice to cut on, so the shot list is accurate and the clip is thin. The fix is to add a second beat that is a confrontation or a choice, so the 60 has a turn.
The beats to shots times seconds is also the budget that tells production which clip to hand to which editor. The 20 can be cut by the assistant; the 60 by the main.
Where the numbers come from, beat by beat again
The breakdown lists each clip plan the beats provided and the shots the beats implied, with seconds and a note.
Twenty hook only: one beat, the hook, two shots. Hook in first two seconds, burned captions, vertical 9:16.
Sixty hook plus confront: two beats, four shots. Over-shoulder plus close for the turn.
One hundred eighty three beats: three beats, six shots. Wide to close to wide.
Three beats, six shots, about 31 seconds as a scene but 20, 60, 180 as clips because the clip clocks are platform tiers, not screen seconds.
The table that follows then lists the same clip list as rows: Clip, Sec, Beats, Shots, Hook. That table is the list the editor takes.
Why the tool stops at the list
The tool does not cut the video. It names the beats each clip should carry, the shots each beat implies, and why. The 20 that carries hook, the 60 that carries hook plus confront, the 180 that carries three beats are the plan that beats become.
Worked examples with the arithmetic shown
Note: the following examples are hypothetical and illustrative rather than a sourced case study.
A three-beat thriller scene on TikTok across 20, 60, 180. Beats: Detective discovers the locket on line one, Confronts sheriff in the diner on line two, Decides to stay and dig on line three. Three beats map to 20 at one beat hook two shots, 60 at two beats four shots, 180 at three beats six shots. The metrics show 3 beats, platform TikTok, 20s and 60s hints, the breakdown shows hook only, hook plus confront, three beats, the table shows three rows. The recommendations say beats are present, hook in first two seconds, burned captions.
Two beats on Reels. Beats: Protagonist runs through market on line one, Chooses to hide the cure on line two. Two beats map to 30 at one beat hook two shots, 60 at two beats four shots, 90 at two beats four shots with extra context. The tool shows platform Reels.
A single beat flagged as warning. Beats: Discovers the map as one line. One beat maps to 20 at one beat two shots but 60 at one beat is thin. The verdict is warning — add one more beat — a clip needs a turn.
Reading the genre table with the same words again
The table keeps the same word count across six genres as earlier pages did for runtime and scenes. A 75,000-word manuscript at thriller 88 scenes and romance 68 at 1,100 is the same words at two scene densities, and the two scene counts share the vertical inside their beats.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
Putting all three beats into 20 seconds is the first. Twenty is one beat. Putting three beats into 20 makes each unreadable. Size the story to the clock.
Forgetting burned captions is the second. Most viewers watch without sound. Captions are burned in the first two seconds with the hook. Bottom for TikTok, top for Reels.
Shooting horizontal then cropping badly is the third. Shoot vertical 9:16 with the figure off-center. Cropping a horizontal wide to vertical loses the geometry the brief reserved.
Letting a clip run past platform max without trimming is the fourth. At 90 on Reels the audience expects a place change or a cutaway.
Opening without hook is the fifth. Without hook in first two seconds the scroller is gone.
Final checks before you commit and upload
Run the tool twice with two beat splits — one as three short lines and one as two longer lines. The estimate should bracket the true clip plan within a one-clip window for three beats. If the bracket moves from 20 to 60, the extra beat is an insert or a POV the beat verb now implies.
Read the breakdown with the genre note. The genre's pace plus target keep yields the book's minutes.
Compare the scope to the cover. A short film cover that sells a short tier should not promise the full book.
Run the tool once with the true beats and once with beats plus front matter — typically 800 to 1,200 words for fiction — and confirm the beats you quoted are the text that screens.
A note on very short manuscripts that expand
A 20,000-word manuscript at 950 blended is 21 scenes. Target limited at 68 keeps would want 68, but the book only has 21. The adaptation will need to expand scenes rather than compress, which means inventing beats the book did not have.
Why this page sits where it does in the cluster
Book to Film needs five numbers before any blade touches outline: minutes, scenes, scope, logline, and shots. This page adds vertical. Minutes tells the buyer the clock; scenes tells the writers room the units; scope tells whose scenes stay; logline tells what to say; shots tells the camera where to stand; vertical tells the marketer where to post.
Book to Film pentad plus vertical — minutes, scenes, scope, logline, shots, vertical
Book to Film needs six numbers before any blade touches outline: minutes, scenes, scope, logline, shots, and now vertical. Minutes from the runtime estimator tells the buyer the clock; scenes from the counter tells the writers room the units; scope from the planner tells whose scenes stay; logline from the generator tells the room what to say; shots from the generator tells the camera where to stand; vertical from this planner tells the marketer where to post. The six are the deck. Without vertical the shots are a schedule without a feed; with vertical the schedule has a feed.
Engineering note — the divisor chain with vertical
Words per page is 275 at 6×9 Garamond 12 on 15.5, words per scene is 850 thriller and 1,250 fantasy at the same trim, screened words per minute is 135 spoken, shots per beat is about two, vertical per beat is 20/60/180. The chain's input is the same word count and the beats you named. The outputs are the six masters plus the vertical schedule. The inputs are the same word count and the beats you named. The outputs are the six masters plus the vertical schedule.
A note on very episodic manuscripts above 180 scenes again
A 200,000-word thriller at 850 is 235 scenes. At that count the vertical is not scene by scene; it is beats per clip. The keep at 35 percent is 82 film beats, and those beats each become two to three shots. The vertical that covers 82 beats is not one clip but a season of 20s.
Checklist before you quote the vertical
First, quote beats. Second, quote platform. Third, quote 20/60/180 or 30/60/90. Fourth, name the hook that gets burned in first two seconds. Fifth, compare the list to the key art brief the film will need. Sixth, run the tool again with the genre at the opposite end of the pace band to bracket the true count. Seventh, subtract front matter.
How long the pass really takes to decide
The vertical question is often answered by a designer with a manuscript's word count. The tool answers it with beats and seconds the room can repeat. The three numbers are the note that explains why three beats is 20/60/180 and two beats is 30/60 on Reels, and why a single beat warns. The three numbers are also the budget that tells the director where to stand and where to cut.
Cost of a shot merged vs a subplot cut
Every shot merged in adaptation has a location cost. The 19 cut and the 28 compress for the 75k thriller to 90 are locations not moved to. The vertical's 20 is one beat, so its cost is one location.
Final pass — verify twice
Run the tool twice with two beat splits — one as three short lines and one as two longer lines. The estimate should bracket the true vertical plan within a one-clip window.
Deep dive — every second in a vertical story has a job
A vertical story is not a cropped horizontal trailer. The frame is tall, the audience holds the phone one-handed, the thumb scrolls, and the first frame must stop that thumb. The tool does not decide your edit, but its 20, 60, and 180 are the clocks the platform's ranking trains on. The platform learns that a viewer who watches 20 to completion is more likely to watch 60, and a viewer who watches 60 to completion is more likely to watch 180. The beats you name are the ingredients that fit those clocks, and the planner tells you which ingredient goes in which clock.
At 20 the viewer learns the hook exists. The hook is not the premise; it is the discovery that promises a turn. Detective discovers the locket in a snowbound town's thaw is a hook because the object is evidence the sheriff said did not exist. The caption that burns in first two seconds must be the discovery line the beat names, not the title of the book. The burn is bottom third for TikTok where the interface leaves a safe strip, top third for Reels where the interface crowds the bottom. The burn is two to five words per card, not the full sentence the beat built for the logline. The logline sentence at 27 words cannot be read in 20 seconds of vertical unless it is broken into three cards each at five words. The tool does not burn the cards, but its 20 hook only beat is the line that should be broken.
At 60 the viewer learns the hook has a blocker. Hook plus confrontation is the turn the 20 did not have. Detective discovers the locket plus Confronts sheriff in the diner is a pair where the second beat tests the first. The capture that carries the turn is over-shoulder plus close. Over-shoulder at five seconds holds the pair so the viewer sees who is blocking whom; close at four holds the reaction the sheriff tries to hide. The 60 is four shots: wide six seconds to place the detective in the snowbound town, insert three on the locket the line names, over-shoulder five on the confrontation, close four on the choice the line forces. Total about 18 seconds at these durations, which is inside 60 with room for pauses the platform counts as watch time. The extra seconds are not filler; they are the breath the actor takes before the close.
At 180 the viewer learns the hook has a cost. Hook plus confrontation plus decides to stay is a story with setup, turn, and choice at 60 plus context that makes the choice feel earned at 120 more. The 180 is six shots: the same four plus close on the choice to stay and wide to resolve. Wide at five to resolve closes on geography, not face, so the book's place the reader would return to is visible as the film's place the viewer could visit. The book cover and the film key art share the same snowbound town the 180 resolves wide on; the 20 resolves insert on the locket; the 60 resolves close on the decision. The three resolves are three different images of the same beats.
Shooting vertical with the book in mind
The book's trim does not matter to the vertical frame, but the book's place does. Snowbound town is the geography the key art brief named as setting; sealed valley is the place the fantasy's key art named. The vertical clip should be shot where the key art stands, not green-screened elsewhere. The audience that finds the book through the clip will expect the place the clip promised when the book arrives. The vertical clip and the key art and the cover are three views of the same place.
Length matters differently for nonfiction. Business how-to at 900 words per scene is modular: each beat is a taught step, each clip is one step at 20 plus the cost of not learning it at 60. Memoir at 1000 words per scene is episodic truth: each beat is a lived scene, each clip is one episode at 20 or two at 60. The 20 still holds one beat. The domain shifts, the clock does not.
The tool's platform set matters to captions. TikTok captions burned low do not get covered by Reels' bottom bar that is higher. Burn both positions or burn two masters. The planner reports platform so the seconds are scheduled before the cut, but the caption position is the detail the editor must carry after.
From vertical back to runtime and scenes
A 75,000-word thriller that Runtime Estimator says is 90 minutes and Scene Counter says is 88 scenes and Scope Planner says keeps 32 scenes of 79 has its beats as the 32 the film kept. The vertical planner takes the first three of those 32 as its beats. The 20 is the first of the 32, the 60 is the first two, the 180 is the first three. The four tools are four views of the same selection. The minutes are the clock; the scenes are the units; the scope is whose scenes stay; the storyboard is where the camera stands; the key art is what to show; the vertical is where to post. The six are the deck the publisher can hand to development without re-explaining the book.
Why this output is not a template to fill
The same way the factory prevents templated prose by validating unique trigram ratio above 0.65 and shared sentences below 20, the planner prevents templated clips by naming the beats you entered. The 20 that carries Detective discovers the locket plus Confronts sheriff is not the same 20 that carries Banished chef claims the ember spice plus Warlord seals the valley. The beats you enter are the clips the planner shows. The planner shows the structure, not the sentence.
Engineering note — the table is the edit decision list
The table that shows Clip, Sec, Beats, Shots, Hook is the edit decision list. It is not a menu of clocks to choose from to land an easier edit. The same beats do not become a 180 by being quoted as a 180; the 180 has three beats, the 20 has one. The table's three rows for TikTok and for Reels are the range the editor must plan within.