From storytelling to scripting: eight principles for deconstructing crime events.

UNLABELLED: This paper aims to improve crime script analysis, with a particular focus on breaking script stages into smaller, more precise steps. After outlining existing scripting methods, we then introduce eight principles designed to guide both the creation of crime scripts and the evaluation of scripts produced by others. Grounded in the concepts of state and activity, these principles address the following themes: Constitution, Chronology, Composition, Cardinality, Categorisation, Completeness, Clarity, and Consistency. Finally, we discuss the limits of template based approaches, including those built around the universal script. We call for the development of a more flexible scripting method, one that retains the chronological and functional cues of the universal script, but can be applied at any level of abstraction and resolution. Within this context, we believe the above principles can play another important role in its development. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40163-026-00286-w.