Literary Script Example

The literary script It is a kind of fiction script that does not include technical specifications; that is, it does not include specifications regarding camera movements, shots, lighting or scenery details, sound effects, etc.

One of the main characteristics of the script that defines its elements and its structure is that it's written to be taken to the moviesor, well, to the television. A script as such is not the final artistic product; rather, it lays the foundations for the making of a film.

The literary script it is a narrative and fictional text. It does not narrate facts of reality, as documentary scripts do, but rather imaginary events are narrated. Usually a story is told in which a certain number of characters intervene who face certain situations or conflicts. A literary script, then, has a narrative plot in the background; a story that you want to tell.

Unlike literature, in the script the literary or aesthetic handling of the language is not the most important thing, although there are screenwriters who write in a literary way. In the literary script the most important thing is

narrate audiovisually. Namely, a script is thought in images that later will be taken to the cinematographic language.

In a literary script it is narrated, then, visually; so that what is being read, everything that is described and narrated, suggests images.

That is why subjective issues are not narrated in a script, as thoughts and ideas of the characters. Subjective issues, such as the characters' emotions or their thoughts, are generally translated into images; although the thoughts of the characters can also be expressed with resources such as voice over.

In the writing of a literary script it is very important, then, to take into account that the images, as well as the dialogues of the characters, must convey to the viewer all the concepts and ideas that they want handle.

10 Examples of literary script:

1. Film script fragment The Pan's Labyrinth from Guillermo del Toro:

2. DARKNESS

A sweet lullaby, hummed by a female voice.

OVERPRINT:

SPAIN, 1944

And then: FIFTH YEAR OF PEACE.

A child's breath: Difficult, full of pain.

OPEN IN BLACK:

1. EXT. LABYRINTH - NIGHT

IN THE CLOSE-UP, OFELIA's face: 10 years old, huge, wet eyes, black hair like a raven's wing.

It lies on the filthy ground. A thick trickle of blood gushes from her nose. But she flows in reverse, backward, toward her nose.

She drop by drop, her blood disappears and her skin absorbs the stain, remaining unpolluted.

NARRATOR VOICE

It is said that a long, long time ago, in the world
underground where there is no lie or pain ...

Near her, lying on the ground, is a book of fairy tales. The air moves the leaves of it. More and more rapidly.

We notice that the pages of the book also move backwards until their covers are closed.

Ofelia's pupils dilate.

CAMERA enters one of them.

1. THE DARKNESS AGAIN

The image of a black mirror, floating in absolute nothingness. Undefined textures and shapes are reflected on its surface.

Its surface explodes, like a pool of black liquid.

He swallows the camera, wandering through the gloom for a few moments. In the distance: the sound of a distant, underground wind.

NARRATOR VOICE

(keep going)

... there lived a beautiful princess who dreamed of the world of human beings.

You can barely make out the silhouette of a castle. Here, a keep? There, a statue? A battlement? Lighted windows? Some dry leaves cross the frame.

NARRATOR VOICE

He dreamed of the blue sky, the gentle breeze, and the bright sun.

Finally, the damp walls of an ARTISAN WELL are defined.

NARRATOR VOICE

Once outside, the sunlight blinded her ...

A circular staircase leads straight out into daylight where the image

MELT TO WHITE

1. Excerpt from the script "Y tu mama tambien" by Carlos Cuarón and Alfonso Cuarón

1. INT. BEDROOM - ANA'S HOUSE - NIGHT 

A teenage couple makes love: TENOCH ITURBIDE, 17, white, struck out and confident; and ANA MORELOS, also 17 years old, dark-eyed, slim, calculating brunette.

He picks up the pace with some fuss and comes to orgasm; she pretends hers, loving and complicit.

A moment later, Tenoch pulls away from her breathlessly, pulling himself off her. Ana snuggles up next to her, sighing.

TENOCH

Don't put him there with an Italian, huh, thing?

ANA

Oh Love. How do you think?

TENOCH

Or with a fucking gringo backpacker

ANA

Not! Gross!

TENOCH

Or with a fucking French.

ANA

Not!

TENOCH

Or with a Mexican huarachudo of those who sell little necklaces on the blue coast, eh?

ANA

Ay, Tenoch!

TENOCH

With nobody.

ANA

Of course with no one, Teno.

TENOCH

Promise me

ANA

I promise you.

TENOCH

What?

ANA

You know.

TENOCH

I know that?

ANA

(slow)

No... I'm going... To fuck... A nnn... No Chinese!

She laughs 

TENOCH

Really!

ANA

Don't you trust me, Tenoch?

TENOCH

Yes of course.

ANA

Then?

TENOCH

Promise me

ANA

And you?

TENOCH

I promise you.

ANA

Let's see?

TENOCH

Both together.

Very serious, Ana and Tenoch see eye to eye. With all solemnity:

ANA AND TENOCH

I promise you that I'm not going to fuck ...

(they loosen ad libitum)

… A Polish, Canadian, Thai, Argentine, Danish, Spanish…

The two attack each other with laughter. He was on top of her in the prelude to a new intercourse. The sound disappears. ONLY THE VOICE OF THE NARRATOR IS HEARD.

NARRATOR (VO)

Ana's mother was a French divorcee, a teacher at the Center for Foreign Studies. He did not object to Tenoch sleeping with his daughter.

1. INT. ROOM - CECILIA'S HOUSE - MORNING

 JULIO ZAPATA, also 17, lanky brown, hairy with a hint of dissatisfaction, looks shrunken and out of place sitting on a sofa, waiting.

 MANUEL HUERTA, Cecilia's father, JULIO's girlfriend, 48 years old, a stiff and shy little man, talks on the phone.

 NARRATOR (VO) cont.

With Julio it was different. He was with Cecilia only until dinner, and she had to return in the morning to accompany her family to take her to the airport.

Manuel looks at Julio out of the corner of his eye.

 NARRATOR (VO)

Although she never externalized it, Cecilia's father, a pediatric allergy specialist, feared that his daughter's relationship with Julio would go too far. On the other hand, her mother, a psychologist, welcomed the courtship, which she described as innocent.

 SOUND RETURNS. Manuel hangs up, takes the newspaper from him and opens it.

Enter MARU, mother of Cecilia, 43 years old, a naive lady.

 MARU

It's a case! Can't find the passport!

 MANUEL

(shake your head)

The plane is going to leave her.

A cry is HEARD from Cecilia:

CECILIA (OS)

July! Get up, okay? Please'! Help me find the passport!

Doubtful, Julio sees Manuel, who does not change his neutral expression.

MARU

(finger snapping)

But go ahead, Julito, we're in a hurry, kid!

1. Script "The haunted house."

1. EXT. HOUSE - DAY

On a street in a middle-class neighborhood there are several houses, of medium size, very close to each other. One of the houses is distinguished from the others by its neglected and abandoned state. JOSUÉ, 10 years old, very tall for his age and skinny for him, and SAMUEL, 11 years old, a little overweight, with curly and disheveled hair, play with a soccer ball.

Josué throws a ball at Samuel and he, who acts as a goalkeeper in front of the abandoned house, saves the ball with both hands.

SAMUEL

What a great doorman, ladies and gentlemen!

Samuel returns the ball to Josué. He does some pirouettes and tricks with the ball and throws a ball at Samuel again. The ball passes over Samuel's head, hits one of the windows of the abandoned house and breaks it. The ball remains inside the house.

SAMUEL

You're so silly! And now?

Samuel looks suspiciously toward the house.

SAMUEL

You go for the ball.

JOSUE

Don't be a coward. Go!

SAMUEL

You threw it away, and you go for it.

JOSUE

(in a mocking tone)

You are a hen, you are a hen, you are a hen, you are a hen.

SAMUEL

(upset)

Shut up! Hen you.

Samuel walks toward the house and Josué walks behind him.

1. INT. HOUSE - DAY

The house inside looks sinister. There are cobwebs, old paintings on the walls, rats walking on the floor. It looks very old and dirty.

Samuel and Josué wander around the dark house but can't find the ball anywhere. The broken window panes are strewn across the floor, littered with garbage and dust, but there is no trace of the ball.

Suddenly, the front door closes with a BIG BOUNCE. The children run scared to try to open the door but they cannot. It is sealed. Josué and Samuel look more and more desperate.

The friends suddenly turn to see, as if at the same time they had thought the same thing.

SAMUEL AND JOSUÉ

Window!

The friends go to the window and look in horror at how the window is no longer broken. Even dust accumulates on the surface of the glass.

Suddenly, something hits the window and breaks it. The ball, the same ball they were playing with in the street, hits Samuel's chest and bounces on the ground.

The children look towards the street and see with horror two children who are looking towards the house. Children are exactly like them; with the same clothes and the same faces.

1. Short film script "The jewel thieves"

1. INT. HOUSE - NIGHT

Three THIEVES (young people, approximately 20 to 24 years old, hooded and dressed in dark-colored clothes) remove drawers, furniture and objects from the rooms of a house in search of jewels. The thieves are JOEL, MATEO and ARNULFO 

ARNULFO

Look well! The jewels must be around here. In these rich houses there are always jewels. Fast!

Men go through rooms with more rapidity and anxiety. As they pass, they leave everything on the ground.

JOEL

Fast! Search quickly.

1. EXT. HOUSE / GARAGE - NIGHT 

A luxury car arrives at the house and is parked in the garage. DANIEL (a man of about 35 years old, hairy and big) gets out of the car. He has a gun tucked into the pants of his elegant suit.

Daniel looks up and sees the lights on in one of the upper rooms of the house. He draws his pistol and walks into the house with his pistol raised.

1. INT. HOME / STUDIO 

Joel, Mateo and Arnulfo are removing the drawers, the bookcase and the furniture of the study when Daniel enters with the gun raised.

DANIEL

I'm going to kill them!

The thieves look at Daniel in surprise. Mateo recognizes Daniel, although he still doesn't realize that one of the thieves was his old robbery partner.

MATTHEW

Daniel?

DANIEL

What the hell are you doing in my house?

MATTHEW

(laughing out loud)

Man, do you really live here? (pause)… Yes, you did well.

DANIEL

(lowering the gun)

Of all the houses in the city, he decides to come to rob a thief. You won't find anything.

JOEL

What the hell is this? Mateo, you said there would be jewels here.

MATTHEW

That's what my contacts told me...

Daniel raises the gun once more and gives the three of them a wicked smile.

DANIEL

Put everything you have of value on the table and get out of my house. Fast! Their watches, wallets, cell phones… Everything!

The three men place the objects on the table and leave the house escorted by Daniel, who points the gun at them.

DANIEL

If I see them near here again, I won't hesitate to shoot them in the head.

1. Fragment of the script “Chicogrande” by Ricardo Garibay

EXT. FOREST WAY 

SOUND: An endless scream of man.

VOICE BUTCH

Where is Villa, where, where, where, where, where, where, where...

In GREAT APPROACH a rider at a prone gallop. Galloping until the horse bursts, right in front of the camera, as if it were going to embed itself in the lens.

Rider: broken hat, leaky hump, torn trousers, Mauser, cartridge belts, revolvers, bayonet, machete, dagger and dust, sweat and thick beards.

Above this image appears the TITLE OF THE FILM:

CAMERA takes the opposite POINT OF VIEW and remains fixed: so that suddenly, as if Big Boy came out of the CAMERA, she sees him galloping away along the sidewalk, and the STAR CREDIT appears:

Just when Chicogrande reaches the horizon line, where the slope descends, the image coagulates.

The other CREDITS and TITLES of the film pass over this PHOTOFIX.

The image is animated. Big Boy disappears down the hill. Towards a little valley where Pancho Villa awaits him, surrounded at a distance by his people. At the moment he streaks with his general the horse.

APPROACH Villa - Chicogrande:

BIG BOY

My general. The Ramiro Rezendes. They caught him alive. And the gringos have arrived.

Villa is thrown at him, moving his mount angrily, as if at this very moment he was going to make him pay for the bad news.

BIG BOY

My general, a hornet's nest of gringos!

EXTERIOR RANCHERÍA - DAY 

Field in defeat. In the background, the largest house in the ranchería. Fumes Wounded. Men healing, women cooking. Sleeping men. Tiredness. Sadness. Surliness. Many perfectly equipped gringo horses and soldiers await vigilant, hostile, disdainful.

Intermittent and terrible screams come from the main house and nobody is disturbed by it.

Opening, CÁMARA has started a DOLLY that is recording the entire scene; and from that moment on, two Carrancista officers have left the main house and have been walking the field in a violent discussion, which becomes clear when they come across the CAMERA.

OFFICIAL ONE

Yes, if that's it. But he is Mexican or because he is a Villarista, why give it to the gringos.

OFFICIAL TWO

It's about grabbing Villa, see, if not how, tell me how!

OFFICIAL ONE

Geez, lieutenant!

OFFICIAL TWO

The gringos charge Columbus and I charge my men. Look how we fit!

Pass. CAMERA towards the big house. He enters and goes through dark, smoking rooms, invaded by hideous screams, screams of one man.