"narrative"; PLUS script = to present, portray, interpret, etc....

[Jonathan Lighter]

To be precise, to do so "...in accordance with consciously or unconsciously
held beliefs, esp. irrespective of truth or falsity."

At least I think that's what it means. Beloved by postmoderns:
1997 Marita Sturken _Tangled Memories_ (Berkeley: U. of C. P.) 14: Although
AIDS may [someday] be cured and its meaning will change, such developments
likely would not affect the AIDS narrative as it has been scripted so far -
the virus that both exposed divisions and created new communities in
American society.

Out-of-touch readers might think that Sturken is just trying to say "the
AIDS *story* as it has been *written* [e.g., by journalists] so far," but
experience, and a close reading of the sentence, tells me otherwise. As
elsewhere, "narrative" seems to mean "version of events" whereas "story,"
here, would seem to mean "actual events."

But never mind that. There's also "rescript":

Ibid., p. 16: "Attempts to rescript the Vietnam War have been as much about
healing...as they have been about smoothing over the disrupions of the war's
narratives."  [Note pl. "narratives" -JL.]  _Ibid._ 39: These images made it
possible to rescript [Rodney] King as a threatening, resisting figure and to
refigure [syn. of "rescript" -JL] the beating as a reasonable attempt to
restrain a dangerous suspect.

And_pre-script_ (perhaps "to influence or persuade in advance" ):

Ibid., p. 35: Voyeuristically watching the parents and students of Christa
McAuliffe, Americans were pre-scripted to share their pride and enthusiasm
over the fact that an "ordinary" teacher could experience space flight via
U.S. technology.

And a final _narrative_ : "an artificially arranged or projected sequence of
actual events":

Ibid., p. 35: Christa McAuliffe's narrative, designed to make Americans
identify with her as an ordinary, non-astronaut space traveler, thus
backfired.

JL

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