This year, I started writing a historical novel about a branch of my family. I quickly realized I needed some tooling to organize my data: what I know about the characters, the places, a general timeline, etc.
Manuskript
I looked for software to do that and found that the reference isScrivener. However interesting it looked, I'd rather use Open Source software whenever possible, so I started usingManuskript, an Open Source software for writers similar to Scrivener.
I laid out some chapters, characters, plots… then I realized the saving format was binary. It's actually a Zip archive which contains all the information in flat files:
1 2020-05-09 08:05 MANUSKRIPT 137 2020-05-09 08:05 infos.txt 0 2020-05-09 08:05 summary.txt 46 2020-05-09 08:05 status.txt 147 2020-05-09 08:05 labels.txt 284 2020-05-09 08:05 characters/0-Samuel_L-on.txt 281 2020-05-09 08:05 characters/1-L-on_Grunberg.txt 261 2020-05-09 08:05 characters/2-Adolphe_Grunberg.txt 309 2020-05-09 08:05 characters/3-Elisabeth_Rau.txt 112 2020-05-09 08:05 characters/4-Victor_Grunberg.txt 109 2020-05-09 08:05 characters/5-Maria_Schorr.txt 224 2020-05-09 08:05 characters/6-Fred_Grunberg.txt 125 2020-05-09 08:05 characters/7-Colonel_de_Villebois-Mareuil.txt 107 2020-05-09 08:05 characters/8-Said_Pacha.txt 109 2020-05-09 08:05 characters/9-Isaac_Aghion.txt 92 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/00-Setup.md 322 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/01-Les_joyaux_-gyptiens/folder.txt 3753 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/01-Les_joyaux_-gyptiens/0-Une_rencontre_inattendue.md 1706 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/01-Les_joyaux_-gyptiens/1-Office_de_chabbat.md 715 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/01-Les_joyaux_-gyptiens/2-Un_d-ner_chez_Isaac.md 482 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/01-Les_joyaux_-gyptiens/3-Proc-s_1.md 166 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/01-Les_joyaux_-gyptiens/4-Sc-ne_5.md 83 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/02-Paris/folder.txt 102 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/02-Paris/0-Sc-ne_1.md 97 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/03-Etudes_des_enfants/folder.txt 103 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/03-Etudes_des_enfants/0-Sc-ne_1.md 103 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/03-Etudes_des_enfants/1-Sc-ne_2.md 95 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/04-Premiers_emplois/folder.txt 103 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/04-Premiers_emplois/0-Sc-ne_1.md 96 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/05-Vers_le_Transvaal/folder.txt 103 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/05-Vers_le_Transvaal/0-Sc-ne_1.md 334 2020-05-09 08:05 outline/21-Epilogue.md 40074 2020-05-09 08:05 revisions.xml 275 2020-05-09 08:05 world.opml 1669 2020-05-09 08:05 plots.xml 2499 2020-05-09 08:05 settings.txtThis is rather good news, and there's ways to automate PDF creation from this within the software, good news again!
However, some things were problematic to me:
- I like to tune my pandoc/LaTeX rendering, and the options in Manuskript were pretty limited for that
- I'd rather not commit a single Zip file in Git, so I would have preferred to have all the files in the current directory
- Manuskript cannot be automated to compile the PDF, you need to go through the GUI and click on buttons. That's a blocker for me.
Going the full-git way
So I decided I would do everything in Git + Markdown, without the help of a third-party application.
Chapters
I'm currently storing the chapters in their own directories, with numbered Markdown files:
chapitres/├── 01_les_joyaux_egyptiens│ ├── 00_titre.md│ ├── 01_une_rencontre_innatendue.md│ ├── 02_office_de_chabbat.md│ ├── 03_brody.md│ ├── 04_chabbat_2.md│ ├── 05_diner_chez_isaac.md│ └── 06_audience.md├── 02_les_enfants_grunberg│ ├── 00_titre.md│ ├── 01_leon.md│ ├── 02_retour.md│ ├── 03_coffre.md│ ├── 04_burtaux.md│ ├── 05_article.md│ └── 06_article2.md├── 03_annees_noires│ └── 00_titre.md├── 04_etudes│ └── 00_titre.md├── 05_premier_travail│ └── 00_titre.md├── 06_le_creusot│ └── 00_titre.md└── 21_epilogue.mdCharacters & Places
The characters documentation is stored in Markdown files as well, and links can be made between them when necessary:
personnages/├── Adolphe_Grunberg.md├── Charlotte_Grunberg.md├── Elisabeth_Rau.md├── Emilie_Grunberg.md├── Felix_Zottier.md├── Frederic_Grunberg.md├── Isaac_Aghion.md├── Jacques_Grunberg.md├── Leon_Grunberg.md├── Lucie_Leon.md├── Marc_Leon.md├── Mirel_Schorr.md├── Paul_Grunberg.md└── Samuel_Leon.mdSame goes for places:
lieux/├── Alexandrie.md├── Brody.md├── Dubno.md├── Grunberg_Boulogne.md├── Paris.md├── Petite_Jonchere.md└── Vienne.mdLinks can easily be made between these documentation files:
# Mirel Schorr## État civil* Prénoms : Mirel, dite Maria* Nom : Grünberg* Nom de naissance : Schorr## PortraitInconnu## Description physiqueInconnu## Evénements* ca 1800 : ° à[Dubno](../lieux/Dubno.md)(Russie)* Enfance à[Brody](../lieux/Brody.md)(Autriche) avec ses parents[Schachne](Schachne_Schorr.md) et[Sarah](Sarah_Bick.md) et ses frères[Naphtali](Naphtali_Mendel_Schorr.md) et[Osias](Osias_Heschel_Schorr.md)* 1821: Mariage à[Brody](../lieux/Brody.md)* 1870 : habite à[Vienne](../lieux/Vienne.md)(testament[Adolphe](Adolphe_Grunberg.md))* 1877 : habite à[Paris](../lieux/Paris.md)(+)* 1877 : + à[Vienne](../lieux/Vienne.md)## HabillementVoir sa garde-robe en 1853 dans l'inventaire de[Victor](Victor_Grunberg.md)Section stats
Manuskript provides stats about the number of words in a section. I've added a Make target for that:
stats: find chapitres/-name"*.md"-not-name'00_titre.md'-print0 |sort-z | xargs-0wc-wCaveat: it also lists the words in the comments…
Building the project
I'm using Pandoc to build the project with my own LaTeX template.
%.md:catmeta.md>$@ find chapitres/-name"*.md"-print0 |sort-z | xargs-0cat>>$@%.tex:%.md pandoc--pdf-engine lualatex--template extended.tex\--variable numbersections--toc--variable toc-depth=2\--variabledocumentclass=memoir--variablefontsize=12pt\--filter pandoc-citeproc\--verbose\$<-o$@%.pdf:%.texOSFONTDIR=$(FONTSDIR) lualatex$< makeindex$*.idxOSFONTDIR=$(FONTSDIR) lualatex$<The novel project can be found in this GitHub repository:
Top comments(0)
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/orreporting abuse
