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XML-Grammar-Fiction - Markup Languages for Writing Prose

XML-Grammar-Fiction provides Fiction-Text, a lightweight plaintext-based markup language, which can be used to write such fiction as stories, novellas, or possibly even novels. Fiction-Text is in turn converted to Fiction-XML, which is an XML-based grammar (which can be used directly). Fiction-XML, in turn, is translated to such formats as XHTML and DocBook/XML, for rendering by web-browsers, and for conversions to different formats, including PDF.

Also provided is Screenplay-Text and Screenplay-XML which are used for writing screenplays (or scripts), and can be translated to XHTML or to TEI-XML (Text Encoding Initivate)

XML-Grammar-Fiction is part of the Web-CPAN XML-Grammar project that provides several specialised processors for XML grammars for various tasks.

Licence

XML-Grammar-Fiction is free and open-source software (FOSS) distributed under the MIT/X11 License, a permissive, public-domain-like licence.

Examples

Fiction-Text Examples

Screenplay-Text Examples

News

2011-05-22: XML-Grammar-Fiction version 0.5.1 is out

There are many improvements in this release. Since the last news item here, there were:

  1. New tags - <ol>, <ul>, <li>, <programlisting> and <a href=> (the latter for for hypertext.)

  2. Documentation improvement.

  3. An XSLT stylesheet to convert Screenplay-Text to TEI .

  4. Got rid of the <!DOCTYPE… declaration in the Screenplay-XML output. It made debugging difficult and was not necessary.

  5. Add support for numeric entities such as &#91;.

2011-04-05: XML-Grammar-Fiction version 0.1.5 is out

This release has many small bug-fixes and improvements:

  1. The handling of a colon (“:”) inside a top-level description in XML-Grammar-Screenplay was fixed.

  2. Fixed the handling of an innerdesc on the start of a line in the middle of a paragraph.

  3. Add support for <i> tags in XML-Grammar-Screenplay.

Everyone are recommended to upgrade.

2009-11-25: XML-Grammar-Fiction version 0.0.2 was released

XML-Grammar-Fiction was released today, and should be available on CPAN mirrors. This release features several improvements to the code’s internals and automated tests suites. The external behaviour of the code should remain the same, but the code is now much more malleable for future improvements, and there may have been a few accidental fixes.

2009-11-05: XML-Grammar-Fiction version 0.0.1 was released

The first version of XML-Grammar-Fiction (v0.0.1) was unleashed onto the world today. It was written for my own personal use as a writer of Hebrew stories, but I naturally decided to release it as open-source software. As first versions go, this version is rough on the edges, and has hairy internals, and other warts, but still should be usable enough for people who are clueful enough.

Happy NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and hopefully XML-Grammar-Fiction will prove of assistance to you for this NaNoWriMo or future ones.

Coverage of XML-Grammar-Fiction

Coverage in Shlomi Fish’s Blogs

Demos

Fiction Demo 1

If we have this sample Fiction-Text document: 

<body id="index" lang="en-UK">

<title>David vs. Goliath - Part I</title>

<s id="top">

<title>The Top Section</title>

<!-- David has Green hair here -->

King <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David">David</a> and Goliath were standing by each other.

David said unto Goliath: “I will shoot you. I <b>swear</b> I will”

<s id="goliath">

<title>Goliath's Response</title>

<!-- Goliath has to reply to that. -->

Goliath was not amused.

He said to David: “Oh, really. <i>David</i>, the red-headed!”.

</s>

</s>

</body>

Then after converting it to XML and then to XHTML we get this:

King David and Goliath were standing by each other.

David said unto Goliath: “I will shoot you. I swear I will”

Goliath was not amused.

He said to David: “Oh, really. David, the red-headed!”.

Screenplay Demo 1

If we have this sample screenplay: 

<s id="humanity" title="'Humanity' - The Movie">

[Note: This screenplay was written by
<a href="http://www.shlomifish.org/">Shlomi Fish</a>, and is original artwork.]

<s id="the-well" title="The Well">

[ The Well is shown. Several women are standing nearby with large pots near
them. They are chatting. Three men approach. ]

Man #1: OK. Let's move it.

Man #2: You know, I heard of a guy called Moses who could move a stone like
this all by himself.

The Inventor's Voice from outside the frame: That's because he was using the
Mosesiom 3000!

Man #3: I beg your pardon?

[ The Inventor enters the frame with his invention that looks suspiciously
like a lever. ]

The Inventor: With this ingenious invention one man can move this stone
all by himself. Wanna try?

Man #1: OK. I'll try.

The Inventor: OK. First we tie the stone to the ropes here.

[ He ties the stone]

The Inventor: Now lift the other hand.

Man #1: [After lifting the stone.] Wow, it's so easy, look I can move the
stone here [moves it to the left], and here [ moves it to the right].

The Inventor: No! No! Don't misuse it.

[The stone falls down on the well, splits into two pieces which both fall down
the well. The men are amazed. ]

The Inventor: Don't worry, I can get down and tie the ropes to each stone and
we can lift it up in a flash...

Man #1: I'll get the ropes.

Man #2: I'll get the horses.

[ They leave the frame ]

The Inventor: This is not my day.

Woman #1: Who is John Galt?

</s>

</s>

Then after converting it to XML and then to XHTML we get this:

'Humanity' - The Movie

[ Note: This screenplay was written by Shlomi Fish, and is original artwork. ]

The Well

[ The Well is shown. Several women are standing nearby with large pots near them. They are chatting. Three men approach. ]

Man #1: OK. Let's move it.

Man #2: You know, I heard of a guy called Moses who could move a stone like this all by himself.

The Inventor's Voice from outside the frame: That's because he was using the Mosesiom 3000!

Man #3: I beg your pardon?

[ The Inventor enters the frame with his invention that looks suspiciously like a lever. ]

The Inventor: With this ingenious invention one man can move this stone all by himself. Wanna try?

Man #1: OK. I'll try.

The Inventor: OK. First we tie the stone to the ropes here.

[ He ties the stone ]

The Inventor: Now lift the other hand.

Man #1: [After lifting the stone.] Wow, it's so easy, look I can move the stone here [moves it to the left], and here [ moves it to the right].

The Inventor: No! No! Don't misuse it.

[ The stone falls down on the well, splits into two pieces which both fall down the well. The men are amazed. ]

The Inventor: Don't worry, I can get down and tie the ropes to each stone and we can lift it up in a flash...

Man #1: I'll get the ropes.

Man #2: I'll get the horses.

[ They leave the frame ]

The Inventor: This is not my day.

Woman #1: Who is John Galt?

Similar Projects

  • TEI: Text Encoding Initiative - provides an XML grammar and related tools for encoding texts in digital form (including many artsy texts such as works of fiction, poems and scripts/screenplays).

  • Celtx - an open-source application that allows one to edit screenplays, novels, and other media pre-production resources. Uses well-formed HTML 4 for its data files, packaged in a .zip with many resources, so it may be less ideal than XML. It is also a GUI program that was quite sluggish from my experience.

  • AsciiDoc - a very rich and open-source markup language that can be used for notating text and can be converted into DocBook 4, directly into HTML, and several other formats.