Intro to my fic database
Jul. 25th, 2025 02:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
doranwenIf you've stumbled across this and don't know what on earth the database is, here's a brief explanation:
I blended my fannish and geeky sides together during the summer of 2019 when I realized I had a problem finding the fic I wanted to read. "The one where that happened" and "a fic where the two characters cuddle/hold each other" aren't very helpful at finding stories with an author/title organization system, and my memory, though very good, has its limits, of course. It didn't take me long to realize that there was no suitable online system for this (especially if you read fics from more than one site, such as both AO3 and ff.n, not counting the gazillion other fanfic archives and websites out there), and no existing offline one. (At the time either AO3's external bookmarks wasn't a feature yet, or I wasn't aware of it. And either way it's nowhere near as feature-full as I wanted.) So I taught myself how to make a database (with considerable help from a forum volunteer with the more difficult parts), and began entering the fics I have saved on my hard drive (which is an awful lot).
The easy part was creating the database; the hard part is stocking it with the information. It will never be "complete", and it will be a very long time before I even add all the stories I've already saved to my hard drive. However, I can already generate quite a few useful posts, which you can find many linked here at my master recs post, and others by looking at the specific recs posts tagged with "fic database". You're welcome to ask for a report of your own to be generated; read the Fic List Q&A for more info.
If you have an interest in creating your own database, I can give you a blank version of it for you to use for the fics you want. Just leave me your email address (comments screened below for privacy) so I can email you with the details. Read below to know what you need to tell me, as some aspects require customization to your specific needs.
The database stores:
- Title
- Author (allows for co-authoring, but one query option can only be applied with 1-2 authors, not 3+)
- Fandom (allows for crossovers, but one query option can only be applied with 1-2 fandoms, not 3+)
- Characters (filter by fandom - a character must be unique within a fandom - no limit to number that can be assigned, nor is there any order to them - they'll appear in the order the characters were added to the database in the first place, or else alphabetically if directed to) [major vs. minor characters are treated separately]
- Relationships (not associated with characters but IS associated with fandom - can assign a relationship to multiple fandoms to accommodate crossover relationships - ships will appear in the order they were added to the database in the first place, or else alphabetically) [major vs. minor ships are treated separately]
- Time Setting (associated with fandom, must select only one per fic - with crossovers, select the primary fandom to use and choose a time setting from that fandom's list)
- Theme (basically "other tags" on AO3, not associated with fandom, can select multiple per fic - will be ordered in the order they were created in the database in the first place)
- Wordcount
- Summary (freeform text box)
- Special Notes (freeform text box)
- Series (optional, not associated with fandom)
- Series Number (for noting which fic in the series the current fic is)
- Rating (mine uses the classic movie G/PG/PG-13/R/X set, must choose one - includes a U for Unrated)
- Web link (to store where it's found online)
- Offline location (to store folder where it can be found on hard drive)
- and an assortment of checkboxes such as WIP, Favorite, etc. (can be used to help with fic recs "does this fic fit this criteria" - checkboxes meaning yes/no are the only options, of course)
One set of checkboxes can be used to mark which type of ships are in a fic, so if one wanted to filter just femslash, or only gen, etc., this would be possible. (I used checkboxes instead of radio buttons to allow for stories with multiple types of ships in them.) If you're asking for a customized database, you would need to let me know what grouping you want (for instance, if you have almost entirely one kind, you could have a two-way division - that kind, and everything else). Mine has het, femslash, and other, because I have almost no slash, poly, or nonhuman fics saved, but yours would probably look different, depending on what you like best.
The kinds of reports that can be created from the data include anything from "all of this fandom's fics that feature physical hurt/comfort" to "all fics that feature sex or making out but do NOT include underage" to "all of the G to PG-13 rated fics in these two fandoms", for a few examples. If you can conceive of the filter, it's most likely possible to create a query—and a report based on that—for it. (The difficult reports to create are any report that excludes something, or that combines two separate inclusions, such as finding all coauthored fics by two authors, or all fics with two specific themes both tagged on them. If you're customizing your own database, be prepared to learn some serious SQL to make those work.)
If you don't want any of the options above, let me know. (For instance, you might not save any files on your hard drive, so you don't need the offline location box.) I can easily remove any options in the list from the Wordcount and downwards; the options above that are integrated in the database too strongly.
Note: All of this information is in a Mega folder as well, but I found it difficult to keep it updated, especially since my current version of LibreOffice makes generating and updating reports a royal pain. I therefore decided to move all of the pertinent information to Dreamwidth. The recs lists in pdf format that are shared on there may still be of interest but as the links are not clickable, they are nowhere as user-friendly, and at this point are out-of-date.
I blended my fannish and geeky sides together during the summer of 2019 when I realized I had a problem finding the fic I wanted to read. "The one where that happened" and "a fic where the two characters cuddle/hold each other" aren't very helpful at finding stories with an author/title organization system, and my memory, though very good, has its limits, of course. It didn't take me long to realize that there was no suitable online system for this (especially if you read fics from more than one site, such as both AO3 and ff.n, not counting the gazillion other fanfic archives and websites out there), and no existing offline one. (At the time either AO3's external bookmarks wasn't a feature yet, or I wasn't aware of it. And either way it's nowhere near as feature-full as I wanted.) So I taught myself how to make a database (with considerable help from a forum volunteer with the more difficult parts), and began entering the fics I have saved on my hard drive (which is an awful lot).
The easy part was creating the database; the hard part is stocking it with the information. It will never be "complete", and it will be a very long time before I even add all the stories I've already saved to my hard drive. However, I can already generate quite a few useful posts, which you can find many linked here at my master recs post, and others by looking at the specific recs posts tagged with "fic database". You're welcome to ask for a report of your own to be generated; read the Fic List Q&A for more info.
If you have an interest in creating your own database, I can give you a blank version of it for you to use for the fics you want. Just leave me your email address (comments screened below for privacy) so I can email you with the details. Read below to know what you need to tell me, as some aspects require customization to your specific needs.
The database stores:
- Title
- Author (allows for co-authoring, but one query option can only be applied with 1-2 authors, not 3+)
- Fandom (allows for crossovers, but one query option can only be applied with 1-2 fandoms, not 3+)
- Characters (filter by fandom - a character must be unique within a fandom - no limit to number that can be assigned, nor is there any order to them - they'll appear in the order the characters were added to the database in the first place, or else alphabetically if directed to) [major vs. minor characters are treated separately]
- Relationships (not associated with characters but IS associated with fandom - can assign a relationship to multiple fandoms to accommodate crossover relationships - ships will appear in the order they were added to the database in the first place, or else alphabetically) [major vs. minor ships are treated separately]
- Time Setting (associated with fandom, must select only one per fic - with crossovers, select the primary fandom to use and choose a time setting from that fandom's list)
- Theme (basically "other tags" on AO3, not associated with fandom, can select multiple per fic - will be ordered in the order they were created in the database in the first place)
- Wordcount
- Summary (freeform text box)
- Special Notes (freeform text box)
- Series (optional, not associated with fandom)
- Series Number (for noting which fic in the series the current fic is)
- Rating (mine uses the classic movie G/PG/PG-13/R/X set, must choose one - includes a U for Unrated)
- Web link (to store where it's found online)
- Offline location (to store folder where it can be found on hard drive)
- and an assortment of checkboxes such as WIP, Favorite, etc. (can be used to help with fic recs "does this fic fit this criteria" - checkboxes meaning yes/no are the only options, of course)
One set of checkboxes can be used to mark which type of ships are in a fic, so if one wanted to filter just femslash, or only gen, etc., this would be possible. (I used checkboxes instead of radio buttons to allow for stories with multiple types of ships in them.) If you're asking for a customized database, you would need to let me know what grouping you want (for instance, if you have almost entirely one kind, you could have a two-way division - that kind, and everything else). Mine has het, femslash, and other, because I have almost no slash, poly, or nonhuman fics saved, but yours would probably look different, depending on what you like best.
The kinds of reports that can be created from the data include anything from "all of this fandom's fics that feature physical hurt/comfort" to "all fics that feature sex or making out but do NOT include underage" to "all of the G to PG-13 rated fics in these two fandoms", for a few examples. If you can conceive of the filter, it's most likely possible to create a query—and a report based on that—for it. (The difficult reports to create are any report that excludes something, or that combines two separate inclusions, such as finding all coauthored fics by two authors, or all fics with two specific themes both tagged on them. If you're customizing your own database, be prepared to learn some serious SQL to make those work.)
If you don't want any of the options above, let me know. (For instance, you might not save any files on your hard drive, so you don't need the offline location box.) I can easily remove any options in the list from the Wordcount and downwards; the options above that are integrated in the database too strongly.
Note: All of this information is in a Mega folder as well, but I found it difficult to keep it updated, especially since my current version of LibreOffice makes generating and updating reports a royal pain. I therefore decided to move all of the pertinent information to Dreamwidth. The recs lists in pdf format that are shared on there may still be of interest but as the links are not clickable, they are nowhere as user-friendly, and at this point are out-of-date.
