Writing.com Archive - TSV Data Format
This document provides a reference for the column structure and data formats used in the shared Writing.com Interactive Stories
File Specification
- Format: Tab-Separated Values (TSV)
- Encoding: UTF-8 (with BOM)
- Headers: Included as the first line
Column Definitions
| Index | Column Name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | STORY_TITLE |
The overall title of the story/book. |
| 2 | CHAPTER_TITLE |
The specific title of the chapter or node. |
| 3 | AUTHOR_DISPLAY |
The display name of the author of this entry. |
| 4 | AUTHOR_HANDLE |
The raw username/handle of the author. |
| 5 | CONTENT |
The body text of the chapter. (See Content Formatting). |
| 6 | CHOICES |
Delimited list of branching options. (See Choices Formatting). |
| 7 | DATE_POSTED |
The date the entry was originally posted (usually MM-DD-YYYY). |
| 8 | MAP_ID |
Crucial unique identifier. (See Understanding MAP_ID). |
| 9 | STORY_URL |
The original Writing.com URL for the story. |
| 10 | COVER_IMAGE |
(See Warning below) URL to the story's cover image. |
| 11 | SYNOPSIS |
(See Warning below) The summary/description of the story. |
| 12 | RELATED_URL |
Secondary or related external links. |
Metadata Consistency: To maintain data integrity and reduce redundancy, the
SYNOPSISandCOVER_IMAGEcolumns are generally only populated in rows where theMAP_IDindicates an-Introchapter. Since these values are the same for every chapter in a story, you should look to the Intro row as the primary source for this information.
Understanding MAP_ID
The MAP_ID is the most important field for organizing, linking, and deduplicating the data. It follows a specific hierarchical format:
Format: [STORY_ID]-[CHAPTER_ID]-[UNIX_TIMESTAMP]
STORY_ID: A unique numeric ID for the entire story (e.g.,1234567).CHAPTER_ID: The identifier for the specific chapter node.- The Intro: The starting node of any story is marked with
-Intro(e.g.,1234567-Intro).- Note: You may find multiple Intro entries with different timestamps. This is intentional and allows the archive to preserve different variations of a story's introduction as they evolved over time.
- Branches: Subsequent chapters have numeric or alphanumeric IDs (e.g.,
1234567-1411).
- The Intro: The starting node of any story is marked with
UNIX_TIMESTAMP: A versioning suffix. Because the archive may contain multiple "snapshots" of the same chapter over time, this timestamp tells you which version is the most recent.
Deduplication Strategy: When processing this file, if you encounter multiple rows with the same STORY_ID and CHAPTER_ID, you must prioritize the one with the highest timestamp.
Technical Details
Content Formatting
The CONTENT column may contain:
- Raw plain text.
- HTML snippets (e.g.,
<br>,<div>). - JSON-encoded HTML objects, e.g.,
{"html": "Body text here..."}. This format is used to preserve complex formatting or handle special characters.
Choices Formatting
The CHOICES column contains the options available to a reader at the end of a chapter. Multiple choices are separated by a double-pipe delimiter: ||||.
Example: Go through the door||||Wait in the hall||||Run away
Processing Recommendations
- Deduplication First: Filter the dataset by
STORY_ID-CHAPTER_ID(the first two parts of the MAP_ID) and keep only the entry with the largest timestamp. - Global Metadata: Link story-level information (
SYNOPSIS,COVER_IMAGE) from the-Introchapter to all other chapters belonging to that sameSTORY_ID. - JSON Handling: Be prepared to parse JSON in the
CONTENTcolumn to extract the underlying HTML/text.
license: mit