I've built a bunch of Python (and CLI) code to try and help make that work better: https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io/en/stable/python-api.html#...

    import sqlite_utils
    
    db = sqlite_utils.Database("news.db")
    db["articles"].enable_fts(["headline", "body"])
    results = list(db["articles"].search("softball"))

Or with the CLI tool: https://sqlite-utils.datasette.io/en/stable/cli.html#configu...

    sqlite-utils enable-fts news.db articles headline body
    sqlite-utils search news.db articles softball