Writers on the Web

BOREDOM drove 25-year-old Li Nan to her new career as Internet novelist. She began writing kungfu fiction online six months ago to fill in ample spare time after resigning her job as website editor. “I wrote because I had nothing much else to do. I’ve since signed a contract with . I originally intended to write romances and the odd kungfu novel, but the editors at thought the other way around would be better,” Li says. Her workload, at around 1,000-2,000 words a day, provides a modest income, but as she says, “It’s enough to make a living.”

Literary websites, BBS and blogs offer diverse channels to write and publish online. Eighty percent of China’s 253 million netizens now write online, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

“Before the Internet, writers who couldn’t get published simply stored their works in a drawer. But the Internet acts as a public drawer,” independent publisher Ye Kuangzheng states.

Professor at Peking University and literary critic Zhang Yiwu agrees. “Web literature lowers the publication threshold and overrides literary authority and conventions. The openness and popularity of the Internet also promotes web literature readership among the common people.”

A web writer calling himself “Sad Cat,” born in the 1980s, has been writing online in his spare time for more than three years. His web novel, recounting a personal affair of the heart, was published in October 2006 by the highly reputed Writers Publishing House. “People my age like writing online because it provides the opportunity to abreact. Dogma is obsolete in 21st century literature. As we don’t expect our works to fulfill anyone’s expectations, grassroots online writers actually enrich literature,“ is Sad Cat’s view.

Web fiction has made rapid strides on the Chinese mainland in the nine years since The First Intimate Contact by Cai Zhiheng of Taiwan became popular. There is now a select group of young Internet writers whose works are consistent best-sellers. Web fiction, encompassing fantasy, horror, sport, action, city life and cyber games, has advanced the boundaries of traditional fiction and expanded China’s literary fields. It has superseded literary journals such as Harvest and October that formerly acted as a showcase for young writers. Many literary critics believe that the Internet era marks the ascendance of web authors and the decline of works traditionally regarded as literature.

“As traditional fiction no longer meet readers’ diverse demands, in view of the fast-moving backdrop of social development, its appeal is fading,” is the opinion of one Internet writer. “Also, in contrast to so-called serious writers, I regard writing as a pursuit to be enjoyed, rather than a vocation, and feel no obligation to imbue my works with social significance or a sense of responsibility.”

Net literature falls under the two broad headings of autobiography and fantasy/horror. The former expresses youthful rebellion against convention and authority and general discontent with life. Zhao Ganlü’s Elevator Encounter, which begins in a malfunctioning elevator where the eponymous hero and his beautiful female colleague are temporarily stranded and tells the tale of their eventful romance, is representative of the genre. The novel scored an impressive 100 million hits on the net.

An example of a fantasy/horror web hit is the Ghost Blows Out the Light, which is about tomb robbers and combines fact, fiction and suspense. It was hugely popular in 2007.

Professor Zhang Yiwu attributes the success of Internet fiction to the youth of both its writers and readership. Generally born in the 1980s when the opening and reform policy was in process, the oldest are now around 30 and the youngest are university students. All are in a pivotal phase of life and constitute a main social group. They are less inhibited than their senior generation about expressing overt reactions to pressure, and constitute a main social influence in their role as both producers and consumers of the cultural industry. Globalization, the Internet and the market economy have brought this generation a hitherto undreamt of breadth of vision, choice and brand-new concepts, all of which generate a positive attitude to the future. These factors give China’s 80s generation, who grew up during the country’s most affluent era, a distinct cultural character.

The operational mode of “creating online and publishing in print” impels the development and amplifies the impact of Internet fiction. Successful Internet novels in turn constitute a thriving commercial operation that simultaneously promotes writers’ reputations. Relying on the popularity of a book or author makes print publishing a risky industry and consequently less attractive than Internet fiction.

Online novelist Guo Jingming, known by the pseudonym Si Wei, has so far published five books in print, the highest sale of which achieved one million copies. He represents a web publishing legend.

Internet writers indeed stand to earn much more than conventional authors. The authors of Ghost Blows Out the Light and Once upon a Time in the Ming Dynasty ranked 19th and 22nd in the 2007 Writer’s Wealth Chart, having respectively earned RMB 2.8 million and RMB 2.25 million in royalties.

Original works on various websites also attract more of the masses, as evidenced by , China’s largest original literature website, which now owns 220,000 original works of 12 billion words in total, and which commands a daily 30-million-word upload, 220 million-hit rate. This is a tough act for the print medium to follow. President of the Chinese Writers Association Tie Ning stated, in acknowledgement of this huge readership, that more importance should be attached to online writers, and that certain of them should be eligible for membership of the association. “Having been on the panel of judges for several web literature competitions, the works I read left a deep impression,” Tie Ning admits. “The uninhibited, spontaneous approach of these young writers infuses their works with vigor and vitality.”

Li Shasha, Guo Jingming and a few other Internet writers joined the Chinese Writers Association in September 2007, implying that new-generation writers are entering the literary mainstream.

Not everyone, however, shares Tie Ning’s enthusiasm. Chen Cun, writer and art director of , China’s first literary website, is frankly disappointed with the state of contemporary literature. He formerly cherished great hopes for web books, believing that a group of writers abiding by their original intent of creating fresh and diverse works would appear. “But I found this to be practically impossible online,” Chen says. “Writers should be left to work steadily and to the dictates of their muse, but writing online introduces other commercial factors that distract from the essential creative process. Commerce in particular impedes true literary ambition because it dominates assessments of the liberal arts. An Internet writer’s success is gauged according to his or her hit rate and sales volume once their works are published. I have not once in the past nine years come across any web fiction to match that traditionally regarded as outstanding literature. But who knows what the future holds.”

Chen has a point. Certain Internet writers have begun to sensationalize in an effort to notch up more hits and profits. As one Internet writer said, “Web literature offers the chance of overnight success, but fame by means of works devoted to sex and violence gives online literature a bad name.”

There is one select group of Internet writers, however, that tries to maintain true literary standards. Chen Cun cites the novel Nostomania in the City by Shu Feilian, a solemn chronicle of China’s disappearing agricultural civilization, as an example. Sales of the printed editions of the book were low, but it was well-received among netizens. Similar works, such as that on Western classical music by Internet writer “Organ” and historical novels by “Ten Years Chopping Firewood” have a small but dedicated following. Chen Cun particularly admires the online writer Annbaby, one of the country’s best-selling authors. “I found her recent novel Lotus quite different from her earlier works. She is low-key but doesn’t stick to any set formula, instead advancing and breaking new ground.”

These days Li Nan seldom talks on her cell phone and has not seen any of her close friends for four months. She sent an MSN message to her friends a while back saying that she would definitely have time to meet up in the next month. But that was two months ago, and her friends have heard nothing from her since. They expect the next time they see Li to be after she has achieved fame and wealth as a writer.