Nowadays, online literature has increasingly become an important cultural and entertainment content in many regions such as Southeast Asia and North America, and is favored by young people. These young people not only love to read all kinds of online works, but even started a journey of creating online texts.
American web writer KazzenIX has suffered from depression for years, and online writing has made a difference in her life: "Now, I think about my story every day, instead of wasting time fighting demons in my brain. My life has become challenging, and I am forever grateful for the day I embarked on my writing journey. Snoring Panda, a 24-year-old newcomer writer from Nepal who created his first online novel during the pandemic, said: "I want my story to be a haven for people to escape from reality, so that they can embark on a journey with the protagonists of the story and learn about this fictional world I have created." ”
KazzenIX and Snoring Panda have just won the gold and bronze medals of the WSA2021 Essay Contest for their online literary works "Love Obsession" and "Eternal Alchemy Cultivation" respectively.
On February 11, the "2022 Global Writers Incubation Project LaunchIng Ceremony and WSA2021 Awards Ceremony" organized by Reading Group and Marina Bay Sands in Singapore was held in Lion City.
At the scene, the 2022 Global Author Incubation Project (GAIP) initiated by the Overseas Portal Starting Point International of Reading, the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore was officially launched. At the same time, the Webnovel Spirity Awards (referred to as WSA) 2021 outstanding works and various awards were also announced on the spot, and the winners came from Germany, Nepal, the United States and other countries, of which the youngest winner was only 19 years old. At the same time, the WSA2022 Essay Contest was also officially launched.
The Global Writers Incubation Program continues to nurture outstanding creators
Hou Xiaonan, President of Reading Group and Vice President of Tencent Online Video, said in his speech that the global co-creation of the digital age has made online literature the most dynamic carrier in cross-cultural exchange and mutual learning, and connecting the world with stories is a beautiful vision of online literature.
He also mentioned that Yuwen hopes to explore new models and possibilities for the global cultural ecology with the industrial innovation of online literature, and explore a digital solution for cultural exchange and mutual learning with cross-cultural open co-creation.
Xiong Bingzhen, Secretary-General of UNESCO's International Council for Philosophy and Humanities, also shared his feelings about online literature through video. She said that with the development of the Internet, online literature has become a phenomenon that is well known worldwide. At the same time, I am very happy to see that platforms like Reading Are constantly exploring new spaces for the development of online literature, and benefit readers and writers around the world through initiatives such as holding essay contests and cultivating young talents. She believes that online literature will create more possibilities in the future.
At the event site, the "2022 Global Writers Incubation Project" was officially launched. It is reported that the project will be upgraded across the board this year in terms of content reserves, editing training, and resource integration to further activate the creator ecosystem. As a project launched by the starting point international to cultivate original writers from 0 to 1, the Global Writer Incubation Project aims to cultivate overseas original online literary students and promote the online literature to enter a new stage of high-quality development.
Nearly 80,000 novels competed fiercely for the WSA2021 Essay Contest Awards
According to the overseas business representative of Reading Group, in recent years, the number of overseas writers on the platform has shown an accelerated development trend, with an overall increase of more than 3 times. In addition, the post-00s generation has become the absolute main force of overseas online text creation, and the number of writers in the platform accounts for more than half. In terms of geographical distribution, Southeast Asia and North America have become the most important gathering places for online writers.
Online literature has swept the world, injecting more vitality into the WSA2021 Essay Contest. Nearly 80,000 novels were submitted by the participants of the competition, the highest in the past, and 68% of the writers published their works on the starting point international platform for the first time. In the end, Elyon, XIETIAN and KazzenIX won the gold medal of the competition for their works "The Strongest System of Rebirth", "Apocalypse: Journey of the Blood Warlock Conquest", and "Love Obsession".
Overseas online writers are inspired and nourished by Chinese online literature, and at the same time integrate their own cultural characteristics into their writing. Talking about the difference between his work and traditional Chinese online texts, KazzenIX, the gold medal winner of the competition, said: "I think the common denominator is that there are strong female characters in the story. Chinese novels are very fond of the strong, somewhat bad image of the big heroine, and my heroine also has this characteristic. The difference is, it seems that Chinese novels like to reverse the plot of punching the face? My story doesn't have as many plots of reversing faces, and pays more attention to some mysterious action plots. ”
In addition, Hidous Granin from Germany won the bronze medal of the competition for "Original Dimensional Space", Hideous Granin is only 19 years old, the youngest winner of this essay contest. Nepalese writer Snoring Panda, who also won the bronze medal, is only 24 years old and has been reading oriental fantasy novels for 7 years. Snoring Panda admits that writing xiuxian stories himself is also a tribute to "the Chinese online texts that I have been reading and loving." ”
American writer Adui, who was once a fan of the internet god I Eat Tomatoes, began experimenting with the original English text two years ago. His work "The Strongest Hang-up System" won the silver medal of this essay contest. Adui says he hopes to write "to express a sense of wonder, a sense of occultity, to indulge in it." I write as much as I like. ”
American writer Aimee Lynn was originally a traditional publishing writer who has been writing full-time since 2013. After publishing two books on paper, she began to dabble in online literature and won the bronze medal for The Taming of the Beast Queen. AimeeLynn said: "Serialization on Webnovel is the happiest and most rewarding writing experience. Sharing stories with readers during the series brings unparalleled joy! ”
It is reported that the Webnovel Spirity Awards is a global annual prize essay brand activity launched by The Starting Point International, aiming to continuously explore and cultivate overseas potential authors, and provide a variety of incubation carriers for overseas outstanding original online literary IP through financial and traffic support. Starting in 2020, Starting Point International will collect excellent original works in English from authors around the world. Now, WSA has become an important part of the starting point for international creation of an online literary writing talent community and the establishment of an author ecosystem. Through WSA's diversified collection of high-quality works, Starting Point International provides professional online literary creation guidance for authors, provides a wider range of readers and a longer-term life chain for works, and helps more writers realize their creative dreams.
As of June 2021, Starting Point International has cultivated nearly 190,000 overseas creators and launched more than 280,000 overseas original works. Whether it is the "Global Writer Incubation Project", "WSA Essay Contest", or related initiatives for different types of writers, they all hope to continuously explore new models and new spaces for the global development of online literature.
Nandu reporter Huang Qian