Author: Feng Yuanfang
On April 7, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released the "2021 Research Report on the Development of Chinese Online Literature", which aroused industry concern. The "Report" pointed out that after more than 20 years of development, China's online literature has grown from "niche creation" to a large-scale, systematic and world-influential cultural phenomenon, in the past year, the "turn signal" of online literature has become more and more clear: the rapid rise of realistic themes and science fiction themes, historical immortals and other traditional themes show the power of spiritual core transformation, a number of phenomenon-level explosions have consolidated the status of online literature in the context of film and television, and the network literature that sails "out to sea" shows the world the will to struggle and spiritual outlook of the Chinese people.
In fact, for today's online literature, the rapid changes of the "accelerated era", the strong impact of short videos, and the wandering upgrade of readers' tastes are the "potentials" that they have to think about and deal with; and the proposition of the times of writing Chinese images and Chinese stories is the "time" that they have to unshirk. How do online writers transform, persevere and innovate between time and circumstance? After in-depth interviews, the reporter found that Jiangsu, a recognized important city of online literature, is contributing a vivid sample to the times.
The vivid "presence" of the "accelerated era"
In the past two years, the field of online literature has undergone tremendous changes, which is a common feeling of industry practitioners and researchers.
"With the substantial expansion of the user group of online literature, especially the proportion of sinking users and middle-aged and elderly users, the types of works of online literature have been broadened, and the number of works with realistic themes has not only increased significantly, but also significantly improved the quality." Liu Wei, CEO of Lianshang Literature, told reporters.
On the website of Lian Shang Literature, which was founded in Nanjing, many authors who have emerged in the front line of the industry are creating beautiful literary landscapes: "2.24 Meters of Skyline" by veteran journalist Xingzhi telling the spirit of the women's volleyball team, "Bungee Jumping" by diplomat Lu Shan to reveal the real life of mainland diplomats, "HeartLighting the Sun and Moon" reflecting the case-handling life of grass-roots court judges, and "Winter Snow and Warm Sun" with the theme of juvenile legal system, and "Living up to Shaoguang" written by community worker Yuezhuang Frontier... In Liu Wei's view, these online works that are both professional and readable write good stories that only people who are deeply involved in the industry can write.
According to Li Wei, a professor at Nanjing Normal University and executive deputy director of the Yangtze River Network Literature Criticism Center, around 2020, there will be a new wave of variation, integration and innovation in genres such as fantasy, romance, history, and science fiction.
"In addition to the obvious turn in realistic themes, science fiction elements have also become an important trend in the transformation of the entire male frequency network, and I especially recommend Tianrui's Galaxy Award-winning work "We Live in Nanjing", which is worth seeing." The female frequency network article has entered the 'female frequency +' era, and the novel elements are more abundant, such as the mecha elements in the red thorn north "Smashing the pot and selling iron to go to school", the time loop used by the prayer jun "Beginning", etc., as well as the female suspense of the fire in recent years, all constitute the transformation and transcendence of the former Mary Sue and the big heroine. ”
In the view of the chairman of the Provincial Internet Writers Association, the accelerated development of online literature in the past two years is enough to break the "homogenization" prejudice that has long hung over it.
"Comparing today's Xiuzhen novels with the previous benchmark works "Journey of Drifting Miao" and "The Legend of mortal Xiu Immortals", you will find great changes visible to the naked eye. Because readers' attention has become distracted, accustomed to receiving more fragmented, faster, and stronger information, online texts have also greatly improved the sense of rhythm and entertainment, showing a distinct tendency to make short videos, which is more in line with the sense of network required by readers in this era. ”
After six years of writing, after market research and judgment, the successful transformation of dancing has become a mirror of the development of online literature. In his latest urban novel, the distinctive strongman setting and the writing style of constantly hiding "stems" make people want to read it endlessly. "If the internet writers of this era do not brush Weibo, do not visit Zhihu, do not play games, and do not watch live broadcasts, they will not know why contemporary young people cry and laugh." Dancing said that the most precious thing about online literature is this vivid and vigorous "sense of youth".
On the other hand, in addition to the traditional online reading platform, relying on the new media articles of Weibo, Zhihu and Douban, and the emergence of free reading platforms such as Tomato and Seven Cats, while providing more spiritual products, it has also changed the development mode of the industry and intensified the internal competition of online writers.
"In the past, you had to pay money to read online novels, but now you not only don't have to pay, but you can also make money, which has a huge impact on the charging model on which online literature depends for development." Yu Devil, chairman of the Nanjing Internet Association, is also worried: in the severe living situation, some writers no longer spend time on content innovation, but instead "borrow" popular elements and look for "wealth codes" to reduce the risk of "throwing streets" in their works.
It seems that after wandering, it is transformation or perseverance
The question of the times is coming to the fore: how can online writers actively assume social responsibility and effectively integrate personal writing into the development process of the nation and the times?
Some writers are undergoing a positive transformation. Jiangsu internet writer Xiao Riding School, who is well known to readers with the urban tough guy novel "Orange and Red Age" and "Pifu's Counterattack", won many awards last year, and "Changleli" made a revealing exploration of how revolutionary history entered the path of online literature.
This is an exquisite double-time story: Zhao Dianyuan, a hot-blooded young man living in Shikumen, Changleli, Shanghai, accidentally traveled to 80 years later to witness the dream of national independence and prosperity when he assassinated the bandit leader with his lover, and then used the information gap as a descendant to travel back 80 years to save his lover. Looking at "Changleli", it is not difficult to find that the revolutionary historical theme online text faces at least two leaps: in the creation of a sense of history and the sense of the times, writers can achieve a certain "granularity" by studying historical materials and observing society; what really constitutes a test is the writer's exploration of the law of innovative development of online literature.
"A good online text is essentially a strong common emotion, embodied in "Changle Li", which is a kind of family and country feelings, which is the most flavorful 'salt' in a 'dish'!" Summary of the Riding School. Finding the "salt", the sense of rhythm and narrative means are also very important, the writer must always speculate on the reader's emotions, until he grasps the powerful mobilization ability to make him cry and make him laugh, and through the conventional narrative means, constantly create new adventures beyond the reader's "expected vision".
"What is the narrative of the web article? It is an unconventional operation, it is a crossing, it is a gold finger. "The Riding School understands the code of the web text in this way.
By superimposing multiple elements on realistic themes, online literature has the wings to embrace reality. Looking at the realistic theme creation of Jiangsu network writers in the past two years, Yu Devil's "Teenager 1927" cleverly adopts the narrative structure of "crossing- growing - returning", Hua Xuyun's "Disease Control Archives" and "Love Letters from Angel Xiaobai" combine profession, women and romance, and Sang Tian's "Aiding Foreign Benevolent Doctors" shows China's image as a big country on the international stage from the perspective of young female doctors.
Zhuo Muxian, a Jiangsu writer who was selected as a theme online literary work of "Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of the Founding of New China" with "Chaoyang Police", is a unique existence in the online literary circle. From "Officer Han" to "Chaoyang Police" to "Veteran New Police", Zhuo Muxian created the "police novel" school of online literature, and his characteristics are to write daily life as delicately as possible, write the professional experience of ordinary people as realistically as possible, and write the knowledge about the police industry as "friendly" as possible. Simple and informative police novels can attract a stable group of readers, which in itself shows that readers' taste is improving, and aesthetic tastes have become more diverse.
Letting the fantasy shine into reality is the fundamental reason for the recognition of the mysterious novel "LinyuanXing", which attracted much attention last year. In this work, the Jiangsu writer Zhao Pig weaves the story of the commoner teenagers who have grown up in the oven of the times and witnessed the reforms and struggles of the clouds. Such a sense of vision, which implants social issues and thought experiments in the occult and intertwines reality in the sky, is the consistent artistic pursuit of the sociologically born house pig.
"Fantasy stories have always had the deepest reader base, and this is their own treasure that must not be discarded when online literature is transformed." House pig told reporters. In the Tang legend, the ancients fantasized that a sword could fly thousands of miles away to kill the bad guys; in modern times, the lord of the Zhulou Tower imagined aircraft cannons and tank submarines for the ancient people in "The Legend of the Immortals of Shushan Mountain"; in contemporary times, fantasy works are no longer limited to xianxia, and directly soar into the universe and space to dialogue with other planetary civilizations. "The charm of fantasy lies in the fact that although the human body is small, our imagination and dreams can be infinitely broad, beautiful and profound."
Online literature must be "harmonious and different"
At present, the epidemic has hindered face-to-face exchanges between people in different countries, but the depth of the online text going to sea has made the Chinese story continue to "circle fans" the world.
"In the past two years, there has been a new situation in which online texts go overseas, one is that AI translation has increased translation efficiency by 3600 times, and the cost has been reduced to 1/100 of the original, providing technical support for the dissemination of Chinese stories; second, in addition to translating works going overseas, the business model of Chinese online texts has also been copied overseas." Liu Wei, CEO of Lianshang Literature, told reporters that taking the AI translation and overseas digital publishing open platform "Tweet Technology" invested by the company as an example, this platform connects the content copyright holder upstream, and the downstream connects overseas channels, and there are currently more than 7,000 online literary works through the platform within 48 hours of the Chinese update, realizing one-click distribution on more than 50 overseas platforms - for cultural communication, it is undoubtedly "good wind with power".
Or go overseas, or release the strong potential of IP conversion through full-link adaptation, and the influence of online literature is increasingly growing. In the observation data of the Maoyan Research Institute on the 2021 annual drama market, the IP adaptation of the network text occupies 8 seats in the top 10 of the popularity list, and the proportion of the head drama is as high as 80%, which reflects the potential of the network text in content development.
But for the huge volume of online literature, not all IP adaptations are satisfactory. "There are so many books that I can't adapt them." Rain Devil said, "Many companies have hoarded a lot of IP before, including a large number of IPs that are not suitable or difficult to adapt. Speaking of a large number of high-quality online articles being "magically changed", Dancing can't help but complain, "I understand that the screenwriter has to rearrange the original content, but after many companies buy IP, only the title of the original book and the name of the protagonist are left, and the story is rewritten or changed beyond recognition." In the view of rain devil, behind the appearance of disrespecting the original work, it is the traffic thinking of investors who make quick money, and they are just using big IP and popular actors to drain the flow.
In fact, the extended chain of online text is not only film and television and games. House Pig believes that in the current "accelerated era", radio dramas and short videos may be new media that can be carried by online texts.
"Radio dramas can tell the story of online literary works in the form of sounds. It is not to read the book again, but to play in different roles, male voices, female voices, the voices of old and young women and children, as well as a variety of musical accompaniment, sound effects, can be presented. House Pig believes that online texts can also be made into short videos after authorization, and people do not have to spend a long time chasing changes every day, just click on a few minutes of video every day to get the accompaniment of the story.
In the view of Rain Devil, at the end of the innovation of online literary forms stands the script killing. Based on the prejudgment of emerging formats, in 2021, Yu Devil led dozens of online writers to experiment with short script creation, and the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Communist Youth League and the Provincial Writers Association also jointly guided the first "Golden Book Award" script interpretation and creation competition, and a group of good seedlings who wrote short scripts stood out. Yu Devil believes that in the context of the era of cultural and tourism integration, script killing is relying on real-life tourism and homestay economy to obtain rich application scenarios, and online literature and short scripts have a close relationship with water and milk, and the transformation advantages of online writers are full.
Jiangsu network writer's "Spring River Plumbing Duck Prophet" once again confirms Jiangsu's position on the national network literature map. In May last year, the country's first online literary criticism center "Yangtze River Network Literature Review Center" landed in Jiangsu, on April 18 this year, the center released the "first Yangtze River Network Literature Most IP Potential List", trying to break through the separation of literature and market self-talk, to provide the IP industry with a "popular and applauded" precursor.
The great times of torrential currents are casting star-like expectations on online literature. At a time when the "new" network literature shoulders its historical mission and cultural responsibility, dancing reminds that online literature and traditional literature should be "harmonious and different": "We need traditional literary masterpieces to exist as the highest ideal of literature, and we also need folk 'storytellers' to provide spiritual nourishment for the working masses that traditional literature cannot cover." In the future, the medium carrier of online literature may change, but good stories will always be desired. (Feng Yuanfang)
Source: Xinhua Daily