Chinese online literature, also known as Chinese internet literature or Chinese web literature, refers to works of literature written in the Chinese language that are published and read directly on the internet. Originating in the 1980s, it has seen increasing development in the 21st century with the increase of mobile reading throughout the world, especially as the internet has become more accessible. Most Chinese internet literature has made use of the popularity of scrolling platforms and literature tends to be published in a serialized format, with this literature being known as webnovels or light novels.
History Academic Guobin Yang defined internet literature as "all web-based writings that are viewed as literature by their authors or readers." This is a more open definition than Western definitions of electronic literature, which require aesthetic use of digital media such as interactivity, multimodality or animation. According to academic Michel Hockx, Chinese internet literature either "in established literary genres or in innovative literary forms" is "written especially for publication in an interactive online context and meant to be read on screen."
Origins In the late 1980s, Chinese-language contributions to the internet were primarily made by overseas Chinese scholars publishing research papers, overseas students, or general Chinese diaspora sending emails or newsletters, or making posts onto small forums onto the internet. After 1991, when the World Wide Web was established and publicly accessible, some online Chinese language magazines were developed overseas, such as China News Digest and Chinese Magazine (Hua Xia Wen Zhai 华夏文摘) which provided news on China-related topics and was run by Chinese and Chinese-Americans in the United States. During the early 1990s, the Chinese government began to develop the Internet further and open it up to its people, but it wasn't until the late 1990s that the Chinese internet userbase became established, leading to key developments in Chinese online literature.
Bulletin board systems (BBS) developed in China in 1994 and routinely featured boards for writing, sharing, and discussing literature. The earliest literature boards were on BBS forums including SMTH, BDWM, and YTHT.
The early stage of Chinese literature had major cross-border components, with significant exchange between China, Taiwan, and the United States.
Digital literature in Hong Kong began emerging in the mid-1990.
In 1997, the Chinese-based literary website Under The Banyan Tree (Rongshuxia 榕树下) was founded. The site was focused on online literature and was popularized by the online diary of Lu Youqing, a cancer patient who published entries until his death. Originally a platform for its founder's own writing, it began accepting submissions and attracted writers including Li Jie (Anni Baobei), Chen Wanning, and Lu Jinbo. By 1999, Under the Banyan Tree had hired Chen Cun as chief artistic officer and attracted major writers like Wang Anyi, Jia Pingwa, and Yu Hua to be the referees for its first Original Internet Literature Contest.
One of the most influential online Chinese-language works was The First Intimate Contact by Cai Zhiheng (pen name "Rowdy Tsai" Pi Zi Cai 痞子蔡) which was published to the internet via the Bulletin Board System (BBS) in Taiwan in 1998. As academic Jessica Imbach summarizes, the novel "captured the zeitgeist of the early internet age and spread like wildfire through BBS forums in Taiwan and China." The print version of the book quickly became a best-seller.
Other early developments of internet literature in China included the January 1999 Sina.com and China Business Times writing relay and a NetEase internet literature contest refereed by Wang Meng, Liu Xinwu, and Mo Yan.
By the 2000s, Chinese online literature was well established, and book publishers began to look to the internet to find new works and authors to publish.
In the mid-2000s, Hong Kong online literature practices reflected broader Hong Kong internet dynamics, including combining the use of Cantonese and English, non-standard use of written Chinese, and code-mixing.
Platforms and commercialization The development of commercialized portal websites like Tianya in the early 2000s led to an increase in Chinese internet literature. Tianya hosted one of the early major original works of Chinese internet literature, Leave Me Alone: a Novel of Chengdu by Hao Qun (Murong Xuecun) which went viral and was published in print shortly thereafter.
While initially established as a platform for pirated Taiwanese novels, in 2003 Jinjiang Literature City began to host original works and has grown into one of the largest online literature platforms in China. At the peak of Under the Banyan Tree in 2005, the portal had 4.5 million registered users and received in excess of 5,000 daily submissions. Qidian literature network (起点, Starting Point) was launched in 2006, it quickly overtook Under The Banyan Tree in terms of a popular online literature site, as it focused on marketing strategies and reader engagement for its webnovels. Qidian was among the first to launch a freemium model, and was met with a lot of support and quickly grew popular.
In 2004, Shanda Interactive Entertainment acquired Qidian, and in 2008 acquired Hongxiu and Jinjiang Literature City to create Shanda Literature.
In the early 2010s, Tencent acquired its own online literature branch named Chuangshi Literature, which would eventually develop into Tencent Literature. In 2015 Shanda acquired Tencent Literature and they merged to for Yuewen Literature, also known as China Literature Limited. A website that was developed with the intention of fostering more experimental and artistic writing was Black and Blue (Heilan), which mostly functions as a series of forum posts.
Digital literature in Hong Kong experienced rapid growth after 2010. At that time, internet novels had highly variable quality and dealt with subject matter generally viewed as sensational, such as horror or pornography. Early online literature successes in Hong Kong included Siu Sing Lo's A Sweet Little Memoir (released in serialized format on HKGolden in 2010 and published by Steps Publications in hard copy the next year) and Cheung Sun's 18-Year-Old Nobi Nobita (also released in 2010 on HKGolden and published as a hard copy by Fung Lam Media in 2014). Hong Kong platforms like Shikoto (launched in 2013, aggregating variously-sourced Hong Kong internet novels) and Penana (launched in 2014 as a publication platform that also offered print on demand) developed. Overall, Hong Kong web literature platforms in the mid-2010s focused on a locally-oriented "indie" mindset, working with relatively new authors, unconventional distribution models, and publishing less mainstream subject matter.
More interactive works also appeared, including Shan Shui, a 2014 work of electronic literature by Chen Qian Xun that combined generated poems with images. Overseas Chinese writers have also published works of electronic literature.
During the 2014 antiprofanity campaign, online literature portals removed certain content deemed erotic, profane, and vulgar.
In 2015, the China Writers Association (CWA) established its Internet Literature Committee.
In 2015, Alibaba's Mobile Business Group formed Ali Literature to take part in the Chinese internet literature sector.
Some platforms have been devoted to poetry forums, such as Chinapoet and Poemlife, with users exchanging brief critiques and comments on each other's posts. Within popular poetry forums, there are also translation forums, where users dedicate themselves to the translation of poetry between Chinese and English.
Long genre fiction published in installments is the most significant component of the Chinese internet literature market. The pay-to-read model means that writers of long novels who can publish in daily installments can generally make more money than others of other online literary forms. Genre fiction is also amenable to adaptation into other media including television, film, games, and comics, which can attract broader audiences to these writers.
Online writing can be quite lucrative for some, and for many it serves as a true career. An example of a writer of online fiction who has received a lot compensation through his salary as well as royalties from adaptations of his works is Tang Jia San Shao, who has been known to earn millions of dollars each year. Even so, in the world of Chinese online literature, print authors or authors with more recognition are referred to as zuojia, whereas internet writers tend to refer to themselves as xieshou, however, as it relates to the more amateur or informal type of writing that they perceive themselves to write.
As of 2023, more than 36 million works of internet literature were available in China. As of June 2023, 528 million people in China (49% of China's internet users) read internet literature. A 2019 report by China Internet Network Information Center found that internet literature accounted for 9% of Chinese mobile internet users's time online, following only instant messaging, video services, and online music.
Reader participation For the majority of its development, Chinese online literature has been crucially tied to its user-generated economy which has allowed even amateur writers to share their works for free and have readers consume their content for free. With so much content being created under this model, many companies have sought to profit off of it and began the commercialization of online literature. Many platforms have turned to freemium models, allowing readers to access base content for free and upgrade to a subscription for more access or utilize pay-per-view models.
This has led readers of such content to feel quite entitled to the kind of content being produced, as they have financially invested in certain platforms and authors. Fandoms of webnovels try to influence writers and the direction of their stories with their feedback. Writers receive many kinds of feedback on the content they publish, including: view count, comments, rating of chapters, monetary gifts from readers, and recommendation tickets. Recommendation tickets are tokens that readers are allocated to reward to chapters they enjoyed and recommend the chapter to other readers on the platform. This can benefit writers as it can increase their visibility on the platform, and is often done in support of a particular author so that their work can be high ranking on the website. Not all platforms share this recommendation ticket feature, it is mostly available on Qidian and its international version, Webnovel, but most platforms have some sort of system to increase the visibility of certain works on the platform.
Since it is common for writers to abandon works after the first few chapters, readers attempt to keep a writer from quitting by showing a lot of support. This can be beneficial to writers but can also be a burden as readers that show a lot of support tend to feel entitled to controlling how often the writer publishes new chapters or even feel like they ought to control the ending of the story. This leads to many writers apologizing to their fanbase for missing an update or even producing multiple endings to satisfy both themselves as well as their audience. Since fanbases are very vocal about their opinions, many fanfic writers, they often hire beta writers in order to ensure the fanbase would like their content.
Translation and global impact As of 2017, at least 58 foreign websites which translated and distributed Chinese internet literature for non-Chinese language readers.
Wuxiaworld and Webnovel are popular online literature platforms among the global readership of genres such as Xuanhuan (玄幻 Fantasy) and Xianxia (仙侠 Chinese mythology fantasy).