Digital stories have successful plot twist

As more people from different walks of life create fiction online with their professional knowledge and working experience, Chinese online literature takes on a more realistic color, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences study.

Statistics from China Literature Group show that realistic works grew at the compound annual growth rate of 34 percent from 2016 to 2021, becoming the second fastest-growing category on its platforms during this period. For example, in 2021, the Fifth Online Fiction Competition on Realistic Themes attracted nearly 20,000 writers who submitted more than 21,000 works, an increase of 40.6 percent and 42.4 percent respectively year-on-year, setting records for this annual competition launched in 2016.

As the influence of realistic works increases, more writers appear, creating multidimensional novels, with professional knowledge based on their working experience.

Among the most popular writers from the China Literature Group, above 75 percent have received higher education, of whom more than 60 percent studied science or engineering. Teachers, lawyers, judges, soldiers, doctors, scriptwriters or white-collar workers become writers of online literature. They have created roles from over 188 professions, and doctors, sportspeople and programmers are the most popular professions.