Everyone can be a writer, and literature has entered the era of national creation

Huo Yan

In recent years, the subject of literary creation is changing, and "writer" has become more and more popular from a professional term. As the number of online writers continues to rise and become younger, express writers and working poets continue to emerge, literature is entering an era of national creation. In the pen of ordinary people, "literature" has also recovered its original appearance and true value.

At present, the main body of literary creation in China can be roughly divided into: professional writers, online writers, Internet "wild writers" and "amateur writers".

China's professional writer system has a long history, and in the 20s of the 50th century, a group of professional writers actively took root in life, reflecting the construction and existing problems of New China, Liu Qing is one of them, and wrote classics such as "The History of Entrepreneurship" in deep life. The system of professional writers used to closely integrate writers and the broad masses of the people and learn from each other. However, with the reform of cultural undertakings, the professional writer system was once shaken due to the shortage of funds, the loss of outstanding writers, the exhaustion of creative talents, and the impact of consumerism.

In recent years, the professional writer system has been gradually restored, and new forms such as "contract system" and "topic selection system" have been explored, which pay special attention to the cultivation of young writers, making them the "backbone" of the current arena. However, the creation of professional writers is also prone to cause a closed tendency, falling into a single cycle of publication-comment-awards, and lacks effective interaction with ordinary readers, and some of them also lack the practice of "deep life".

In order to break this isolation, some young writers began to enter colleges and universities to engage in the teaching of creative writing, turning loose creation into a more efficient teaching life, prompting them to continuously absorb professional knowledge, reflect and observe, interact with students, timely harvest the reactions of different readers, and open up the closed circle of communication in the past. All this also has a negative effect on their creations, which are more humanistic, forward-looking and exploratory.

Since the new era, China's online literature has developed rapidly, the team of online writers has continued to grow, and has shown a younger trend, more than 2000 million people in the country are engaged in online literary creation, only in 2022, more than 260.17 million new registered authors and <>,<> new signed authors have been added to online literary websites, and most of the new authors are "Generation Z". Online writers have become an emerging literary and artistic group and a literary and artistic force that cannot be ignored in China. However, they face problems such as fast update and iteration, high work intensity, high life and psychological pressure, lack of social security, only traffic, serious homogenization and weathering, and low rate of creation of fine products. How to improve the social security mechanism for online writers, protect their creative rights and interests, strengthen the construction of talents such as training and title evaluation, and guide and improve them in themes and skills, so that they can create more people-oriented and innovative masterpieces, still needs to continue to explore.

There is also a group of writers who have emerged through new media platforms, known as "wild writers". With the help of new media, a more subdivided channel, they practiced literature, and then spread to traditional literary journals. This line can be traced back to the beginning of the 21st century, a group of "post-70s" writers who have transformed from news media or other fields, they have distinct identity labels, A Yi is a small-town policeman, Liao Yimei is a screenwriter, Feng Tang is a doctor of gynecological oncology, these identity labels make them constantly gain exposure in the mass media, virtually dissolving the professional threshold of writing and arousing the attention of more potential writers. They seem to be "amateur" creations, but in fact, they are all senior literature lovers, with high literary literacy, and have achieved good results in the fields of pure literature and popular culture.

In addition to these writers who have surfaced and been seen, there are also a large number of amateur literature enthusiasts in our country, who are engaged in work that has nothing to do with literature, and even have not received a complete education, but still insist on using the ancient form of literature to write the development of the times and the stories around them, showing the faces of civil society, and are known as "amateur writers". Yang Benfen, Fan Yusu, Chen Nianxi, Hu Anyan, Wang Jibing are among them, their creations regardless of age, Yang Benfen only launched the women's trilogy at the age of 80, brewing the original pulp of life into alcohol. Their advantage lies in their ability to use rich life experience and real life details to present the rough texture of life and the complex relationship between people and society, although they lack language, structure and skills, but it does not prevent them from expressing their true feelings and unique observations of society through literature.

They are all ordinary workers, and their creations show the changes in the current Chinese lifestyle, interpersonal relationships, and values, and have distinctive characteristics of the times. Compared with the literary and artistic young people who follow the rules and grow up step by step, they have their own different growth trajectories, which embody a sincere and frank creative attitude and a unique understanding of literature and life, and correct the current tendency of literary creation to become more and more homogenized due to similar survival backgrounds and resource extraction, showing great vitality. At the same time, their works can also see the influence of literature on Chinese values.

Although these literary lovers are huge in large numbers, although they cannot be directly published in literary journals, new media have given them a platform for expression, showing the precipitation in their lives, and also re-"giving shape" to literature. In 2023, Kuaishou will launch a poetry collection "A Person Must Live a Spring", which contains more than 200 poems, created by farmers, construction workers, delivery riders, housewives, left-behind elderly people, and the scenes of poetry are also very casual: hot pot shops, kiosks, cornfields, food delivery routes, and babies. The form of short videos allows them to vividly reproduce their work and life scenes, and poetry has changed from audible and readable to watchable and felt, showing that life is full of poetry and encouraging people to continue to discover.

Similar works include "Laborer's Stars" and "At Work, See China", all of which are self-written by laborers. Their writing is not utilitarian, they are written on shredded paper, memos, and circle of friends, and they do not expect to be published, and they are very happy to write them. This kind of "amateur writing" restores the original appearance of literature, literature is not a luxury exclusive to the elite, nor is it a commodity in a consumer society, but full of unlimited spiritual potential, can break the shackles of identity and environment, in front of literature, all beings are equal. Literature is a testimony to the magnificent era, and every ordinary person's "literary work" carries the rich details and full emotions of this era. Literature is the starting point of the heart, a kind of sincere emotional expression and release under heavy pressure, people use literature to dialogue, seeking the resonance of "they understand me", from self-connection to the world, just like the takeaway poet Wang Jibing expressed "I clumsily love the world".

This kind of literature written by ordinary people, derived from the soil of life, sincere and simple is also reproducible, which can attract more people to dig into life, showing a variety of interesting souls and complex life experiences. Their works condense the life wisdom and huge life energy of ordinary people, witness the bittersweet and bitter life of life and the variety of sentient beings of the times, sincere and moving, bring a fresh breath to the altar of the present, and pull the ethereal literature back to the earth. Reading their stories can also reflect on yourself and rediscover the stereotyped world.

In the face of more and more ordinary people taking up their pen to create, what professional literary workers need to do is to help them develop ideas and improve their creative skills. "Pi Village Literature Group" is a literary group composed of laborers, members gather together in leisure time to discuss literature, publish periodicals from time to time, a group of college teachers, writers will teach and comment for them, in this process professional literary workers no longer play the role of a high tutor, but lean down to learn from ordinary workers, teaching is also a transformation of self-concept.

The development of new media has made ordinary people's dream of being a writer a reality. We should not only encourage them to express themselves and write about the times through literature, but also provide a friendly publishing environment, improve the evaluation mechanism, popularize literary education, improve the literary quality and ideological depth of their works, and let professional and amateur literary creations complement each other. At the same time, we should not ignore some special groups, such as people with hearing and hearing impairments, who also have a desire for literature, and should actively use new media, artificial intelligence and other methods to meet their desire for literary expression, and jointly move towards a literary era created by the whole people, and use literature to highlight the great Chinese spirit.

(The author is a young scholar from the Institute of Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)