China News Service, Beijing, September 28 (Reporter Shangguan Yun) After opening a novel, have you ever been unable to read because some of the plots are too outrageous? Recently, "Who is in charge of today's novels" became a hot search topic, and the plots of many outrageous novels were listed, amusing onlookers.
In this regard, some people believe that this is actually a collective complaint from readers about the rampant use of ridiculous routines and the collapse of logical common sense in current Internet articles; others have mentioned that there are more and more "hydrological" AI, abrupt jumps in sentences, and a lot of logical loopholes. It is easy to fall into such pitfalls when choosing books.
Are there many such unreliable plots in online works? When writing, how do you avoid "outrageous" plot points? In an interview with a reporter from China News Service, some online writers said that the overall creative quality of online literature is actually pretty good, and that the emergence of these bizarre plots is related to multiple factors. Moreover, some outrageous scenes circulating on the Internet may have been created using AI.
Image source: Weibo screenshot
It goes against common sense and makes no sense?
Carefully looking through the "outrageous" articles listed by netizens, some of the content is indeed a bit funny.
For example, "Time Travel Girl" provokes the heroine who is an ancient woman. The heroine always shows a "sassy and sweet" or "cool and sassy" smile. It is described that the heroine's skirt is flying up and her "high ponytail" is also very "sassy". There is nothing new in the description.
For another example, the imperial concubine assassinated the emperor. The empress said that this was a serious crime, "If you come, I will give you a red-crowned crane." However, considering the context, should the thing given to the imperial concubine at this time be called "Crane Crown Red"?
Yuan Rui, an Internet writer and chairman of the Chongqing Internet Writers Association, has seen a lot of the above types of outrageous plots. He told reporters that he had read many novels, some of which clearly violated common sense and even human logic, but these works were not necessarily online novels.
"When the 'Ba Zongwen' was popular, it was written that the female protagonist with a rare blood type was forced to give the male protagonist a blood transfusion. After a large amount of blood was forcibly drawn, the female protagonist just turned pale and recovered completely after resting for a night, or in order to treat leukemia, the white blood cells in the blood were completely drained." He believes that such plots have broken medical logic and are designed entirely to promote the plot.
What made him feel even more wrong was that some novels had problems with their description of the logic of human nature. "Some online novels have very twisted emotional logic. The female protagonist is hurt by the male protagonist again and again. In the end, it may be because the male protagonist got a disease and then fell in love again. It is completely divorced from human logic and abuses for the sake of abuse."
Image source: Weibo screenshot
Internet writer Dong Jiangbo also feels the same way. He once read a novel that mentioned that the pick-up point was at the exit of the station. Various descriptions made people feel like planes were running on the ground like trains. There were many plots that completely deviated from common sense.
"There are also some online novels that have forced endings due to various reasons, and the descriptions are very hasty. For example, the heroine looked in the mirror and was so stunned by her own beauty that she died on the spot and the story ended abruptly." He said.
Why are these plots so outrageous?
Why do these outrageous plots appear in novels? Investigating the reason, Yuan Rui said bluntly that it may be related to the author's update pressure, insufficient knowledge reserves and other factors.
"If you want to make money by writing online articles, you need to maintain a certain update frequency. You need to update at least 4,000 words a day, and even update more than 6,000 words to be considered passing. Calculated in this way, the workload every year is very large." He said.
As a result, it is difficult for the author to have more time to repeatedly check and polish the text. At the same time, he mentioned that in order to create excitement or reversal, some authors may choose to write relatively simple and crude plots, thus sacrificing realistic logic.
"There are also some Internet article authors who lack life experience and knowledge reserves." Yuan Rui added. In addition, due to the influence of traffic-oriented creative thinking, some authors will write some novel and exaggerated plots to attract readers to interact.
Dong Jiangbo believes that some online writers are indeed relatively poor in language, and sometimes the homogeneity is serious. "The writing of online writers is actually a process of rushing through the sand, and not many can really grow up."
Image source: Weibo screenshot
However, Yuan Rui emphasized that these outrageous plots are only concentrated in some assembly-line and fast-food works and do not represent the entire picture of online literature. A large number of mature and excellent Internet writers pay great attention to logical closed loops and the rationality of details when creating. The overall quality of Internet literature is still good.
The more serious your creative attitude is, the more rigorous your work will be
Today, online literature is still very popular, and the total number of works and readership are very large. The previously released "2025 China Internet Literature Blue Book" also shows that by the end of 2025, the total number of Chinese online literature works will exceed 33 million.
So, how can writers avoid overly bizarre and unreliable plots in their works?
In this regard, Yuan Rui gave a direct and effective method: writers should increase their reading volume and have good knowledge input, so that they can have good writing output; treat their own words rigorously, and be sure to proofread and verify the content and plot that are uncertain.
In short, creative attitude is very important. In Yuan Rui's view, as a creator, the more serious his attitude is, the more rigorous his works will be.
Yuan Rui reminded that judging from the way of expression, some of the outrageous plots in novels circulating on the Internet are not necessarily written by Internet writers, but may also be generated using AI. "Some people may have more than one writing account and then create directly with AI."
"Many leading writers and platforms have actually been calling for AI to assist writing, such as checking information, proofreading, etc., but we must not let AI write for us. AI cannot truly replace high-quality writers," he said.
Dong Jiangbo found that in recent years, there have been more and more Internet writers with rich knowledge and literacy, and the number of Internet writers with considerable life and career experience has also grown rapidly. "It can be believed that more high-quality online literary works will emerge in the future." (End)
