Gordon Sheng, a 32-year-old civil engineer in China, spent two decades reading web novels before using AI to write his own. He used DeepSeek to outline a dramatic divorce plot, then generated the story in five minutes using an AI writing tool. Published on Tomato Novel, the short story drew over 5,500 reads in 10 days.
“No matter how bad the AI writing is,” Sheng said, “it does a better job than I would.”
Originated from China’s internet forums in the 1990s, web novels are typically serialized stories designed for people to read on their smartphones, featuring adrenaline-pumping plotlines about revenge, time traveling, wuxia battles, or romance dramas.
Many people have the spark for a story, but don’t know how to express it. AI has closed that gap for us.”Gordon Sheng, civil engineer and author
Tech companies including ByteDanceiByteDanceByteDance is a Chinese internet technology company that owns TikTok and Douyin, a Chinese version of TikTok with a successful e-commerce arm.READ MORE, TencentiTencentBest known for its super-app WeChat, Tencent is a Chinese technology conglomerate and a major player in the video gaming industry.READ MORE, and BaiduiBaiduBaidu is a Chinese technology company that operates the country’s biggest search engine and video-streaming service iQiyi.READ MORE own China’s most influential web novel platforms. They generate billions of dollars a year in advertising and subscription revenues, and pay individual authors based on readership. Chinese companies have also launched similar reading apps in the U.S.
