With an average daily turnover of 80 million, this industry is taking off and bringing a new profession to the fore

In the past two years, short short plays have quickly occupied the content pool of Internet platforms, resulting in a rapid increase in the market demand for short play scripts, which has brought a new profession to the fore - short play screenwriters. What kind of people are engaged in short play screenwriting? From the perspective of short play screenwriters, what are the current problems in the industry? What direction will it go in the future?

With the advantages of fast production, low cost, brevity and eye-catching, micro-short dramas have rapidly occupied the content pool of Internet platforms in the past two years.

According to data from Douyin's Big Data Engine, the average daily revenue of domestic short dramas has reached 80 million yuan by November 2023. According to estimates by iiMedia Research, the market size of short dramas in China is expected to reach 37.39 billion yuan in 2023, an increase of 267.65% from 2022.

Not only in the Chinese market, short dramas are also developing strongly overseas. According to Sensor Tower estimates, as of November 30, 2023, the cumulative net turnover of ReelShort, a domestic short drama export platform, has reached nearly 200 million yuan. In November, the platform's net turnover increased by nearly 98% month-on-month to more than 42 million yuan.

The popularity of short dramas has, on the one hand, spawned many short drama platforms, and on the other hand, has also led to a rapid increase in market demand for short drama scripts, thus giving rise to a new profession - short drama screenwriter.

Who are the people who work as short play writers? From the perspective of short play writers, what problems does the industry have now? Where will it go in the future? "Tianxia Online Business" talked with several short play writers to understand the current status and challenges of the industry they are facing, as well as their thoughts.

1. "Ten short play writers and eight online writers"

The popularity of micro-short dramas has spread to the online literature circle.

Online writer Duoduo first came into contact with short dramas through promotional clips of short drama platforms on social media. Perhaps due to her work background, most of the short dramas pushed to her by the platform were about domineering bosses. After watching several short dramas of the same type in succession, Duoduo found that she could accurately predict the direction of the plot, so she had the idea of ​​switching careers to become a short drama screenwriter.

"I have studied the popular routines of short plays when I was writing novels before." Before changing his career to become a short play screenwriter, Duoduo was already a senior writer for an online literary platform, and was good at writing sweet pet stories. Sweet pet stories are a popular branch of domineering boss stories. The storyline is sweet, and the male protagonist always dotes on his partner infinitely. There are many similarities with the popular short plays with domineering boss themes. Therefore, with the experience accumulated in the past, Duoduo sold his first short play script shortly after changing his career.

Liu Ling and Duoduo had similar experiences, both of them had the idea of ​​changing careers after seeing short plays on social media platforms. However, unlike Duoduo who is a freelance short play writer, Liu Ling is affiliated with a friend's screenwriter studio and is a full-time short play writer.

"I mainly write male-oriented novels (novels aimed at male readers), which slap the routine of cool novels in the face. Last year, an author friend who had been communicating and learning with me switched to being a short drama screenwriter. He worked on the platform for a while and felt that short dramas had a good future. Later, he found someone to invest in setting up a screenwriter studio and pulled me in." Liu Ling told "Tianxia E-Commerce".

Those who have switched from online writing to short drama writing include not only individual online writing authors like Duoduo and Liu Ling, but also many online writing studios.

Li Yue revealed to "The World of Online Merchants" that her online literature studio had always focused on the creation of IP literature suitable for adaptation into film and television dramas. After the rise of micro-short dramas, the studio also began to follow the trend this year: on the one hand, it retained a part of the authors to continue to delve into IP literature creation; on the other hand, it cultivated a part of the authors to try their hand at short drama script creation. Li Yue is one of the latter.

Unlike the gradual transformation of Li Yue's studio, Zhao Cheng's studio is more radical. Since August this year, all of its contracted authors have stopped writing online articles and turned to creating short drama scripts.

The experiences of Duoduo, Liu Ling, Li Yue, and Zhao Cheng are a microcosm of the short play screenwriter industry. A large number of screenwriters currently engaged in short play script creation are transformed from online writers. Among the more than ten short play screenwriters contacted by "World Online Business", eight of them have experience in online writing.

Second, profit-driven, everyone wants to make money on the vent

"Short plays are a variation of online articles." This is a statement often made by short play writers.

Liu Ling believes that short plays and cool stories are very similar. "Being earthy, melodramatic, fast-paced, and full of cool moments are the characteristics of both short plays and cool stories. In essence, the core of short plays and cool stories is the same, but the forms of expression are different. People who have written cool stories will find it very simple to switch to writing short play scripts."

Many online writers choose to switch careers to become short play screenwriters. One of the important reasons is that it is relatively easy to switch from writing online articles to writing short play scripts.

The deeper reason is that there is a significant gap in the income and creation costs between writing online articles and writing short play scripts.

The "2022 China Online Literature Development Research Report" released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences shows that as of 2022, the total number of Chinese online literature writers has exceeded 22.78 million, more than five times the number of 4.19 million in 2012.

The number of online writers has doubled in the past decade, intensifying the fierce competition in the field of online writing. Except for the "great god" level authors who can achieve the myth of wealth, it is not easy for most new authors to make money through online writing. The "2019 China Online Literature Development Report" once published the income data of online writers, with an average monthly income of 5,133.7 yuan, and 44.6% of them have an income below 2,000 yuan/month or no income at all.

"After I stopped posting daily, my income in the last month was only a few hundred yuan." In the months before he switched to being a screenwriter for short plays, Duoduo's income from writing online articles was not enough to cover rent, utilities and electricity. "Online articles are too competitive, not only in terms of innovation, but also in terms of word count. Everyone is writing million-word novels, and writers like me who write sweet and cute articles with about 200,000 words have almost no room to survive," Duoduo said.

In contrast, short play scripts have become a new way to make money. In the short play industry, the income of screenwriters consists of "guaranteed income + profit sharing". According to the data from the ByteDance engine, the income of upstream screenwriters is a guaranteed income of 10,000 to 50,000 yuan per play and a 1% to 2% profit sharing of the short play income. According to this calculation, even without the guaranteed income, the screenwriter can get about 50,000 to 1 million yuan for a short play with an income of 5 million to 50 million yuan.

In terms of creation cost, short play scripts are relatively cheaper. This is directly reflected in the number of words. Usually, a short play script of about 100 episodes is about 50,000 to 100,000 words, and the creation cycle is about half a month to one month; in the field of online literature, the length of a short play script is only equivalent to an opening part, and it takes a year and a half to create a complete online article. In comparison, short play scripts take less time and energy.

In addition to the above factors, the most fundamental reason why online writers switch to being short drama screenwriters is that they see the prosperity of the short drama industry and want to make money in this trend.

"Short dramas are very popular now and are expected to be even more popular in the future, but the market demand for short drama scripts is far from being met and good scripts have always been in short supply. This is an opportunity. Everyone wants to take advantage of the hot short drama industry and see if they can make money," said Li Yue.

3. The themes of flash marriage and God of War are crowded, and the content is highly homogenized

Several female-oriented screenwriters (whose main audience is women) told The World Online Business that they are currently writing scripts on the themes of "flash marriage" and "cute babies." Similarly, more than one male screenwriter said they are currently writing scripts on the themes of "god of war" or "experts going down the mountain."

The reason why short drama writers are flocking to similar themes is that they are seeking stability. One screenwriter said that as a popular branch of classic domineering short dramas, dramas with themes such as flash marriage and cute babies have strong plot conflicts and are short and concise, and have a wide audience in the market. On the other hand, after such themes are filmed, they are easily recommended by the short video platform algorithm to viewers who like similar themes, and the risk of being removed from the shelves is relatively low.

Zhao Cheng told The World Online Business: "Shuangju is the mainstream of short dramas at present. In order to increase the probability of success, current screenwriters often choose to imitate existing successful models. The smarter ones will make micro-innovations on successful models."

Under this trend, whenever a new trend emerges in short dramas, it will soon be rushed by creators from all walks of life, and the cost of imitation and following is almost negligible, which also exacerbates the homogeneity of short drama content.

The result of blindly following the trend is that the guaranteed price of scripts has been repeatedly lowered. Duoduo revealed to "Tianxia Online Business" that the guaranteed price of the scripts she wrote last year was about 20,000 yuan. As more and more screenwriters write about cute babies, the price given by the drama collection platform has recently dropped to 15,000 yuan. If it is a new screenwriter, the guaranteed price of the script of the same theme may be even lower.

For producers, the increasing amount of homogeneous content also brings "creative anxiety."

Zhou Yang's job at a short drama platform that focuses on male-oriented genres is to find, review, and finalize short drama scripts. As a former online editor, Zhou Yang personally agrees with the principle of "content is king". In order to get high-quality scripts, he offers very generous conditions for receiving manuscripts: the script's guaranteed minimum price starts at 20,000 yuan, and once the script is successfully released, the company will give the screenwriter 1%-2% of the full channel share based on the script rating.

Despite this, Zhou Yang revealed that since the call for submissions was issued in September last year, there have been many submissions, but only a few satisfactory scripts.

The old-fashioned plot is a common problem in the scripts he receives. "For example, the male protagonist Long Aotian pretends to be a pig to eat the tiger and slaps the villain in the face, and the rich daughter suffers persecution from the villain and then returns for revenge. Nine out of ten short play scripts have similar plots. The audience is tired of these routines." Zhou Yang said.

"Tianxia Online Merchants" observed that every day in various short drama exchange groups, there are manuscript collection notices, but among them, good manuscripts are still scarce, and a large number of scripts with homogeneous plots are still being produced continuously.

4. A blue ocean worth hundreds of billions, where will short dramas go?

In the short play writing industry, income seems to be a taboo issue, and most screenwriters who make money are very secretive about it.

"We never disclose the revenue of a particular script, let alone all of it." This was Liu Ling's answer when The World Online Merchants asked him about the approximate revenue of his screenwriting studio this year.

Although he did not disclose his specific income, Liu Ling told The World Online Business that his studio currently has orders scheduled until March next year, "We have stopped accepting orders this year because we can't finish writing."

On the other side of the popularity of short dramas, their disorderly and barbaric growth has also brought some chaos.

In order to pursue clicks and payments, some short dramas use borderline and bloody images to attract audiences, resulting in the emergence of a large amount of low-quality and nutritious content in the Internet ecological content pool.

In response to the chaos, as early as late November 2022, the State Administration of Radio and Television launched a three-month special rectification of "mini-programs" type online micro-short dramas. At that time, more than 25,300 micro-short dramas containing pornographic, vulgar, bloody, violent, and aesthetically vulgar content were forced to be taken offline, and 2,420 "mini-programs" containing illegal content were removed from the shelves.

In mid-November this year, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television proposed seven guidance and management measures for the micro-short drama industry, and once again launched a one-month mini-program short drama rectification campaign.

Under the new regulations, the industry is developing in an orderly and high-quality direction. In the view of many institutions, the short drama industry is still a blue ocean. In a recent research report released by Soochow Securities, the market size of domestic mini-program short dramas will reach 100 billion yuan in the future. iMedia Research also estimates that by 2027, the market size of domestic short dramas is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan.

Short plays are a blue ocean, which is a fact that almost all practitioners take for granted. But without eye-catching plots and pictures, when the audience is tired of the routine plots, what should short plays use to attract the audience?

In various short play writing exchange groups, people often initiate discussions about the future direction of short plays. Most practitioners believe that short plays will gradually move towards in-depth content and emphasize in-depth thinking and expression. However, there are also many people who oppose this view.

Liu Ling said: "The reason why short dramas are popular is that they have many exciting moments and the plots do not require much thinking. The audience is not the kind of people who want to watch in-depth content." In his opinion, most of the current short drama users are cast, and the key to retaining users lies in whether the plot is attractive. In the future, short dramas may not necessarily become in-depth, but they will definitely be more diverse than they are now.

*Note: All names in this article are pseudonyms.

Author: Tianxia e-commerce

Source: Tianxiawangshang