'Unlike CDs or DVDs, which were virtually wiped out by file-sharing sites, online novels are seen as a way to help promote the sales of paper books'.
November 15, 2008
Writing her first online serial,
Jeong I-hyeon got used to a series of unusual habits.
Using a special host ID, she snuck into http://www.Kyobobook.com, an online bookstore where her serialized novel has been running since August, and shifted around a few adverbs and slotted in some new phrases.
Her readers could spot these changes simultaneously and comment accordingly.
Writing an online novel has endowed Jeong with both freedom and restraint. She can change the text at any time of the day, but for that privilege, she has to endure, at times, overbearing levels of intimacy with her readers.
"You Don't Know", Jeong's latest novel, is an urban family drama spiced up with the ingredients of a mystery novel.
The story is uploaded every weekday morning at 10:30 a.m. By early afternoon, a string of comments follow at the end of her story, a mix of cheers and jeers.
The responses from her readers are nigh on immediate and come in overwhelming numbers. In the first week, the story attracted 500,000 visitors, a figure that reflects the standing of the novelist as one of the nation's most popular writers.
She sold over 250,000 copies of her first novel, "My Sweet City", and has also put together a book of essays and a collection of award-wining short stories. "My Sweet City" was made into a drama ""
My Sweet Seoul".
The fervor behind Jeong's new novel conveys the growing interest in an emerging phenomenon in Korean literature: online serials by noted writers.
In a country that once marked itself as an "Internet democracy", this is seen as a rare move to break away from long-held literary taboos, a form of puritanism that regards online novels as superfluous and vulgar.
Yet this new trend in publishing is whetting the appetites of publishers and writers today.
And so far, so good, it seems.
A few months ago, ...
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Guiyeoni became an overnight sensation with her internet novellas that were adapted into silver screen features, such as "
Temptation of Wolves", "
The Guy was Cool", and "
Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Si Do". The "
Guiyeoni Syndrome" is about to spread once again with her new novel on teen romance, "Searching for an Angel".
This story was also published as a series for cellular phone services. It's about a female high school student, Park Seon-min, who can no longer feel emotions due to a poor relationship w...
MoreGuiyeoni, a new-generation writer who writes novels on the Internet, has recently visited Japan to publish the Japanese version of her novel "
Temptation of Wolves". This two-volume novel is a love story about teenagers. A movie based on this story will be released in Japan on March 19.
"
Temptation of Wolves" rose to fame in 2001 when
Guiyeoni began writing it on the Internet. Publishers and filmmakers decided to produce a movie and publish the novel as a book when it became popular with high school girls by word of mouth.
The book, which was ...
More Films produced from 'Internet published novels' have become a trend in Korea.
Two Internet novel adapted films, He Was Cool -
The Guy was Cool (Geunomeun Meoshit seot da) and Romance on their own -
Temptation of Wolves (Nukdae eui Yoohok) were released almost at the same time this summer. Both films' original stories were written by the same person: the popular on-line storywriter, Lee Yun-se (better known by her penname,
Guiyeoni). Her new on-line serial story 'To My Boyfriend' has also been picked up for adaptation and other on-line stories such as 'Baekjowa Baeksu', 'Samsusaeng Sarang Iyagi', 'Oktapbang Goyangyi' (Cat in the Rooftop Room), 'Keanu Reeves Kkosigi', 'Saekma Jeonseol', 'Naesarang Iljinnyo', 'Mihonmo Iyagi', 'Naneun Aknyoilsubakae upda', are in development or pre-production stages to be produced as films.
The first popular on-line novel turned into a film was Toemarok (aka Soul Guardians)(1998); then the subsequent on-line novel adapted films such as
My Sassy Girl (2001) and ...
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