First-time authors get guidance and help to pen nonfiction works and show the power of words.

The Spring Festival holiday witnesses the world's greatest movement of humanity as people working and living in cities return to small towns or villages for family reunions.

It's also the time they marvel at the changes that the internet has or hasn't brought to every tier of society, throw themselves back into intricate family relationships and experience the cultural shock of traveling from modern cities to the traditional communities in their hometowns.

The sights and sounds, as well as the emotions triggered, have become a constant inspiration for writing.

While feature journalists and humanities and social science scholars have contributed to some of the most outstanding nonfiction works in China, more and more amateur authors are actively writing down their own stories.

The burst of New Year journals is just one typical reflection of the phenomenon.

New Year journals

"At the same hospital, my little half-sibling, 24 years younger than me, was born in the obstetrics department on the fifth floor, nine days before my 82-year-old grandmother's condition was declared critical at the respiratory department on the 22nd floor and she died the following day at home."

This is how Zhang Jin from Nanjing University begins her story titled Xiao (Younger) Zhang and Lao (Elder) Zhang Who Failed to Meet Each Other. In a diary style, the story depicts what happened to Zhang's family at that time. It details Zhang's initial objection to her father having another child, her joy at the birth of her younger sister, and a grudge she once held against her grandmother, who kept asking her to accept the fact and go back home.

At the end of the story, "everything seems back to normal", as the author overcame the struggle of reconciling with her family.

The story reminds some readers of the intricacies of their own family ties. It won first prize at the third Epoch Nonfictional Story Competition, jointly held by Hedgehog Commune, or Ciweigongshe.net, an online media platform, and short video platform Kuaishou.

Ye Weimin, a former journalist and one of the judges, speaks of the story as "presenting the truth of how life alternates and continues itself".

"The birth and death not only drives the story, but also provokes readers' emotions and thinking," Ye writes in his remarks.

This year's competition sought to collect New Year journals about returning home, especially those observing how the authors' hometowns had fared under the influence of the internet.

The organizer received more than 400 candidate articles and 1,505 short videos for the competition held from Jan 18 to the end of February, with seven of the written articles getting more than 100,000 clicks online.

The competition has encouraged more people to record the stories of their lives, according to participant-turned-judge, Zhao Siqiang.

Unlike feature stories that are usually based on interviews, written by professionals and often take a long time to complete and polish, nonfictional stories-in this context referring to single articles that tell true stories-are friendlier to those trying the format for the first time, Zhao says.

For last year's competition, Zhao, then a greenhorn journalist, wrote a story of how his family celebrated Spring Festival in 2018 after a series of misfortunes.

Two of his cousins got divorced the year before, one of his aunts had most of her stomach and gallbladder removed because of gastric cancer, and his grandmother lost her sight.

For the first time, the 23-year-old, who had just graduated and started working in the media, felt the vulnerability of the older generation.

"Nonfictional story writing provides the authors with an opportunity to rethink their relationship with their family and hometown," Zhao says, adding that it was when he took up the pen that he started to become an observer of his own life through an alternative perspective.

Zhao later won a position at the Hedgehog Commune as a journalist.

Writing for oneself

With digital media it's now easier than ever for people to express themselves, according to Li Zixin, founder of China 30s, an online nonfiction writing platform.

"They've discovered their urge for storytelling and they believe they can make it," Li says.

He says that China 30s' story sharing platform and writing courses-both online and offline-have attracted people of all vocations and, according to Zhao, authors classified as middle-aged are making their mark.

They focus more on personal experience and government issues, which tend to show their collective thinking, while younger writers discuss topics, including social issues, music and films.

Writing competitions are booming these days too.

News outlet ThePaper has been working with news aggregator Toutiao and Fudan University to launch a nonfiction writing competition with total prize money of 300,000 yuan ($44,687). The topics can be public issues or individual experiences and the closing date for entries is April 7.

The individual struggle of self-identity, the parent-child relationship and personal career issues that were not likely to be recognized by traditional media institutions are getting an outlet in the narration of amateur writers.

Li exemplified this trend in changes of China 30s' focus over the past eight years, from the earliest posts in the form of Q&As, to the third-person stories which started to appear around 2014. The majority of these, in Li's opinion, were applying a traditional news writing style and not so appealing to readers.

Finally, in recent years, first-person narration has started to dominate the field, and the organization has turned from merely a content producing platform, to a crowdsourcing aggregator whose nonfiction works are mainly generated by their trainees under the guidance of the editors.

Sometimes it takes a month for the authors and editors to discuss and polish one single article, because those not doing it full time have other commitments and are still learning, according to Li.

China 30s is one of the many nonfiction platforms to hold paid courses for creative writing, which are mainly developed from common practice in traditional newsrooms and focus on the writers' awareness of the readers, critical thinking and their own writing skills.

"It is like breaking the sealed jar of journalism and scooping out the content that will be of most interest to people," the former journalist says.

Instead of digging deep into one single story, Li has created a system for subject exploration and the authors are able to think and write around a same theme from different angles.

The truth counts

Looking back on his submission for last year's competition, Zhao regrets that it was limited to personal experiences rather than framing a larger picture of the story's social background.

This, plus excessive expression of emotions, are common shortcomings in submitted works, Zhao points out.

He cites a story featuring the spread of e-commerce and mobile payment in rural areas. The author failed to detail the difficulties of building power grids and communication networks, so the potency of the story was diminished.

Liu Mengzhi, an associate professor at Shaanxi Normal University, told Hedgehog Commune in an earlier interview that current nonfiction writing is largely influenced by long feature stories written by professional journalists, which often emphasize the complexities of human nature instead of in-depth involvement of historical or social observation.

"Overall, there's a lack of quality nonfiction works," Liu says.

However, it's natural that those beginning to write are interested in people and things around them. As the general environment for writing gets better, more and more of them will probably turn their focus to larger topics, according to Zhao.

While there seems to be no strict definition of what constitutes a nonfiction work, the bottom line is clear.

"Telling the truth is the most important boundary of nonfiction work," says Liu Shiyu, who is in charge of the Epoch competition. "Under the premise of staying true, diversity in stories is wanted."

However, the sector underwent a crisis of confidence as a "nonfiction" story about death of an underprivileged, but high-achieving, student went viral online in January.

It was posted by a WeChat public account run by the team under Mi Meng, a controversial key opinion leader.

The first-person narrator described the story of "my friend Zhou Youze" who got the highest score in the college entrance examination in his province and who worked hard while maintaining a high moral standard after graduation to support himself and his family.

However, his diligence, integrity and endured hardships seemed inefficient in an impetuous society driven by desire. Then, fate intervened and he died of cancer. It was a heartbreaking story but it was not true. It was fiction.

Netizens had listed a number of suspicious details that the author claimed were there to protect the true identity of the person.

The event has pointed out the importance of enhanced fact checking. According to Liu Shiyu, they have asked authors to keep interview recordings, contact information of the interviewees and all of the original materials for verification.

Both Li and Zhao believe that authentic details and feelings are more touching than fictional or exaggerated ones.

It'll be meaningful if the event could raise a serious discussion of the standards of nonfiction writing, according to Zhao.

"After all, the power of nonfiction lies in revealing truths that not everyone wants to face," says Li.