After spending a year soliciting over 370 literary works from across the country, an award list was unveiled in Beijing on Friday, showcasing the top works of fiction with the greatest potential for adaptation into movies or TV series.

The first Neutron & Fiction Monthly’s List of Works with the Greatest Potential for Screen Adaptation awarded five short stories and five novellas, spanning a wide range from romance to suspense and martial arts.

The winners, outperforming peers after going through three rounds of selections, were selected from Fiction Monthly, a prestigious literature magazine initiated in 1983, as well as its two spin-off versions, and Cube Science Fiction, a bimonthly magazine.

Ye You Shen (Night Wandering Deity), a delicately crafted tale depicting the struggles of ordinary individuals in a swiftly evolving society, garnered the highest number of votes in the short story category.

Wu Ming Zhi Di (The Nameless Place), which explores the test of humanity in the desolate highlands of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, secured the most votes in the novella category.

The event is co-hosted by various sponsors — namely, Neutron Star Films, Shaanxi Culture Industry Investment Group’s subsidiary Yida Media, Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House, and Fiction Monthly. It seeks to act as a conduit between talented writers and film or TV production companies, fostering a symbiotic relationship between the literary and entertainment industries.

Chen Yu, a Peking University professor and renowned scriptwriter, serves as the event’s chief consultant. He emphasized the pressing need to uncover exceptional stories for industry insiders in the film and TV drama sector, which currently lack compelling original content.