Huaben

A huaben (Chinese: 话本; pinyin: huàben) is a Chinese short- or medium-length story or extended novella written mostly in vernacular language, sometimes including simple classical language. In contrast to a full-length Chinese novel, it is generally not divided into chapters and recounts a limited number of characters or events, although some huaben fictions, such as Sanguozhi Pinghua, contain upwards of some 80,000 Chinese characters. The earliest huaben are reported in the 12th century during the Song dynasty, but the genre did not see its true artistic and creative potential until the Ming dynasty, and after the mid-17th century did not produce works of originality. In the development of Chinese fiction, the huaben are heirs of the zhiguai xiaoshuo, chuanqi, bianwen (Buddhist tales), and are the predecessors of the stories and long-length novels of the Ming.