Huaben refers to script for storytelling in Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1271-1368) folk literature, including scripts of novels, historical stories, stories from Confucian classics, and even leather-silhouette show and puppet show. In the Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911), someone wrote short novels written in the vernacular, intimating the form of novel script. Those are also called Huaben.

Huaben had various genres. Scripts of novels, all of which were short stories, were called novels. Scripts of historical stories were called Pinghua, with long stories. Some were called Shihua, for example, Shihua of Xuan Zang's Pilgrimage for Buddhist Scriptures. However, you cannot tell their genres from titles of some Huaben. Huaben's language falls into two categories: the detailed and the brief. The detailed, with a simple language, came from recorded utterance or revised recorded utterance; the brief was outlines only with summary of stories, most of which came from fictions and sketchbooks. For instance, The Blue Bridge in Qingpingshantang Huaben is the simplified version of Peihang in Legends by Pei Xing. Most Huaben remained were the brief except for some novels collected in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), which were revised by later writers and were comparably detailed. Huaben were produced by folk storytellers, and thus they were both endowed with vivid language of oral literature and the integrity of ancient novels like supernatural stories. Having gained prominent achievement in art and ideology, Huaben in the Song and Yuan dynasties played an important role in the history of Chinese novel.

Novels written in the vernacular in the Ming and Qing dynasties were developed on the basis of Huaben. Some famous novels are Outlaws of the Marsh, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Pilgrim to the West, and so on.