Wattpad Writing - How Do I Start?

Warning! This is only for serious writers who want to have something become of their books, like paid stories program or actual publishing.

So, you want to write a book on Wattpad.

You've just discovered the website, or maybe you've been reading hardcore "One Direction buys a girl from her parents" kind of stories for years, and now you want to write a book of your own. The material has gotten dry, and the BTS fics are taking over. Maybe you want to write a romance, like The Kissing Booth by Beth Reekles (which broke through from Wattpad if you didn't know), or maybe a historical fiction tale about a young girl turned warrior in Ancient Rome. You've got a basic idea of what you want to write, you just don't know what to do, how to set it up, and how to do a detailed plot line. What the heck is an outline? Why do I need story insights? Should I name the boy romantic interest Asher or Noah, just because that's what everyone else is doing?

The answer for the last one, in my opinion, is god no. Be unique, and don't follow after the herd. Write what you want to write, not what you think people will want to see. We've got enough of those dumpy enemy-turned-to-lover or secret boyfriend stories to live off of, but that doesn't mean you can't write one if you want. I'm just saying publishers will want to publish something original, something special, and you'll want to publish something you're proud of. That's the hard part of Wattpad, sticking to your truth.

The rest, though, is much more simple then you might think.

From a Wattpad writer to another, here is a list of what you should do to jumpstart your career in Wattpad writing.

We've also got some tips and wise wisdom, if you'd care to hear it.

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Step One - The Literal Creating

Obviously, you've got to have an account. If you don't, just create one using your google account and a safe password.

It might seem like the next most obvious thing is to press the big, bad Writing button on the hot bar up at the top of the screen, but if that's what you're doing, you're probably a little too impatient. What you need first is an outline. You, know, that thing where you do a character plotting, and story noting and prep? It's not as hard as you'd think, but I'm not going to tell you it's fun, either.

If you've already got your plot, character analysis and theme, get out of my car, go stand on the sidewalk and wait for us to pick you back up.

(Just skip this paragraph.)

So, the basic outline starts with a simple plot idea. An example could be:

"Three friends unite after years of lost contact to dig up the time capsule they buried in the back of their high school, and relish in the memories of childhood adventures."

Then, you'll need to either deepen your plot or work out your characters, their pasts, their physical and mental features and their relationships. I usually start with the plot.

It is very important to have a sensible plot, one that has realistic emotions and steadiness between major events. I don't care if you're a narcissist, nobody wants to read a book where the main character nearly dies every. Single. Chapter. It just needs to be believable, and descriptive enough but not too much. That's a step-by-step for another post, though. I'm assuming you're a good writer for this one.

You need to take notes from the first thing they do to the last, and it's a lot. When I was note taking for Pursuers of Time - Way Back at Woodstock, I was doing day by day plotting, e.i Jordan goes to the bathroom, causes a scene due to the disgusting toilet.

It took me about a week, and it made the actual writing worlds easier.

Okay, we've turned around and pulled back up, so hop in, any finished plotters.

Now that you've finished your plotting, you're ready to get this bad boy onto paper, or, in our case, computer text. I, personally, have written most of my stories on google documents before copying and pasting it onto a Wattpad story. If that's the way you do it, it's pretty simple and self explanatory, and you don't need to get a name and cover straight away if you don't want to. If you head straight to a new story on Wattpad, as I did for The Idiots of Chalet Smoothe, you need a cover and a name already. It does NOT really make a large difference any way you do it, but writing on docs first and going through it after provides a good window for editing between the draft and official copy on Wattpad.

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Step Two - Engagement and Steady Updates

To engage with your book and it's readers, I recommend having a note at the beginning to welcome readers and explain any important details. Maybe a dedication? If there are songs at the beginning of each chapter, it's a good idea to disclaim when they will start and if they will be in every chapter. Make sure to have a little note at the end of every chapter, too. Fans like it when you're a talkative author.

If you're writing straight on Wattpad, then your book is going to be ongoing, not a completed story like it would on docs. That means you'll need steady updates, and if you go away for a bit, a heads up would be good. If you've been on Wattpad for a while, you'd know that those "Ongoing, last published December 7th, 2017" types of books make you want to end it all. There aren't too many on Wattpad, as it i a modern platform, but fanfiction.net caused a lot of stuff for me. So don't be that person. Please.

Oh, god. Traumatic flashbacks. Come back, Arianne2001! Please, you aren't done!

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Step Three - Getting Your Book Out There

So, I plan to publish a blog post related to putting out your story and getting reads, but here's a brief little piece that is most necessary.

You need to have a fitting main genre, so if your story is action, nobody is going to read it if you put it under the poetry genre. Have tags for your story, which are sub-categories and words related to your story. Like, the state/city it takes place in, key objects used and even character names. An example is, (Murder mystery story) :

death, mystery, mystery-thriller, action, David, Christina, knife, killer

Something like that. You'll need tags for your story so when people vote on your book (press the vote icon in the top corner of your book), it will rise in it's ranks.

Other than that, just make friends, update regularly, and join a club or two. Maybe even contests, which we'll talk more about in the coming posts. The best way to make friends is through joining a club. If you want, you could even get word of your story out through social media, or ask your new Wattpad friends to shout you out on their message board. Oh, that's another thing, post messages on your message board and reply to your comments on your story.

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There you have it! Those are the three core steps in publishing a Wattpad book. If you care to read any of Creative Gloworms' tales, than head to our Wattpad page, @CreativeGloworms.

Thank you soooo much for reading this far, and good luck on your writing journey!

Sincerely,

M.M.P - Gloworm No. 1