Things You Can Expect from Wattpad

Entry 6: Quiet Days and Random People

I know I said this was going to be updated weekly on Thursdays, but I decided to publish this entry on a Sunday. At this rate, this book won't be finished until this month ends!

And yes, there's going to be another update this Thursday. The last update.

Another thing you can expect from Wattpad is that you might end up having a lot of quiet days and maybe a short blow up.

For example, something like this: if it's a quiet day, you can expect to get a few notifications-announcements, mostly-and messages from friends if you have any. For a blow up, the next day your account could get really busy such as people voting, commenting, or doing both on your story.

If you write fanfiction for something that's not well known, you can probably expect your story to also go pretty unknown even if your friends read it. However, if you're writing for something that's pretty well known, you can probably expect it to get more attention, but not every day unless it's really popular.

Your story could be popular for a few days, then die down, then get popular again, and then die down. Something like that.

Basically, your account can have lots of notifications one day and then hardly any the next.

Also, if you're mostly a fanfiction writer and you release a story one day that's not a fanfiction, that might not do so well no matter how good you think it is, but that's just from my experience. The same can go for fanfiction that center around OCs, but again, that's my experience.

Let me tell you this: just because your story can go for days without any new reads, votes, comments, or being added to anyone's reading list doesn't make it terrible.

Yes, I know I've said that a lot throughout this book. I'm sorry. I genuinely had no idea how many times I repeated this.

Now if the plot makes no sense and the grammar is atrocious, you should really fix it up.

I mean, I've released an original story. It's been a year and since it's been up and it hasn't been added to one reading list yet. No, I'm not exaggerating.

And before you ask, no, I wouldn't call the story terrible.

Then again, this entire book is from my experience as a Wattpadder and what I think could happen to you, so remember that.

....Sorry for repeating that as well.

I don't know if this makes much sense or any sense at all, but I kinda think that some stories have a timeframe where they're popular.

Imagine this: you've made a story. Your story has been out for months. Your story hasn't been that popular. You check out a profile of your friend's and find out their story is way more popular than the last time you checked their profile, but the next time you check their profile, the popularity seems to have diminished.

It's basically what I said above. A story could be out for a long time, suddenly get popular, and then the popularity just kinda vanishes one day.

Another thing you can expect is, well, random people responding-or even posting-on your message board.

These people sometimes might be followers and maybe eventually they unfollow you, but other times they're completely random. You could've posted something in April and then someone you don't know replies to it two weeks later or something like that.

Sometimes these people might follow you, but other times they won't, and if said person doesn't follow you, you'll probably never see them again.

Speaking of which, let's say you reply to someone else's post. Sometimes someone else might respond to the post, but to YOUR reply instead of the person who posted it.

Like this one time I responded to someone's post and someone else I didn't even know (I guess a follower of his) responded to my reply saying "MaYbE...."

I still remember this one time from back in September 2020. It was a strange time because you know how your name-or whatever you put down for your real name-is at the middle of the screen and under your profile picture? Well, for some strange reason, Wattpad decided to move our names to the far left of the screen for a few hours.

It was VERY strange to look at and I didn't like it at all. Some people noticed it and I said something about it, and a few hours later someone I don't know responds to it. I was confused and thought the person was a follower, but I clicked on the person's profile and I wasn't following them and the person wasn't following me as well.

So I replied to it, I think the person replied back and I think I replied back to it, and I haven't seen the person since.

And about why I thought the person was a follower, sometimes I don't remember all the followers I have because I'm not friends with a lot them and a lot of my followers don't respond to my posts or read my stories as far as I know, so sometimes I just gotta make sure.

Speaking of random people, some users on Wattpad might also be younger than the recommended age. Yes, I know I already talked about this. If you meet someone who happens to be ten, just be nice to the person if you talk to them. Yes, I know these kids will eventually be 13 and up, but honestly, you kiddies shouldn't be on here in the first place.

Unless you're actually mature enough to be on here in the first place, but if you're not and you come across another website like this, it's best to wait until you become that age. That's what I did. I found out about this site at age 11 and decided to wait until I was 13 to join, but at age 13 I had forgotten about it and joined when I was 14 instead thanks to my best friend reminding/telling (retelling?) me about it.

I'm not entirely sure if I'd call myself mature, but I really do try to be mature online and not like the people I talked about earlier in this book. You know who I mean.

.....At least I hope you do.

So if you DO actually meet someone who's younger than the actual age, be nice even if said kid can be annoying.

But then again, the kid's like 12 or younger. Do you seriously expect the kid to be wise and act like a 40 year old when they're not even close to that age?

And, lastly, some more things you need to know are people who write translations. If you don't know what I mean, well, let's just say you write a story that gets really popular one day. Eventually, someone might ask you if they can write your story in a different language for other readers, and whether you allow this or not is all up to you because not all authors want their stories translated in different languages.

At least I think that's how it goes....I've never had a story of mine translated, but that's how I'd imagine it happens.

Also, while this is rare and has only happened to me once from what I remember, people might do these sort of things without your permission. There was one time-this story is deleted and has been for years, but it's not because of the critique-where someone critiqued a story of mine without my permission.

The story had five chapters from what I remember, and no, I wouldn't consider it terrible, but cute? Yes. So anyway, one day I log in to see a notification about a critique on one of my stories. I remember reading it, but I don't think I finished it at the time because I was mad that the author didn't ask for my permission first. The author told me she had autism, and once she told me that I wasn't as mad.

I deleted the story after a few months and a few others-again, not because of the critique, but because I was deleting stories of mine that didn't do that well and I was also deleting any rushed stories-and at some point I reread the critique and thought to myself "Hey...this isn't so bad."

So if you ever want to review someone's Wattpad book since Wattpad review books exist, make sure to ask for permission first.

I was actually thinking of making a Wattpad review book a few times, but I decided not to because those types of books don't seem to do well and I don't think anyone would care that much about what I'd think of a story. Besides, I'd probably end up reviewing friends books anyway.

So I'll see you in the next one.