The Young Author's Guide to Wattpad

Writing 101

Welcome to Writing 101, I am your teacher Ms. Dust. Today's topic that we will be discussing is quite interesting. It is the topic of-

Woah, Woah that is not how we learn. Hehe, I mean if we're not in school anyway. Sorry this may not be the best! My tablet backed me out of the site and I didn't save! I was so angry. But I'm sitting down typing this again because I want to do this and want to help. Note to self: Save after one topic is done and continue like that. Anyway let's get started! This will be a far deal shorter than it once was because I'm rewriting this, sorry about any inconvenience this may have caused.

Also most of these topics will be talked about further in depth in later chapters. Anyway let's begin shall we?

Writing (Storytelling, typing, etc.)

Writing is important, and in any case in the nutshell, why you are here. You should always plan your story, voice it properly, edit, and so on and so forth. You should basically have all the other topics below.

Writing should be fun for you and if it isn't chances are your readers aren't enjoying it because it's stiff and dry sounding (more about this in a later topic). So never write if you don't want to because frankly, that's not helping anyone. So write when you want to, not when others want you to. Not saying you shouldn't have a schedule or anything, but it's better when you want to write because it sounds better and has more depth to it.

Ideas

Coming up with ideas is hard my friends. Inspiration sometimes comes like a brick to the head: unexpected. But don't write solely on that because that is what I call a burst of inspiration, that just can't be made into a good stable story. Just like one brick isn't going to build a house.

If you write on burst of inspiration you're going to do what I did, write yourself into a wall! That is when you back your story into a corner and can't get out. Where you run out of ideas, or don't know what to write next. Sometimes this is caused by writer's block, but other time it's just poor planning (more about this below). So write down bursts of inspirations, but plan them before you decide it's a story ready to be made and published.

Planning

Always plan! I cannot stress this enough. I don't most of the time and that had led me to have to rewrite them later. Which is no fun, especially to the readers who loved the story. So always have a vague outline, write it down and go by that, because it's better than nothing!

Take for example my book Warriors: Future of the Clans Book 1: Lost, it had o be discontinued because I didn't know where it was going. Of course I will eventually rewrite it, but I won't have as big as an audience because I made them wait so long for it.

Now take a look at my story Shadow, Light, Fire, and Ice. The storylines are written by my friend Balzingfirethecat (who is awesome at it!) because she realized she was good at ideas and planning and I was good at writing, grammar, and editing. So we joined forces and continue to make a decent book that I'm happy and content with.

Voice (Point of view and present/pre tenses)

Ahh voice, this is where so many lose their readers. Different perspectives are very good in storytelling, but knowing when to change them and which to use is hard and excellent for a story. I usually write in third person or third person limited (I will talk about this in a later chapter). But most young writer's do first person. I started off like that too, but realized third person was more my forte. So I stuck with that.

What drives me nuts is when a writer changes point of views like every paragraph or something. Every chapter is more acceptable, unless your chapters are really short! It's no fun getting confused over who's POV (Point of View) it is. This is another thing that drives people away from your story. So always make it clear who's point of view it is and don't change it constantly!

Also keep it past or present tense. I find this hard sometimes, but nonetheless I should still do it. This is also important because wouldn't you be driven nuts if it kept changing tenses. I find this really annoying, and do it. I'm getting better at it though. So now that you have your voice how is your grammar doing?

Grammar

Oh my goodness! If you have horrid grammar most people would runaway in disgust. Professional authors don't have spelling mistakes, so we shouldn't have them either. It's pretty annoying when popular stories have horrible grammar and good grammar has almost no views whatsoever! But again, it is a game or chance and your spinning that wheel.

Your grammar isn't going to be A plus work, so edit.

Editing

Editing is very important and you should always do it. Even rereading helps so you can confirm it's smooth flowing. Catching tiny spelling mistakes and huge grammar holes are equally important because us as the readers can spot tiny details and big ones, so do your best on fixing all errors.

I can admit that a few times I did publish a chapter without editing and I had to go back and edit it after nearly ten people saw it already. It's good to do editing after a story is complete to fix any mistakes you didn't originally fix. Remember this motto: There is always room for improvement. Never just think that your story is perfect because you said so and always accept constructive criticism from others. I never have said "Omg I loved your story pls update :)" In the comments, so don't give other writers false opinions either! It's basically lying and no one likes that!

Covers

Most of the time I make my own covers, but three of my covers are made by someone else. Shadows, Light, Fire, and Ice, The Lightningdust and Blazingfire Show, and Lost.

If someone makes a cover for you always give them credit. Never say it's yours or you'll lose the trust of that cover maker. I have a cover maker her user is echooosdreamer and she's fantastic at making covers! Oh and if you want to find cover artists I have a reading list that has four stories in it and you are welcome to check those out.

So, covers are what catches the readers eyes and it's also going to be shrunk down, so make sure the font is big and people can actually see what the cover is, and always keep your cover on topic! Don't but an epic battle scene when your characters just fall in love and it doesn't involve a war. My point spread, moving on to the next topic!

Publishing

So now you think you are ready for Wattpad. First Chapter edited, great cover waiting to upload, and a solid belief that your story will get tons of views. Hold up a second, what is wrong with that statement. Expecting views! Never expect views, because it's luck and I don't mean to crush your dreams, but it's very hard to make a popular story. I hope your story does and if this helps you in anyway comment that down below.

So this is all about chance, and that's the riskiest gamble. But eventually your book will have maybe a view or two. See that's good. If you have one or two views that means the people actually clicked on your story and read it, so if you have even just three viewers chances are they might come back and read the next chapter. So keep publishing, writing, and never give up!

I hope that helped you and the next topic is down below.

Next Topic: Writing Do's and Don'ts