The Chaos Awards: 2!

Writing Tips

This was written by: Inna_Rhy Thank you for taking the time to write this out. This is her advice for all of you incredible writers. Enjoy! 

Hey guys, it's Rhy here (Inna_Rhy) I'm a friend of Courtney (your host), so don't worry I'm not a weirdo who hacked the account.

With no further ado, let's get to business!

As a judge I will be giving you some tips on writing and other stuff, you'll see. I've been on Wattpad for over an year and I'll be telling you stuff that I have learned. I know most of you know most of this but I'm just helping!

So.......are you a writer looking for more Readers? Views? Votes? And followers for your books? Then stick around.

You must have a solid idea for a story which you've written and published and you know it's amazing and yet you feel it's underrated?

1) Then first off, be patient with your book. It's one of the main things here, being patient. It takes time for one book to get noticed and it doesn't happen over night, it takes at the least a few months (if the book is absolutely amazing) or it may be two years, be patient, believe in your works and do not give up, if you wanna be a famous author that is.

2) Secondly, I have mentioned it before but am doing again, please believe in your works and do not give up!!!!! I'll type this a hundred times if I have to. You're book will get the attention it deserves in due time.

3) Edit your works and try to perfect your grammar as much as possible, this helps your book a lot. There are many editors on Wattpad for this purpose. I know no one is perfect but avoid making typos, use full forms (while writing a book only, it's okay to use short forms in random books) and proper punctuations, For example

"alena was late, cuz she was stuck at dat road"

Just look at the sentence. Don't you feel like laughing? use this style only in chats or when you're messaging someone. This is the correct way is

"Alena was late because she was stuck at that road."

Much better! And moving on.

4) Place your book in the correct genre. You've written a book about horror in high school with more scary scenes, then place it in the "Horror" genre and not the "Teen Fiction" genre. Add lots of tags and make sure they're related to the story, that will help readers find you're book faster.

5) Read other books, it really really helps. I'm not kidding, I'm really not. Even books on Wattpad. They help you to improve your writing skills and understand what kind of writing pleases people the most. And for the love of god please do not read centuries old books! I love classics (no offence) but read current time books, they help. A lot. (I am literally not meaning to tell you to stop reading classics, read it, but argggg you get what I mean?)

6) Try to update regularly. Now I know you all have busy lives outside Wattpad, but updating regularly really helps. You can always write a few chapters in advance so you don't have to stop updating your book for months.

7) If you have an author's block i.e. You don't know what to write next, -it's literally okay to have these blocks don't get your hopes down- at these times, read other books and talk to your readers, both of them really help and of course read your own previous chapters. You'll get ideas, you will, trust me. Try to write when you're mind is clear.

Here's a quick fact, the last time I wrote a chapter was five months ago, in my old account! I've had a major author's block and I just started writing again (i.e. Yesterday) no kidding.

8) Try to be descriptive in your chapters, it increases the efficiency of your work. Like imagine you're writing about a person who had just entered a new city, try to be descriptive about everything he/she sees. Like everything, it makes the book more lively and interesting. But please do not over describe things, like writing two pages describing a tree. Oh hell no, it will literally over do things and bore your readers. Just add needed amount of sugar for your milk, If you get what I mean.

9) Break your paragraphs, do not write continuously, it's hard to read. That comes from personal experience. It's really hard to read and readers lose interest with books like that.

10) Get a good title and a description for your book. The thing that depends most on a reader choosing to read your book or not, is your title and description. Get an eye catchy title and a breathtaking taking description which will make the reader want to read the book right away!

Let the title and description be something which doesn't give much of the book away but describes the book. Preferably come up with them after you've written a few chapters, that way you'll know exactly what title and description to write.

11) Do not copy other's works please! Being inspired and copying are two very different things. Come up with your own idea, they go a long way.

12) And last but not the least, get an amazing cover for your book. It also like the title and description, helps to catch the reader's attention. Because let's be honest, even though it says 'Do not judge a book by its cover,' yet we do.

Now this is a topic I like!

There are many people out there dying to make covers for you (like me here). You can always ask them to do so and please be patient with them. Or you can always make your own cover. There are apps for this very purpose like PicsArt, Pixlr, Bazzart, Adobe Photoshop (which is advanced), Phonto etc.

If you want to be independent and make your own cover, then I personally suggest you use PicsArt. It is an amazing, user-friendly app with awesome tools to make beautiful covers. The cover of this very book is purely PicsArt made. (How do I know that? Because I made it XD!)

Let your cover be related to your book. Because imagine having a book which is based on murder and the cover is something like a dinosaur and a unicorn having a tea party. Trust me, that will be very horrible. Give a good explanation of what you want to the person whom you've chosen to make a cover and don't be too demanding. It's really hard to find images. I approximately take two hours to find a perfect image(s)!

If you're going to make you're own cover, then remember, let your cover tell a story. A story related to your book.

So that is pretty much it with the tips but we're still not done!

I will be telling you how a book in a contest is normally judged. Please remember this will be mostly how I judge a book.

1) So we mainly look at your title, description and how you've presented your story.

2) We try to understand your plot and see how much it is related to what you are writing/have written.

3) We normally avoid grammar and typos but if it is too bad then you lose marks.

4) We look at your vocabulary, because sometimes writers use either too many complicated words for or some writers write too causally. Both of them are extremes and should be avoided. I recommend using fancy words but not too fancy.

5) We don't usually read the whole book, just enough to get a good idea of your writing style. Please understand, we have to judge 20 other books.

6) And please don't bribe a judge. That is very bad, we don't usually fall for it but don't do it! If your book deserves the prize then it will get it.

It is really okay if you don't win a contest. The key to win and to become famous is to never give up writing and believing in yourself and your book and of course being patient, writing with your heart not because you want fame but because you love writing. Do this and I'm sure you'll be the next Wattpad Star!

So that was all I had to say, I really hope it helped. If you have any questions or suggestions, just private message me or comment it and tag me (@Inna_Rhy) or I won't know. I'm usually spammed a lot and my notifications go up to 1k so I would prefer it if you private message me. I'll reply as fast as possible.

Love y'all, especially if you read everything I wrote!

Have a great day/night!

yours truly,

Rhy.