Biggest Wattpad Pet Peeves

Long Obnoxious Titles That Give Away Every Single Plot Point Of The Story

Be honest with me now. Did this title alone (and not experience with the awesomeness know as my other rants - sorry, little arrogant there) make you interested in reading this chapter? Correct answer: NO, because what's the point? You already know all the important things I'm going to say here.

I know you've all seen plenty of these horrible titles. I wanted to provide some real life examples, but I felt like that would be mean to the people who came up with them. So I'm going to come up with my own examples! *mischievous smile* This should be fun.

OMG 1 Dirction Is In Mah House And OMG I Think I'm Falling In Luv With 3/5 Of Dem!!!! :D

Oh No My Mate Rejected Me But I Love Him And Did I Mention He's The Alpha?!?

My Teacher Is Really Hot And We Love Each Other But Then I Found Out That He's A Vampire!!! What Will Happen To Us???

There's the original title of this chapter, which apparently was too long because it was more than 80 characters: This Rant Is About Long And Obnoxious Titles That Give Away Every Single Plot Point Of The Story So What's The Point In Actually Reading It? That's not long at all. Wattpad must just hate me. *rolls eyes*

And let's not forget the one from Planet We-Luv-Horrible-Stories!:D Omg I'm In love With My Best Friend But He Doesn't Love Me And We're Both Secretly Pop Stars :D

First of all, ditch the long titles. There are very very few occasions where they work well. I tend to prefer short titles, around 5 words or less. Phrases or words for titles are fine. But please don't have a sentence for your title. There are a few exceptions, but if it's anything like the examples above, drop it like it's hot and never consider it again.

Another thing: don't give away the plot in the title. You don't even have to give the reader an idea of what the story is about whatsoever. That's what the description is for. I, personally, am a fan of obscure titles that make sense later on in the story. I also like it when the title is subtlety referenced in the story... But I digress. Anyways, the only thing the title is supposed to do is catch a potential reader's attention. (BAIT!) I'm going to use one of my own stories as an example: The Light Meets the Dark. Now, imagine if I'd called it Jadynne and Corin are Two Faeries Who Hate Each Other, What Will Happen When They Meet??? OMG Will They Find Love?!? :D I'm conducting a poll here. Which title do you prefer? Which one would make you more likely to read the book (I'm not saying you have to read it. Just wondering which title you would be MORE likely to read.) Now, at the risk of biasing you all and skewing the results, I must admit that I prefer the first title. Just a tad bit. But that's just me.

And by the way, all the writing tips we've been learning up to this point in my rant apply to titles, too! NO emoticons in titles. NO extra exclamation points or question marks in titles. NO spammar errors in titles. Got it? Good.

And by the way, having a random dot sometimes referred to as a period at the end of your title counts as a spammatical error, especially if the title is not a complete sentence (which for the most part, it shouldn't be).