The 2026 Watty Awards celebrate Wattpad's storytellers and the readers who champion them. Whether you're aiming for a Grand Prize win or looking to join a reading event, this guide is your essential toolkit for success.

She wakes with missing hours, a burning imprint carved into her shoulder, and no memory of who put it there. Nyxara Blackvein is an assassin who survives by control. Control over her body. Her blades. Her choices. But the mark beneath her skin has a will of its own, pulling her toward Stillreach-a city protected by an impossible shield and a power no one dares to name. Torin Cross was never part of the plan. A half-elf bard with a charming smile and secrets of his own, he's headed in the same direction for reasons that don't quite add up. When violence forces them to fight side by side, trust forms before either of them is ready for it. Whatever waits in Stillreach is already watching. ONC 2026 Prompts used. 32. Two assassins from rival organizations are sent on the same secret mission, only to realize the assignment holds a much bigger truth. 86. A wasteland hides pockets of thriving communities protected by mysterious shields. 99. You wake up with a strange mark on your skin after a late-night encounter you can barely remember, and its meaning grows more unsettling by the hour.

She is sent to kill the dragon. Instead, she might become his only salvation. *** In a world swallowed by the Ever-Dark, Iva Vernigora is nothing more than a lowly servant in the house of the cruel Voivode Yakub Ivanov, Duke of Highroot. But when Voivode blackmails her with the lives of her parents, Iva is forced to pretend she's his daughter, as she infiltrates the royal academy of magic - Kolegium. Voivode Yakub's order is absolute: poison the Prince Konstantin Veliki. Prince Konstantin is the heir to the throne, the last of the line of Dragons - a Zmey warrior of light, who was blessed with a dragon-shifting gift. At a first glance, he is nothing but a smug, pompous royal, and everything Iva is supposed to hate. Yet every touch, and every shared lesson at Kolegium blurs the line between the enemy she must kill and the man she is beginning to crave. While Iva stalks her prey as a knife in the dark, waiting for the chance to extinguish Konstantin's light, she discovers that the dragon everyone fears is the only thing standing between humanity and the void. As the Ever-Dark Shades rise, Iva must make an impossible choice. Will she carry out her sinister orders and secure her parents' freedom, or will she stand by the Dragon in the battle for the world's last light? *** The Shades are coming. The Dragons are falling. And the Eternal Spark is waiting for its host. © 2026 EvelynHail Exclusively on Wattpad Based on prompts: 97. "When the world slips into endless darkness, something begins to move in the shadows and you must find a way to survive in a night that never ends." 4. "You discover that the dragon everyone fears is in danger, and you are the only one who can save it from the knight sworn to slay it ."

The Old Church is a raw, darkly comic literary series following Didrik Dahl - a Norwegian photojournalist turned state-sponsored wreck - as he washes up in a small Arctic community with nothing but a broken camera, a floor full of beer cans, and a finely tuned talent for self-destruction. What starts as a story about a man determined to disappear slowly becomes something else entirely: a community pulling him back to life whether he wants it or not, two sisters who upend everything he thought he knew about himself, and a darkness buried under the frozen marshes that won't stay buried. Sixteen chapters. One epilogue. Zero redemption arcs - or so he keeps telling himself. For fans of dark Scandinavian fiction, morally complicated characters, and stories that make you laugh in places you probably shouldn't.

Dog was just a regular German Shepherd. He barked at stuff. He was a good boy. Then he got struck by lightning, died, and woke up with an alien tadpole civilisation living inside his tummy. His humans-Mick (an ex-lumberjack prepper) and Jenny (a crafter who honestly kind of loves the mayhem)-have no idea there's an ancient cosmic war brewing. All they know is that something's comin'. And it's comin' fast. It's a new weird fiction, cosmic horror, and postmodernist craze. Hop on the wild ride.

In a world where people are followed by animals that reflect their personality, Taylor is devastated when she starts being followed by companions of the creepy crawly variety. As her passionate science teacher's annual companion showcase rapidly approaches, Taylor's mind is abuzz with anxiety about what her newfound companions mean about who she is.

Times are hard at Dwayne's Dogs, once the premier hot dog stand in the popular tourist destination of Buttmouth Bay. When the council threatens to revoke his street trading licence, Herb realises the time has come to open the sealed envelope bequeathed by his late father in case the family business should ever face mortal peril. Following his father's vague instructions, Herb journeys with his grill cook to a distant land in search of the lost ingredient for his father's famous hot dog relish. Instead, they find a secret in the desert that poses a threat to humanity itself... AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hey! :) This novel is a kind of meandering adventure comedy, with the occasional glob of pseudo-philosophical gloom spliced in between the wackiness. There are some mentions of suicide (nothing graphic), hence the 'mature' rating. There is also some infrequent swearing, but mostly I try to keep things light. I'm very sorry, but there is no sexual content. :( If you decide to read anyway, enjoy! Best wishes, Sweaty Dave

Ben is an anxious wreck with the personality of a used tissue, and he knows it. That's why he prefers to keep the girl of his dreams - the alluring and enigmatic ticket inspector who checks his rail pass each day - at a safe distance, to avoid ruining their incredible imaginary relationship. Disaster strikes when she breaks the routine of their mundane interaction to criticise his choice of reading material, setting off a catastrophic chain of events that leads to Ben harbouring the fugitive leader of a rogue totalitarian state inside his tiny, mid-terrace house. As tensions simmer and relationships fray at home, at work and everywhere in between, can Ben hold his life and sanity together while the chaotic whims of fate threaten to tear him apart?

In the small town of Bridle Creek, two teenage boys, Malik Mitchell and Theodore Kent, navigate the chaos of being newly in high school, small-town drama, and their own begrudging friendship. Constantly at odds but undeniably bonded, their antics lead to absurd situations that escalate into complete madness. Along the way, their relationship gets complicated, toeing the line between frenemies and something deeper.

When a burned-out agency worker finds himself cornered by fate, he struggles to regain control of his destiny by any means: embezzlement, adultery, even dog-napping are all on the table in this quirky romantic comedy. *** Berry Ross believes the course of his life has been dictated by fate. Emotionally distanced from his fiery, French Canadian wife and his badly behaved children, he spends too much time at work enjoying vague fantasies about the wild-haired Art Director on the Agency's creative team. It feels to him that fate is meddling again when a new, no-nonsense Managing Director shows up from the Agency's UK head office with a mandate to trim the maple bacon fat. British, brutish and beautiful, Allegra Wood-Crosbie knows two things -- how to get a bottom-line back to black and how to seduce a married man. Leaving a dark secret behind in the London office, she is dissatisfied to find herself here in the Canadian outpost. She's determined to right this ship, repair her reputation and move back home as quickly as possible. When the echo-filled loneliness of her rental apartment becomes too much to bear, she turns her attention to finding a new companion. Her sights land on Berry -- and a flatulent English Bulldog named Henry. Back at home, Berry's wife Berenice makes a fateful decision of her own. Obsessed with home renovation projects (and imagining how her sexy co-professor might look shirtless) Berenice unwittingly kicks off a sequence of financially devastating events when she hires landscapers to dig up their Toronto backyard. As the threads holding Berry's raft of lies begin to unravel, fate delivers its final blow, and Berry comes to appreciate the importance of personal agency. --- Readers Say: "This book was so heartfelt, humorous, and human. The cast of characters was SOOO incredible and incredibly human." "What a great read! Loved the humour! And the ending! Great book. Recommending it to everybody!" "Bravo. I'm going to miss this story."