Welcome Home! A Newcomer's Guide To Wattpad

Genres

There is a total of 22 genres on Wattpad. In this chapter, I'll be explaining them. You can select up to two genres for your book, but you can change them.

What is a genre? A genre that a book, television show, movie etc. fall into. It depends on the plot and the storyline, so if your story is full of guts and gore then you wouldn't see it gracing the What's Hot list for humour, it would be under horror. The word genre is pronounced zhawn-ra.

Romance: Love stories. This is unfortunately the most popular genre on Wattpad. I said "unfortunately" as a lot of romance stories are either clichè or cheesy. But it doesn't have to be! Use your imagination and ask yourself, "What if?"

Science Fiction: Scifi stories are usually set in the future or space. There are many more sub-genres, though, so if you want to take a look at them I suggest you see SF Sub Genres by @ForbiddenPlanet.

Fantasy: These stories are usually set in a world of magic, and contain fantasy creatures such as centaurs, goblins, dragons...the list is endless. Some are about a world with all of those creatures, but others focus on one breed and on one breed only. With this genre and the scifi genre, it takes a lot of imagination to write.

Mystery/Suspense: Who did it? Who killed her? Who kidnapped him? Mystery/Suspense stories are exactly that. They leave you hanging with lots of twists, turns and cliffhangers.

Humour: Laugh-out-loud comedy! This genre is usually paired with romance. You have to have a very quick wit to write something in humour, otherwise you'll be spending ages thinking up of a joke and then where to put it in your story.

Paranormal: Full of unexplained happenings. Sort of a darker fantasy.

Horror: Blood, guts and gore galore. Horrors are usually pretty scary, but it does take some courage to go into detail. Warning: Not for the squeamish.

Adventure: Action at every corner, you'll hardly be bored reading an adventure story.

Thriller: A story that gets your adrenaline pumping? That causes your palms to sweat? Welcome to the world of Thriller, bruv.

Historical Fiction: Stories that take place long ago in time.

Teen Fiction: Stories aimed at teens.

Fan Fiction: Fan-written follow-on books to their favourite TV series/movie series/book series. Some are about celebrities too.

Poetry: Poems.

Short story: Short stories.

Action: A bit like adventure. Usually lots of violence.

Vampire: *shakes head* Another popular genre full of sparkling fairies, thanks to a certain Meyer. Vampires are evil. Pure evil. Pale, fanged, cruel monsters that thirst for blood. Not disco balls. Sorry that this is turning into a rant.

Werewolf: A story about werewolves. Werewolves are men or women wo transform into a wolf at the full moon.

Non-Teen Fiction: Stories for people older than teens

Spiritual: A category for stories about a boy or girl with a certain faith. Not the most popular genre, though.

Non-Fiction: For things that actually happened.

Watty Awards 2011: If you're entering it into the Watty Awards.

Other: For everything else