I will no longer be updating this guide. I'm leaving it up in case it will continue to be helpful to anyone in the future.
People have asked me writing tips, Wattpad tips, and whatever. This is some of that advice I give them. Keep in mind most of t...
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3/17/18
One thing I didn't cover last chapter, because I felt like it needed it's own chapter since the uploading chapter was getting a bit long, is the genre choices and how to pick the right one for your book. Picking the right genre can be easy, but sometimes it can be hard. Especially when you get into unconventional things like this guide for example. Is it random or is it non-fiction? Or when you have two genres that the book fits perfectly, how do you choose which to pick and which to tag?
I cannot stress this enough, put your story into the right genre. If you're unsure, then ask a friend or make a post on the Improve Your Writing club, lots of people would be willing to help you figure it out. And if at any point you get a message from Wattpad saying they moved your story because of some reason, don't move it back. Don't throw a hissy fit because you disagree. They're moving it for a reason. Respect that.
I won't go into deep details on the genre's here, but here is a run down on what each means:
Romance: This is anything that has love front and center. Two characters can be falling in love or even falling out of love, but love is there.
Fan Fiction: This is where you're using characters, people, or worlds from pre-existing material. IE: One Direction. If the characters aren't your original creations, they're a fan fiction. Someday I hope Wattpad will add a popfic genre so that the real people fan fics can be put under there and give a little breathing room for the non-celeb fanfics, but for now they're all under one banner.
Fantasy: This one can actually be tricky because there are so many levels of fantasy out there so how do you know for sure yours fits one of those levels? It's not as simple as saying it's where the world is made up, because there are fantasies that take place in a real world setting, though a made up world is what people first identify with fantasy books. If there is magic, mythical creatures, prophecies, then it would fall under this category.
Paranormal: The majority of these stories take place in a real world/modern day setting. This can also still involve magic and other fantasy elements, but the stereotypical paranormal story involves ghosts, angels, demons, and of course vampire and werewolf. The later two are so huge on here that Wattpad gave them their own genre. I don't think I need to explain those two so I'll be skipping them on this genre rundown.
Horror: This is anything that's scary or disturbing in some way. Monsters, things that go bump in the night, killer sewer clowns going after children . . . all horror.
Short story: This is, by definition, short. There's a lot of debate as to what encompasses a short story and what doesn't. I would say anything less than 50K words would qualify. I consider Novella's to be short stories for the purpose of Wattpad's genres. However, Novella's can be accepted in the genre's.
