Cracking the Wattpad Code: Insider Secrets the Pros don't want you to know!

Get Featured! Part 1

The readers on Wattpad? Not so much.

Some of them may be experienced readers, but a few of them are just starting out. Many of them won't have english as a first language. So the level of sophistication of the readers on Wattpad is completely different. The connoisseurs pay for quality, the masses take what is free. And Wattpad, ladies and gentlemen, is FREE. :D

Now, back to the Hot List. And here's why I said set your goals: if your goal is to be "Wattpad Popular" and land the Hot List, you're better off writing in simpler sentences, with less flowery speech and focus on making a "mental movie" in the minds of your readers instead. There's nothing wrong with this. 

Here's an example:

This works better for landing on the Hot List:

There were giant screens all around, depicting moving pictures, various advertisements and commercials. The colors from the screens lit up the entire city, filling it with a bright glow and casting shadows upon the tall buildings behind them, overlooking highways that went all over the city. Light mobiles sped along the highways as they went about their business.

This works better for getting Featured:

Giant screens dotted the landscape, a jumbled morass of shifting images and disjointed messages, casting moving shadows against the backdrop of tall buildings and twisting highways, where light-mobiles sped along their pre-determined mag-rails, encroaching upon each other in the darkness. 

What's the difference between the two? They both say exactly the same thing, but more readers will understand the first paragraph more than the second. One can argue that both are "well-written". No grammatical errors, and such. But the second paragraph is an attempt at real prose. Remember, writing is an art. Just like music or painting. Anyone can paint. But only a true artist can create art. That's the difference. Learning prose takes time.

But landing on the Hot List? Not that hard. You need a good story, that's going to appeal to as large an audience as it possibly can. That's pretty much it for landing the Hot List.

Good writing vs real prose

Take a look at Featured Stories from three or four years back and read them. You might find, to your surprise, that you write much better than a few of those original featured stories! And you might actually be correct about that.

Back when Wattpad was unknown, it really struggled with finding writers that would draw the audience that they needed. And because beggars can't be choosers, Wattpad featured stories with the following criteria only: it has to be grammatically correct, and the writer has to be somewhat competent in their choice of words.

That's It. 

Seriously. That's how easy it was.

Now, don't  get me wrong. Even the featured stories from three or four years ago are STILL head and shoulders better than 90% of the work found today on Wattpad. These are still the cream of the crop on Wattpad. BUT it was significantly easier to get featured back then than it is today.

And now on to another point. There's good writers. And then there's good writers, if you know what I mean.

Now, most published authors, are on a completely different scale. They understand much more than just good writing. They know how to set a scene, know when to change POV (Point of View) and why. They understand pacing, and what it means for a novel to be "structurally flawed". In other words, they're pros.

Fast forward to today's Featured Stories and you'll find them to be at a completely different level. The current crop of Featured Authors have amazing writing styles, and voices. Several of them are good enough to be published. In fact, a handful of them ARE. Getting featured today is very similar to the process of getting published.