Horrendous Tips on How to Become Popular on Wattpad

What do I Write About?

Of course, when you first join Wattpad, you may be inspired to write your first book. However, you don't know how. Relax, my children...Ms_Horrendous is here now.

The few questions we all ask:

I don't know how to write a book. I don't know how to start a book. My grammar sucks. English isn't my first language but I really want to write a book in English. I'm dyslexic. I don't know the difference between first person and second person. What is third person and first person even mean. Is my writing good. I don't know if my stories are good enough for publishing. I'm not good at descriptions. What do people want me to write about. I don't know which genre I should write in.

We've all been here before. I would never try to fool anyone and tell them that I am a good writer because I think I'm still a beginner. When people ask me those questions I always say the same thing. The first thing I let them know is that they CAN write a good book one day.

The truth is, new writers can't become professionals right away. There are many steps to learn and I can tell you right now, I'm not done learning. Not even close. So don't be discouraged about that novel get started. This is what this book is for.

When I first joined Wattpad, I was writing for fun. I wanted to make a great horror story that could scare people. Little did I know that good novels have a point or a message. I didn't know that when I wrote Hide and Seek, so there's really no message in that book. I have a book called the lovely suicide children and my messages are about finding your potential in life.

Why am I telling you this?

I want you to really think about that story you want to write and why? Why am I writing this book? Why am I writing this romance story? Why am I writing this fantasy story?

Am I writing this romance story because it happened to me? Because it's funny? Am I writing this fantasy story to show my readers the world I came up with? Am I writing this teen fiction to bring awareness to bullying?

Not everyone has a point for their story at first, but I really wish I knew this when I started writing. I wish I knew more about diversity and telling a story that people wanted to hear and a story that people could relate to. I found out a lot of my readers love the stories that they could relate to, such as having mean stepdad's, being bullied at school, falling in love with someone you're not supposed to fall in love with, and the Betrayal of friendships.

Honestly, once I realized that my readers really could relate to the few stories I had and I was so good at telling those, I let that become my theme. I stuck to this theme and now I have dedicated readers who can relate to these stories. I write horror for young adults and that's my thing.

Again, I am no professional on writing. This is just coming from my own experiences. I was never a good writer and I'm not a good writer. For starters I am dyslexic, and my grammar is out of this world. I am terrible at spelling. I am terrible at remembering my characters names, their personality. I often mix up a lot of parts in my stories or at things that I never mentioned before. You should look at me and think: "Okay, if she can do it so can I." XD

So how do you write that Amazing Story?

The first thing you want to do is find your genre. I always, always, always tell people this. Why? So they don't get stuck like I did. When I first joined wattpad, I was writing FanFictions. I did it because I really liked this show (Avatar the Last Airbender) I wrote it for me to enjoy. However, I wanted to get more serious on Wattpad. I wanted more followers and readers but I just wasn't getting that with fanfiction. I also wasn't enjoying fanfiction as much.

So how the heck did I start a story?

I found my genre! Romance bored me. Syfy was too hard for me. Fantasy wasn't my thing. It was really hard to find my genre. BTW, you can have more than one genre!

Even though I had no knowledge about writing, I tried writing. I was inspired by a Horror Story. I wanted to scare people. I think what may me continue to write horror is the fact that I always had one main focus at the time.

That was: To scare my readers.

I was doing that with a few stories, but at that time I was still a bad writer. So how did I get people to read my stories while handling the fact that I wasn't a good writer? Even though I would get negative comments, the secret to getting better is to keep on writing.

I'M ABOUT TO GIVE YOU A GOLD TIP, SO TAKE NOTES.

While you're working on your new story, at the end of every single one of your chapters I want you to ask readers to comment on every mistake you make. Writer, I know this is not easy but I want you to start taking your negative comments and looking at it as feedback. That is my big secret to succeeding on Wattpad. When you find out what you may be doing wrong, consider it, and fix it!

Even the best writers get criticized. Look at their reviews on Amazon, you'll see that your favorite author gets negative comments. You can't please everyone, but lets at least try to fix our mistakes. Don't let your mistakes discourage you. Majority of the good writers you know on Wattpad are wanting to improve.

Oh, and prepare to constantly tell yourself you're a bad writer. It's going to happen, trust me. I do it all the time. I think it's just a writer's thing...but remember...

IMPROVEMENT.

You won't always find out what genre you are the best in overnight, but you will know when you have fun writing it. If you are bored with the story then it could be the fact that you're writing in the wrong genre or you don't have enough taking place in the story you're currently writing and you may need to add or take out some things and let your story go in a different direction.

In this chapter I just wanted to touch base on genre. I will talk more about writing a story in the next chapter.