The Best Of Wattpad- July

ADVICE COLUMN; CHOOSING A GENRE, TITLE AND PLOT

Written by: madeleine161269

So, you’re writing a story on wattpad huh. Well first of all welcome to wattpad. I hope you enjoy the many things this site has to offer! There are a few aspects you need to write a great story. But the ones I’m focusing on today are choosing the genre of your story, choosing an awesome title and developing an interesting plot. Let’s get started!

First, you need to choose a genre. The genre is the story’s category. For example, romance, humour, thriller, teen fiction or historical stories are all different types of genres you could choose! You should choose one that interests you not what you think other people would like! Writing a story is about expressing emotion and sharing your thoughts and feelings. Not about pleasing others. You should also choose a genre that you can actually write about. Some people write fantasy, but if you aren’t good with making up names or places or creating things that would be in the future, it is going to be challenging. Also if you can’t think of some new, gruesome, ways to get killed, you probably shouldn’t write a murder story unless you can think of an interesting twist. You see what I mean? One last thing, you need to choose a genre that you find compelling because you wouldn’t want to quit your story halfway through because you built a plot around that genre and it doesn’t interest you anymore and you don’t want to continue the story. That sometimes makes people feel like they are bad writers and that they aren’t good enough to just finish a story. As you can clearly see, choosing a genre is a very important step in the story writing process.

You also need an interesting plot to work with the genre. So, once you have your genre, you can start! Choosing a plot is either the hardest or the easiest step in the process. If you have a good idea, you just build from that. You would need a main event and some smaller events to make the story interesting the whole way through. Don’t let the ending be a let down though! Please don’t do something like kill off the main character that everyone loves just because you thought it would be and interesting twist! Let me make that clear. If your main character is in the hospital the whole book and that is what the plot is about, the main character’s struggle to live, then, yes, I suppose you can kill them in the end if you must. But if everything is fine then a random man with a gun comes by and shoots the main character for no apparent reason, then why?! But if you don’t have any ideas, then let me help you out. First off, try thinking of one yourself, by looking around for inspiration or thinking, what if? There are also plenty of ways to do it without it being an original idea but you can make the idea suggest the writer’s club because it is all about the story writing process. In that club, you can ask people for ideas according to your genre. Or you can look for discussions made by other wattpaders that are giving out story ideas. Using ideas people post in the clubs sometimes comes at a price. You might need to fan the person, dedicate a chapter to them, advertise their story, or read, comment or vote on their story in turn for using the idea. Another way is to Google ‘story ideas’. There are tons of different websites that are giving out ideas for free! If you want to make sure all the ideas you are getting are within your genre, all you need to do is Google ‘fantasy story ideas’ if you are writing a fantasy book or ‘horror story ideas’ if you are writing about horror. Easy as that! Remember, you don’t always need to use the idea the exact same way! You can always change the idea around. No one is stopping you. Most of those ideas are just a base that you can create a story around. Feel free to change one or two aspects of the idea to make it your own. Or look at it and get some inspiration for your own story and forget about the original idea. Always remember to have fun while creating your story. It is your ideas and creativeness that will make this a great story. It’s your story so feel free to take it wherever you want it to go.

Last but not least, you need a title. A great title captures the reader in very few words, which describes what is going to happen in the story without giving it away. Titles should not be too long and give away the whole your own. In the ‘clubs’ section of wattpad, there are all sorts of different clubs to help you with anything you need. I plot. For example, The Story Of When I Woke Up In The Morning, Ate Breakfast, Went To The Store And Came Back To Find My Boyfriend Making Out With Another Girl. That is just stupid. I have seen man titles like that and the book turns out to be predictable because the title tells you everything that will happen. One-word titles are good because they are one appropriate word that describes the story without telling it all to you. You also have to make sure that you are giving your story an appropriate title, one that has to do with both the plot and the genre. Choosing a title is a very important step because it is the title that people see first. If your title isn’t interesting, some people won’t read your book, they will just skip over it to look at another story. The title is what first captures the reader’s attention, so you must make it interesting!

Now, you know how to create an awesome story on wattpad! The next step is to continue your story and stick with it until the end. No matter what anyone has to say about it!