Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

Critique Horoscoping

Hey Wattpad Author!

I just finished the first chapter of your story and I thought it was very interesting! I enjoyed a lot of your word usage and found the story engaging enough to read. The way you used your characters PoV could be a hit or miss, but in the end I think it fit the story well enough.

I was able to find a couple of spelling and grammar issues. I’d recommend that you got another editor for another run through. After you have an editor work on your story, I think it will be a lot cleaner and easier to read.

The plot was fascinating, and I really related to the main character. I thought their actions were justifiable most of the time, just be careful to make sure they always act properly within their own narrative. For example, as the character develops within your story, make sure that it’s a gradual process that fits with the actions of the story.

Without reading beyond the first chapter, there isn’t much else I’m able to say. Your quality is generally at your grade level and ability. Some sentences were weak, others were incredibly strong. I will continue to read on to get a better since of your story.

Other than that, Make sure to keep the story going! Keep polishing it and engaging your audience while releasing chapters reliably. Keep doing that and I’m sure your story will continue to get stars and comments. Good Luck!

If this critique applies to your story, then you are basically every author on Wattpad! Today’s chapter takes a brief moment to discuss a little phenomenon that I like to call ‘Critique Horoscoping’.

A horoscope is a forecast of a person’s future. It often delineates a bit of their character, and is often based on the relative position of the earth and stars during the person’s birth. They vary greatly from horoscope to horoscope, and are often published in public forums, where anyone with a February Birthday can glance at their horoscope.

Loll and behold, they read the horoscope and find that it pegs their personality down perfectly. In fact, the future forecast said they’d have a hard time and no sooner than they read it did their car break down. Wow! Horoscopes can tell the future!

Except that most of us know they can’t. Instead, what horoscopes due is state a series of generic statements that apply to almost everyone. They frequently backtrack, and give way out sentences like “You are a very serious person, but you like to have fun and cut loose.” If you’re a serious person, you’ll focus on that part of the sentence and be convinced your right, if you are a party person, you’ll focus on the second part. In that way, everyone, no matter how they act, applies to that statement. It doesn’t matter who is reading the horoscope, about ¾ of the statements will be correct, and the handful that don’t? Well, we’ll forget about them.

So, what does this have to do with Wattpad and critiquing? It’s referring to an even that I’ve noticed from time to time. I’ll admit it’s not the most common critique on here, but it’s apparent enough that every critic should be aware of it and avoid falling into it.

Basically, it’s the event presented above. You write a critique full of buzzwords and praises that don’t really tell the author anything. It doesn’t help them improve, because it’s full of generic sentences that don’t really mean anything. As a critic, it’s a real easy trap to fall into. Your critiques look gigantic and you look like a great critiquer, but in the end it’s a bunch of fluff. You might as well have just responded with ‘great!’.

Critiquers, raise your hand if you’ve ever said “You have some spelling and grammar errors, but an editor will help fix that.” Do you honestly think you helped the person you just critiqued? Did you honestly think that they didn’t already know that an editor would help them fix these errors, and by telling them this you’ve somehow helped them improve their writing?

I don’t think so, and I doubt you really think so either. So why waste everyone’s time regurgitating these old useless rotes? Because it makes your critique look bigger? It’s real easy to get to 2000 character critiques by just promoting and regurgitating pointless jargon.

So what’s the alternative? I know some people instead opt for nitpicking. They list off like a bullet point every little mistake they found like an impromptu editor. To me, that’s annoying, but saying that I know there are certain people out there that love that kind of thing. They like having their work nitpicked.

Personally, I like to focus on the big picture. A) Was this chapter enjoyable B) was this chapter readable C) Does the plot make sense and D) What thoughts and emotions are running in my head as I read. I assume everyone at some point is going to get their grammar and spelling fixed. If I ever mention it at all, it’s usually when a specific incidence is very noticeable, like excessive passive voice, or severe punctuation or spacing problems that literally cripple the ability to read… which goes back to part B.

So that said, I think you all (critiquers especially) should just keep a healthy dose of awareness on this subject. If you find yourself doing it, try to force yourself to stop. If you see a critiquer doing it, well… you can warn them, but in the end you might end up offending them, so maybe just send them a link to my chapter and they can come to the realization on their own :P.

Good Luck, and Happy Writing!