When you first join Wattpad, it’s like a magical fairyland of unexplored possibilities.
But then reality comes crashing down, and you suddenly realise that it’s not all books and roses...
Like that moment you drop your pizza on the pavement and someone steps on it. Yeah, ouch.
The internet has a dark side too, and few people make it out unscathed.
Welcome, folks, to the six stages of Wattpad.
Stage #1 – The Honeymoon Phase
This is that moment when you’re a complete newbie on Wattpad, and you’re still finding your feet in the big orange world out there – figuring everything out.
You read almost anything on your recommended list. You ghost stories and rarely, if ever, leave comments. You follow all of your favourite authors, and stay up long hours into the night reading books.
Wattpad is just so damn cool. You can’t wait to tell your friends about it. “Look mom, free books!”
You waste study hours surfing Wattpad and binging on your favourite stories. The truth is, by this time – you’re fully and utterly addicted. You can’t get enough of Wattpad. It’s like an online drug.
Stage #2 – The Clichélitus Phase
This stage comes a while after the newbie phase – where the excitement of new books has worn out. By now, you’ve read just about everything in the teen-fiction section, and have even plunged into the romance and humor genres.
You could recite The Bad Boy and The Good Girl love story like the back of your hand. You can predict everything that’s going to happen next. You can talk about cliché’s in your sleep. Basically – you’ve reached the “bored” phase.
The phase where you become sick and tired of seeing the same old damn thing, over and over and over. In some cases, you become a passionate cliché hater, and start to avoid the teen fiction section like the plague.
And even better, ideas of your own start to spark. You say to yourself: ‘if someone can write an overused cliché and get millions of reads, I bet can too. But this time, I’ll actually add something original.’
You’ve made up your mind. You’re going to write your own book.
Stage #3 – The Paralysis Phase
This is the stage where you’re drowned by your own insecurities, faced by the harsh reality of putting yourself out there.
Wattpad is scary, and you fear that people will hate your work. Or even worse – won’t read it.
Those millions of reads seem unreachable, and you start to doubt yourself. You rewrite the same draft multiple times, and each time it’s never good enough.
You let doubt and fear of failure control you. You start to back out, and tell yourself ‘this is too hard, I can’t do this.’
Some of you hit that publish button, and then unpublish it a week later.
But most don’t even make it that far.
Their story remains a draft.
Stage #4 – The Indie Phase
This is that phase when you’ve got over your initial Wattpad burnout, and come back looking for more. Except, this time, you’re ready to try something different.
You start to discover a whole new world out there, hidden in the Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Paranormal categories. It’s like discovering a gold mine.
All of a sudden, you’re a die hard fan. You decide you’re never going back to bad boy's and good girls – that the rest of Wattpad doesn’t know what it’s missing.
You discover that amongst all the fluff on Wattpad, there is actually literary gold. It's beautiful, and it demands more attention. You realise that words can be a work of art.
And you fall in love.
Stage #5 – The Friendzone Phase
This is that stage where you’ve made friends in the comments section, left messages on peoples boards, but never really made a true friend or had a deep conversation past the small talk.
You discover the world of PM’s, and start to talk to people with the same interests. You talk almost everyday, and before you know it, you’re practically BFF’s.
They start introducing you to others, and next thing, you find yourself a part of a group who all know each other. You have an online family. And it’s freaking amazing. Sure, there’s drama, but it doesn’t last for long. You’re happy.
Until... some of the people who you trusted most turn around and stab you in the back, and you discover just how fragile most online relationships are. None of them were ever built to last.
Soon, a few of them fade away, and you make new ones. You move on, and create a new group. But you’ve learnt your lesson now, and aren’t as easily trusting.
Wattpad is volatile, and you’re stuck in the midst of it.
Stage #6 – The Writing Phase
The truth is, everybody wants it, but nobody wants to work for it.
Some people never reach this stage, and are content to be in the background, reading and supporting others. Without them, Wattpad would fail to function.
But there are a few who get over their fear phase, and decide to just go for it – and hit that publish button. By now, they’ve usually got a small network of friends who they know will support them no matter what. And that gives them courage.
They have yet to learn about the long, stressful, hard, and equally rewarding journey ahead of them. They have no idea what they’re diving into.
After the initial high has worn off, and they stop freaking out over every little read, comment, and vote, they will realise that there’s still miles of tough ground ahead of them.
If it gets hard, they pull out before it’s too late. ‘It was just for fun, anyway,’ they tell themselves. ‘I was never serious about writing – it’s just a hobby.’
The ones who are serious are the ones who have the hardest battle to fight. Because if they stick around long enough, they’ll know what it takes to be an author.
The haters trying to shut them down, the demands of their normal lives stressing them out, and the writers block that grips them, the pressure to update regularly, and still maintain an online presence by replying to comments and answering messages.
Sometimes it feels like it’s not even worth it any more.
And for the first time, you also see what it’s like to be on the other side of the screen.
No longer do books with 100K reads seem small or insignificant to you. You realise just how unreachable all those milestones seem.
You hyperventilate when you finally hit your first 1K. Everything seems like a dream – like it’s not really happening to you.
People start to call you famous, without realising that you’re still just the same insecure person behind the keyboard, no matter what the numbers are.
You realise that your readers look up to you – and that you truly have no idea what you’re doing. You’re afraid of breaking their trust, screwing up, or never reaching your goals.
Sometimes, it all becomes too overwhelming, and you drop offline for a while. You start to realise that “fame” isn’t all it’s cracked out to be. It’s hard, and it’s demanding. Those notifications are piling up faster than your homework. You no longer have time to relax or read.
But then you realise what it’s all for, and suddenly, you know why you’re doing it. Because nothing could ever compare to that feeling of finally getting where you want to be.
Finally being noticed. Getting recognition. That’s all you wanted in the first place – to prove that you could do it.
And so, no matter what comes or how hard it gets, you know that you’re gonna stick around.
So here it is for you kids – if you want to become a writer, it’s going to be gruesome, it’s going to knock you down, and it’s going to make you want to cry or scream and wonder why you even started in the first place.
But I can promise you one thing: if you’re serious about writing, it will all be worth it.
Every single battle is helping you grow. And that makes the struggle worth it all.
COMMENT DOWN BELOW – WHICH PHASE ARE YOU AT THE MOMENT?