Wattpad 101: Your guide to th...

By whatsawhizzer

382K 14.6K 6.8K

So you just started an account... Or maybe you've been here a while and you just aren't getting a feel for th... More

Day 1: What do I do?
Etiquette - How to be Nice on Wattpad
How do I get reads on Wattpad?
Critiquing 101
How to write a decent Critique?
Writing Dialogue
Dialogue Tags
How to Gain Followers
Copyright Law
Describing Faces
Ten Common Wattpad Pitfalls In Writing
In the US - The American Education System High School & College
The 7 Sins of Wattpad (What not to do)
Editing 101
Accepting Criticism
Writing in the Male Point of View
How to Write a Blurb/Summary
How to Come up with Good Title and Character Names... or Not
Writing Tools and Software to Help You Improve
Describing Bodies
What to do about Adverbs
How to Start a Story
How long should my chapter be?
What you "can" do and what you "should" do.
5 Complaints about Wattpad
Commonly Misused Words
Clichés Do Not Equal Bad
The Mary Sue and Female Inconsistency Syndrome
Sexy Food and Useless Descriptions
Unreliable Critiquers and Authors
Disposable Words That Bloat Your Writing
Describing Points of View
Critique Horoscoping
Pretty Little Nothings and Purple Prose
A Big Sloppy List of Cliches (By Genre)
Comments, Likes, and Readers; Oh my!
What's with your Prologue?
How to write a paragraph
Chapter Breaks and Point of View Titles
Six Inappropriate Subjects to Write About
How Do I Describe My Main Character?
Writing Your First Story
Wattpad Popular Versus Publishable
How I Learned to Describe My Books Before People Read Them!
This is Just Fiction
Filler Introduction Chapters
A Message for the Younger Followers on Entitlement
The Moral Question
Every Fan Fiction Ever Written
Every Fan Fiction Ever Written (Part 2)
Every Fan Fiction Ever Written (Part 3)
Every Fan Fiction Ever Written (Final)
Foreshadowing 101
Sex and Wattpad's Mature Rating System
Accents, Banter, and Lizard People?
How to Write an Interesting Story
The Four Narrative Forms of Fiction
Target Audience and Niche Writing
What Do You Want, Wattpad?
World Building 101
Sex, Consent, and America!
Plot Armor and Character Death
Editing 201 - The First Things to Fix
Wattpad's Ranking System Revealed!!!
Statistics and Demographics
Write WHATEVER you WANT
How to Become a Published Author
In The US - Classes, Homes, and Cars
How Much is Money?
Every Fantasy Ever Written
US Versus UK Grammar and Spelling
In The US - Diet, Obesity, and Fat-shaming?
How to Become a Better Writer
Every Science Fiction Story Ever Written
Fixing Format Foibles
The Weakest Form of Writing
Fan Fiction 101
"Show, Don't Tell" and Other Thoughts On Description
Writing Dialogue 102
What You Don't Write, Doesn't Exist
More Shameless Self Promotion
How to Write a Three-Dimensional Character
Outrage, Backlash, and the Art of Being Offended
Getting Help on Wattpad
Writing for Indians
Writing a Darker Story
The Group Mentality Chapette
Accepting Criticism: Take 2
It's Like, My Opinion, Man
Same Story, Different Writers (Part 1)
Same Story, Different Writers (Part 2)
What the Heck is Filtering?
Grammar Nazis
A Wattpad History
Please Star and Comment on This Chapter
100 Reasons Your Work Isn't Getting Stars
Quit Starring Yourself, You'll Go Blind
Git Gud: Some Advice for The Youngest Writers
Applicability Versus Allegory
Is The Bible a "Good" Book?
The Ten Grammar Mistakes That Anger Your Readers The Most
Self-Publishing On Amazon: Living the Dream
The Ten Worst Comments On Wattpad
Editing 301 - Drafts
Ten People You've Met on Wattpad
The Cost of Chapter Length
Emordnilap Palindrome
Help! Help! I'm Being Infringed!
The 10 Biggest Mistakes In This Book
An Update on the New Ranking System!!!
Reader's Fatigue
The Dream Sequence
Tag Your Story 101
Commenting 101
Microediting and Why I Don't Like It
I Don't Write Filler
When Arguing Goes Too Far (Defending Versus Arguing)
You're Worth It
Get Your Suspension of Disbelief Out of My Plot Hole
Five Skills Towards Becoming A Better Webnovel Writer
5 Critical Comments About Critical Commenters
Anchoring Bias or Why Your Brain Is Dumb
Public Readers are the Worst
Artists, Illustrators, and Book Covers
Grammatical Indecisiveness and the Philosopher's Bone (To Pick)

How to Get Over Writer's Block

5.7K 197 49
By whatsawhizzer

Everyone experiences writer's block. At some point, your brain just shuts down and you can't come up with anything else to write. If you have writer's block, or are simply creatively dead inside, here are a couple of ways to breathe life into it.  

1) Do something else:

Doing something else can go two different ways. The first is to do something else that requires your thought. Separate your brain from your writing. Forget about your work and gain some distance from it while you follow a different hobby. This will help your brain reset and get out of whatever loop you happen to be in. Distancing yourself from your work can help you return to it with a fresh perspective. I also recommend doing this between drafts of your work. Don't jump from one draft to the next, give it a few days so you have a fresh mind when you start editing.

The second idea of "doing something else" is to leave your writing but continue to dwell on it. Go on a walk, exorcise, listen to music... but also think about your work. The change of scenery, the physical motion, and the time to honestly just dwell on things free of the pressure to write can  loosen new ideas. Some of my best brain storming comes when I go for a walk.

2) Write Something Else:

There is nothing wrong with having multiple writing projects (within reason), so if you're creatively dead in one, hit up the other. Jimmy back and forth between projects to keep things from becoming stale.

Worried about starting too many projects you can't finish? There are two ways around this. The first is to not care or worry about your second project. Use it as a way to creatively express yourself without ever revealing it to another soul. Delete it immediately after your done if you'd prefer. It can be anything, a style you never write in, a genre you never write in. Write as much as you want. Just recognize that this is your "fun" writing and not meant to be your work.

The second idea is to do smaller projects. Write a short five page story. Try some little project, something you know you can finish in a single night. Then finish it. The gratification of actually finishing something is great. Plus you can edit and refine it to your hearts content until its perfect. Put THAT on wattpad. People on wattpad love short stories.

3) Write a different part of your story:

If you can't figure out what your characters should be doing next, then skip the scene. Assume they did whatever they were going to do next and then start writing after that. Write the ending to your book. Noone ever said a book has to be written in order. In fact, most authors do not write books in order. If you don't have an outline for your entire book, write one. Save the funnest scenes that you really want to write for the days when your just not feeling like it, hopefully the fun will motivate you.

4) Change/Sabatoge/Destroy Your story:

Your story is chugging along, suddenly aliens invade the planet. A T Rex drops on top of your characters. A serial killer shows up and start systematically murdering them. Pull a From Dusk Till Dawn scenario. Just change things. Make the scene surreal, ridiculous, stupid. Make it fun.

You don't have to save what you do. After you're done, all you have to do is hit the delete key. However, doing this does a few things. It helps you develop your characters personalities by having them react to situations that you normal wouldn't imagine them reacting to. It stimulates creativity in the brain. It also helps you associate the act of writing with "fun" and so even when you're writing the "boring" parts, you can still enjoy yourself.

5) Sleep on it:

Your brain is able to process thoughts while you sleep. So if you are really struggling with a particular idea, sleep on it. You may find that in the morning that your brain has gone through the questions and your body is more focused than it was the night before. This honestly fits up with the "do  something else" category, but I decided to add it because most people don't think about sleeping as "doing something". 

6) Do It Yourself

Discuss your story with friends, bounce ideas off them, and let them help you stimulate your creativity. This is a great way to help you develop as an author as well as a person. You need to be able to talk to people, to explain your ideas, and to get input and criticism. However, ultimately you need to do it yourself.

The forums are littered with "Make a title for me" or "Write my blurb" or even "Write my chapter"... and that's not really what writing is about. I know you have ideas, and you would love to see your ideas made flesh, and at least for some of you, the effort of becoming a decent writer is greater than the capacity to make your idea flesh. I get that some people want to just see their idea made... but don't really want to make it themselves. I get that.

However, I have nothing to really say to it. Sorry? Life doesn't work that way? You can't just sit on your arse and do nothing and expect life to just be handed to you? So that being said, whatever you do, and no matter how hectic your block is, in the end, do your work yourself. This is YOUR work, YOU should be doing it.

And good luck with your writer's block, believe me when I say you're not the only one. Everyone goes through this, even the professionals.

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