3/17/18
One thing I didn't cover last chapter, because I felt like it needed it's own chapter since the uploading chapter was getting a bit long, is the genre choices and how to pick the right one for your book. Picking the right genre can be easy, but sometimes it can be hard. Especially when you get into unconventional things like this guide for example. Is it random or is it non-fiction? Or when you have two genres that the book fits perfectly, how do you choose which to pick and which to tag?
I cannot stress this enough, put your story into the right genre. If you're unsure, then ask a friend or make a post on the Improve Your Writing club, lots of people would be willing to help you figure it out. And if at any point you get a message from Wattpad saying they moved your story because of some reason, don't move it back. Don't throw a hissy fit because you disagree. They're moving it for a reason. Respect that.
I won't go into deep details on the genre's here, but here is a run down on what each means:
Romance: This is anything that has love front and center. Two characters can be falling in love or even falling out of love, but love is there.
Fan Fiction: This is where you're using characters, people, or worlds from pre-existing material. IE: One Direction. If the characters aren't your original creations, they're a fan fiction. Someday I hope Wattpad will add a popfic genre so that the real people fan fics can be put under there and give a little breathing room for the non-celeb fanfics, but for now they're all under one banner.
Fantasy: This one can actually be tricky because there are so many levels of fantasy out there so how do you know for sure yours fits one of those levels? It's not as simple as saying it's where the world is made up, because there are fantasies that take place in a real world setting, though a made up world is what people first identify with fantasy books. If there is magic, mythical creatures, prophecies, then it would fall under this category.
Paranormal: The majority of these stories take place in a real world/modern day setting. This can also still involve magic and other fantasy elements, but the stereotypical paranormal story involves ghosts, angels, demons, and of course vampire and werewolf. The later two are so huge on here that Wattpad gave them their own genre. I don't think I need to explain those two so I'll be skipping them on this genre rundown.
Horror: This is anything that's scary or disturbing in some way. Monsters, things that go bump in the night, killer sewer clowns going after children . . . all horror.
Short story: This is, by definition, short. There's a lot of debate as to what encompasses a short story and what doesn't. I would say anything less than 50K words would qualify. I consider Novella's to be short stories for the purpose of Wattpad's genres. However, Novella's can be accepted in the genre's.
Historical Fiction: This usually follows a real life event or person of some kind, typically in the past hence the historical. Such as if you're writing about Queen Elizabeth I. It can be a fictional character placed into a real event. Such as taking a character and placing it into the Spanish Crusades. The reader is essentially learning about the past through this fictional book.
Spiritual: This one I think I would get wrong if I tried to explain it, so I'm going to cut and paste straight from Wattpad for it: Spiritual fiction often involves a protagonist who embarks on a journey of self-reflection and self-actualization, which includes spiritual, although not necessarily religious, experiences. Spiritual fiction nourishes the soul, captivates the emotions, and attempts to explain existential questions such as why are we here, what is the meaning of life, and what happens when we die.
Humor: This is a book that makes people laugh.
Science Fiction: This involves space most of the time, but that's not all it covers. If your book is set in the future, space, has any kind of scientific or technological advances then it can be a Scifi book.
Mystery/Thriller: If your MC is a detective, solving a problem or puzzle of some kind. If they're an amateur sleuth or a crime lord, they'd probably fall under this category.
Adventure: This is where the characters take an actual journey. A lot of fantasy books can easily fit under this one, hence why a couple of my fantasy books are listed as adventure.
Action: This has a lot of similar traits to adventure, the character can take a journey but I would say there's massive car chase, explosions, there's more emphasis on the heart racing entities during the book.
Teen Fiction: Stories about teens. Their emotional journey with growing up, their first loves, high school, that kind of stuff.
Poetry: Books of poems. Easy.
Chick-Lit: Usually a female protagonist and I believe it typically deals with real life situations like college or first jobs, or whatever.
General Fiction: Usually a non-teen character doing everyday events. If you can't find a genre that fits for it, general fiction is probably the answer.
Non-Fiction: Real life events that happened to you personally, story guides, book cover guides, things like that.
Random: When your story simply can't fit into any of the above. Like if you're posting a blog, that's random. If you're posting a book of quotes, that's random.
That's a quick rundown of the genre's. Wattpad has a much better guide covering them than I just did. I kind of quickly went through them. Otherwise you can easily google what your genre is. Outside of Wattpad there are soooo many more options to choose from including all the sub-genres that it can really blow your mind.
Select the best category for your story. Any other genre that you feel can fit your book can be used as a tag.
Tags . . . those are the bane of my existence. I was okay when you could have a plethora of tags, but now that you have a minuscule twenty tags . . . I suck. Tags are what will help the reader find your story. Say you tag it "unicorn" and someone happens to type "unicorn" in the Wattpad search bar, your story along with all the other stories tagged unicorn, will appear in the results. So if you feel your story is Romance, Fantasy, and Adventure, pick one for the main category and then tag it with the rest. You want to tag the best tags to find your story. If your story has murder or death, you'll probably want to put those two tags.
It can be hard to think of the right tags. Do your best to sit down and think about how you might find your story in a search engine. I won't lie, often I go into the genre I'm putting it in and check out the books on there and what tags they have to see if any would fit mine. Tags is also where you'd enter contests, those projects floating around (IE: ProjectWomanUp) or to have your book submitted for the possibility of being featured.
That's one of the reasons I don't like the twenty tag limit. Say you're entering five contests at a time, that's five tags you lose. Yes you can delete those tags once the contest is over, but it still stinks. But that's another rant I'll avoid.