11.3.20
tw: mention of sensitive topics like forms of violence or mental illness.
gentle reminder: No one is discounting hard work. In fact, it's a PSA about how we must continue to work hard, and how we shouldn't take ourselves so seriously. Unless this is, in fact, your dayjob and Wattpad HQ is signing your checks.
Gorgeous readers and friends,
I've risen from hiatus to come to you with an important message that maybe we all should've heard before joining this website. Keep in mind, this entry is in the opinions section, and ought to be respected as such. No one can tell you how to live your life, because it's yours... but as your fantasy fanfiction writing fairy godmother (say that five times fast), I do like telling you my thoughts openly. It helps us bond, don't you think?
Again, it's an opinion piece and in this section, I touch on taboos, unspoken assumptions, and well... my thoughts. If the shoe fits, we don't love you any less. (We might just ask you to reconsider the dusty sneakers you're wearing to put on a better pair of heels.)
Anyway, you can relax into this one, I've come to keep to keep it real.
Wattpad is an incredible platform. It offers us the freedom to not only write whatever we want, but to publish it and open that avenue for so many other readers and aspiring writers to offer feedback. I can clearly recall the feeling of pouring out notes for Tear the Sky in my Notes app, thinking of ways to excite people, create plot twists, and add color to each of the boys' personalities. In fact, there was a moment where I buzzed with anticipation of getting it onto a page and showing it to someone--anyone--that might be so gracious to take a look.
Writing my first story felt a lot like casting a fishing net and hoping for someone to get ensnared in what I thought was worthy of a catch. It still feels like that after an abundance of successful and failed works, and even a group of readers (which, shout-out, I owe everything to all of you and I'll never be shy about it. Love, love, love you for everything. YOU are the real MVP).
But after some time of being on the website, we all have different experiences though we start in the same place. Heads up, I'm not covering all of them, but some examples are listed below. You'll know when you get to them.
At the end of the day, our origins begin in the fact that we're eager to share something. We've worked up the courage to speak up and present an intimate part of our work to the masses. We've planned, we've imagined, we've worked hard to type it out. We are, debatably, the most enthused and energized we'll ever be. And then we publish.
There are a select few that hit the right topics at the right time. The algorithm works in their favor. They wake up with millions of reads, they embody Y/N, they get to jump to the front of the queue and snatch recognition (and we simply have to hope they haven't adopted the ego to match).
There are some where the ascent is a bit slower. They bide their time, they continue to chip away at their story, and they mingle. Maybe they make it to the millionnaire's club, maybe they're kicking it with hundreds of thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, or thousands.
There are some that may not ascend. You know what I mean, the works that seem to get buried in the millions of other stories. The algorithm avoids them like the plague. A wanderer might poke their head into their story and no one's sure if they stayed. There's tumbleweed blowing across their message board and their phone might turn to sand because the notifications are so dry. (Which is okay! There are things we can do for this and I may make an entry for it.)
There are plenty more routes and experiences I can't even cover right now because I feel absolutely compelled to get this information to you. Yes, you. Whoever you are. Regardless of what you've got or what you think you've got.
Guess what?
The statistics on this website don't say a damn thing about who you are as a writer.
Let me repeat.
The statistics on this website don't say a damn thing about who you are as a writer.
They don't. They never have. But we're so often lured into the illusion that we're not worth it because a visual representation of our success hasn't followed.
Or on the flip side... some of us think we're more than worth it just because we've seen a high read count. (Hm, feel free to sit and meditate on this one.)
It's no secret that mentality changes are inevitable. More than that, it can really affect those of us that are newer in our dream of being a writer, or the young ones that are still building confidence and self worth. Perhaps we have hope that this story we've pulled from our own genius will be the one people flock to, the one that gets us a laurel and a seat on Mount Olympus. Even worse, we compromise our stories because we think certain scenes and content will get thousands more eyes.
But want to be let in on something else?
You don't have to incorporate smut to make something lovely. Your blurbs don't have to be sexual in nature to draw in a crowd. The amount of times I've come across stories that consist of something simple like Taehyung and Jungkook waiting at a bus stop for their chance encounter, but the summary has some halfbaked pun about riding something else. *Yawn*
You don't have to follow the trend of cliches that have been used so many times over that we can recite them in our sleep. This might sound counterproductive, but everything has already been written before. Our ideas aren't exceptions, but it's the way we reshape and manipulate the elements that make it fresh.
You don't have to write lowercase intended or make your prose "aesthetic" or visually pleasing. There are some stories where I wonder if the writer is okay because they must have run out of breath from all the purple prose and run-on sentences. And I hope their hands are good too from holding that thesaurus to the chest. (This is okay too, I'm just being blunt but there's a fix.)
You don't have to romanticize sensitive topics like depression, suicide, mental illness, sexual violence, emotional abuse, etc. (It's alarming that we still have to have this conversation. C'mon babes, let's progress. It's 2020.) A work might've leapt off the virtual library shelves with mention of some super problematic things. Fame doesn't excuse the writer from being absolutely out of bounds.
You won't be happy if you're comparing yourself to other people. Enough said.
And take the writing advice you receive here on this platform with a grain of salt. I'm serious. Protect your craft and reference experienced writers. Even published authors say you're getting better or you're getting worse. But besides that, isn't this what they teach in school? We're supposed to be skeptics so that we can improve. Anyway, let me stop short on this point because I'm already giggling and yes, you should be skeptical of my advice as well. Though I'd never intentionally steer you wrong... that's the thing. The consequences of some advice can be unintentional.
Excuse me if I'm too forward, but it is the freedom that Wattpad provides that can also be considered its greatest vice. Specifically in our humble fanfiction corner. Rules begin to form, and so do hierarchies, and so does our definition of what is considered a good work versus what is a great work--or what is pisspoor. The funny thing is, the buttons that allow us to vote, comment, or show our support can work against us too.
How? Well... one might not think they have to work as hard when they've crossed the finish line of ratings earlier than anticipated. Sometimes, success stunts growth. And with so many eyes on what's being written, it might show.
The pursuit of improvement never leaves us.
Yet the point is that numbers don't dictate the quality of work. We're not here because we're published, we're here because we're learning. If you're getting the hang of the process, you go! Do your thing! Wattpad isn't your be all end all, and you've got so much room to grow. Cast your net and see what you catch, and regardless of what you get, you've done something iconic in making a move for yourself and taking a creative step forward. Throw the pressure off.
And if you want to keep the pressure, name one person in our BTS fanfiction corner that's a published bestseller.
I'll wait.
If you've been here for a while, you already know the drill. You're braver than most and I hope you wear it proudly. We love to see you flourishing.
And if you need to hear this but haven't been told directly...
Stay humble. ❤️
With love,
Milan