with someone you’ve never met?”___________
Writing for Wattpad requires anticipating how readers experience stories on the platform.
With sixty-five million users and fifty supported languages, there is as much opportunity for reads as there is competition. In order to stand out, you’ll need to reconsider your writing process. Readers on Wattpad experience stories differently from other media.
That doesn’t mean you have to walk away from what already works. Writing a story involves the heart and mind of a writer. The heart imbues the story with passion and dedication to the very end, while the mind handles the ideas and vision of the story. The combination of these two empowers the writer’s storytelling to clearly communicate a message to readers and create a connection. These elements are essential in order for a story to succeed on Wattpad. They just need to be adapted for the Wattpad experience.
For starters, the idea driving your story must be enticing in order to stand out among the four hundred million stories on Wattpad. That number is only growing larger. You may have heard this advice about standing out before when writing in other media, but it’s true to the extreme when it comes to Wattpad. A story must be unfailingly captivating.
That’s the approach I took with my story, The Girl He Never Noticed, which has earned 170 million reads as of this writing. Some readers dove into the story again and again. It made their hearts beat faster, put butterflies in their stomachs, and lit a fire in their bones. So how did I make it? It had everything to do with anticipating the way my writing would be received on Wattpad. My entire writing process had to change.
In order for a story to be noticed on Wattpad, planning is key. Readers can quickly tell the difference between a tightly wound story and one that was thrown together overnight. There’s nothing wrong, necessarily, with writing on the fly (sometimes called “pantsing”) because Wattpad’s tools are set up to accommodate that work method. However, if you want to produce serious work that puts up equally serious numbers, you need to plan ahead. You need to be a “plotter.”
Because of this, you must first decide on the story’s subject matter and genre. Browse the genres and tags on Wattpad to determine what you will be writing about because those will form your targets. Choose something you’re passionate about and a genre you’re comfortable in, but let Wattpad point you in the general direction. Doing so will keep you from meandering and will help you avoid upsetting and confusing the readers once the story is live on Wattpad.
In my case, I write feel-good romantic comedies, with sexy, ruthless, and passionate heroes that make toes curl. It’s like a modern fairy tale. I love writing these types of stories, and my readers pick up on that. For those reasons, I placed The Girl He Never Noticed in the romance genre and gave it the tags “assistant,” “beautiful,” “billionaire,” “boss,” “ceo,” “funny,” “hot,” “humor,” “love,” “mystery,” “nerd,” and a few others. This wasn’t by accident. Having that in mind ahead of time informed the entire writing process.
Wattpad doesn’t set clear parameters for what is and isn’t a novel. That’s up to you. The scope of the story, reflected in the word count, depends on how passionate and committed you are to the story. If the story involves plots and subplots, extended time frames, and more characters, then it’s best to go all in with a full-length novel of 70,000 to 90,000 words. Aside from their ability to garner more reads and votes due to the large numbers of chapters (which can help your rankings), novels offer multiple opportunities to interact with readers in comment sections. In turn, their feedback motivates me to be a better writer.
That doesn’t mean that short stories can’t be successful. If you’re planning a story with a restricted time frame, few plot points, and not many character interactions, a short story (10,000 words or less) is a great alternative to a novel. Many Wattpad readers love to read short stories, too.
Again, these definitions aren’t set in stone, but the point is to walk into Wattpad with a plan. If you’re going to write a novel, write a novel. If you’re not, don’t. You’re doing yourself and readers a disservice if you don’t manage expectations right from the start.
Whenever I have a new story, I create profiles of the protagonists to make them seem real and alive. They include physical appearance, basic stats, occupation, behavior, things they like and dislike, and others so I can keep track of idiosyncrasies and character traits. This can be especially helpful if writers decide to write and post one chapter at a time on Wattpad, which is a common thing to do. You need to be able to keep track of the characters. If you get lost, it’ll be apparent to readers right away.
Along those same lines, a chapter outline is useful to remind you of the sequence of events. It makes the story easier to organize, enhances storylines, and prevents plot holes. Again, readers pick up on this stuff, and they have the power to point it out right away in the comments. Shouldn’t you be prepared?
Additionally, outlines speed up the story writing process. That’s important because readers will want a new chapter posted almost as soon as the previous one went live. This can be grating, but you should keep their Wattpad experience at the forefront at all times. After all, they’re the ones who will make or break you.
Outlines also help with writer’s block, which can put a story on hiatus and drive readers away. Readers always want fresh content, and they’ll let you know when they’re hungry. That’s a good problem to have, and you can exploit it even further by planting cliffhangers at the end of every chapter. Don’t feel like a chapter needs to have a natural finish. Cut it off right before a scene’s resolution, and leave readers begging for more.
This is not only an effective way to tell a story, it speaks to the larger Wattpad experience itself. Readers shift from story to story because they have plenty of options. A cliff-hanger makes your story more memorable because there’s an emotional attachment to it. It only takes a moment to reread the ending of an old chapter to get caught up for the new one. Remember, Wattpad is a place of extremes. Don’t picture a reader quietly turning pages by a fireplace. Picture a reader juggling ten books and a chainsaw.
However, cliff-hangers are not good all the time. Having too many can exhaust readers’ patience, especially if they’re executed poorly. You’ll wind up causing anger, disappointment, and frustration. Where one might naturally fit, go for it. If a cliff-hanger feels forced, you’re probably pushing your luck.
I google the titles I have in mind to find out if there are other books using them. If there aren’t any, I add them to a list of options. I come up with five titles before I narrow it down to the final one. You may have a different process, but there are certain things to consider regardless: The title should match the story’s theme, convey the genre, and pique readers’ curiosity. There are four hundred million stories on Wattpad. Grab readers by the collar, and pull them into the story. One way to do that is to ask for opinions from readers, family, and friends about which title on your list of options they’d prefer to read and why. After that, it will be much easier to decide which title to use. Taking a poll can also guide the cover-creation process.
Ideally, a story’s synopsis is worked out ahead of time to guide the writing process. Writers famously don’t enjoy writing synopses, but in this case it’s doubly helpful because there’s a natural spot for it on Wattpad. I simply boil it down to 100 words or so and put it in the story-details description box. This shortened version usually involves a brief description of the protagonist’s background, what the character wants and cares about, the core conflict, how the conflict started, and how the character feels about it. It also includes the consequences should the conflict fail to be resolved.
Here’s a great seventy-three-word example from Who What When Where Why Bot by Michael Estrin (@mestrin):
Daniel Guzman is a lazy sports reporter who invents a robot journalist to write his stories for him. Obviously, Daniel never read Frankenstein because if he had, he would’ve known that it’s only a matter of time before the monster escapes the lab and wrecks the damn place. Then again, maybe the newsroom needs wrecking, and perhaps Daniel’s creation, Mike Computica, is exactly the kind of technological disruption journalism has been waiting for.
No matter how you write a synopsis, always write with clarity. The shorter it is, the better. Do not provide too much information, hints, or the ending, or readers will lose interest in reading the story. Let the story unfold naturally.
Log lines are similar to synopses, but they’re much shorter. They’re the “elevator pitch” for your story. Some writers create them before ever typing the first word of a story to use as a guide. On Wattpad, they can also be inserted into the story’s description. Here’s a perfect example from Rosehead by Ksenia Anske (@kseniaanske):
A misunderstood and overmedicated twelve-year-old discovers a carnivorous rose garden on her grandfather’s Berlin estate and must unravel the secrets behind it—before her entire family is devoured.
Tag lines are an even briefer way to sum up a story. They can be worked into the cover design; found on social media, in sharable quotes (highlight a passage and click “Share”), in marketing; or used as a preamble to the larger story description. From a writing-process standpoint, they, again, keep you focused and on task. Textrovert by Lindsey Summers (@DoNotMicrowave), originally published as The Cell Phone Swap on Wattpad, uses a superb tag line: “Can you fall in with someone you’ve never met?”
With planning out of the way, it’s time to start writing a new story on Wattpad. You can use a laptop/desktop computer or your mobile device, whatever is more convenient for you. Just know that you’re not stuck with one or the other. You could start writing on a smartphone, save the story, and then resume writing on a laptop later. Everything is tied to your Wattpad profile. This flexibility frees you up to write stories anywhere: while at the bus stop, on a train, in the coffee shop, at work during break time, or at school while waiting for the next class.
Entire stories or individual chapters can be saved in draft mode, which readers can’t see, allowing you to finish up before hitting “Publish.” However, don’t rely exclusively on Wattpad for saving or storing your content. Back up your story elsewhere, too. Many writers follow a rule of three: one save on an off-site service (such as Wattpad or Google Drive), one save on the hard drive of the computer/device used to type the story, and one save on portable storage (such as a thumb drive). Wattpad is reliable, but you can’t be too careful. You don’t want to lose your work!
Now that the story details are all set, it is time to write the first chapter. The first chapter creates the impression of your work as a writer. Therefore, you have to nail it. Write an opening chapter that grabs readers’ attention. Make them fall out of their seats, gasping for breath as their jaws drop to the floor.
This is Wattpad, so write words that speak to readers’ emotions. Hit them right in the guts. You can achieve that by writing words that affect you deeply as a writer. Think of your greatest fear, your pain, the traumatic experience you’ve dreaded talking about, your horrible nightmares and demons. If it affects you, if will surely affect your readers. All you need is the courage to tell others about it.
But we should also remember that writing a story involves great responsibility. Writers should be aware of word choice because it can affect some readers. They can feel hurt and offended, and when they do, they have a host of tools on Wattpad to quickly tell sixty-five million other readers about it. Sensitive topics like abuse and violence, sexuality, politics, religion, tragedies, and others should be worded wisely and with due consideration. If you’re not sure about the way you’re writing, research your subject matter more thoroughly until you fully grasp the consequences of your words. On that note, Wattpad allows you to label a story as “Mature (17+).” Wattpad defines a mature story as containing:
Be honest about whether your story contains mature content. Readers can report content that crosses that line.
Even if your story doesn’t feature mature material, it might contain unsettling content. In those cases, give readers advanced notice. Either insert a chapter indicating that something unsettling happens next, or insert a message at the start of the same chapter as the content.
On the other hand, some content is explicitly banned from Wattpad. This type of writing could get the story or the writer booted. Such material includes the following.
These rules may or may not affect your writing process, but they’re good to keep in mind before committing to your story.
While it’s important to elicit a reaction from readers, don’t shake out every surprise all at once. Doing so will kill readers’ curiosity and excitement about the story. Give out details as the story unfolds. Be patient, even if the surprise you’re keeping inside can’t wait to get out.
Similarly, let the characters reveal personality traits, motivations, goals, weaknesses, and strengths through action and dialogue. That old advice to “show, don’t tell” still works well on something new like Wattpad. To paraphrase Anton Chekhov, don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.
For example, if the character is happy, show in writing how “his smile broadened when he saw her.” If the character is angry, write: “He glared at her with burning, reproachful eyes.” Write like you’re imagining a scene in a movie. This will make it easy for readers to picture the character you’re describing clearly in their minds and will provoke an emotional response. And when readers feel something, they’re more likely to comment on, vote for, or share your story. That’s good news for your story’s Wattpad ranking, which is even better for your writing career.
A setting is important, and you can bring it to life by using the five senses to describe the surroundings. This can make a story really stand apart because many writers don’t use all five. Think, “the smell of grass,” “the sound of birds chirping,” “the fresh air on my face,” and “the wind blowing through my hair” to evoke a pleasant, sunny day outside.
To help me write the setting better, I often close my eyes and imagine myself as the protagonist. I put myself in a particular time and location. It’s like traveling to another dimension. I write what I imagine and feel. That way, the setting will come across as more realistic to readers. Immersing readers in this way will keep them burning through chapters. There’s nothing better than hearing about readers getting lost in your words.
While I think planning ahead is a great route to take, some writers prefer to use reader feedback to inform the story’s direction. There’s nothing wrong with that, and it doesn’t exactly qualify as pantsing. Handing the story over to readers is a type of plan.
Some writers take a literal approach to this, and they keep things as open-ended as possible. However, that can roll off the rails quickly. A better way to keep readers engaged and the story moving ahead is to offer a set of options. Throw the question out there in a way that matches one of your own predetermined outcomes. Should the character do this, or that? Yes or no: Is it time for this character to exit the story? Where should these characters travel to next? That way, you can still hand over the plan to readers, but you’ll be confident that the story will still fit within the boundaries of your vision.
A softer approach to this is to take readers’ temperatures as you write. If the comments are positive, you’ll know you’re doing something right. If they’re negative, it’s time to figure out why. You’re still in control, but you’re getting real-time guidance.
Every story has to end. You need to anticipate how well it will end in advance, because readers want a satisfying ending. They’ve invested too much time and attention for it to be otherwise. The ending should resolve the protagonist’s conflict. Failing that, it should give a hint about what’s to come in the sequel. This is important because some readers will make a bad ending public. Even if doing so doesn’t involve spoilers, it can drive away reads.
The secret to writing on Wattpad is that there is no secret, despite what some will claim. I can only say what’s worked well for me. You’ll find your groove, and you’ll know it when you do. I credit my achievements as a Wattpad Star to hard work. I’m passionate and dedicated, and I go to bed thinking of scenes, dialogue, and endings. I wake up at four in the morning because I’m so excited to get started on my ideas. I just love writing stories. If you do too, you already have the secret inside you. Now go share it with the world.
Neilani Alejandrino is a member of the Wattpad Star program. Her career as a writer started on Wattpad when she joined in December 2012. Her first story, My Possessive Billionaire, was published in October 2015, followed by The Girl He Never Noticed in January 2016.