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You might not get it right the first time, and that’s okay.
Writing a book takes a lot of words, a lot of time, and a lot of thinking. With everything that is happening in your mind and on your screen, it’s understandable that you would make a few mistakes and create a few plot holes while writing your novel.
In the past, when you wrote a book without publicizing it on a website like Wattpad, it was up to you and an editor to find these mistakes. Some errors wouldn’t be caught until after the book was finished. Then you were stuck with questions. What do I do now? How much do I have to change? Did this ruin my overall plot? How can I fix this?
With Wattpad, however, the process is different. Wattpad has sixty-five million users, as of this writing, who spend more than fifteen billion minutes a month reading the stories on the site. There are literally millions of eyes to catch any mistakes you might make while writing your book, and they catch them right away in real time, not months after when you’ve already finished the book. This makes the process of editing easier and many times more effective. You owe it to yourself to take advantage of this opportunity.
As an example, let’s say that in the first chapter of your book, you mention that your main character’s father is in jail. Then, in chapter seven, your main character says his father is dead.
A reader will eventually point that out. Instead of moving on, you can decide what you really meant to do with the father and fix it. Maybe at first you wanted him in jail but then later decided it added more drama if he were dead.
You might not remember writing what you did because you’re taking months to write the book, but readers are taking minutes to read it. Everything is still fresh in their minds, so they can see plot holes more easily than the writer. It’s like having a real-life, real-time editor every second of every day.
Not only are readers useful for plot holes and editing, their reactions to a scene can help you gauge whether what you wrote works or not. If you come up with a crazy idea and go out on a limb, you’ll be able to see how your audience reacts to it within days. Do the comments go crazy? Do the reads drop off? Maybe it was a great idea, or maybe it was terrible one.
But you don’t have to wait weeks or months to find out—you’ll be able to fix it before you write the next chapter. Read the comments, and check the story’s statistics. Your readers will provide you the information you need to know. If it worked out great, you can move on to the next chapter. If the response was bad, go back and edit the scene; then send out a message saying that you’ve updated it. Not only is it new content to read, but once again you can see if the change made it better by the responses you receive.
You can use this method on a larger scale after your book is finished, too. You’ll be able to see what did well in your book and what could use some work by the amount of reads each chapter has.
Chapters with a low number of reads are ones that readers didn’t want to reread or never saw because they had already stopped reading the book. So if you have three chapters in a row that go 47,000, 30,000, and 45,000, you can see that something about that chapter with 30,000 reads didn’t entertain your audience well enough. So instead of worrying that maybe all parts of your book need more work, you can easily check the statistics and rework selectively.
This brings me to a handy feature in the statistics called “Completed Reads by Part.” This is the ultimate tool for gauging how well you’re captivating readers. As I said before, low reads may be an indicator that the chapter wasn’t the best it could be. However, maybe it was good enough for people to continue reading the book, even if many weren’t compelled to reread the chapter. The “Completed Reads by Part” graph shows you, chapter by chapter, the exact percentage of readers who completed the entire chapter in one go. This is a surefire way to know what chapters made readers drop the book.
For this example, here are the statistics from my book Hired to Love. When I examine the statistics for “Completed Reads by Part,” I can see that it’s about even across the board.
Out of the first twenty chapters, an average of 85 percent of my readers completed each chapter. However, as you can see in the screen cap, I have three major outliers—chapter one, chapter two, and chapter ten.
Chapter one and two having low completed reads makes sense because Wattpad readers generally decide by the second chapter whether they will continue the book or not. But I know something is up with chapter ten because the completed reads were consistent before and are consistent after.
So when I go back to edit Hired to Love, I know I need to give chapter ten some heavy loving. I’ll go to the chapter and read the comments to try and discern what readers liked and disliked about it. Maybe I didn’t leave an enticing cliff-hanger at the end of the chapter. Maybe the characters did something that turned off readers. Once I figure out what it might be, I can change it and see if my percentage goes up or not in the upcoming weeks.
Statistics aside, I’d also like to broach the topic of sensitivity reading. Some books are criticized for being insensitive, using stereotypes, or just being flat-out offensive. Whether the author wrote something without realizing it or not, the fact of the matter is that it is in their book and it offends people.
“But how am I supposed to know what offends everyone?” you might ask.
“Well, you could do your research,” I’d mumble before clearing my throat and saying loudly, “Or you can have a very vast and diverse audience read through it for you first. For free.”
Yes, let us not forget that Wattpad readers come from all over the world. Every culture, every race, every religion, every nationality. You have more help than any sensitivity reader could give you.
If you are writing a scene and you are unsure of how to approach a topic, ask your readers. Did I do this okay? Did I offend anyone? How could I change it so that it reflects everyday life realistically? Readers have no trouble telling you what offends them and what needs to be fixed.
A writer can’t be expected to know what offends everyone, but Wattpad makes learning easier. This way, if you release your work through a traditional publisher or self-publish, you won’t displease any readers or get a bad review because you miswrote something.
And speaking of displeasing readers, Wattpad helps keep your readers happy when you take the plunge into publishing your work outside of Wattpad. When the time comes, you’ll need to figure out what you wrote just for the readers, just for the updates, and what you wrote for the actual plot. There’s nothing wrong with writing a lot, but filler is not important to the plot and is just extra pages to print out when the book is ready to be published. So you’ll probably need to cut some.
Let’s say that you need to cut thousands of words from your manuscript. You’re not sure where to start, and you don’t want to cut anything that will upset your readers. Since readers are so vocal, you’re going to know what they love about your book and whom they love in your book.
If you go through all the scenes, you’ll find that the ones readers are fond of have the highest number of comments. So, if you’re thinking about cutting a character, first see what the reader’s response was to her. Did they care about that character at all? No? Then you can cut her. If there’s a whole chapter that really isn’t needed and it doesn’t seem like anyone is interested in it, that makes it easier to cut it.
What happens when you just can’t write anymore? I’m not talking writer’s block or being lazy, but when you hit that point where just thinking about your novel is stressing you out. How do you know when to stop writing? When to take a break? Or maybe just flat out quit the book and start writing another?
If you’re posting it as you go, your first step could be to ask your readers. Is your story holding their interest? Can they see this becoming one of their favorite books?
In most cases, your readers are going to urge you to keep writing it. That is one of the downsides to posting online. If you start a book and realize you want to drop it, be prepared to deal with some disappointed readers. But sometimes it’s better to drop a book than to stress yourself out over writing it, especially when you have readers demanding updates. Once writing becomes a chore instead of a pleasure, it’s time to take a break. If it’s taking you hours and hours just to write one paragraph, something isn’t right.
How do you know the difference between just needing to take a break and dropping the book completely? Be honest with yourself. Do you care about the book? Maybe you love it and are striving for perfection. This could cause you to overthink things, thereby making it hard to write. That’s when you just need a break.
However, if you don’t feel any passion for writing it but you want to continue because people are reading it, you need to end it. If you’re not passionate about your book, why should anyone else be? Writers will write a lot of books. Some will be finished, and some won’t. I have twenty-two completed novels and probably ten others that I stopped writing after a chapter or two. There’s nothing wrong with dropping a book. If you don’t, you could be wasting time on a story you don’t care about. The next book you write could be the one to hit the New York Times best-sellers list.
Now let’s say you got through the hardest part of writing—actually finishing the book. Congratulations! You mark the story as “Complete” on Wattpad and get that little checkmark on your story description. Now what? Do you move on to your next book immediately?
My advice is yes. As long as there isn’t a huge break in the time you finish one book and start the next, your readers will follow you to your next work. It’s not a one-and-done with them. If they’ve read your entire book, they’re not just a fan of the book; they are a fan of you. Keep them interested by continuously putting out new content. You’ll probably need a break from the book you finished before you start editing it anyway.
You know your work the best, but your readers aren’t that far behind. It’s okay to rely on them for help, and they are more than willing to help you out. Readers are a huge plus. Think of all the benefits I’ve mentioned above—people who write outside of Wattpad don’t have access to that. Yes, fine-tuning one’s writing was once necessarily a lonely endeavor, but things are different now.
None of this means that hiring a professional editor to review your work is off the table. Readers won’t complain that a story is too polished. However, Wattpad readers are also forgiving, meaning perfection isn’t a requirement.
Hiring an editor is a great idea if you’re ready to query traditional publishers, agents, or other partners. Whether you substitute the original story on Wattpad with the edited one (by manually replacing chapter content) is a call that only you can make. You may lose valuable in-line comments in the process or turn off certain members of your audience with a sudden change of direction if they are in the middle of reading the story.
Find reader engagement statistics by going into Create, then Stats next to your story’s title. Total reads, votes, and comments for each chapter are available within the chapters themselves.
You have access to millions of people who can help you realize your vision. Make use of that.
Jordan Lynde is a YA/NA author from western Massachusetts. When she’s not writing, you can find her eating at new places, interacting with her readers on social media, or watching K-dramas with her cats. Follow her on Twitter at @jordanlynde_.