Dos and Dont's of Writing on Wattpad

6.Content

The content is now the bulk of the story.

Remember, every chapter is not the pilot chapter.

You do not always want to have that air of mystery for each chapter. Some chapters will be a bit bland. Some will just be fillers for information about the characters or something else relevant to the story to move it along.

Also, if you keep to many things mysterious or ambiguous you will have wayyy to many loose ends or unexplained plot holes for your story.

That brings me to my next point.

READ YOUR STORY AGAIN AND AGAIN.

Yes, if you are on a role and doing 5 chapters at once, you may not need to go back to check what you wrote.

But, it is important to briefly skim through couple of first AND last couple of last chapters you are writing.

For example, if you are on your 20th chapter, you may want to read the first 3 chapters and then chapter 18 and 19 to refresh yourself.

I'm not saying you won't remember what you are writing for your own story, but you may forget the certain tone, personality, or style you may have employed previously and doing so may even 0 give you new ideas.

I find myself going back in my stories to check certain plot lines or character behavior I have previously introduced.

Consistency with characters is key...OF COURSE many of your characters are developing. But you have to make it a slow transition. Can't make it too fast.

Ex:
On Monday, Gavin is all hateful towards the world and hates his ex-girlfriend
On Tuesday:She apologizes and all is back to normal and he falls right back into her arms.

NO NO NO

This is not how it is done in real life people. Yes this is wattpad, but you have to keep a bit of realism in your stories because the readers reading them are people after all and they need to be able to connect with the stories a little bit.

Falling back into love so quickly and making it all sunshine and daisies is not the way to go at all. It sends a bad message, especially to people struggling with certain relationships.

BUT you can show this happening along with the character's flaws and back and forth about thr relationship even though they agree you accept their ex back.

We need the conflict, tension, character flaws, and emotion.

We do not want bland characters that we cannot see ourselves in or see someone else doing something similar to in real life.

Going off of this further, you may want to introduce something new to your story if you recently get a new idea. But you MUST work it in.

As I've said, it doesn't sound right when you randomly bring something out of the blue.

In shows for example, if an actor suddenly leaves, their absence's explanation is often so bland and downright bad (sorry producers i know its hard).

But you have all tbe power in tbe world with your story because you don't need to work with any other circumstances that may take away certain parts of your work.

TAKE THE TIME TO THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE WRITING
It is crucial to know a rough draft of your plot or you will just try and endlessly fill up chapters without any direction.

I recommend sitting down and brainstorming and writing down:
1.Characters, their personalities, and their possible fates
2.the relative plot
3.setting
4.if research needs to be done to describe a sword fight for example or something about mythology.
5.romantic connections/other relationships or familial/friendship ties
6.happy ending? Sad? In between?
7.how you will employ a decently descriptive tone? And what emotions you want to convey and make the audience feel when reading.
8.what themes you will explore
9.the purpose

Now, I will say this again. Readers are humans and they want universal themes, characters they hate, love, or relate to, family/relationship bonds, and a decent amount of descriptive tones.

Descriptions are important. Not 5 page descriptions of a mountain. But maybe a paragraph describing the scenery or a page or two describing a sword fight. Make it natural. Use personification, metaphor, and other literary devices. Avoid using too many similes if it is a more serious work.

Finding the general purpose of your story may come to you when you have the plot figured out or it may come to you in the last chapter when it comes to the character themselves. But I would recommend knowing the purpose of your writing as it will guide you like a trail in a forest (see what I did there when I just said it wasn't recommended hehe).

Well that was deep.

Remember these keys and you will be fine :)