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Hide away, hush hush...
...go deeper, more softly away...
...away from the Mature rating.
So here's the deal. Unless you write erotica, you don't want your story to be rated Mature. You don't want to rate it that yourself, and you don't want to trigger Wattpad's Mature bot. There are two reasons:
One, readers expect Mature stories to be erotica on Wattpad. If your Mature story isn't, people who don't want something steamy will skip it, people who do want something steamy will be unsteamed, and you will be left holding the book. It's a lose-lose-lose.
Two, it may be harder to find your story. People can filter out Mature stories while searching. They do so to filter out erotica. Oops...
Therefore, if your story is mature for other reasons... like gore, or tons of cursing, or dark themes... try to tone it down.
Here are a few tips:
👉 Censor your works. Wattpad has an automated system that kicks in after each chapter you publish. This system has its eyes peeled for naughty words. Throw in some *s or cut down on them.
👉 Don't get explicit. Being sexy is one thing. Going into graphic detail is another thing. Use implication, metaphor, and dialogue to get around such scenes. Don't get too gory, either.
👉 Don't use extraneous material. If "mature" stuff happens to express a critical aspect of the plot, it's less likely to draw suspicion. However, if stuff happens just for indulgence sake... it's best not included.
👉 Write well and be literary. Back in the day (2015), my story "The Temperature of Frost" was slapped with the "mature" tag many times, for various reasons. However, I appealed directly to Wattpad each time and each time they removed it. Why?
Because it had genuine literary intent. It wasn't a good book, but its heart was in the right place. You get passes for that kind of material.
So come back out, sunshine.
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