According to my profile, I joined Wattpad in August 2013. I then proceeded to flail about, posting short stories without any clear strategy. They were all one-offs, often in different genres and experimenting in style.
All of which is fine, as long as building a readership wasn't a concern. Ultimately, I write because I love writing and find myself becoming increasingly grumpy if I don't put some words onto a screen - that's why I quite happily wrote fiction for over thirty years without any assumptions that people would actually want to read it - but that doesn't mean that readers are unwelcome.
Even when the writing itself is your primary motivation, readers can only ever enhance that experience. Readers complete the picture: without them, writing is a one-way street that never quite reaches its destination. A dance without a partner.
In other words, I wanted people to read my stuff.
I'd been orbiting around the idea of serialisation but it wasn't until I attended SXSW in March 2015 that I really attached myself to the concept. SXSW is a festival which fosters creative excitement, nurturing it until it explodes into the wild as a new tech startup, or a film premiere, or an industry-changing TED talk. It was at a party out the back of the Palm Door, perched on the edge of a Waller Creek, where I found myself chatting with a guy from a Wattpad-like publishing platform startup. He was full of great ideas and was encouraging about the concept of serialisation.
On the plane back to the UK, a plan began to form.
It was a few weeks later that the idea for A Day of Faces took shape. I developed the rough plan of a story and tried to figure out how to go about serialising it. Everything about the concept was alien and felt risky. I had so many questions - should I write the whole book before I started publishing? Should I at least have some kind of 5-10 chapter buffer? How often should I publish a new chapter? How long should a chapter be? What day was the best for publishing?
I knew nothing. But that was OK, because at the very least I was going to enjoy writing my story. That's what it always has to come back to, regardless of how you're getting your work out there.
I'd discovered Wattpad. I'd decided to commit to serialising a brand new story, designed and written specifically for this online platform. Before I got started, I needed to make sure I was prepared and had the right tools at my disposal.
How did you discover Wattpad? What brought you here?
Next up: Don't use Word
If this guide helps your writing, you can buy me a coffee here: http://ko-fi.com/simonkjones
YOU ARE READING
How To Write Serialised Fiction
Non-FictionLove writing but find it hard to finish projects? Looking for a new approach to telling stories? Embracing serialisation can help you be more productive and get more readers. In this guide I share what I've learned while writing A Day of Faces, my s...
