Here it is, folks. The movement to bring back our beloved genre to Wattpad. If you feel the way we do, come on inside and find out how you can help us succeed.
The Urban Fantasy Project is a movement that was founded by @xemnas4 and @eleholly after a long discussion about the lack of fit their stories had within the given genres on Wattpad. It was decided that a petition would be started and the signatures would be presented to Wattpad once it appeared robust enough to be successful.
Urban Fantasy is often a sub-genre that gets confused with other sub-genres, and we're here to set the records straight. Urban Fantasy is not Paranormal. Urban Fantasy is not Romance. Urban Fantasy is not Science Fiction. As a sub-genre of Fantasy, Urban Fantasy often gets overlooked in the ever growing pile of High Fantasy novels and novels about new worlds. Additionally, people often mislabel their stories as Urban Fantasy, especially those who are writing more Paranormal Romance novels that have Fantasy or Supernatural elements.
Urban Fantasy novels are exactly what they sound like -- Urban, Fantastical, and Fiction. Most stories within this genre take place within a city, usually more in a contemporary setting or in the immediate future of our world. Examples of Urban Fantasy novels that you may have heard of include Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson Series or Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson & The Olympians Series. These stories focus on a supernatural plight and are not romance heavy. The easiest way to tell the difference between a Paranormal Romance novel and an Urban Fantasy novel is to remove the romantic component of the plot and see if the story still sticks.
So How Do We Help?
In the following chapter, you'll see our petition. Be sure to read and then comment, if you agree. The more support we have on this, the greater the response we'll have from Wattpad.
Additionally, look into supporting other Urban Fantasy groups, such as Urban-fantasy.
We have started to collect our own pile of stories that we think are the best of the best of Urban Fantasy fiction on Wattpad to make your search for books like yours easier. Feel free to leave us a message on our message board to suggest additional stories that you think would fit into the Urban Fantasy genre.
Another way to help is to add the tag #bringbackurbanfantasy to any of your stories that qualify. That way, when people search for that tag, the bigger the list of books that come up, the stronger our voice becomes.
We've also got a lovely sticker that you can add to the cover of your Urban Fantasy books, to help spread the word.
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Okay, so who are you guys?
eleholly- I'm a relatively new face to Wattpad and joined in 2016 with my first story, Tempt Me. It was a major bust, but we all have to start somewhere. Back in November, I sat down to write a new story with more motivation and direction. My novel, Alpha, was born and quickly, Sanguine Lies followed. While writing my stories, I became active within the Wattpad Werewolf genre and realized that there are a lot of people out there like me -- confused on where in the hell my books go. So after meeting and befriending some like-minded people, such as Xemnas4, it became a no brainer that a movement like this needed to be started.
Xemnas4 - Like eleholly, I joined Wattpad in 2016 to start work on my first ever novel idea, Unleashed, a story I've been working on since 2009. (No, seriously, it took me that long, disgusting procrastinator that I am . . .) I have ideas for a great many other novels, and quite a few of them, including Unleashed, would actually fit into the Urban Fantasy genre. So after a surprisingly short talk with eleholly -- literally, we exchanged, like, four or five PMs before deciding "Screw it, let's start a movement!" -- UFP was born.
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We hope that you support our movement. Please see the next chapter for the petition and to add your signature our growing list!
