Wattpad Block Party - Summer Edition III (August 2017)

Gabriel_Pope Presents: Another Writer On The Block

Hi guys!

Just in case you've never gotten to meet the awesome, super talented and stunning Wattpad famous superstar and reader certified bad boy, Gabriel Pope...here's your chance! Please stand in a queue, no stampeding, I'll sure attend to everyone and sign you an autograph.

Oh, wait...that was supposed to be just in my head, I'm not famous yet. Ugh! Let's try that again.

Hi, my name's Gabriel Pope (obviously). I'm a writer, spoken word artiste and professional daydreamer. A three-time participant at the Wattpad Block Party-the biggest thing on Wattpad asides The Wattys, contributing writer in the Tenebris Somnia and Sharing Nightmares anthologies, featured on Fangirlish.com and author of Hostel M2(selected by @UniversalHorror, @ExorcistFOX and @IncarnateMovie) as well as Crypt 12 (Best SciFi at The Cryptic Awards).

In case you're wondering why I had to mention all of those 'irrelevant details', I'll tell ya. As writers, we often tend to stress ourselves out over not getting on the big screen so much that we fail to recognize the little achievements we've made along the way. So yeah, that's me trying to take catalogue of my small milestones- you should try it too, you'll be surprised how much you've missed all this while.

So, I'm really not sure why you decided to get into this large orange sea of stories called Wattpad but I can almost bet that along the way, you've been tempted to write a story with hopes that someway, somehow it'll tick and you'll be hitting 10k views a day like all those many books you've gotten so attached to. If you eventually did write and publish that story here, I'm sure you know better now.

You've probably read many many many posts about bumping your reads on Wattpad, the whole gospel about getting a good book cover, joining a book club, getting active on the club threads, reading and commenting on other's stories, blah blah blah...but do those work? Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. Maybe they do but you just haven't used a right approach! Here's me throwing in my three kobo on the subject (I'm Nigerian so cents won't work).

When I first joined Wattpad, I noticed a trend which over time seems to have died out probably because everyone started shifting their attention to 'more important things'. Today, I'll try to hint at these things again!

WRITE A GOOD BOOK

I can't really call this the most important thing. There's still that global debate on if a book's success depended on good marketing or a good story, talent or sheer luck. Now that's a whole semester's discussion (college students can relate).

However, one thing I know for sure is 'I caNt readabook Writeen, like. this'. Seriously, man! Get your act together and hone your skills. Follow profiles and writers who give advice on the art of writing, search for books on tricks from proven writers, gobble down several articles on different aspects of writing. Be serious about this!

If you intend to see positive results, you have to put in the extra work. A conscious effort at transiting from being a 'writer' to being an 'author'. In my opinion, those are two ends of a journey. You need to try mastering the elements of a good story and storytelling and importantly, how to intricately weave them into your 'bestselling idea' if you're going to see a bump in your read count. Wattpad readers have grown past Harry Styles fanfiction writing pattern so if you do intend to net a few new fans, you'll need to up your writing above Wattpad standard.

I never knew Sandra Grayson (@SheHopes) until I had a chance to read Phantom Lens which she'd been commissioned to write for the premiere of the movie Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension. Her writing style was beautiful, professional and very different from what I'd normally manage on Wattpad. Today, I'm first to point anyone looking for a good paranormal/mystery book in her direction! And that all started with her writing style which spoke volumes of her ability to weave a good tale. Same goes to how I'd met Jason Kucharik (@JasonKucharik) as well as the wonderful Ann Hunter (@AnnHunter82) and C. C. Gillings (@CCGillings) amongst many others.