Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

The Ten Worst Comments On Wattpad

As you go along Wattpad, you're going to end up having conversations with people. If you critique long enough and actually provide proper criticism, eventually you're going to bump heads with someone. If you're as opinionated as I obviously am, then you're going to bump heads frequently.

This chapter is dedicated to the clichés. But rather than book clichés, they are the cliché lines I hear over and over again. Some of them are used to defend a person's work. Some of them are used to deflect criticism. Others to weakly deliver it. And some of them are just sad.

I'm a big fan of defending what I say. Anyone who has challenged what I've said on Wattpad has probably experienced first-hand my own stubbornness and unwillingness to bend in my resolve. That said, I like to think I come away from any given encounter having learned something, and upon reflecting I will find that they had good points, and go back and fix what I wrote.

That said, here is a list of the top 10 (9?) worst responses on Wattpad. These are the things you say when you aren't reflecting on your writing. This is the most clichéd and weakest comments that you can ever write. And if you find yourself saying them or something close to them... you might want to reconsider. Or instead do what you really want to do, stick your fingers in your ears and sing 'lalalala' until the bad man goes away.

"It's Just Fiction."

I've based an entire chapter on 'It's Just Fiction'. Read it sometime, I feel it makes a few good points. The main take away is that claiming something is "Just Fiction" to declare that it shouldn't be held up to the standards and expectations of its readers is a complete cop-out. Your writing is never "just fiction", and being fiction doesn't somehow make it above criticism.

Now, I will mention that I've gotten into a bit of trouble with this one. In a later chapter where I wrote about Rape, I declared that I found rape fantasies forgivable because they were "just fiction", effectively using the same excuse I once condemned.

However, I think you need to understand the context of these statements. I'm declaring "It's Just Fiction" is a bad way to excuse or ignore negative criticism in fictional works. Because something is just fiction, doesn't mean it's beyond critique. Likewise, I don't mind if people don't like rape fantasies. If you want to critic or slam a rape fantasy, you have every right to.

No, when I invoke "It's Just Fiction" myself, I'm arguing its right to exist without censorship. It's a fictional art, I believe any art has a right to exist. However, that doesn't mean it's beyond reproach or critique. A writer should have the right to write. A critic should have the right to critique that writing. Period. It's using "It's Just Fiction" as a dismissal that I take issue with.

"You Could Use Editing Help."

The only one on my list that isn't a direct defense to criticism, I've also mentioned this line before as a major fooh-pah in critiques. Everyone on this site can use editing help, and it's ludicrous to mention this when most people are publishing the equivalent of a rough or first draft. I don't find it to be valid criticism at all because it doesn't help the person improve.

It fills out a comment word count great, but that line might as well be air for all the good it does you. It doesn't help people at all. It's a meaningless waste of breath. Unless they have really bad writing and you're trying to politely tell them to edit their work, and even then, I think there are better ways to do it so that they clearly understand their work is barely readable.

"My most popular story / A popular story does something you said was bad, so you're wrong."

Ah, this excuse, I'm sorry, I mean comment is one of my old friends. I've heard it repeated to me so many times that we've exchanged numbers and kept in touch. I'm godfather to his children, and we occasionally swap wives as swingers. Okay... that analogy got lost a bit, but the point is I'm more than a little familiar with this particular line.