Behind the Writing// Tags. Advice. Inspo.

Writing Tips

When you begin writing on wattpad there are a few things you should know, things that I wished I knew or just plain good advice that other wattpadders have given me.

One; Your first book should be oneshots. I actually didn't think I'd like to write oneshots at first but now I love too; you have so much freedom with it. You can write oneshots about anybody without worrying about length and storylines and just have more fun with it to see if you actually enjoy writing for an audience. There's less stress involved with making your first story good.

Two; Don't worry about sticking to a writing schedule. Write whenever you want- update twice in one day or not for a month, you're just starting and because you're doing oneshots people are not hanging on the edge of their seats wanting to kill you. You're new to this and your readers will see that, take as much time as you need and a suitable schedule will work itself out as you learn (without others input) what is a reasonable amount of time for an update from you.

Three; Use an online grammar checker. This is a more optional step but it can (and will) really improve your work, there's a whole bunch of free ones online like Grammarly, Scribens and GrammarCheck. Grammarly's my favourite and what I use on an everyday basis for my writing and school, its great without buying premium but if can afford it premium is worth it- especially if you want to get more serious with your writing.

Four; FORMATTING. Now don't run away just yet, I'm not talking about that fancy a** formatting profiles like --timeless and -hopscotch do with large spaces and their song lists and complicated bold, italics and capitalization aesthetic getup that make your basic words look like dirt, I'm talking about simple spaces and entering. Putting proper spaces in your work make it look so much better and million times easier to read. Put your words into paragraphs and make sure your writing isn't just a big block of text. You should create a new paragraph every time the place/time changes, a new person is speaking or just a new topic. It does a lot in the long run.

Five; This one kinda expands on number four, character speech. When a character begins to talk make sure to have quotation marks, its a start of a new paragraph and that you've written who it is, for example.

"Hiya Readers!" The author exclaimed, shooting the reader a wave with a cheery grin.

See? I did the speech, said who was speaking, who they were speaking to and gave a description of their physical actions. It wasn't too lengthy but you know what's going on and didn't have to guess who was speaking or search for the actual dialogue in a sea of writing.

Six; This one may be a given but re-read your writing. I'm not asking to re-write your writing like some authors do but re-reading it will improve it and screencheck for pesky mistakes. If you can't understand it or even have trouble CHANGE IT. Your readers understand a lot less then you can because well... it's your story.

Seven; Don't overload your stories with OC's, this only pertains to fanfics mind you but too many OC's make the story feel overcrowded. Add one or two if you want but the cast and characters of the show/movie/book have already been crafted to fit the storyline and for the audience to fall in love with, not your OCs.

Eight; Adding to number seven here, DO NOT under ANY circumstances do a character page. By character page a mean a page like this:

Name: Gavin Montgomery

Age: 16

Skills: Blah, Blah, Blah

Pet Peeve: Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah

Family: Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah

Favourite Colour: Ugh

etc.

Do you get it? I'm only slightly salty. No one can remember all that info and your readers have to go and constantly check the page all that information is one. You HAVE TO write the information into the story. It's going to take a lot longer but if you actually want your character to be known you can't skip this step. A profile who does this a lot is insaneredhead, they have a million different stories on their page but still wouldn't be able to tell you barely anything about any of her characters.

This is also not to say you can't write them, I write them all the time in my journal and reference back to them throughout my writing but publishing them as a way to get to know your character is not effective and frankly annoying.

Nine; Have goals in mind. When you begin writing your chapter have an idea of where you want it to go. You don't have to know the ending but write down a few scenarios or even just jokes you want to happen. This will structure your writing and help you write longer chapters without going on tangents or into a boring storyline. This is especially important in actual stories (not a oneshot) so that you can look into the future of this book and make sure they get to the points they need to go to progress the story. Don't worry about punctuation or spelling while writing this, it's for your eyes only and each idea will give you another. This process is not about thinking on something then writing it down and stepping back and thinking again this is free-flowing thought process to refer to in your writing that maybe only you understand. Use abbreviations, arrows, bullets, abstract words whatever it will help.

Ten; Write for yourself. Write what you want to read, don't write something because someone else asked you too. Request pages are great and that's not what I'm talking about here, (because you set the guidelines within what you want to write in request pages) don't write a romance with a character you don't like because your friend loves him, don't write a comedy with something that makes you uncomfortable, don't write a _____ story because that's whats popular. This is a platform for creative expression- stay true to that and do what you want to do.

These are not rules or guidelines remember that, this is written to help and direct you into making your writing more successful, fun and easier. I hope you found that insightful, interesting or helpful.

-Rowan

Fact 3- This chapter was really fun to write.