Rant on Wattpad

So there’s this site called Wattpad. It’s a site where you publish stories that you’ve written, which is great for someone like me who's been writing stories since I was little. Well, now that I’m older, I put a lot of time and thought into my stories to make them be good. I’m not going to make them perfect for Wattpad, but when I publish them as books, I will certainly make them to the best of my ability. My writing skills have increased dramatically over the past year or so, so while they’re not as well written as they could be, they’re pretty well written to compared to the majority of stories on Wattpad.

So you’re probably thinking, what’s the big deal? Well, I’ve been on Wattpad for a year and a half and I have 10 fans (most of which don’t even look at my stuff anymore) and the story I have that has the most reads on is the one that needs the most revision. I have three other stories written on it. One story in particular that I’ve basically finished with and hope to publish sometime either right after I finish high school or right before, I struggle to get any reads at all.

Part of it’s my fault because I wouldn’t advertise it because I’m having trouble deciding on a title.

The advertising portion of Wattpad where you put your stories in a forum so they can be read by more people is the most messed up thing ever. I will give you a quote directly from the Share Your Story forum’s guildlines:

“Trading Services:

Simply put, we do not allow vote for vote or click for click type of discussions. The reason trading services is not permitted is because it gives an unfair advantage to users who are going about the appropriate channels to get their story into the community.

Asking users to read or comment on stories is perfectly acceptable, but when users begin to negotiate for reads, we reserve the right to close the thread.”

To put it more simply, if you say you’ll only read someone else’s story if they read theirs is not allowed. Every post in that god damn forum violates that rule. Here’s an example of the threads you see in this particular forum.

I want to be perfectly clear, that these are actual threads that can be found in this forum and I am not making this up:

Read for Read? (:

I WILL BE A DEDICATER READER
Inside thread: “As it says I'll be a dedicated reader for your story but only if you do it for mine.”

My Daughter Audrey (Read for Read, Vote for Vote)

R4R

It goes on and on and on. It never ends.

You want to know what kind of stories they want you to read? The same teenage love story over and over and over again. I swear to god. It’s always some ungrateful little wench and her struggles with her friends and the guy she likes.

Are you kidding me?

Or it’s a story about some dirt poor girl. Or a story about a girl that hates her parents. Or a story about some weird ghost happening. What ever happened to originality. And I could get past all of this most of the stories weren’t complete shit.

Seriously, there people write one page chapters in which they write little to no detail other than someone’s movement or what kind of clothes their wearing. Then they end every chapter off with “Vote and Comment and Fan (: !!!”

And then I have to fake that I actually like these stories because a lot of the people are refusing to review and stories if you say something bad about their stories. God forbid that someone tell them that their stories aren’t the little masterpieces that they think they are.

See there’s a difference between me and them. I know my stories need work. I know this. I accept criticism because I know I’m not going to get any better if I never have my flaws pointed out. If someone wants to tell me that my story is the shittiest piece of literature that they have ever read in their lives. Great. Good. That’s good. That’s not going to deter me from writing. It’s going to give me reason to strive to make my writing better.

It’s just ridiculous. I actually take time to think of good, interesting characters and I’m met with nothing. For once I would like someone to read my stories and tell me what they think without me having to read some crappy love story.

Rant over

Lyrics of the day: “This is for the ones who stood their ground.” ~ It’s My Life – Bon Jovi