I am someone who wakes up in cold sweat wondering if anyone even gets me. My background is super-odd. Those who share my background don't consume English-language online fiction. As I age, I run out of those few readers who might have the same roots as me.
So, the most useful take away from Matthew Salesses' book, Craft in the Real World, for me was the remedy for this common Wattpad trap for a writer. Coming on Wattpad believing that the story a writer has in mind (or have written) should appeal across the board. To everyone. They must appreciate it if they only read it. If only Wattpad promoted it... It's a really dangerous trap that lends writers in pits of woes, uncertainty and, sometimes, locks them into pouring efforts into the only book they want to write.
The hard truth is that even if Wattpad puts the story in the banner on the top, this doesn't guarantee reads, and even less so--the snowballing success, when the reads continue to grow after the promotion. And, an even harder truth is that the best promotion we have currently, is the TikTok population talking about your story on their own, because they can relate to it.
The ability to create a relatable character and a storyline starts with precisely answering the question: Relatable to whom? And then learning to write for that audience.
Salesses has a great exercise in his book that helps you align your writing with your audience. I also love that it includes numbers. Numbers that translate well to Wattpad imo.
So, here is this writing exercise (credited to Salesses who derived this from Mat Johnson's workshop). Wattpad-relevant content is mine.
Step 1: Name one person who first sees your work, to whom you are writing and who would get your every reference, pick up on every meaning in an inline comment, notice all the hints, even when your writing is messy. Say, it's your ideal writing buddy on Wattpad, some folks in your writing club who are sincerely happy when your book comes up in the queue to read. Or your best friend in school or your significant other. That's an audience of one.
Step 2: Scale up and describe an audience of 1000 people, who would be ideal readers of your book, whom you hope to reach via Wattpad. Let's say they are college-graduate women, immigrants, in a heterosexual relationship or desiring one, with kids, that have read trad, and read over twenty books a year and like fantasy/sci-fi/paranormal/historical elements.
Step 3: Scale up and describe an audience of 20,000 people who would make your book a Wattpad bestseller by talking about it on TikTok--for example, college age women, in a heterosexual relationship or desiring one, who zip through a story in a day and will talk about it on TikTok.
Now take a paragraph from your story that accommodates the identity of the Audience of One, and rewrite it by admitting in the outside audience of 1000; then of 20,000. Notice the differences.
Then, when you writing a book, stick to the style and identity that you have developed for one of those audience groups. Leave the rest to them.
A couple of pertinent tips for writing when your writing style is strongly influenced by your ethnic background or the writing culture you grew up in, and you (like me) can't hope to readily find readers on Wattpad for it (I am including quotes or near quotes from Salesses in italics).
For the Wattpad audience that is multi-national, it's better to use common or colloquial words in a new way, than use uncommon words in normal ways. Yes, there are online dictionaries, but my mom pointed out to me, if the dictionary doesn't bring up a translation that makes sense in context as the top choice, it is just as bad as not having a dictionary at all.
The power of metaphor or a joke is cultural. Damn right!
A metaphor is where a character meets the world--a specific character and a specific world--and translates experience for the audience.
So, be careful with what a joke or metaphor is translating and broadcasting. Make sure that your metaphors are relevant to the character, world, and audience. Think of what shared cultural context with the audience is necessary for the metaphor to be effortlessly understood... and does it actually do a better job than plain language?
And, in conclusion, O Wattpad writer, know thyself, know thine audience, write for It and have wisdom to accept things thou cans't change.
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