Wattpad 101: Your guide to the world of Wattpad

The 10 Biggest Mistakes In This Book

Wattpad 101 isn't purely a self-help book. I wrote Wattpad 101 as much as a reference guide for myself as I did for the rest of you. Furthermore, I've been releasing chapters for some 4-5 years now, and a lot happens and changes in 5 years. I've written and completed a few books now. I've even published a couple of times. Things have changed.

Going back and reviewing some of the first chapters of this book can be a bit of a humbling process. I see some of the things I've said in the past and cringe. I notice crappy errors and grammar mistakes that have remained unfixed and think of the thousands of people who probably noticed all my crappy, crappy mistakes. To be honest, I'd probably have corrected these errors already if Wattpad didn't have such a sloth-like, buggy browser that made these kinds of fast edits a chore.

Suffice it to say that I've learned a lot between what I wrote back then and what I think now. Some of my opinions on things have changed, and sometimes I just have a better understanding of the ways things are now that I've experienced more. This book, if read from beginning to end, could probably do a good job exemplifying my growth as a writer.

So, here is a list of some of the things I feel I've gotten wrong or otherwise written poorly in earlier chapters. Maybe my opinion changed, maybe my brain was just in a weird place when I wrote it. Either way, here are the things I've said that may mislead or otherwise confuse readers.

Please note, if there was anything in this book that I absolutely didn't agree with, it'd be changed already. Most of these issues I've already gone back and edited by adding a few words, or otherwise created a new chapter explaining the concept in depth. However, these were the things that, even with the corrections, don't necessarily reflect my feelings on the subject today as they did in the past. In essence, these are the things I felt I got wrong.

It's Okay to Start Sentences with But, And, Or

Fresh out of earning my degree, I had the same mentality when I started writing this book as most high school English teachers. You don't start a sentence with 'But'. However, as I continued to look into it, I started to gain a better understanding of the word. There is nothing grammatically wrong with starting a sentence with 'but'... presuming that you write the sentence grammatically correct.

However, a shockingly large number of young authors don't write those sentences grammatically correct. Just because a sentence starts with but, doesn't mean that it doesn't still need to be a complete sentence, and a lot of new authors don't realize this. That, mixed with the fact that it gets lazily overused in writing, is why most teachers have told you not to use them.

Since you can write whatever you want, even starting a sentence with 'and' while not having it be a complete sentence could be considered fair game as long as you have a legitimate reason to do so. However, I still strongly push against its use. It's like a drug, too tempting for a newbie author to overuse and too easy for them to use incorrectly. Personally, I would use the word 'however' and I do... a lot! However, I've found some editing groups feel the word 'however' is too complex and pompous. It sounds too official and not casual enough in tone for certain fictions. In the end, if you use the words right, using 'but' or 'however' becomes more a matter of taste than any specific need.

Present Tense Has Many Great Uses and Isn't a Crutch for New Writers

There was a time in this book where I shut down the use of all present tense. I unabashedly told authors that using it was bad and you should feel bad. The reason for this was because I had just gotten off a kick of critiquing a couple hundred Wattpad chapters, and I had not run into a single one where present tense sounded natural... or even legible.