Uh...yes, I fell off the face of the planet for a month.
Where was I? I was spending time on Wattpad. I first learned about Wattpad through a newspaper article that appeared in a local paper about two years ago. It is a free fiction writing site that seems to be mainly populated by teenaged female writers who write a lot of werewolf and vampire stories. There are also other categories, such as historical, romance, fantasy, horror, fanfiction (lots of One Direction fanfic to be found here), short story, spiritual, science fiction, humor, mystery/thriller, adventure, teen fiction, poetry, and action.
Wattpad has also been fortunate to attach some major names to it. Margaret Atwood was a collaborator with Wattpad in holding a poetry contest called the "Attys," in 2012. Harlequin held a contest last year on Wattpad, titled, "So You Think You Can Write," in which several winners had their finished work published by Harlequin. When Wattpad opened up its chick lit category in 2013, they were able to get Mariam Keyes on board.
Needless to say, Wattpad is filled with a lot of amateur writing, and it shows in a lot of the work that is posted on this site. However, I have been surprised at some of the maturity in the writing of some of the youths who have posted on the site. Unfortunately, you have to do a lot of digging to find some of those gems. It also appears that many of the authors/authoresses post as they write, so depending on when they get around to writing, there could be daily/weekly/monthly/sporadic updates. There are many stories that get started, and then abandoned.
As I mentioned before, Wattpad Land seems to be populated by werewolves, vampires, and other dark creatures. However, the ones who are writing these stories are often young adults who will also read regular teen fiction. There are many crossover stories that fit under multiple categories. A story may be categorized under the headings of werewolf/vampire/teen/fanfiction because the plot may include a vampiric One Direction singer who falls in love with a teenage werewolf. (I just made that one up, but wouldn't be surprised it there really was a story on Wattpad with that exact plot.) There is also fiction there written along the lines of the television show, "Supernatural," based on the two hunters, Sam and Dean Winchester, portrayed by Jared Padelecki and Jensen Ackles respectively.
What does it say to you when there is such a huge fascination with the occult and supernatural combined with teen angst? To me, this reflects a vacuum, dare I say...a spiritual vacuum.
This leads to what I really wanted to write about in this blog entry: if you are a Christian writer/author, or an aspiring Christian writer, please consider posting something on Wattpad. You don't have to crack into the supernatural world of werewolves and vampires (although I did run across one writer who attempted to write about Christian vampires). You don't even need to label it under the "spiritual" category either if you are not led to do so.
It's just that it would be nice to have something available on Wattpad to read in which people actually make decisions based on having one's identity firmly grounded in Christ. There have been so many stories posted on Wattpad, but very few that would qualify as Christian fiction.
There are some problems with posting on Wattpad. One of these is plagiarism. I've seen some previously published print titles uploaded onto the site. When the "Powers That Be" that operate Wattpad found out, they promptly removed those books. Some users have stolen stories and posted them on other boards other than Wattpad. One of the winners of the "So You Think You Can Write," contest ended up removing most of her stories from Wattpad because of this.
There are writers who have been published in print who are offering some of their older stories to get more exposure especially for their current work. One who is currently doing so at the time of this blog post is Scott Westerfeld. His novel, "Uglies," has been posted in weekly installments in the past few weeks. I don't think that he has finished posting, "Uglies," in its entirety yet, so there may be still a few more weeks to go before it is completely up on the boards at Wattpad. However, I don't know if he will leave the story up there permanently; stories can be removed from Wattpad, as I have previously mentioned. I wonder if posting "Uglies," on Wattpad has helped his sales for "Afterworlds," his latest release. He is certainly posting, "Uglies," where his target market is.
I've seen some writers try to get published after posting their stories on Wattpad. I actually recognized some of these titles offered on NetGalley and in the Kindle Store on Amazon.
The lovely readers on Wattpad have often left comments on stories that are posted; you might consider what the value of such feedback might be to the aspiring writer.
So, Christian writer, please consider posting on Wattpad, perhaps some drabbles, or chapter samples that you could use to direct your audience to where they can find your work. I hope to read your work on Wattpad.
