Someone get me a box... I have a confession.
I hope I'm not the only person who feels like this but I always feel really bad when I do. How many of you have heard of Wattpad? *looks around* Well if you have, please skip the next paragraph as I try to explain it in few words.
Wattpad is a story sharing website where people kind of just post their own stories. People can do that whole commenting, liking and following thing on there. And I used to love Wattpad, back in my 2010 days. *shudders* Right now, I have things against wattpad as a website, but I'm not really here to talk about that.
Okay the problem with wattpad and the stories is that some of them are, for the lack of a better word, terrible. Some writers there take it seriously; writing is something they actually want to do. Whereas, some people think it's just a hobby, which is perfectly fine too. The problem for me is that the shitty books get a lot of popularity which makes close to no sense. I'm assuming its because it's one-dimensional teen fiction and all the girls eat it up, but I don't get it.
Let me give you an example: (story synopsis) "Meet Lizzie. She's a new girl at a mysterious school On her first day, she bumps into a bad boy with a motor cycle and a bad attitude. He's got a smirk that makes her heart flutter, but she instantly hates him. They start a rivalry as their senior year is going to be a lot more exciting."
So this is so annoying to me. A lot of stories on wattpad are like this one above. Some are written well and some are written like its by a eight year old, but the ideas are just stale right now. And this is where the post title comes in. After saying all this stuff I'm annoyed with about these kinds of stories, let me totally contradict myself by saying that I LOVE these kinds of stories.
YES! I love the teen crap. Reading things about bad boys or guys with bad attitudes is like the best thing in teen fiction. I don't know! It just is! And maybe that's why those books are so popular. But it makes me feel like such a bad reader when I talk about how books are unoriginal and cliche when deep down, my demon side is falling for the cliches. GAHHHHHH
Do you see my confliction? Do you have one too? Help me.
I've been a part of the Wattpad community for a long time actually. Since 2010, I believe. I recently took all of my work off of Wattpad for various reasons, but I still like the community. Yes, a lot of the people on Wattpad are super young like ages 11-19ish, but I find that all writers have to start somewhere. The stories I posted were pretty terrible looking back on them (especially now that I'm going back to edit some of my books). I shudder to think that a lot of my readers thought it was the best book they've ever read.
ReplyDeleteThough I've taken down my stories, I do post a writing guide of sorts to help the people in the community get better. Yes, sadly a lot of the writers on wattpad (particularly the popular ones) have extremely one-dimensional stories, but I think we have to look at it like this is their rough draft. It's not like they send their work to legit editors. The most editing they do is peer editing.
If we saw John Green's rough drafts, I'm sure we would be saying 'this is crap' too. I don't agree with how popular people get; I think a lot of them fish for votes and fans, but maybe its the essence of their stories that strike people. And that's okay. Sometimes, I think that if you can see past the terrible writing or flat characters to see the soul of a book, that's important and a really unique skill.
Overall, I think the community is young, but that's not a bad thing. It just means that they have a lot of growing left to do, and that alone can lead to some pretty awesome authors later on down the road. :)
Amanda @ Of Spectacles and Books
Cliches are cliches for a reason; it's all in how they're executed. I totally get what you're saying though.
ReplyDelete