I find advice that tells you to “send a positive message” a little hard to comprehend, mostly because I read a lot of mythological stories and fables where the message isn’t exactly positive.
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I think those stand more as cautionary tales, which are also valid. A story is a story.
The “positive” angle has to do with popularity. Majority of readers prefer happy endings.
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Ah yes, I see.
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Ah, figured one out today:
Do not deal with editing when already in a bad mood.
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I thought of something to add on to what @RowanCarver said earlier. While useless at offering my own advice, I’m pretty good at parroting other people, so here are some of my favorite sites:
Writerly advice
Jane Friedman
Reedsy Blog
Writer Unboxed
Writing Routines
Write to Done
Authority Pub
The Creative Penn
IngramSpark Blog
NaNoWriMo Blog
AuthorTube Channels
Abbie Emmons
Jenna Moreci
The Life of a Writer
Alexa Donne
Author Level Up
ShaelinWrites
Michelle Schusterman
Sara Lubratt
iWriterly
Natalia Leigh
Heart Breathings
The Creative Penn
What's happening in the publishing world
Publishing Trends
Lit Hub
Vulture
Electric Literature
The Guardian
Slate
What’s New in Publishing
Eye on Design
There must be plenty more out there, but these are the ones I’ve stumbled upon. ／(=＾ェ＾=)＼
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I could name off so many things, but the one thing that popped into my head first is to explore other genres, ideas, and themes. It’s okay to have a preference when writing and reading, but if you only write in the same genre and use similar ideas, your work can become repetitive and boring. Now, you can write it because yes, you can write anything you want and don’t have to do this, but it’ll make your work so much stronger and better if you add a little bit extra to it. If all you write is romance, do a sci-fi or a fantasy romance. If all you write are murder mysteries, try it as a historical fiction.
Exploring other genres can help you not only have a better storyline, but it can also improve your ideas, allows you more to think on.
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I think genre hopping actually hurts me. One of my readers really liked my Regency Romance and said they expected to see more of them on my profile, but my stuff is all over the place. I dunno. I like writing standalone books, so all my settings and characters are different. I also write lgbtq stories along with the straight romances. I think it makes it hard for people to switch from one book to the next.
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Maybe on Wattpad, but I have this idea for sci-fi regency romance that’s way too cool to pass up.
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Just label their genre clearly and let it fall the way it falls.
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Don’t expect any of your first million words to be golden, but write them anyway.
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I do. Except there is no ‘drama’ genre that I really need!
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Drama…drama…drama…
Really the lists that they use for Wattpad aren’t really diverse enough, so any old thing gets shoved into a category, often enough.
Drama is listed with Tragedies and Comics, fairly often.
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Drama is just real life without the boring parts.
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Maybe the way to handle it is to have a section at the end:
If you enjoyed this, check out these titles.
And list what they have in common.
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I already do that. I try to bring my books together thematically, but in the end, I think they are pretty different. I remember wattpad when they had those community podcasts was talking about which genre’s audiences cross-over between each other well. But I look at all those successful writers and they seem to favour the same genre.
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reminder that everything has been done before.
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But most people have not seen everything before, life is short
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Published authors often publish under another pen name when they venture into other genres. I don’t know if that’s ideal for Wattpad because you do have to consider that some readers will be ok with another genre.
I think that brings us to another general advice:
An opinion of one reader doesn’t necessarily reflect the opinion of the majority. Majority of readers are silent.
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Yeah, I barely have time to maintain one profile on one site, lol. I would risk it. I mean, if people don’t want to read fantasy, what can I do? NOTHING!
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