Hey this is a really good point. Some people think that you’ve lost your chances of publishing if you post to Wattpad first or that people who post online can’t get picked up by presses, but this isn’t true anymore. Plenty of agents and publishing houses (especially independent houses) support writers who begin their careers online first, some even accepting manuscripts that have been published on Wattpad or Royal Road, etc. (like GurtDog, for example). It really is up to the agent or the press
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Fair enough from that POV. And having good habits is good, but I do still disagree with the 50k mark in some circumstances. (See below).
My point is, what if you have a brilliant novel and it ends at 45k? And you don’t want to add 5k of filler to ruin the story? As far as I am concerned, anything over 40k is a novel. I don’t know what people intend to do with the 10k in between the 40k and 50k. Why is ONC between 20-40k words if a novel starts at 40k? It’s about quality over quantity. I think that the 50k mark is a bit unfair in some circumstances. 45k is not a short story, and it’s not a novella.
Yes, writing 50k isn’t hard, but it’s about the story making sense too. I hate filler. I don’t have an issue with writing 50k. I just think that if a story has more filler to get to 50k and that effects the overall quality of the novel that it might be unfairly penalised in the judging for having a lot of filler (5k or more).
I meant if you rejected their Watty, would they stop promoting your story on the main page, or to people? I don’t care about agents. It’s a good thing to put on your query letters.
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You can almost always improve a story by adding some word count. Asking the question “what conclusions are my characters drawing from this?” alone will strengthen your work, as well as searching for places to implement emotional beats or adding some descriptions to flesh out a scene. There’s a difference between filler and then enhancing prose. Editing isn’t always about taking the word count down as much as possible, it’s about improving the work as a whole. Adding word count is often the way to do that. You can add word count that contributes to the story in a way that doesn’t involve writing filler
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I agree with this completely. Polonius may have said “brevity is the soul of wit,” but there’s nothing stopping 250K words from being just as insightful on average as 50K—and you’ll find what makes some of those longer books longer is that process of asking questions Rowan mentions, seeing what themes the characters are exploring or what the purpose of the story truly is. We just talk about trimming so much on Wattpad because it’s a site where people don’t have the patience for longer work or sometimes the ability to appreciate something that can’t be neatly digested in one sitting. If it helps, think about any of the longer successful books you’ve read @JohnnyTuturro , and what would have been missing had they aimed for a shorter word count.
Something like The Great Gatsby, sitting just under 50K words, doesn’t need to be any longer than it is, but that’s not to say Fitzgerald couldn’t have written a version quadruple the length that’s just as good. That comes with the ability to understand the nuance of longer stories and their pacing, and a patience that again isn’t encouraged on Wattpad. Look at how many people complain Gatsby, already a very short book, takes too long in its first chapter to get anywhere—or how with that sci-fi excerpt I posted a few months ago, people were calling it quits in the first paragraph.
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Honestly, it sounds like you really have your heart set on just one specific story that ended at 45K. Assuming it is so perfect you can’t add a single word without destroying its impact… So, it’s not eligible for Watty. So what? Some people, including me, withdrew from ONC before because they went over word count. It’s mot the end of the world. Write another one and enter that one into the pool. If you win, use that success to highlight the shorter form one. If it’s truly perfect, it will take off with the promotion Wattpad offers other works from the Stars. You are not only going to write one novel, do you?
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Re: the last paragraph, CJ was kind enough to reopen the thread with the sci-fi story in question:
If I recall correctly, this novella was under 50K words, for what it’s worth.
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Can confirm. My publisher knows about me using Wattpad (they also follow me on social media so know I’m posting on wattpad frequently) I’m allowed to keep up 3 chapters on there as a teaser as well. They love that I use wattpad. Mainly because it gets them and me new buyers when it comes out
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I don’t think Lío works like that. It’s one of those stories that has several threads and follows different stories. It’s kinda like a TV show in a way. It’s not a traditional heroes journey schtick. I think that is unfair that everything has to be 50k. Like 50k is the gold standard for everything. That’s the part that annoys me. Everyone is brainwashed by 50k. 50k.
Adding word count doesn’t always enhance the story, if the arc is sealed. It’s not just about adding words to it, it is also about improving what is there sometimes without adding words. I find myself deleting a lot of stuff to be honest. I’m not disputing either that adding things to the story does improve it (it might in some cases) but it doesn’t always work.
I have a conclusion worked for some of my stories but it’s not meeting the word count. The character arcs are all wrapped up. And I have also read great stories under 50k that wouldn’t get a look in on something like the Wattys because of the word count. I think that is the one unfair thing. They should have compromised around 40k.
Maybe I’m just very particular with my stories. My prose is very to the point. I’m not much of a purple prose person. I want people to read and understand it without asking questions. I don’t know what I can do to enhance the prose sometimes other than just edit the grammar and the punctuation.
I find it hard to add a lot of words to what I improve. I find myself deleting a lot of stuff for some reason. Maybe I am just one of those people who just are minimalistic. I do understand that some people can add a lot of words to improve their story. And I know that it works for some people but it’s just hard for me to add things. Maybe I’m the exception.
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I just don’t think you understand that 50k is novel-length, and anything below that is novella length. The Wattys is a novel contest. Do a critique exchange with someone and start thinking objectively, or as Sol Stein recommends, try and “look at your story through the lens of either an author you admire or an author whose work you despise.” It’s a great method for fostering objective thought and finding places where you can add word count to improve your story. I’d be damn surprised if you can’t find a way to get that word count up, stories are bare-bones if they’re just character arcs. You can use description, narrative summary, and immediate scenes along with emotional craft to bring them to a more fleshed-out, complete state.
TL;DR: People aren’t brainwashed by 50k, 50k is just what a novel is.
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Hmm. That’s a good idea but I tend to steer toward stories that are less than 350 pages. I have an incredibly horrible attention span, and I can’t for the life of me read long books without a massive break.
I should do that. Make some sort of essay about it. Yeah, that’s my point as well. It doesn’t need to be longer than it is it. That’s also a fair point about it maybe being a good book if it was longer if Gatsby kept up the momentum. But not every story is going to be over 50k. It’s just how it is.
And it’s also an interesting point that you do happen to bring up about the nuance of longer stories. Some people also get frustrated with TV shows being slow burners but they do get rewarded for sticking around and watching it. But I don’t understand how people do sometimes drop books because they’re slow and stick about TV shows. That’s weird to me.
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I don’t even know if I can get 50k for my other ones. I’m thinking a lot about them. I’m trying my best to smash records and go for it but I always fall short.
And just because a story is good it doesn’t mean that Wattpad is gonna let it win because they don’t see market value in it. I want to enter the Wattys but I think that it’s hard to play the game sometimes. They want something they can sell. Not just something that’s good. They want a market for the story.
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Some people say that it’s 40k, and others say 50k. But the think that I can’t understand is that a novella is 20-40k usually but a novel is 50k. What’s happened to the other 10k? Is it just there in the void? Would it not make sense for it to be 20-49k and then 50k+? I’m talking about in general, not just the Wattpad contests. I just can’t wrap my head around the actual categorisation of lengths.
I would have never thought of doing what Sol Stein recommends. That’s an interesting thing. A perspective change looking at a story through the eyes of an author you like/hate. Would that require using their writing methods? (Like for an example if someone wasn’t a big fan of Sarah J Maas, they would pretend to be using her perspective and her techniques to see the story?)
I am good at sorting my ideas and structuring them and making sense of them but I’m not always good at adding ideas to what I already have. It takes me a long time to generate new ideas on what I already have. It has to be a flash of inspiration and I don’t know how to do it outside of that.
I do need to flesh out things. I find it hard sometimes. I just write and I’m not a very descriptive writer. I’m very to the point like I mentioned before and my chapters usually are short. Snappy style. I need to really work on that. Lío has a lot of action and movements but it’s not overly descriptive and full of prose. It’s quite action packed despite being a drama.
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While the ONC contest considered 40k to be the maximum word count for a novella, anything under 50k is considered to be a novella in the publishing industry.. It only makes sense for the Wattys to accept novels above 50k words because it is a novel contest and Wattpad is trying to begin its own "press’ if you will, whereas most presses that publish novels will not accept works under 50k because, well, they’re novellas at that point. You’ll see it in almost all of the query instructions for the presses that you submit to, the ones that publish novels. They’re usually very clear about that.
I understand where your confusion might be coming from as the ONC contest capped WC at 40k and as other authors typically recommend 30k-40k for novellas because that’s a “sweet spot,” if you will.
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Ah yes, thanks for the clarity. It makes more sense. And I understand it but I think that maybe Wattpad needs to make it clearer that it is 50k because it is a novel contest. Or maybe I’m just not reading it and think its clear enough myself.
Haha yeah that is why I’m confused to be honest. I didn’t understand that. But it is what it is.
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Well, it sounds like you don’t trust Wattys process or judgment, but if there is anyone at all whose judgment you trust, you can ask them to look at a few chapters and see if there is anything systemically missing. For example, do you have backdrops for each change of scene/scenery? Can your actors use more fleshing out of the follow throughs? Take your outline against plotbeats and see if you can use a plot beat somewhere to get a reaction/connection. The big scenes, are they big enough? From what I seen of your ideas you tend to love stories, and they tend to sprawl because of feelings descriptions and ups and downs of the relationships.
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I have a few friends. And it’s more I don’t find it logical at times, but I guess Wattpad do what they do because well, they make the rules and they want to have a published manuscript by the end of it all.
I am thinking of completing Lio (it’s almost done) and just leaving it out of the Wattys since it’s too experimental. I have The Chronicles of Levi (YA), Happy Hour (Contemporary Lit/Romance), Jank (Comedy/Slice of Life), Marvin (Romance) and I Must Confess (Drama/Comedy) left as possible entrants.
I’m not sure which one would work best. Jank has the most chapters posted, but I don’t know how much I need to stretch it out for 50k and I’m not sure if it will work as a traditionally published novel. The main character also narrates the story with an accent.
TCOL follows Levi and his friends and his rocky relationship with his parents. (It needs a bit more of a plot developed tbh).
Happy Hour follows Jerry Jimenez, a man in his early 40s who has four ex-wives and runs a club called Happy Hour from the money he made being CEO of a local TV company. He is trying to find his own form of happiness, and he doesn’t approve of his daughter Sara’s boyfriend. He’s trying to juggle everything at once too. His exes, his job, and his family life.
I Must Confess is about a French actor called Roman Algabhar who only gets comedy roles and sidekick characters. This is his first drama role as the main character playing a priest in an international movie. He also falls in love with his co-star and that makes things difficult.
Marvin is about Marvin Rios, a lawyer who broke up with his ex, Adrian, and is trying to get over him. His rowdy neighbor, Rico makes his life difficult and they conflict almost daily. Marvin’s friend, Henry makes him download an app, and he accidentally matches Rico on it without realizing it’s him, and they end up dating. Chaos ensues.
When I pick one, I will be thinking:
In general, I try to have those. I try my best to establish each scene without being too wordy.
Hmmm. Fleshing out in their personalities?
Do you recommend any plot beat sheets? There are a lot of those. Some of them are a bit better than others.
I try to make them be.
Yeah, I discussed them all above. You can read and maybe help me decide based on that. I am good at coming up with ideas, but my issue is finishing them. I do think those ideas have potential of some sort.
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I only use Save the Cat, Writes a Novel, because they are so straightforward. I added the romance-specific ones from Romancing the Beat in my new outline but I didn’t write the story yet, so I can’t comment on how natural they feel.
Given how little time you have, I would suggest working on any story that is the closest to completion. Because right now, at least for me, there is not enough time to do much beside editing.
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Okay, thanks. So, maybe there’s a Scrivener template for STCWAN? Or the Romance beats.
Yeah, I need to keep motivated. Motivation is hard.
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If you don’t mind me adding onto this, there are other beat sheets that may work for you and other methods that don’t use beats at all, such as John Truby’s 22 steps, John Garder’s plotting methods that also tend to be more organic, I also really like Lawrence Block’s methods that he outlines in Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, and I really like the beats that Ben Bova lays out in his book On Writing Science Fiction that Sells–while the book talks about science fiction, Bova’s methods are translatable to other genres for sure.
There’s nothing wrong with Save the Cat and Blake Snyder has done a lot for us, but it isn’t the only method out there.
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Absolutely! It’s just what I found the easiest and Jessica Brody’s book is pretty much the most readable and practical book I have come across so far (Save the Cat/Writes a Novel). I mean her, not Snyder’s STC on screenwriting, in the interests of accuracy.
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