Exploring Wattpad

At my first Super Relaxed Fantasy Club, which you can read about here, I met a group of people who all publish their writings on Wattpad. Indeed, I met one author whose book had been picked up by an agent, and was published traditionally this year, due to their success on Wattpad. So, it has to be worth look, doesn’t it? We all like to read, we all love to discover new voices and stories.

What is Wattpad? It’s a website that allows writers to create and upload their stories for others to read. It is that simple. You can add covers, enter your stories for competitions, join the community, talk to other writers and read their stories. My friends at SRFC say that the biggest impetus for them is the constant and quick feedback from their readers.

Your next question, how good are those stories? Well, at least one is good enough to be picked up by an agent (Juliet Mushens in this case, and we know that she has excellent taste in books); The Novice by Taran Matharu. There must be others.

To find out more a little more I experimented by putting some my own writing up on the site, learning the ropes, and dipping into the community. Whilst that may be a thrilling article to read (probably not), I think it is much better to take a wider look at Wattpad, at least wider in the context of fantasy writing/reading. So, in completely unscientific manner, I picked the top three fantasy books (on that day), by Wattpad’s ranking system, and started to read. What follows are my thoughts – only mine, completely subjective and no doubt reflecting my own likes, dislikes and biases.

Oh and if you think that Wattpad is just self-published material, I made the decision for this article to steer clear of the stories by Mark Lawrence, Hugh Howey and Brent Weeks, to name but a few of the authors who have placed their own work up on the site. Another caveat, I took to these three like browsing the shelf at the local bookshop. I picked them up and read through the first chapter or two, just to see if I liked them, to get a feel for them.

Ranked 1 –The Robber Knight’s Love by Rob Thier (5.4 million reads, 183,000 votes)

Ayla has uncovered a terrible secret: the man she loves is in fact her worst enemy. As a mighty army gathers to destroy her and her people, she must ask herself: will he join them to destroy her? Must she cut him out of her heart to survive? Or is there another way – a way to forgiveness and…love?

Difficult one this, it is actually book two in a series, but I thought what the hell, give it a go. So I stared reading. First of all, it is not fantasy (yet it is number one in the fantasy category) and even the author refers to it as historical fiction, and it is really more historical romance. Already, not my cup of tea, however it is well written and has certainly been proofed and redrafted before being released. The two main characters are well drawn and there are hints of the past book. The pace is also good, at least in the three chapters I read, even though it is mostly focused on the character’s emotions and reactions to each other.

Of the three, it was clearly the one most professionally written, with great care taken over grammar and punctuation. But I go back to my ‘first of all’ – it is not fantasy. If you look on Amazon, you will find that the author has released book one and has a slew of good reviews for it.

Ranked 2 – The Celestial Knight by MyLovelyWriter (2.3 million reads, 83,000 votes)

Welcome to Valemnia, where a war between its citizens and demons have been ongoing for thousands of years. It’s the world wherein people blessed with magically inclined abilities are united to combat the dark force that tries to endlessly take control. But never once were they truly defeated. The struggle between the two opposing forces continues.

Now, welcome to Celeste Academy, a prestigious institution built for training its students to become valiant knights to defend the world. How would you want to meet the circle of the top twelve students who are considered to be the most powerful of their generation?

For Valeriana Kerrigan, it’s hell. Because there’s only one problem.

She’s the only human.

Now this one fits the fantasy label – there are swords and sorcery. The first chapters deal with the transition of Valeriana into the new world. There have been 2.3 million reads of this book (each chapter “read” counts as a ‘read’, from what I can deduce) and 83,000 folks have voted for it (basically a Facebook like), so it has some good reviews and history.

However, as the author also notes below the blurb, there are mistakes that need correcting. Some of those are copy-editing and some proof-reading. For my own personal taste, there were just too many change of perspectives in a chapter to make the story coherent and flow, and some of the sentence structures just pulled me out of the world the author is trying to create. There is a definite imagination behind this book, someone who has a clear idea of what they want to say and the story they want to tell.

Ranked 3 – Access: Brave New Reality by Storygazer (177,000 reads, 7,300 votes)

With worldwide problems popping up from overpopulation, those of the higher influence decided to try out a new brilliant idea before the situation escalates into an unfortunate end.

This idea? To send volunteers, those who suffer from being unable to contribute to society, into a new virtual world to live out their lives as all human beings wish to do.

Now in the fantasy world of ReaLET, pronounced Reality, these very people find themselves in an environment where the rules of the world relate to unusual digital elements. Although conflicting to some, many have accepted and used this very system to obtain Specs (abilities) that vary from choosing one profession amongst the many.

However, this new reality is far from becoming a fairy tale with a happy ending. Its cruel aspects come into light, one involving the fight against monsters (NMEs) and countering the lawless lands taking advantage of the world’s digital elements.

One year has passed since ReaLET has started. It is now that the story begins with Luke, a Struggler who battles through a series of unfortunate events. This boy of misfortune would eventually meet Scarlet, the Blade Monster who will share many fated encounters on her own path of duty.

The author here is tackling portal fantasy by placing the story in world where minds can be transferred into a game-like world – an MMO in this case. Of the three, this one was my preferred story as it gets right into the action. The story is told in the first person with all the positives and pitfalls, and sadly the author manages to stumble occasionally by breaking this perspective, sometimes in the middle of sentence. It is a rough draft, the author notes that on the front page.

In this world, the poor are either sent to the army or put into this computer constructed world so that their bodies can be kept alive by just the basic of food. I am not sure why the government would construct a multi-billion dollar system to look after the poor – a strange decision for a dystopia. Anyway, the hero is in the virtual world by choice and we follow his acclimatisation process.

I actually thought this was intriguing even given my issues with the grammar, sentence structure (“This place is vastly lit… Through the exit leads all three of us…”) and the strangely kind dystopian society. As a YA book or perhaps a little younger, I can see it working. The author admits their influences came from anime and computer games.

Of the three, this is the one that, if I had to, I would keep on reading.

Overall, in this little experiment into Wattpad, I would say that there are gems to be found if you want to expand your horizons. The fact that some of more popular fantasy authors maintain a presence there adds a little more gravitas to the whole thing. Future traditionally published authors have been discovered through Wattpad and there is no reason to think that will stop.

If you want to dig down and root around, you will find something to read with the added bonus that if you don’t like it, you haven’t spent any money at all. It is all free – that has be worth a look at least.

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