Wattpad 101 isn't purely a self-help book. I wrote Wattpad 101 as much as a reference guide for myself as I did for the rest of you. Furthermore, I've been releasing chapters for some 4-5 years now, and a lot happens and changes in 5 years. I've written and completed a few books now. I've even published a couple of times. Things have changed.

Going back and reviewing some of the first chapters of this book can be a bit of a humbling process. I see some of the things I've said in the past and cringe. I notice crappy errors and grammar mistakes that have remained unfixed and think of the thousands of people who probably noticed all my crappy, crappy mistakes. To be honest, I'd probably have corrected these errors already if Wattpad didn't have such a sloth-like, buggy browser that made these kinds of fast edits a chore.

Suffice it to say that I've learned a lot between what I wrote back then and what I think now. Some of my opinions on things have changed, and sometimes I just have a better understanding of the ways things are now that I've experienced more. This book, if read from beginning to end, could probably do a good job exemplifying my growth as a writer.

So, here is a list of some of the things I feel I've gotten wrong or otherwise written poorly in earlier chapters. Maybe my opinion changed, maybe my brain was just in a weird place when I wrote it. Either way, here are the things I've said that may mislead or otherwise confuse readers.

Please note, if there was anything in this book that I absolutely didn't agree with, it'd be changed already. Most of these issues I've already gone back and edited by adding a few words, or otherwise created a new chapter explaining the concept in depth. However, these were the things that, even with the corrections, don't necessarily reflect my feelings on the subject today as they did in the past. In essence, these are the things I felt I got wrong.

Fresh out of earning my degree, I had the same mentality when I started writing this book as most high school English teachers. You don't start a sentence with 'But'. However, as I continued to look into it, I started to gain a better understanding of the word. There is nothing grammatically wrong with starting a sentence with 'but'... presuming that you write the sentence grammatically correct.

However, a shockingly large number of young authors don't write those sentences grammatically correct. Just because a sentence starts with but, doesn't mean that it doesn't still need to be a complete sentence, and a lot of new authors don't realize this. That, mixed with the fact that it gets lazily overused in writing, is why most teachers have told you not to use them.

Since you can write whatever you want, even starting a sentence with 'and' while not having it be a complete sentence could be considered fair game as long as you have a legitimate reason to do so. However, I still strongly push against its use. It's like a drug, too tempting for a newbie author to overuse and too easy for them to use incorrectly. Personally, I would use the word 'however' and I do... a lot! However, I've found some editing groups feel the word 'however' is too complex and pompous. It sounds too official and not casual enough in tone for certain fictions. In the end, if you use the words right, using 'but' or 'however' becomes more a matter of taste than any specific need.

There was a time in this book where I shut down the use of all present tense. I unabashedly told authors that using it was bad and you should feel bad. The reason for this was because I had just gotten off a kick of critiquing a couple hundred Wattpad chapters, and I had not run into a single one where present tense sounded natural... or even legible.

I still believe present tense is a lot harder to master than past. I've been writing a lot of present tense lately, and I have to tell you it's been a chore keeping my tenses straight when I jump from past to present and back depending on what I'm writing. Present, in general, requires occasional leaps to the past when you're making past references. This makes present rather easy to screw up, and I do it regularly.

That said, present has its uses. It's great for bringing readers into the now. When done well, it can make horror feel more intense, suspense scenes more suspenseful, and wish fulfillment more self-insertion...y.

Like me, I know there are a lot of other authors reading a lot of shitty present tense. And like me, they've come to associate present tense with shitty writing and newbie authors. So, I think it's important to acknowledge the negative stigma associated with present tense, even though I'm willing to admit that perhaps present tense doesn't deserve that stigma.

During that same period where I was overwhelmed with bad present tense, I was also overwhelmed with the use of em dash. It was the first time I really saw it used heavily in writing, and I quickly came to hate it because of how abashedly overused it was. An em-dash is having two dashes --, which often gets autocorrected into one slightly longer line. It gets used in replacement of commas and could be considered extremely antiquated in its use. I'd go so far as to say outside of poetry, I see no reason for it to exist.

However, not everyone agrees. Admittedly, when I first shut down hyphenations, I had never even heard of the word em dash. I'll admit it. I was ignorant. However, it didn't take me long after learning about it to immediately form an extremely negative opinion about it. As I said, I was seeing them everywhere, replacing places where a comma would do a better job.

When someone reads, they smoothly read across the page. An em dash sits between the words, breaking them apart. If you need more emphasis on the word, an em dash will work. However, if you don't need more emphasis, you're dragging a reader out of your reading. You're interrupting their focus and dragging their attention to something less important. When I speak poorly of it and call it a pitfall, I still believe it to be a pitfall. However, there is nothing wrong with using an em dash if you want.

Although not as bad as present tense, I've talked down on first person a little bit in this book too. First person is fine. I've had a lot of people step up and tell me they didn't start with first person. At least, there have been enough people that calling first person the default seems a little silly now.

Like with present, I have to mention that the stigma is still there. If you want your story to be in first person, you're going to have to fight a slightly uphill battle. There are a lot of weak writing done in present and first person, and so if you choose present and first person, you're going to need to prove them wrong.

The second you become an 'I', you're going to be accused of self-inserting into the story. It's not the end of the world if you do, but as far as being creative goes, just writing yourself getting what you want can hardly be called creativity. So, it has its own negative stigma.

Write whatever you want though, and first person is perfectly fine. I've done it myself a bunch, and there is nothing wrong with 'I'.

I usually talk pretty sarcastically in here, so I embellish my age sometimes and often refer to my audience as younger. This has caused some tension with some people since not all of my audience are teenage girls (although the numbers exceed 50%, I can see the demographics). I'm 32 years old at the moment, and some people get put off by my youthful age yet cocky way of presenting myself.

Apparently, they think an author that only published for the first time last year and posts on a site primarily known for being populated by teenage girls was a 50-year-old veteran bringing in oodles of life experience. A couple others seem to think I actually work for Wattpad and that this is literally a Wattpad sanctioned book. :/

Either way, I'm only 32 years young, although it's a common "joke" in the fanficition that populates this site (one I've made fun of in both my books 'Everything Every Written' on Wattpad and in my 'Teen Supernatural Romance series' on Amazon) that teens have a skewed view of age and see the 30s as "really old", rather than the prime of your life, just when you're old enough to have some life knowledge and young enough to still have the energy to use that knowledge.

I've applied a broad stroke with a lot my comments, and usually, I hit teenagers pretty hard with my generalized statements. I like to reiterate that I always acknowledge the many exceptions to the rules, but in general, I find it hard to believe all these Wattpad teenage authors are natural geniuses being held down by those damn adults. You may feel that way sometimes, but you're wrong. I wrote an entire chapter explaining why there is a bias towards younger people... and it's a bias not only justified, but legally enforced.

Age limits are on sex, drinking, driving, military service, permission to work... even this website caps you at 13 and if you're 12 you lied to make an account on here. The point being, when I say you're not experienced enough, I'm using the same logic that society has already sanctioned and is pretty strict on. Don't try to tell me a 14 year old girl is too young to work or drive but you feel she's old enough to face the criticisms of an adult.

Still, I've made comments that are sure to bug people, so this is me apologizing for the worst of them. I'm probably not going to change my opinion, but I will recognize that there are exceptions and that I've been wrong in the past. That last thing I want is for anyone to be dispirited or to stop writing because getting there seems too daunting. You write you.

I don't exactly mention it every chapter, and I don't put it in my profile description, but I am graduating this year with my doctorate in biomedical science. In the past, I've had people dissing many of the opinions I've had in this book. I always respond by arguing my case. It's simply not in my nature to remain silent and let people crap over my opinions.

I'm also a bit of an equal opportunity replier. If you comment snappishly or rude, I'll often respond back just as rude. I find it a bit funny when a teenager will suddenly pull the "I'm just a kid, shouldn't you be the bigger person and always treat me nice no matter how rude I am to you" argument as soon as I pull them on that. My answer? I have no freaking clue what your sex, age, or background is when you started attacking me.

And unless you are the one person who had actually read every chapter of my book, you probably know very little about my sex, age, or background. Well, if you read this you now know I'm male, 32, a doctoral student in science, and an Aquarius... hello ladies... err... scratch that... I'm also married with kids.

Suffice it to say, I'm not going to Facebook stalk every person who comments on my book, and I don't know who you are so I'm going to treat you like I treat everyone else. And likewise, I'm going to respond to you how you responded to me. My chapters are always written generally and don't ever mention anyone personally. If you chose to take something from my chapter personal and then respond by delivering a personal attack to me... I consider you the instigator. My chapter is just out there for everyone to read. You're the one who came attacking me, and if you want a fight, I will defend myself.

That said, I feel like a good way to defend myself is by explaining my background and where I'm coming from. In that case, I think the fact that I have published before, that I am at a doctoral Ph.D. level of education, that I've been doing this for ten years, even the moderate success of this very book... I think all of that matters when you want to consider my opinion.

However, it's very difficult to tell someone your education level without them immediately thinking you're talking down to them. If my level is Ph.D., I must be looking down on your HSD. Personally, I think the fact I'm willing to even argue and explain myself shows a bit of humility. If I truly looked down on people, I wouldn't even defend myself because they're "just a kid" and "what do they know." Someone who was looking down on you wouldn't even acknowledge you, or they'd just shut you down with a personal attack.

No... I defend myself and banter with people because sometimes I learn something from it. I swap blows because I see it as a teaching and learning opportunity. And the only time I've mentioned my education level is when someone seems to question it or pull out their own first.

Still, this is a chapter on the mistakes I've made, and I acknowledge it can be a kind of "shutting someone down" when you pull out your doctorate (that I don't even have yet). I'm sorry if that's how it's received.

In one of my very first chapters, and one likely to be seen 10X more than this chapter, I crapped on chapter critiques. This is perhaps one of my cringiest chapters and voted one of the most likely to need a rewriting by me. I was still pushing to use the word critiquer instead of critic to differentiate between professionals and the amateurs you can hire from this website, yadda yadda... it's a mess.

Anyway, Wattpad is built around the comment and starring system. You really can't give proper whole work critiques (the size cap alone makes it difficult). And being as they are talking about so much at once, the critiques actually might not be the best way to critique a work. There is plenty of advantage to chapter critiques and giving people updates. Once the book is finished, it's way... way... way... too late to be making massive changes to the story. So, if your characters are garbage and make no sense, finding that out in a whole work will basically ruin you.

I'll still say first Impression critiques are a lazy cash grab, and there are only so many times you can have someone glance over your first chapter before you need to move on to the second chapter and the third and oh, yeah, the rest of the book.

I should also point out that when I wrote this, there was a feature on Wattpad that didn't exist yet. That's the line to line comments. In the past, there was absolutely no way to comment on a single line of text with quotations. And since copy/paste is disabled, you had to manually type out what someone wrote to reply. They added the highlight add comment function later. It shows... considering you can't see what's quoted in the bottom comments section or in certain emails/Newsfeeds.

Either way, I'll say Chapter critiques with occasional line critiques is the way to go if you want some serious feedback on your story. If you're lucky enough, find someone, establish a friendship, and then do an exchange back and forth. It can still be Tit for Tat, but focus more on suggestions and helping each other improve... one chapter at a time.

I do not use the app. Everything in this book has been written on and for Wattpad.com. If you use the app, basically none of my advice is applicable to you. Hopefully, you've figured that out. To be fair, when I started on Wattpad, the Ipad was barely in its infancy and most people still had a Qwerty keyboard on their blackberry smartphone. The idea of people typing stories on their cellphone just seemed ludicrous. Nowadays, as I look at my Galaxy S8 plus, I realize there isn't much of a disadvantage here. If you're good at it, do it.

Still, sorry, despite Wattpad being about tablet reading anywhere, their App (and website for that matter) are still a bit of a mess, and one doesn't work like the other. It's pretty silly to me that in the adjacent years they haven't hammered down any of this crap, but that's on them. For me, sorry I've ignored you app-owning readers.

When I started on Wattpad, in-line comments weren't a thing. There also wasn't a single pinned thread that offered classifieds, editors, etc. ... The entire interface was also completely different. The point is Wattpad has made many changes over the years, just as I have. Except, those changes aren't always reflected in my chapters. I have chapters from 4 years ago referring to things about Wattpad that no longer exist. If you've ever heard me make some strange confusing comment about Wattpad in an older chapter, that's almost certainly the reason.

Sadly, the chapters I wrote 4 years ago are as likely if not more likely to be read by new readers. Readers that just joined the site and have no reference to even remotely understand when I talk about aged features. And since this book has no "edition" number, the new is sort of mixed in with the old. As a result, many of my comments are dated or even nonsensical. Do you younger teenage girls even know who Bieber is or what 5sos is anymore? God, I'm getting old.

I don't always take the advice I make on Wattpad 101. That couldn't be more obvious than when looking at my grammar and spelling. As I mentioned, with this book being part blog in nature, I don't really provide any given chapter more than a 1st draft. There are mistakes. They're, Their, and There mistakes. Even more obvious mistakes. I'd like to think my newer chapters are slightly better. At the least, I usually run them through Grammarly first so that catches some things.

Oh, and if you're curious as to the string of 2-4 random characters at the end of every chapter... I write my chapters in Word, click select all and copy and paste. They show up when I paste it into Wattpad's browser. They've been doing it for years. It happens almost every time. Most of the time you don't see it, it's because I scroll down to the bottom of the page and delete it. If I forget to do that, it's there... this chapter included.

Either way, sorry about the spelling and grammar mistakes. In a perfect world, someone would edit it all and I could have your trust more when I provide advice. I guess you'll just have to remember my credentials and trust that a 32 yo published Ph.D. with 1200+ followers knows what he's on about. Wait, was that talking down to people again? The mistakes just keep coming.

And So, Wattpad 101 is part blog, part reference book, and part opinion pieces, but the ultimate goal of Wattpad 101 and Wattpad, in general, is to help you grow as a writer. Even if you don't agree with me, if any of my 100+ chapters get you thinking, then I think I've done my part in helping people write.