On Wattpad you can write stories with all different time settings, including historical, present, or millennia into the future! Adding a Time Setting to your story isn't required but is encouraged as it helps Wattpad better understand your story. The Time Setting is set on a story part by story part basis, meaning you can have multiple time settings in one story!

Please note that you can only add a Time Setting when on the Wattpad website (the feature is not available on our apps).

Adding a Time Setting on the Web

1. Click on Write in the top navigation

2. Click on My Stories

3. Select the story part you'd like to add a time setting to

4. Click on the three dots in the upper right-hand corner

5. Select your time setting from the Time Setting drop down, which is found under Dedication

6. Select either Save or Publish to save your changes

Note: Once you've added a time setting, you will not be able to remove it and can only change the time setting in the future.

Do my readers see my Time Setting labels?

No, readers will not see what time period you've labeled your story part as. Don't worry, they won't become spoilers to your story.

What is Wattpad doing with Time Setting information?

Wattpad uses the collection of Time Setting labels to better understand your story. Is this a time travel story where story parts go back and forth from past, present, and future? Or is this a chronological story that goes from past to present? We can answer these questions by looking at what Time Setting you've labeled each of your story parts as.

What is Alternate Time?

Alternate Time represents time periods that are not like our own. For example, perhaps a story has a fantasy land that doesn't track time the same way we do. Or perhaps this is another planet where time goes by very slowly, where one second on our earth is one year on theirs. Generally stories placed in an alternate Universe or in a Fantasy Land, tend to take place in an "Alternate Time"

What does Present Time mean?

If you label your story part as taking place in the "Present Time" that means that the setting of the story takes place in and around the present day. Perhaps you wrote the story in 2010, but now it is 2018. The similarities in these years and the proximity to each other means that the story is still considered to take place in "Present Time".

What if my story part takes place in multiple Time Settings?

If your story part takes place in more than one time period, you can either not label that story part's Time Setting or label that story part as the Time Setting that the majority of that part takes place in.