As the title suggests, it has been a year since I started writing online.
This post will outline my thoughts on how my year in writing and publishing online has been.
Why did you start writing?
I started writing last year because I had a significant amount of time in my hands. Since the age of eight, writing has always been an interest of mine. When I was in secondary school, I attempted to write my first book but never got round to finishing it. I lacked the courage to post it online on sites like Wattpad because I felt my writing wasn’t on the calibre I wanted it to be. That and my educational commitments prevented me from really pursuing what I wanted to do.
It’s been ages since then and now, I’m in my final year of university. Looking back at it, I started writing fanfictions after becoming curious about the K-pop group EXO. It was just out of curiousity at first, but then I started investing more time watching YouTube videos about them and watching their reality show, EXO Showtime. It wasn’t long until I was sucked into the fandom and I became an avid fan.
That was when I started reading fanfictions.
One of the first fanfictions I read was about Luhan. At the time, I didn’t know all the members’ names, but through fanfictions, I started learning more about them through the writer’s eyes. The fanfiction I read was riddled with grammatical errors, romanizations of Korean words and exaggerated utterances, but I loved it all the same.
A story doesn’t have to perfect for a reader to love it.
After reading a few more, my desire to write became stronger. It was like the flame that had been smothered by the strains of educational commitments had been reignited and I couldn’t wait to start flexing my writing muscles.
And that was when I started planning for my first fanfiction, Our Little Dorm Mother on Wattpad.
What was your Wattpad experience like?
I regard Wattpad with slight fondness, mainly because it was my first base before I started posting on other writing sites.
Writing on Wattpad was fun (for the most of it) because it’s a platform that allows a lot of freedom, unlike the other sites I use now. But the site is pretty buggy and there are issues with missing notifications and being flooded with spammy announcements...
But, anyway, my experience on Wattpad is good overall.
However, it is very difficult to promote one’s fanfiction. In my earlier days, I was obsessed with trying to get as many views as possible and would start to doubt myself whenever things were not going my way. I resorted to entering competitions hosted by other writers in a bid to promote my novel and that was fine... until I realised that what I was doing wasn’t helping me at all.
The reason I say this is because I started to put too much value on the numbers rather than the people behind it. Meaning, I was only looking at the number of views and number of votes to measure the quality of my writing, which is wrong. If you win a competition, you were rewarded with follows from the hosts and judges and also votes on your book.
I won a couple of these and was pleased with my achievements until I realised the futility of it all. I wasn’t happy. Why? Because the people who voted on every chapter did so without reading the whole book. I knew I earned the votes but something about it felt fake-- I spent so much time crafting each chapter only for someone to click a yellow star without reading it.
This is one of the reasons why I no longer enter these competitions.
Wattpad still remains one of my favourite places to visit because of the readers who comment and support me. If it weren’t for them, I might have abandoned ship again. But as many writers will tell you, it is a saturated site that is hard to break into.
How do you deal with criticism or hate on your books?
Honestly, I don't consider myself sensitive but it does hurt when I read nasty comments left by readers. Fortunately, I haven't received many this year so, I have little reason to feel attacked or dissuaded from writing.
The first time I received a bad review was on Inkitt and it was by some girl who deemed one of my books to be 'bad'. This girl didn't write a reason behind it so I knew that there was little ground for me to be upset. She was just one of those trolls. But I will not deny that I felt upset since it was my first review and it did knock my confidence by a substantial amount.
The second one was on Webnovel from an old woman (lol I was actually surprised) who felt my characterisation of my MC was bland. Maybe she just couldn't relate with my MC (since she is meant to be a fifteen-year old) but when I looked through her profile, I saw that she had a certain taste for 'badass' female leads of which, at the chapter she left off, my MC was not as she was going through a time of doubt.
I didn't pay much heed to her review but what did hurt the most was when she started insulting my characters.
A writer's characters are like his/ her children.
Please don't insult them.
For me, my characters carry a small part of me since they were all born from my imagination.
A writer is not just a writer: they are also an actor, a reader, a researcher, a person.
Every writer invests a lot of time in their character's shoes, in their heads; feeling what they feel; thinking what they think. So, of course, if you insult a character, you are indirectly insulting the writer too. I mean, unless the writer intended you to hate the character then, fine. But in my case, I felt it was written to offend me or hurt me in some way. And for a short while, I avoided Webnovel because it made me feel bad.
However, I began updating there again because I knew there was no point in letting her comment get the best of me. After all, I knew that many people enjoyed my book as it is. It just sucks that she had to mar my experience of that site.
In the end, what I learned from receiving some hate is that you really can't please everyone. It's like Marmite, I guess. Some people will love it, some people will hate it, and that's fine.
What really matters is that as a writer, I love my writing and in time, I will find people that will love it too.
What do you think of your readers?
From what I can gauge, most of my readers are female from teens to new adults. In general, the countries I see popping up the most on my statistics are the USA and Philippines.
I guess K-pop fanfics are very prevalent there.
The readers I encounter are kind (most of the time) and supportive which makes writing more rewarding.
But what I really wish would improve is the silent readers. It cannot be helped but I do hope one day, they'd leave a comment. I try my best to respond to everyone and thank them for their support, but it saddens me when readers just pass by, taking all the fruit from the tree without watering the plant.
I cannot stress this enough. Feedback will help writers grow so it is greatly appreciated whenever a minute of your time is spent writing a few sentences. I mean, writers spend hours crafting chapters and all you have to do is leave two lines... Is that too much to ask?
Where do you get your inspiration from?
I want to write a post just dedicated to this question alone but for now, I'll condense it.
Most of my ideas are actually born from music. I listen to a lot of music on Spotify and most of the time, it's songs that are sung in a language I can't understand.
The advantage of this is that I can truly listen to the music itself and try to discern the meaning of the song without the lyrics telling me.
A great example is Davichi's 'Forgetting You'. This song is an OST for the K-drama, 'Scarlet Heart Ryeo' and the first few times I heard it, I cried.
It also served as the inspiration for my second fanfiction, The Brothers Kim and even now, I still listen to this song repetitively.
Well, I guess I’ll end this post here since I don’t know what else to talk about. It’s been an amazing year and I’m really glad I plucked up the courage to start writing again. While I know I have a long way to go and still a lot more to learn, I’m happy knowing that my writing is reaching so many people.
