How Wattpad Can Help You Find Your Writing Voice

Every year, we’re lucky to have great sponsors for our nonprofit events. Today, Marianna Leal, a NaNoWriMo writer and Wattpad Star, shares how these two platforms helped her with her writing. Wattpad is a NaNoWriMo 2020 sponsor.

A friend encouraged me to join Wattpad two years ago by explaining how engaging the community is. Interacting with her thousands of readers motivated her to write and post more, which in turn led to more readers. The feedback cycle intrigued me, and since I needed something positive to keep me grounded during a hard time, I decided to try.

It is no exaggeration to say it changed my life.

After years of struggling with writing for an audience of one, I suddenly had tens of people interested in what would happen to my characters. Those tens became hundreds. Now they are thousands. With an audience that reads my work and emotes in real time, I see the impact my words can have in the emotions and thoughts of my readers. A new aspect of the cycle became apparent to me: the more feedback I received from them, the more stories I wanted to give them.

That was when I realized NaNoWriMo had the key to achieve this. With a major event every November and two Camp NaNoWriMo sessions in the summer, if I could grasp the creative energy around them and channel them into my work, I would be able to increase my productivity on Wattpad.

Decision made, I went into NaNoWriMo that first year with the relentless determination of a freight train. I only stopped writing when I hit my destination: a finished novel at a cool 80k words. Then in the following year, in 2019, I participated in April’s Camp NaNoWriMo, where I blew past my 30k words goal and finished another novel. And I did it again in July, where Camp NaNoWriMo also helped me finish a third novel. Every time I finished a book I took some time to do a first pass edit and post it on Wattpad, where my trustworthy updates helped my readers feel confident in my work and take a chance on it. I started to see a rapid increase in engagement and vowed to join a second NaNoWriMo with a new novel.

The hard times I needed a distraction from finally turned into tragedy. We lost my dad after a long year fight with cancer and I stopped writing.

During the following days, I thought about a lot of things and among them how writing had been a part of my life. How it helped me process through my feelings. I knew the power my words could have for my Wattpad readers and I wondered if maybe I could use their magic on healing myself too.

NaNoWriMo, Wattpad and the communities around them brought the magic home once more. Today, they are the reasons I continue writing so earnestly. As I participate in my fifth NaNoWriMo event in a row, I’m preparing my works for this year’s Wattys, the biggest celebration of writers on Wattpad, where I will have the chance to submit all of the novels I wrote during NaNoWriMo for the opportunity to win an award that might change the course of my writing career.

To you who are struggling with finding your voice amid the dark news of 2020, I want to encourage you to take advantage of the synergy that can happen between both sites. You will find true friends and develop your craft in unimaginable ways and who knows, like in my case, they might just change your life.

Wattys 2020 are coming soon! 

The Watty Awards are Wattpad’s annual celebration of the galvanizing, inventive, diverse voices that choose to share their stories on Wattpad every year. Learn more about the contest here.

Marianna Leal is a Venezuelan Wattpad Star. By day she works for a company trying to make a positive impact in the world for future generations and by night, she writes books to entice the current generations into carving a better future. She lives in Florida, USA, where she enjoys complaining about terrible drivers as much as she basks in the wonderful weather from the comfort of her home.

Top photo by Forja2 Mx on Unsplash.