Why You Should Use Fanfiction.net and NOT Wattpad

As a fanfiction writer (and writer in general, I suppose), I've had the great pleasure of posting my works online and sharing them with the public of like interests. In particular, I've used the site fanfiction.net. At the time I started posting, around 2007 or so, it was pretty much the only one that I was aware of. Obviously, as I emerged as a more prominent Amourshipping writer, I became aware of other sites, namely Archive of Our Own (AO3) and Wattpad. Now, I'm not an expert on AO3, so it will not factor into the post here, but I am familiar enough with Wattpad to a degree.

And to this point, I came to the conclusion that Wattpad...shouldn't be used. Not for anyone looking to have a well-written story, which everyone should ascribe to. So, in this post, I'll give the various reasons as to why I prefer Fanfiction, and why Wattpad shouldn't be used, particularly within the Pokèmon fandom.



1) Quality

Generally speaking, the rule is that 90% of fanfiction is crap. This is...well, it's pretty much true wherever you go. In the Pokémon fandom alone you have the cliché betrayal, smart!Ash, aura!Ash stories that make no sense and are pretty much unbelievable crap from day one. The other part are just poorly written fics from script form all the way to just not using paragraph spacing or dialogue rules.

This is pretty common on both sites.

However, it's far less accepted on Fanfiction. There, if you write really bad quality, while some will get lots of people following it on the crappy concept alone, if they're truly badly written from a technical standpoint, the readers there are far less forgiving. On Wattpad, I've noticed they don't care. I've seen stories riddled with errors have tons of comments stating how good it is. While that can happen on Fanfiction, the pervasiveness of it isn't as high.

This is one of the main reasons that Fanfiction provides a better experience: better quality stories in general.

2) Line Breaks

This seems like such a silly and simple distinction, but so vital. Line breaks are those little things delineating a change in perspective or location. Fanfiction offers them and they look so nice and clean and beautiful. Wattpad, to my knowledge, does not. It makes it look clunky, and messy and unappealing.

This may seem like a nitpick, but the line break is essential to the presentation of the story. If your chapter doesn't look presented well (with anything from omitting said line breaks to placing "Character POV" at the top) then the overall quality of the fiction looks tremendously lowered.

3) Gathering Comments

Comments, reviews and the like are the most essential thing for a writer, both of good and bad quality. For the former, it allows them to know how appreciated they are, and perhaps how they can do a little better. For the latter, it is essential to giving constructive criticism to let them grow and get better as a writer.

Fanfiction offers a very nice review system that encourages reviewing, since they're front and center. You can sort them by chapter or just in the order they were posted and you don't even need to go into the story itself! It's a great way for readers to look up what people are saying about a story and for writers to improve. While not every story gets reviews, a lot of readers are inclined to post there.

Wattpad, on the other hand, has its comments system. In theory, this is fine, other than the fact that you have to go into the chapter itself in order to see the actual comments. In theory. The problem I have found is that no one really likes to comment, and when they do, it's rarely criticism, constructive or not. When it is, the authors I've seen don't handle it that well. Remember that this is primarily in the Pokemon fandom.

The other issue that comes to this, other than a lack of decent feedback, is that users are allowed to comment multiple times. It gets confusing, over-inflates the numbers, and generally doesn't provide a good system for people to use. On Fanfiction, you are only allowed to review once on a chapter, which forces one to think of what they want to say and doesn't make a story seem more popular than it supposedly is (though one should always look at the content of said reviews).

This lack of feedback from people on the site is what puts Fanfiction above Wattpad, especially for those writers looking to grow...and we should all be looking to grow.

4) Pictures

Wattpad allows pictures. And I don't mean just for covers.

This...really shouldn't be acceptable unless you draw all the artwork yourself and intend to make a picture book of some sort. Then that sort of makes sense. But as it stands, I have seen plenty of authors on Wattpad using them to fill gaps in their writing. This shouldn't be happening. Writing is meant to express itself through words, not pictures. If you can't do it without pictures, don't write it, or better yet: sit yourself down and figure out how to write it.

There's also the separate issue of those who steal artwork for their stories, which is just wrong in and of itself, but not the topic I'm discussing here.

Point is that the fact Wattpad allows pictures in the middle of the story both breaks the flow of any chapter and encourages a sense of laziness in the author; something which we should never condone.

5) Formatting

This is something that is probably more of a personal quibble, but I find it's very important to the overall presentation of a writing and its style. To speak about it, I need to split it into two parts.

The first of this is the tagging issue. Wattpad allows you to pretty much come up with any word to describe your story. In theory this allows for a greater filer and customization of stories to read...but what if it isn't? What if the story that would be perfect for you to read or get readers isn't tagged right? Or maybe it's just plainly ignored because there are just so many stories out there. It becomes an absolute mess for both readers finding a story and writers trying to get their story noticed.

On the flip side, Fanfiction offers something more restrictive, but ultimately more accurate. What they have is the ability to tag up to four characters, a pairing, a genre, a rating, whether it's complete or not and the language. It's not a lot, but when you go to look for a story, if you know that you want, say, an Amourshipping story, you will find a slew of them in moments. Maybe one or two will slip through the cracks, but for the most part, you'll get everything under the sun. Better yet, the ones at the top will be those that have been updated the most recently, which helps a writer who just posted a new chapter, since it encourages that it will get read, rather than just lost in the shuffle. This is key for any writer.

Now, for the second part is the amount of chapter shown. On Fanfiction, the entire chapter is available the second it loads up on the screen. This tells the reader how much of the chapter they have left to read length-wise without worrying about anything else. Wattpad is different, (or was for me), as it only loads the chapter as I scroll down, telling me how much "time" is left on it. To me, this really doesn't help anyone as some read faster and some read slower. It's a poor representation of the chapter, and especially if you're looking for one particular part, makes it a real pain to find.

These are the reasons formatting is better on Fanfiction.

6) Age Group

This seems like a silly quibble, but is, in fact, a rather well-known fact overall. The average age range on Wattpad is young teens. Now, this could be the case on Fanfiction, but you need to be at least 13 to sign up, around the time you start improving, something that isn't needed on Wattpad. As a result, it's filled with individuals that cannot think critically, will praise even crappy stories positively. This also explains why many of the stories are so bad.

While Fanfiction may not be that much better, its age restriction prevents those who really should not be putting out work yet from posting, or allows those who do to receive feedback from people above their age rather than at it. It's a big thing in the long run.

Conclusion
Fanfiction is a better site than Wattpad. It's quality is generally better when it comes to stories, owing from a better format that allows more comments/reviews, constructive criticism or not, and forces the writer to work on their writing by not including pictures. Furthermore, the age group allows for better stories and better reviews on the whole. Plus, Fanfiction has a wonderful Beta Reader service that allows other writers to work with you one-on-one to improve your works (I would know; I've beta'd myself).

As a result, it is my firm belief that if you want your writing to be taken seriously, or considered good, that you should move it to Fanfiction promptly and stop wasting time with Wattpad, which will give you nothing but happy, yet inconsequential, feelings.

Dare to Be Silly,
Epicocity