How to grab readers' attention
by SebastardMorgenstern

You have a fandom with which you are obsessed, you have a great idea, and you have a burning desire to share your story with your fellow nerds... but what you don't have are the reads, votes, and traffic that you had always dreamed of.  If this is you and you are ready to do what needs to be done to improve, you're in the right place.

Before you begin:

Great fanfiction is great for many reasons, but I'm going to focus on the ones that have worked best for me.  As a general disclaimer, my specialty is universe extension, so you won't find much for A.U., alternate perspective, or gender-bending storylines here.  I am a purist at heart who strives to create a canonical experience for my readers, and as such, I adhere closely to the established lore of my fandom.

While conceptualizing your plot and characters, you should handle the planning phase as you would a high school essay (ugh, I know, but it's actually fun with fanfiction).  If you don't already have an idea for your plot and want to extend the universe, comb through the source material of your fandom and search for unresolved arcs, characters that felt under-developed, or project future events based on where the books left off.  Once you find the story you want to tell (your 'thesis'), keep re-reading and zeroing in on quotes, facts, and lore that support your vision.  Take notes on which existing characters will help your plot, and begin deciding on which types of characters you will need to fill the gaps.  Every bit of "real" (from the source material) supporting evidence that you can tie to your fanfiction will only enhance its strength and realism.

This planning phase is critical to the immersion experience that you will create for your readers.  When you already know which punches you're going to throw in chapter 15, you can begin threading in the hints and foreshadowing in chapter 3.  Your readers will appreciate having the rug pulled out from under them so much more when they realize they should have seen it coming.  When they see how much forethought you have put into your plot, they will be much more inclined to not only continuing reading and voting, but to tell their friends and followers about this awesome story that is blowing their mind.

Getting started:

You'll need to decide on which level of difficulty you want to play as an author.  If you are writing for fun, you can just use your own voice to tell your amazing, intricate story filled with twists and turns.

If you want to try hard-mode, keep re-reading your source material and begin absorbing the author's voice.  Analyze their rhythms, their sentence structure, the type of descriptions they use, and, most importantly, learn how to "speak" as their characters.  One of the biggest flaws I find in fanfiction is when two or three characters of varying ages and differing genders are having a discussion, and they all sound like a 15-year-old female.  Study the level of language characters use (Are they more educated?  Are they foreign?  Do they have catch-phrases that you can borrow?), and stay conscious of how they would interact with others.  I have received genuine PMs asking if I was the author writing under a pseudonym because I pay attention to detail and work to create that type of realistic replication of tone and voice.  It pays off in the end.

First impressions:

This is huge - no, HUGE.  In the broader world, there's a great concept called "The 60-second Sell".  The understanding is that if you can't catch a buyer's interest in the first 60 seconds of your pitch, you're going to lose them.  I personally believe that it's much harsher for fanfiction authors because there's a wealth of available product out there, but the readers can be exceedingly discerning with their time.  Let's cut it down to a 10-second sell: your description.

Your description needs to be TIGHT.  Be clear about your intentions.  If possible, give prospective readers an idea of what to expect in terms of setting, characters, and plot.  If I'm cruising for a certain type of fanfiction, I will be far more likely to read something that clearly aligns with my interests, rather than relying on vagaries that don't explain what I'm signing up for.  Be upfront if you are going to make major changes to fandom canon.  If you are gender-bending, sexuality-bending, writing the same story from an alternate-perspective, creating a mash-up, etc, tell your readers in the description.  Using the correct Wattpad tags will help bring people to your page, but writing a clear and engaging description will keep them there. 

The #1 priority to aim for in your blurb is flawless spelling, punctuation, and grammar (if you can swing it).  I will not read a story with errors in the description.  A covenant must exist between yourself and your readers: You promise to give them the cleanest, most polished and complete work possible, and in return, they give you their reads and votes to reward your efforts.  If you cannot be bothered to edit and correct your story, then why should they be bothered to read it?  This really needs to stand at the forefront of your mind as you race to post.  You would not be impressed if you purchased the latest paperback off the shelf and it was filled with errors, so don't do that to your audience.  Additionally, errors destroy immersion reading.  If I'm under a barrage of sloppy mistakes and non-existent punctuation, I simply cannot focus on the material.  The only impression I will be left with is one of disappointment.

Here's some good advice for editing: Read your work aloud (quietly, if needed, but it must still be audible), slowly, and without inflection.  Read like you are a five-year-old.  Doing it aloud will force you to slow down - if you just re-read silently, your brain will naturally skip over things and perform autocorrects, but you won't be able to gloss over the errors so easily when you have to actually physically say them.  This tactic will also allow you to hear awkward phrasing, clunky wording, or repetitive descriptors.  You'll pause, shake your head, and think, "That sounded weird."  Use a thesaurus!  Use a dictionary!  Act out sequences to see if they make sense!  Write, re-write, and re-re-write until it's right, re-right, and re-re-right.

Building a relationship with your audience:

Getting readers is one thing, but keeping them is something else.  You can achieve this first and foremost by providing clean, edited chapters - readers will want to return to something that feels "real".  The quality of your content will also factor in heavily.  Even if you choose to write fanfiction smut, make it good smut, and you'll keep your readership up.

Ask questions or comment at the end to open discussions, and always respond where appropriate.  People like having an engaged author.  You may also find that comments/PMs will expose weaknesses in the chapter, where perhaps you should have been more clear on something, and this will allow you to correct and strengthen the content.  I would advise that you re-read your chapter in your app again after posting for one more round of error-catching that may have been harder to see in whatever word processing software you are using to compose.

It may sound cheesy, but I personally thank any reader who cares enough to vote for a chapter, and I do it via PM so that I don't appear to be grubbing for exposure by using their wall.  Plenty of people don't answer, which is just fine, but there are many who do, and it's nice to connect with other fans this way.

Get noticed:

Now you have a beautiful, well-planned and perfectly edited story with an intriguing and informative description - but why don't you have any reads?  Some of it comes down to market saturation.  Maybe you're in a huge fandom and there are a ton of stories out there.  Maybe you're in a tiny fandom and there just aren't enough readers out there looking for your kind of fanfiction.  It doesn't matter which one applies to you, because you have plenty of tools in your kit to get your story launched.

First, you'll want to head over to the fanfiction forum discussion boards.  There are specific threads pinned to the top of the board by moderators each week just for advertising your work.  Be sure that you are only advertising in the allotted threads, or your post may be removed by moderators.  Read the forum guidelines if you are new here.  The boards reset each week, and if you post closer to when it refreshes, your advert will be seen by more people who drop by each week to see what's on the menu.  Use the Wattpad guides for writing your html code to display your cover art, add links to your story, and copy over your perfect description.

Use social media to announce your masterpiece.  Jump on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, whatever you have, and find fandom groups.  Get your cover out there and link back to Wattpad.  It's always worth mentioning that it's free to read, as people may mistakenly believe you're trying to sell something.  Even just on Wattpad itself, try searching similar tags to your own (you HAVE tagged up your story, right?), and look for authors who already have established readership.  Shoot them a PM and see if they might be interested in reading your story, providing feedback, or giving you a shout-out on their wall.  They started at the bottom at some point, too.

If you've really created something special, why not go for the gold and submit your story for consideration to become a Wattpad Featured Story?  This was a huge visibility bump for my first book.  You'll need a fairly polished piece to succeed, but Wattpad celebrates the little guys, and you might surprise yourself.  Search the Wattpad site for more information on how to submit an application.

Interact with other authors and readers in your fandom - there's a lot to be said for word-of-mouth recommendations, and who better to promote your story than the very people for whom its written?  Fans know what they want, and they can be a close-knit group.  Join or start discussions in the forum and get yourself out there!  It's a great way to make fast friends and show people who you are.

In conclusion...

There's no right or wrong answer when it comes to fanfiction.  It is what we need it to be, and that's the beauty of it.  However, you can elevate your work above the median by putting in extra time behind the scenes with your planning and research.  Presenting a more complex and in-depth story will put you ahead of many of your peers and make you more memorable to your readers.

Decide on your level of commitment and be clear about it.  If you want to casually play with your favourite characters, then have fun and get to it.  If you are going to try to be the next G.R.R.M., resign yourself to the level of study involved to do your fandom justice.  You will only get back what you put in - more effort, more pay-off.

Develop good habits for editing and polishing your work.  Clean copy is good copy, and you'll get credit for trying.  Be true to your readers and they will stay true to you.

Be available to your readers.  Stay on top of responding to comments and PMs, and show them that underneath all the ink stains and eye strains, you are still a giant fan of the same series.  We put ourselves out there as fanfiction writers to advance and expand on these worlds because there's just never enough out there, and platforms like Wattpad bring all of us nerds together so that we don't have to freak out about sinking ships alone.

Be your own #1 fan.  You need to advocate for yourself at every turn, and push to get your product out if you want it to go anywhere.  Writing it just isn't enough.  The Internet is huge.  Shout into the void and someone might just hear you.

I hope at least some small shred of this was helpful or interesting to you.  My inbox is always open if you have any questions, or if your overwhelming desire to tell me to shut up has reached its breaking point.

Many happy returns,
SebastardMorgenstern

What grabs your attention in a story?