So everyone here probably knows I go around reading a lot of books on Wattpad. (You probably met me because I read your stuff or because I asked you to read my stuff.) 

After reading, what, a few thousand books, I've come up with some pretty strong opinions. Those of you who are less experienced or aren't really big writers are probably going to be lowkey salty about several items on this list, but before you write a long message about what a terrible person I am (hasn't happened yet but considering I have 1K followers, someone out there probably hates my guts), consider the following:

1) My opinions. Key word being opinions.

2) I am not attacking you personally. If any of these apply to you, I do not hate you for it.

3) I used to do and possibly still do several of these. No one is perfect.

Anyhow...

At first I thought that this would be a top ten list or something similar, but honestly? I don't feel like ranking these and a lot of them are like comparing apples and oranges. I will say that the further down on the list you go, the more personal and the more divisive these opinions are going to be. Regardless, here we go:

1) Lack of paragraphs

You need a paragraph when you change who's speaking.

You need a paragraph when you start a new idea.

You need to have paragraphs in your story.

If you want me to read your work and you show me this atrocious blob, I am going to have an incredibly hard time getting through it. You could give me a book about quantum mechanics with vocabulary no one who doesn't work in the field could possibly know off the top of their head and it would be easier to comprehend than a story with no paragraphs. 

2) Sentences that start with "and" or "but"

And this is a rule that no one seems to follow.

But I guess it's just because no one knows it exists.

(See what I did there?)

Fun fact about and and but- they are primarily conjunctions. You can not have a conjunction at the beginning of your sentence because it makes it a dependent clause.

If you are old enough to be on Wattpad, someone should have taught you this.

3) its vs it's

Yeah this is one I used to screw up on.

Its is a possessive. Example: Its fur stood on end as it saw the wolf approach.

It's is a contraction for it is. Example: It's Monday and everything is slowly going to shit.

His and hers don't have apostrophes. Why would the other singular third person possessive have one?

4) *jumps in*

Spoof books? Sure, especially if they're supposed to be done the way they were said in the chat (for us Clashers). 

Random books? I don't care.

Full fledged fanfictions? Absolutely not.

Your characters actions do not belong between two asterisks. That is so incredibly far out of the realm of proper grammar. 

5) "Lel so randumb XD XD" humor

This wasn't even funny when it was at its prime and it sure isn't funny now. I can't tell you how many spoof books I've read where the humor is just basically:

Character 1: *reference to other media*

Character 2: What, you mean like this? *holds up a Creeper*

Character 1: *paws over mouth* THAT'S not supposed to be in the Warriors universe!

Or just random characters doing random things for no reason.

Most of the earlier spoofs are either this or incredibly tasteless jokes.

Do yourself a favor and never read my spoofs ever. 

6) The Wattpad Suggestion System

Look! None of this is my fault. None of this is your fault. None of this is anyone's fault. The Wattpad suggestion system INSIDE books is fine. The one on the homepage and at the bottom of stories keeps popping up with Reader X Sans/Chat Noir and/or horoscopes. 

Wow! I never wanted to see this?

Thank you Wattpad for absolutely nothing. 

7) lowercase titles/slashes in titles/etc.

This barely bothers me and I'm just being petty here but something about lowercase and weirdly punctuated titles just feels... unprofessional. Seriously, the best book I've ever read on here (I think most of you can guess what it is, too) has several slashes in the title. They don't make the book more appealing but they do make it very hard to search in my bookmarks bar.

If you do this, can you explain why it's at all necessary? Curious.

8) Name That Apprentice books/"Contest" books

I am friends or at least in acquaintance with several people who like these and/or make them. This does not mean I have to like them myself and it does not impact my opinion of them.

Let me just say though, when you've read one of these, you've read all of them. There's no reason for them to exist besides feeding views straight to people and building them an audience, probably one bored enough to actually consider this as a legitimate use of time.

Oh yeah, because they're easy to respond to and you can pump out a million at once, they also smother everything else in the community in readership. This means you basically hack the system and get super famous off of doing absolutely nothing. 

9) Showcases and Tumblr Zodiac Books

Similar vein to above but these are even worse because you've literally created nothing. Half of these don't give credit, and if you do...

you still created nothing.

Look. Some people on here might be incredibly lazy (by their own words) but I'm pretty sure all of us can google search this amazing fanfiction and find it ourselves. If we wanted to scroll Tumblr and find those zodiac memes that were really only funny a year ago, we could go do that too. 

10) Author's Notes in the Middle of a Chapter

This is probably the last one that isn't going to get flame mobs sent to my door. Oh boy.

Do not break up your story with author's notes. You are not as witty as you think you are. Whatever joke you had about these two characters, whatever hilarious side note you wanted to impress us with about how your draft didn't save and you totally raged, whatever you wanted to say...

Tell us at the end. Don't kill your readers' suspension of disbelief.

Furthermore, if you want to incorporate worldbuilding, PUT IT IN THE PROSE. THAT IS LITERALLY THE ENTIRE POINT OF WORLDBUILDING.

This one isn't as common but it's probably the most jarring of these grammar errors because the others I can at least see where they're coming from.

Kind of.

11) "Psychopath", "crazy", "my insane world", etc. 

If you are young enough to put terms like these all over your blog, you probably don't know the real implications or how these conditions would actually effect your life. Not only is this offensive, it's dumb and it makes you look edgy.

Are you an outcast? So are most of the people on the Internet. Feeling alone sometimes or having tendencies that aren't socially acceptable, especially as tame as those of the typical edgy Internet twelve year old, are far from psychopathy.

Furthermore it's just... incredibly offensive. 

(If you are actually diagnosed with a mental disorder, this doesn't apply to you.)

12) Silent Readers 

This isn't something that makes me angry or even something that's mandatory but rather it's just something I'd like to see changed or fixed... 

If I have learned anything on Wattpad, it's that genuine interest and compassion for others can change someone's day and possibly even their outlook on life. Even though we'd like to be completely self-motivated, truth be told, if you were you wouldn't have any real reason to be on here. Most people who come here want an audience and it hurts when that audience doesn't seem to exist. It hurts even more when you do start getting the reads but no one has anything to say. You might as well still be alone.

Votes let authors know that you enjoyed something. 

Comments let them know that you care.

Genuine interest and long comments do wonders for writers. It's so hard to put long hours into original stories, but knowing that even one person will still be there to talk to you about it and care for that story makes you feel valuable. It makes it worth doing.

Seriously, the comments I've received over the years (along with this fan art) have kept me on this site for three years. Thank you to my audience and thank you for caring <3

(Okay that got tangential but point being... appreciate tiny writers! Especially original writers, who usually never get comments. For more on this point, I wrote a rant a while back that you've probably already seen labelled "Daily Doodle- Zach". I'd recommend rereading that.)

13) Significantly Underaged

When I was younger, just below the almighty "13+", I was relentlessly bullied by much older kids on a different website. Now that I'm older, I know there are so many ways I could have dealt with it had I been a little more mature. It is getting easier and easier to reveal personal information. Skyping is becoming more common and doxxers are everywhere. There's usually a stigma against targeting minors and this website isn't Tumblr or Twitter, but that doesn't mean you're entirely safe.

The younger you are, the more vulnerable you are on these sites. I'm not trying to be condescending but seriously, it's true.

Wattpad can also take down your account. They have taken down accounts.

Do I agree with them?

I'm really not neutral but it's more that I see where both sides are coming from. I think that no one should be able to screw you over for being a few days from your birthday but really young kids just shouldn't be on here and somehow the age of people around here just keeps creeping down.

14) Following and Unfollowing En Mass To Get Followers 

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU.

15) this is trash

This is my son. He's trash.

This is my story. I'm warning you, it's trash.

This is my fandom. I'm trash.

I've seen... a lot of these three sentences. I've said these three sentences. Several times. It's a defense mechanism- if you already have low expectations of what the other person will think of your work, they can't make you feel worse about yourself. They can't hate it any more than you already claim to and are by the nature of your response predisposed to say "Well, I think it's okay". 

You have the right to like what you like and there is no reason to be ashamed of it. Your work isn't trash and you'll get better if you keep working at it. 

Needs improvement? Sure.

Trash? Nah.

You can't get better if you refuse to let yourself grow. It is okay to be let down. It is okay to love your own works, your stories, and yourself.

You'll probably have better self-esteem in the long run anyways.

16) The Wattpad Algorithm Promotes Everything But Actual Stories And Original Work On This Extremely Niche Corner of Wattpad Is Being Replaced By Everything But Writing Because Writing Takes Too Long to Do And Too Much Effort To Actually Read

several people have told me that i should leave wattpad and find an actual writing site