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I Wrote a Novel and it Was Terrible
When I was fifteen, I wanted to be a writer.
Actually, I wanted to be more than a writer — I wanted to be the next JK Rowling or Harper Lee. I wanted to write the kind of story that sold a million books and got discussed in English classes. In my fantasies, I would hand a copy to my high school Literature teacher and watch him praise my genius.
Unfortunately, at fifteen, I didn’t have the next Harry Potter or To Kill a Mockingbird brewing in my brain. Even if I had, it most likely would have come out with plenty of spelling and grammar mistakes.
What I did have was access to the website, Wattpad. If you aren’t familiar with it already, Wattpad is a huge platform that allows people to write and publish their work on the site for free. It’s designed to help writers — especially young writers — get their work out there. The website has millions of readers, and more recently, a Harry Styles fanfiction that was originally published on Wattpad went viral and landed its own movie deal.
Harry Styles fanfiction is probably the most accurate way to describe the kind of content you see on Wattpad. Most serious authors steer clear of Wattpad because it’s full of teenage girls writing fanfiction, cheesy supernatural romances, and…
