5 Reasons Taking Part in Challenges on Wattpad is a Great Idea #TipsTuesdays

5 Reasons Taking Part in Challenges on Wattpad is a Great Idea

So with everything that's been going on at home lately I really have gotten much writing done. It also hasn't just been a matter of time, but of motivation. My spark dried up because my brain was too busy focusing on other things. It's back, but I decided to feed the flames and make it burn brighter. One of the way I decided to do this is by joining in Wattpad challenges.

Wattpad has lots of communities (even though it actually has no structure to cope, communities have found a way :)). These communities often run challenges where writers submit their writing and there are usually prizes for the best. At the moment @WattVampires is running their Summer Challenge - Vampires Everywhere. Each week they choose a genre and writers are asked to submit a flash fic of between 50 and 200 words with vampires in that genre.

The first week was sci-fi
my submission Sunlight is here
and this week it is the classics
my submission Traitor's Fate is here.

Taking part in these challenges is great idea for many reasons and here are five:

1. They're Fun

It's fun to just grab an idea and run with it without having to worry if it will fit with anything else, or lead on to more. The challenge is the challenge and does not have to have any consequences except making sure we read the rules and tag it correctly.

2. They Get the Creative Juices Flowing

Sometimes it's good to write something we hadn't considered before. Taking a challenge from somewhere else is good for our creativity. No matter how good a writer we are, it is all too easy to get stuck in a rut, especially if we are concentrating on a big project of some kind. Taking a momentary step back and writing something completely different can spark new ideas and new thinking, which can only be good for us.

Taking part in the @WattVampires challenge has me raring to go on my other projects as well.

3. Exposure

Wattpad does have some official clubs, which are basically like bulletin boards, which help get exposure for your fiction, but the communities actually work way better. I've found that a lot of people in the clubs just post and run, the engagement is better in the commnuities.

Taking part in challenges exposes our writing to lots of like minded people and the rules often state that the entries have to be short, so people are more likely to take the plunge to give our fiction a go.

Also there is often a prize for the best (usually a banner for the cover and maybe a interview or a spotlight on the community) and honourable mentions. This can give us even more exposure to like minded readers.

4. Good Way to Find New Fic to Read

There are always excellent fics submitted to the challenges. I haven't tried one yet that does not have some gems well worth reading. Communities offer an easy way to find the kind of fiction we really want to read. It's a win, win situation and I am sure many people see them the same way.

The creativity in the challenges is usually amazing. From the same challenge completely different stories appear. For this week's classics challenge at WattVampires there are already fairy tales, a historical insert and Shakespeare, and the prompt only went up yesterday.

5. Excellent Way of Making New Friends

As I have already mentioned the communities are full of people who like the same thing we do, or we wouldn't all be hanging about in the same place. Wattpad can sometimes feel like shouting into a void because it's so big and so diverse. Catching the eyes of readers can be hard.

Taking part in challenges waves at all those like minded people and goes 'look, I write about vampires or werewolves or romance or whatever the niche of the community is'. We write our fic, they write theirs and it is a great way to get talking to people by swapping comments.

For example WattVampires has 6.5K followers but only a handful of those enter the current challenge. It's an easy way to see who is active at the moment and who might like to chat about similar things.

If we're open and friendly and drop comments we are much more likely to make friends.