Previously, I wrote an article about Wattpad’s in-line comments. It has been a year since that article. Things have changed. Instead of editing that post, I’m posting a 2nd Edition so you can compare how things changed (something you may have experienced as well, or will be experiencing as you continue on in Wattpad).
Let me assume you know What?pad Wattpad and you know about their in-line commenting system.
(If you don’t, you can check out my previous pro-con article here.)
In the beginning I struggled with Wattpad’s in-line comments, but now I see it in a different light.
Pros
We shall get to the cons in a moment. First, the pros.
As a Reader
In-line comments enable you to make little comments throughout the book. You can, in a sense, cheer the writer on for their (hopefully) good writing.
You can give writers your immediate responses to things that happen to the character, what they say, how they act, etc. You can also see how other people have reacted.
Good for Grammar Nazis
Grammar mistakes can be mentioned on the spot without having to find them again at the end of reading.
As a Writer
You feel happy.
Receiving a lot of in-line comments makes you feel like you’re doing some good here. People are responding to your book. Ego boost.
Cons
Now the cons. We’ve been dreading them or are we secretly excited to see that Wattpad isn’t as awesome as we thought it was?
As a Reader
In-line comments have a limit of 2000 characters. That includes spaces, paragraph breaks, smiley faces, periods, hyphens, dashes, just like Twitter, folk.
You might think, “Pooh, pooh, there is no way anyone can make a 2000 word in-line comment!” Try a review or critique. When that goes down, the character count goes down quickly. Especially if you’re trying to be helpful.
As a Writer
Replying to the reader without looking like you’re ignoring them.
A good writer on Wattpad will reply to all or most of the comments they receive from readers. This is to show engagement and perhaps in hopes the reader will return.
I’d say the con here is that if you get a reader who storms your writing with similar comments “wow!” “good!” “:0” “awesome” “nice”, while you appreciate it, it can get tedious trying to reply to every single comment they made throughout the book and sometimes you don’t get notifications for all of them.
FOXWOOD FOREST 