Friday, June 10, 2016

Good morning, class!

As you all know—or don't know, albeit you have no excuse for that considering I've been talking about this for a week now—today is pop quiz day!

*whips and nae naes with the test sheets* *moonwalks* *chicken-dance*

You over there, Timothy, right?

*the student clarifies that his name is actually Thomas*

Timothy, Thomas, Jeffrey, it all sounds the same. Plus, I don't have to remember your name because I'm a teacher! Come up here and pass out the test papers—the longer it takes for you to do so, the longer my class will cut into break time. So if your amigos here decide to beat you up after-school, know that I've warned you.

 It's all on you, Jeremy. 

*Arthur hastily distributes the quiz*

It's a really short one, so you only have twenty minutes to complete it. We have important things to cover afterwards, so ready, set, go!

*twenty minutes later*

I forgot to mention that this quiz will account for 15% of your semester grade, so I hope y'all studied! *cackles* Anyway, for the last twenty-five minutes of the class, we'll be talking about Formatting. Because it's not a topic that's as comprehensive as the others—or maybe it is, we'll find out soon whether it is or not—I've decided to cover it now. So quit your weeping, sharpen your pencils, and let's get started!

~Don't start your first chapter as the first part.

What does this mean? Well, it's simple, but I'll explain it anyway since you all have the brains of a chicken.

The main point you want to remember about this is that you want to put off the crappy first chapter of your story as much as possible. This means including as much useless stuff in the beginning, so that, by the time an interested reader gets to your first chapter, they'll be too irritated with you to even read it! It's like building an obstacle course—the first five parts are the sandpit, wall, barbed wire, and fire, while the first chapter is the finish line! The parts you should saturate your book with are:

1. An author's note.

Dedicate an entire part to this one, because I reckon that it's the most important one of them all. Tell people your life story, from the very beginning. No, not since the Big Bang, but since your parents Woohoo that lead to your creation.

Discuss how your mother spent the first 7 months of her pregnancy vomiting in a toilet bowl, talk about, in great detail, the birth, and everything between then and first sitting down to write your story. It will amount to 200 pages (50 if you're like, twelve), but it will all be worth it. Your readers will know so much about you, they won't even bother reading your actual story!

2. Trailer + Alternate book covers

Imagine, just imagine, that one day your book will become the next After. It sells out in the bookstores, poison the minds of impressionable teens, and even gets turned into a shitty movie that would make the strongest of stomachs lurch with disgust. Well, get someone to make a trailer for your movie, or do it yourself! It's important that you dedicate an entire chapter to the trailer itself, but also, show your readers the six other covers you had before settling on this one. They will definetly give a shit. 

3. Playlist.

People like to listen to music when they write, because it helps them forget how shitty they are are it. Personally, I listen to Screamo, because I really feel like it conveys the emotions I want for my story. If you listen to a different song for each chapter, make a playlist nobody will bother listening to! It will probably consist mostly of Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, and One Direction, and that already tells the reader a lot about what the story will be about. 

4. Copyright.

You've already indicated that the work is copyrighted by now (Wattpad does, then you do so again in the blurb), but do it a third time, ensuring that you quote every single piece of the copyrighting law just to remind the readers that you don't fuck around with plagiarisers. Write out the entire Terms and Conditions, and, like with your story, nobody will read it. 

5. A quote/poem/song lyric.

For the quote, refer to my  last topic on blurbs.

Poetry...is a different thing. If you idolise Shakespeare like a God, and want to showcase your talent as poet to your world, adding a poem completely unrelated to the story is the way to go.

If you suck at poetry (like you suck at everything in life), just pick your favorite song and copy paste the lyrics! Make sure it's something by Taylor or 1D, otherwise, nobody will even bother reading it. 

~Don't follow the ideal 1500-3000 words word-count.

There's nothing more exciting than clicking on a book and seeing that you have two hours left before you complete the chapter. It's like going on Tumblr and setting your blog to "endless scrolling" mode. I can guarantee that at your next appointment with your optometrist, you'll probably be told that you need a new pair of glasses—staring so long at a computer screen and being unable to leave the chapter halfway for fear of losing your spot, can make even a mole go blind.

~Don't split your chapter into paragraphs.

As applied to the blurb, it's even more dreadful when the whole chapter is one, long, thick, continous paragraph. It's like a torrent of words—your reader will drown by the time they get to the end. At least you'll be able to collect their overturned bodies and eat them for dinner.

~Hyrogliphics 

More emojis, text language, and incomprehensible gibberish! 

~Include an author's note after each paragraph of narration.

Update people on what you're doing in your life as you'r writing the story. I'm sure people will most definetly ask for the recipe of you peanut butter and jelly sandwich, as well as be extremely interested in whether you've experienced the same thing as your characters or not. If you're still confused as to what I mean, here's an example.

Kendall walked down the street (A/N: OMG I walk down streets too! I also have functioning legs!) Wearing a cute pink crop top with Justin Bieber's face on it, purple ballerina flats with a bow on top, and high-waisted shorts that complimented her pink lipgloss and eyeshadow (A/N: lol that's totally not what I'm wearing right now. If you want to get the look, check out my YouTube channel!). She was so excited—it was her first date with Brandon, and they were already discussing which sex positions to try out! (A/N: omigosh, Kendal is like, soooo dirty, right girls? ;) Brandon is totes hot, I chose Harry Styles to play him because I'm like, totally obsessed with him. Do you like my celeb choice too? Comment below! Also, I won't be updating the next chapter until I get 5000 reads and 1000 votes, so you better get readin' and votin'! Haha I'm so funny.)  

~Fulfil your dream of writing a children's picture book.

We all know that the minimum age for Wattpad is 13 years, yet people still seem to behave like toddlers! So because a lot of them struggle to read, Wattpad has given us the chance of incorporating images and videos in our stories. I've always wondered, why don't we overuse these to our advantage? We all know how dreadful it can be to spend hours thinking up the perfect description, so instead of wasting precious time, which you could be using by stoning your neighbour, why don't you just add a picture instead. I'm totally interested in knowing what Stacy wore to her Alpha Mates Reunion ball, in the most minute of details. Everything from her hair, makeup, dress, shoes, jewellery...hell! You know what? Just add a tutorial in for me to follow in case I want to copy her look!

*bell rings*

Alrightio class! Even though I gave you a quiz today, I still think you need to do some homework over the week-end! Aren't I evil, giving out homework only on weekeneds? *evil laughter* 

Complete pages 50-60, and do all the exercises in between. Yes, even the ones in the yellow speech bubble. You all know what happens if you don't finish your homework...*opens a drawer, reaches into it, and pulled out a string of anal beads* so y'all better get crackin'! 

Until next time!!!

🍟🍟🍟

Is there something that you're itching to complain about, but have the good sense not to do so on a public forum? I can do it for you! Feel free to PM me with the topic you want me to rant about, and I won't think twice before adding it here. I'll be waiting!