My name is Alissa and when I was in 8th grade I was Wattpad famous.
Wattpad is an app geared towards teenage girls and creative writers. The app was most popular for its fanfiction, which is what I dabbled in mostly. Fanfiction, in case you're not familiar, is fictional scenarios created by fans in which they place themselves in the realm of a famous person or character. The most popular form of imagines (sometimes called preferences) were the 'Your Name' stories. That was when authors would replace the main character with 'Y/N' so that you could fill in the blank and make the character more personable to you.
I've always wrote fanfiction for as long as I could remember. I use to carry around notebooks filled with little stories. I once wrote a three seasoned Mindless Behavior series starring my cousins, my sister, and I. I originally wrote just for the satisfaction of myself but then my sister introduced me to the world of Wattpad.
My big break
My Wattpad breakthrough occurred when I wrote a Justin Bieber interracial imagines book. If you're not hip, 'imagines' were short stories that were complied into one book. Story lines typically took place over two or less chapters within the compilation. At the time, Justin Bieber imagines were very popular, but none of them catered to the Belieber's of color. There were only two JB interracial imagines stories on Wattpad prior to mine. Due to the limited number, I quickly gained popularity in the community. My storylines were all over the place; most of them took place in young adult life, in a realm where Justin wasn't famous.
Positive feedback
The response to my work was so positive that I continued writing well into my sophomore year of high school. Loyal readers would send me covers for my book as well as direct message me ideas for plots. Belieber's really enjoyed my work. I was easily getting an average of 5.35K reads and over 100 comments per chapter. The comments were always my favorite part. They were always hilarious and filled with vine references!
The impact
Some readers were so inspired by my work that it compelled them to write Wattpad books of their own! I built so many friendships through Justin Bieber fans and girls of colors from all over the world solely from creating this book. Even to this day we follow each other on social media and it's so nice seeing how we all have grown up from our raging hormonal Belieber selves into our now young adult selves.
Looking back, grammatically my stories weren't the best, as I was only in middle school when I first started. Some of my chapters definitely show my young age back then, trying to portray what romance was like based on my lack of experience. Writing these little stories actually helped me to become a better writer in school. It allowed my creative juices to flow and got me a couple of A+'s on several assignments. Although I don't create content on Wattpad anymore, it still makes me happy to know that readers are still finding and enjoying my work to this day.
