u/Sad-Lynx7833

I've been really confused lately. A few of my story's tag rankings were doing pretty well, but all of a sudden most of them vanished. Some rankings remained, while others completely disappeared. Then after some time, a few started showing up again.

Does this happen to everyone? Is it just a Wattpad ranking refresh/algorithm thing? Can changing tags, descriptions, covers, or story settings cause rankings to disappear temporarily? Have your rankings ever vanished and then reappeared later?

I'm trying to understand whether this is normal or if I've accidentally done something wrong. Would love to hear your experiences because right now I'm completely confused. 😭

I'm currently writing my story in third person POV, but I keep overthinking whether readers will truly connect emotionally with the characters. Sometimes I feel like first person would make the emotions stronger and more personal.

But the problem is… I have multiple important characters, and I genuinely want all of them to have depth and presence in the story. Switching between so many first-person voices feels overwhelming, especially as a new writer.I'm scared the voices might start sounding the same or become confusing.

Most of the time I end up doubting myself and wondering if I'm making the wrong choice 😭 Did anyone else go through this while writing their first book?

How did you handle multiple important characters without losing emotional connection with readers?

Like genuinely asking as a writer… when readers add a book to their reading list/library, do they already plan to read it later, or is it more like "this looks interesting, maybe someday"? 😭

What actually makes you start reading a story? A catchy blurb? Tropes? High reads/votes? Pretty cover? Recommendations/reels? Number of chapters? Or only when it's fully completed?

And how many chapters do you usually wait for before starting an ongoing book? Because sometimes as writers we see people adding the book, but not reading immediately, and it makes us wonder what readers are actually looking for 👀

I'm trying to build my little corner here with readers, writers, and people who randomly disappear for hours because of fictional characters

I read, write, scream over slowburns, dark romance, mystery, and emotionally damaging books Drop your accs or interact below if you're up for f4f

What genres are y'all obsessed with lately?

I don't know if this is just me or if every new writer goes through this phase, but lately I've been feeling really demotivated.

I spend hours thinking about chapters, editing lines, posting updates, trying to improve my writing… and then sometimes the story barely reaches people. Meanwhile I see other books growing so fast and I start wondering if maybe I'm just not good enough.

Some days I feel like giving up completely. Other days I'm suddenly motivated again and think, "No, maybe I should keep going."

It's such a weird cycle because writing genuinely makes me happy, but at the same time it can feel really lonely when you don't know if anyone actually cares about your story.

Do other new writers feel this too? How did you deal with it without losing motivation?