Wattpad Clichés We All Used to Love (And Write!)

I was in my “tweens” when my love for fiction writing was at its peak. (Note: This love is currently dead.) I spent quite a bit of time posting chapters upon chapters of my stories on Wattpad and interacting with fellow 13-14 year-olds who, like me, thought they knew everything there was to know about love.

The inexperience and blissful naivety encouraged me to bring into life the most improbable and cringe-worthy Teen Fiction known to mankind. I feel like younger me would be disappointed to learn that I didn’t find my boyfriend through opposite-sex flat sharing.

I recently decided to go through my ancient Wattpad stories and I was pretty horrified, to say the least. The main observation was that the plots, the dialogue and the characters themselves were ridiculously hackneyed. Because of this, I decided to make a short list of clichés that I have (for some reason) loved and (over)used. And yes, all excerpts are mine. :>

There are obviously more clichés of sorts than just the ones on this list (like the infamous One Direction fanfiction, “bad boy” stories, and vampires and werewolves) but I never wrote about them, so I, unfortunately, don’t have any original “Harry Styles is a bad boy wolf looking for his mate” stories.

1. Excessive smirking

Your male character isn’t a Wattpad character if his response to everything isn’t a smirk. He notices his love interest getting flustered? He smirks. Some side character dares him to do something insanely dangerous? He smirks. He catches some girl staring at his six-pack? You bet he’s gonna smirk because oh, wow, he actually has an eight-pack!!!

In all honesty, if a guy in real life smirked as much as any of my 13-year-old fantasies, I would probably find them extremely obnoxious. A normal smile will do just fine, thanks very much.

 “So? Neither do you.” A playful smirk graced his lips. “And yet, you’re going too.”

2. …and excessive blushing

It didn’t matter if the female character had a loud or a quiet personality, one of her hobbies would be blushing.

Here is a flattered Chase who was told she was “the most beautiful girl in the world” (classic):

He’d said those words a million times but I couldn’t help the blush that was taking over my cheeks.

And an embarrassed Quinn:

He instead settled for making me blush like an idiot under his scrutinizing brown-eyed gaze.

3. Boy in boxers

Of course, there is nothing more scandalous for younger teens than reading about a female character seeing a male character in his boxers.

Obviously, you’d have to have a setup that would make this possible. In this example, they were actually opposite-sex roommates in college (of course).

By the way, this one is a special treat; three clichés in two lines!

He was standing in front of her in a black shirt and a pair of maroon boxers. A blush crept to her cheeks and she pushed the tall, smirking boy away.

4. Unhealthy amounts of bickering

I think this pattern in my stories was actually influenced by other stories I had read on Wattpad. For some baffling reason, it was just a thing for a pair to argue or tease each other a lot – and that was somehow perceived as them flirting (much like elementary school days, unsurprisingly). So many of them started with at least one of the two people disliking the other.

To prove a point here is the first line from one of my works:

Of all the people I could possibly run into on a glorious Sunday morning, it just had to be him.

It should also be noted that referring to each other solely by their last names makes this more effective.

5. The guy that acts like a jerk but is actually in love with the girl

Naturally, this cliché is often paired with the previous one on this list. Outwardly, the guy is the master of comebacks. Internally, however, he is as soft as a ’90s boyband song.

…harboring a ten-year-old infatuation didn’t really make sense. But what do you expect? How do you pursue someone like Summer Addison?

Honestly, just make a move or move on, buddy. Ten years is way too long.

And from a different story:

For yet another time in his life, he wanted to hold her in his arms. But he knew that to Allison, he wasn’t the type of guy who did that.

I just can’t with this character. He’s literally not gonna hug her because, mmm, it wasn’t a very “him” thing to do.

6. The character with cancer

In this particular story, Chase catches Owen dancing and kissing some side character called Maya. (Actually, she kissed him, but in typical teen fic/flick fashion, Chase had run away so swiftly that she didn’t see Owen telling Maya they shouldn’t be doing that. *Gasp!*) This resulted in them falling out and, very dramatically, Chase moving to a new town where she spent years feeding her grudge.

Anyway, fast forward a couple of years and they’re seniors (in high school lol) and Owen finally explains what had happened.

Owen’s face contorted with pain like I [had] said something wrong. “That’s not what I meant. What I meant was…she—Maya’s dying.”

Folks, when in doubt, give one of your characters cancer. Sometimes, it really doesn’t even have to make sense.

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I must say, going through my stories was a massive cringefest and I…don’t want to do it again – at least not for a long time.

Don’t forget to let me know what your favorite clichés were, especially if they aren’t on this list.