The Revolution That Created Future Filipino Writers

Wattpad is the largest online storytelling community in the world, with more than 35 million users worldwide reading thousands of stories posted online. (Photo Courtesy: Forbes.com)

I will begin my article with this humble beginning. It is an evident fact that in the United States, popular fiction and non-fiction books and novels are being materialized in different movie adaptations. These include The Hunger Games, The Notebook, and the Harry Potter series. However, this was not the same case for the Philippines. Here are some facts:

    - The movie adaptation of one of the best-selling novels in the country, Diary ng Panget, has earned more than P130 million in total box-office gross sales.
    - It was then that the movie adaptation of another popular novel She's Dating the Gangster overtaken the first movie, earning almost P200 million in box-office sales.
    - Finally, ABS-CBN adapted another popular novel as part of Wansapanataym. Its pilot episode last September 27 was a huge hit on social media, trending worldwide on Twitter.

Now, what do these three novels have in common? Well, I will tell you my answer in a simple introduction. World, meet Wattpad!!


Wattpad is the biggest online storytelling community in the world, but in the Philippines, this website that started in 2006 gave birth to many of the country's best-selling writers and book authors. What I have mentioned on the facts that you have just read are some of the novels posted on Wattpad that came alive on mainstream media. It is like Wattpad stories are more popular than fiction and non-fiction books in the United States. More than 35 million people worldwide, including 5 million Filipinos, spend billions of minutes on their computers and mobile devices reading stories posted by their fellow Wattpad users and comment about it. There is so much more that anyone can do on Wattpad that created a vast multimedia experience for its readers. Now, how good is this site for something so valuable for aspiring Filipino writers?

It seems that a story from Wattpad will be adapted into a movie. But it will not be showing in Philippine theaters; instead, it will be in Hollywood. As of now, the Philippines is one of the top countries with the most number of users reading online stories on Wattpad. You know what, reading stories on Wattpad is another growing trend for today's new generation of modern Filipinos. I wonder if there are more trends like this coming to invade our shores. Well, we'll just see about it, shall we? For now, if you want to look at these great Wattpad stories, then go to this site: https://www.wattpad.com/