Archive of Our Own ^beta

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21 May, 2019

Oh no! Another Warriors fanfiction writing guide!

I am aware of just how many fanfiction guides exist out there on Wattpad, and the rest of the internet. Warriors is a widespread fandom, after all. So what makes this one any different?

The term ‘Specialized’ is not just in the title as a gimmick. This writing guide exists to answer all of the unorthodox questions that you may have about writing a Warriors fanfiction. First and foremost, I try to deliver guides that go beyond just writing. You will find technical sections like editing and revision, syntax, and readability. Other sections have more to do with the ‘fiction’ itself, like plot scope or background characters. The thing about this guide is I try not to go over what has already been said. You will find a heap of guides on this website. Many of them go over things like cat appearances, clan names, canon terms, and natural settings. Not that going over stuff like this is a bad thing; hammering in the basics through repetition is the fastest way to learn. But I tried not to write a guide like that. This one has useful answers to questions you may not have known you had. If it does not show up on a web search and it pertains to Warriors, then this is the place to check with.

This guide is in depth and always growing. If you have a specific question to ask about writing Warriors fanfictions, ask here first. I will help best I can. Your critique, complements, and complaints are always welcome on my content. Welcome to the guide, and enjoy!

- Tyto

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May 29, 2019

This section goes over the importance of good syntax. Syntax is focused on specifically, rather than a broad summary of basic English grammar. As a Base section, it has little to no examples drawn from canon Warriors.

You hear it so often in other guides, how important it is to have good grammar. Not only that, but professional authors, other fanfiction writers, and bloggers stress the importance of good grammar. Now you are hearing it from an ameteur who self-edits all their own content. It is important. That is why syntax comes first in this guide. Now here is the thing: syntax is not the kind of grammar you think it is. It is grammar, yes, but I am not going to tell you to ease off the exclamation points or remember to put quotations at the beginning and end of dialogue. I am going to tell you about laying out your sentences. Lets define syntax for those of you who do not know:

Sin·taxˈ

noun: syntax

the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language.

"the syntax of English"

Syntax is literally sentence structure. The words you chose. Where and why you added a comma or a run-on sentence. What words to use to target a specific audience. The effect it has on both the character and the reader. It is the part people are reading the most of: paragraphs of description, dialogue snippets, or even songs should you have them. Sometimes people reading books pause and go “wait, what the hell…?” What they just read does not quite resonate properly in their mind. Their understanding of English syntax is sitting dormant in the back of their mind. It is like hearing a non-native English speaker speak English. Only, in that situation, they have the benefit of the doubt. But that is what it can be in a worst-case scenario. In fanfiction, it usually is the result of not taking the time to edit or rushing to get something done. Like in this example from a fanfiction on DeviantArt (no need to shame the author; link is in the comments):

Ratpaw stood in the sick bay, her head tilted in confusion as her mentor's lithe body disappeared into the crevice. She'd seen him do this a few times, but a slight feeling of unease always stopped her from asking about it or even more so following him. As she sat there, her nerves began to cause her body to shiver, she lay down and subconsciously began to gnaw at her paws- a habit she was known for in times of stress. Ratpaw didn't deal well with pressure and always tried to avoid it; she had wanted to become a warrior like her siblings and den mates. But when it came to practice battles or assessments of hunting, she always panicked and reverted to her mind numbing habit of chewing at her claws and paws leaving permanent scars. Painful reminders of her failure.

Plot? Not our target, tonight. We are just looking at the author’s syntax with this example. As I stated earlier syntax is still part of grammar, but not spelling or punctuation. "The tree stood its ground as the cat leaped throughout." is still just as grammatically valid as "The cat climbed up the tree." Yet one is more clear and concise; ignoring things like purple prose or personification, one gets the point across better because of our choice of words and their arrangement.

Ratpaw stood in the sick bay, her head tilted in confusion as her mentor's lithe body disappeared into the crevice.

The first sentence should set off some signals in your head. If not, read it aloud. We can immediately spot the words that throw off the flow of this sentence: “ sick bay” , “ lithe” . Sick bay makes us think of Star Trek (I hope) and lithe, while easy to guess in context, still disrupts the flow of the sentence by not being obvious and not rolling off the tongue based on the words that precede it. There is also a third problem: we do not know where Ratpaw is standing because of the author’s word choice. Is Ratpaw inside or in front of the sick bay ? While the sentence is grammatically correct, the author’s word choice is poor. We can use different words to make it read closer to canon Warriors and flow better without making us pause.

Ratpaw stood in [ front of ] the [ medicine den ] , her head tilted in confusion as her mentor's [ slender ] body disappeared [ through ] the crevice.

With a few word swaps, the sentence becomes much easier to read through. While none of them were challenging or difficult to understand, the author’s word choice kept the sentence from flowing as it should. This is especially important to remember on sentences that are for description or exposition. That text should be as clean and easy to read (and therefore remember) as possible.

Next sentence:

She'd seen him do this a few times, but a slight feeling of unease always stopped her from asking about it or even more so following him.

That sentence does have a one grammar error, but it is a vaguely specific one. Regardless, the author’s bloat of words has slowed us down this time, rather than just specific words. Using too many words to describe something is not actually an error from a technical standpoint, but it is messing with our ability to clearly and quickly absorb (and therefore remember) the information.

The author says “ but a slight feeling of unease” to describe her anxiousness. That is an unnecessary amount of words. The phrase runs into itself trying to get that anxiousness across to the reader, hampering their ability to absorb (and therefore remember) the information. Next, lets go to “ or even more so following him”. Not only are some words able to be completely omitted without affecting the sentence, but we need to rearrange the sentence to make the statement as is work properly, and even then it's grammatical stretch. We can take away and condense words to make this statement flow just as well as the one we changed before it, and faster even.

She [ had ] seen him do this a few times [ before ] , but [ nerves ] always stopped her from asking about it, [ let alone following him ] .

With this sentence, the amount of words used to get a point across has been decreased, making the it easier to read. If you are describing something universal or easy to grasp, like general anxiety, use words like “anxious” or “nervous” rather than trying to describe them and add words (unless there is a specific stylistic or plot point to it). During the editing process, you will be surprised just how many words you can cut from sentences here and there and still get your point across.

Little choices of words here and there can have a big impact on readability, as I have shown you. Lets see if you can reorganize, replace, and reword these sentences to make a better descriptive paragraph. Do it in the comments section if you have to. Just try it before reading on.

...

Here is what I came up with:

Ratpaw stood in front of the medicine den, her head tilted in confusion as her mentor's slender body disappeared through the crevice. She had seen him do this a few times before, but nerves always stopped her from asking about it, let alone following him in. As she sat, she began to tremble, subconsciously gnawing at her paws - a habit she was known for in times of stress. Ratpaw did not deal well with pressure and always tried to avoid it, though she longed to become a warrior like her siblings and den-mates. But when it came to hunting or practice battles, she always panicked and reverted to her damaging practice, leaving painful scratches. Scratches she felt were reminders of her failures.

Is this paragraph now perfect? No. There are still some issues with the importance of information and how it is presented, but I tried to change as little about it as I could to prove a point on syntax. Properly used, it can easily improve the clarity of a paragraph and allow the reader to easily process (and therefore remember) your information better. I have been focusing on ways to improve syntax so far, but what about when the syntax is correct or does not need improving? Next, we will see syntax in action. Simply changing the words or the order of them can change the context and tone of information. Lets see what that looks like.

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SYNTAX IN ACTION

Now we have seen how picking and rearranging some words can make a sentence flow much better than before. How is this portrayed in canon Warriors ? Truth is, syntax is everywhere writing is. From fanfictions to career resumes, all writing can be improved with good syntax. Even so, we will look at an example from canon, specifically The New Prophecy - Moonrise. The example was taken straight from the Warriors wiki:

"Neither of them is right. And neither is wrong. Prophecies are strange things. Their words are never clear. Everything depends on how cats interpret the prophecy. And whether the prophecy is fulfilled depends on what they decide to do about it. It is up to us to choose the code we live by. Isn't that true for your cats as well?" - Talon of Swooping Eagle

There are definitely no grammar errors here. The syntax is on point, if a little bland. But that is okay. I did not pick this statement because there is something wrong with it. I picked it because the syntax is directly influencing our perception of Talon and his personality. The way he speaks, what words he chooses, all of it influences how he comes across as a character. But if we change some words here and there, maybe the order of information, we can even make him come across as a different character.

Here is one way to present Talon:

"Prophecies... strange things, aren't they, Stormfur. They're not right, but they're not wrong either. The message is never quite clear. So it all has to depend on how they're interpreted. And whether one is fulfilled or not depends on what others do about it. For us, it's a choice... what about you and your cats? Do you choose your own way?"

Written this way, and Talon sounds like he came straight out of an anime. Casual, dealing with a subject other cats might find heavy and passing it off as if it was general information. He uses shorter sentences, like he has discussed this enough times to be second nature to him. Or that the topic simply does not interest him anymore. He is not quite as serious as the original Talon, but he still makes the exact same point.

Another way to present Talon:

"Prophecies? Neither is right or wrong. So where does that leave the ones the prophecy is given to? Confused. Seeking interpretation from some wiser cat. But even then, it never happens the way StarClan tells it, or the way others interpret it. That is why we follow our own instincts. We do not let some muddled statement from the stars tell us how to live the rest of our lives. And what of your cats, Stormfur. Are the lives of your cats consumed by these 'words of wisdom' from our ancestors?"

This Talon comes across as someone who no longer believes in StarClan, not just someone who never believed; that plot point alone could add depth to his character. His tone is a tad harsher. He speaks longer but gets to his points quickly. In a way, it is almost like he is ranting. He does not like StarClan in this rewrite. But he is still making the exact same point as the other rewrite and the canon: that Talon believes cats are in charge of their own destiny, StarClan or not. We could reword that a few different ways and give off a different Talon of Swooping Eagle each time. But you get the idea. We can change his character or emotions simply by changing sentence structure, and the main idea can remain intact.

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IN CONCLUSION...

We can speed up the tempo by making our sentences shorter. We can alter the tone by choosing different words to say. We can incite a long pause in action by using long sentences to describe scenery. All by adjusting the syntax and altering our word choice. It's not a matter of using the wrong words, it's just how we use certain words, and how they match up to affect how we interpret what we're reading and how we process it...

...That above sentence is terrible, yes? But now you recognized it as such and, hopefully, know how to correct it. Good luck with all your tone adjusting and word swapping.

- Tyto

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31 May, 2019

This section covers choosing what to write about, rather than plot ideas. It is here to give you some clarity when you just do not know what to make your story about. As a Base section, it has little to no examples drawn from canon Warriors.

What to write, what to write. There is only one way to answer that, according to successful authors and other writing guides: write what you know. That is absolutely the right answer in most cases. But it is one thing to say “I’ve been an alcoholic, so I will write a book about addiction” instead of “I’ve lived in a forest among feral cats for years, so I will write about what they do all day and night.” It just does not work the same way. That is not to say writing about addiction is impossible in a Warriors fanfiction. It can work, along with hundreds of other concepts, morals, and occurrences. Some of us are paralyzed by the choices available and have to touch on as many as we can in one story. Others basically rewrite the canon as is. Here, I will try and give purpose to your desired topic for your next fanfiction; why did you choose your plot line?

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TYPICAL WRITING IN WARRIORS

First, you have to figure out what kind of story you want to tell. Specifically, what the plot will be, what themes you want to use, morals (if any), etc. This tends to be the hardest part for fanfiction writers. They have the chance to write something on their favorite fictional universe, but have no idea what to write about. Two things often happen: they write with any and all tropes from the canon stories, or they get bored and move on with another story. The latter seems more common with the Warriors fandom. Which is a shame. Some people would love to see how a story plays out. No way to do that if the last update was eight months ago, right?

You need to pick a topic that you are actually interested in. No point in tying addiction tropes into your fanfic if you have no interest in telling that kind of story. All that seems easier said than done, especially when the internet is involved. A majority (not a lot, a majority ) of stories on the internet get abandoned midway through because their authors lost interest. I know that there are more reasons than that for an abandoned work, but that is easily the deadliest thing for fledgling fanfics right next to not writing a first draft [see Live Updates vs First Draft]. Wattpad is no exception. Granted, the average Wattpad user according to their metrics is a fourteen-year-old girl. But we can expect the same from the 35-year-old man who renews his New Year's resolution to go to the gym. Hard to do something you do not like or have no interest in. Is it your fault? Yeah, somewhat. But not entirely.

The main issue I personally see regarding interest in one’s own fanfic is sticking way too close to the main series’ plot lines and tropes. Normally, there is nothing wrong with that; that is how the origin story of fanfiction starts out, anyway. But Warriors is not Star Trek. Star Trek (the origin fandom of fanfictions) involves exploring the galaxy in the 23rd century and beyond. There is literally a whole galaxy of unused and unseen material to pull into your fanfiction. The same can be said about Star Wars fanfics. In case you do not know Star Trek, there is the more slice-of-life My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. This show does not involve constant love, loss, and politics, but it still has a massive well of content to pull from and make one’s own (zebras, Hasbro? Step it up next time, Hasbro). That is why their fandom is one of the largest around.

Warriors and its fandom tend to be a bit more rigid than Star Trek , though. There are a few story lines that we tend to stick to. Many of these story lines follow canon rules and tropes closely. And no matter how many deviations we get from these ideas, they are still very close to a small number of plot lines:

- Kit/kittypet to warrior, warrior to leader. Maybe leader to StarClan (and/or back?)

- Outcast gets kicked from their clan and goes to (a) BloodClan (b) religious adventure (c) another clan

- Forbidden love, relationships beyond main character's clan causes problems. This usually results in a needless death and/or sadness.

- Cat of the prophecy fulfils said prophecy in an unexpected way.

- Clans go to war (again) after an evil exterior influence messes with them (again).

- That weird RP that you did with your friends, but written as a serious story pretending like the weird stuff is just normal.

Is it such a bad thing to want to write your own spin on the canon’s most common tropes? Not really. Fanfiction is derivative work for a reason. When Star Trek fanfiction first came up in the 1970s, people could not get enough of Kirk/Spock/McCoy-x-[female OC] (fun fact: this is the origin for the term 'Mary-Sue'). In My Little Pony fanfictions, we see more variety, but many still stay within the slice-of-life genre with the main characters, like the show itself.

I am not immune to this kind of writing, either. One of my stories is a loose combination of the first and fourth points. But I did say ‘loose’. Closely deriving your tropes only becomes a bad thing when you figure out, after writing 20,000 or so words, that you do not like the story arc you started. So now back to the underlying problem. How to pick your topic in a book series that you pretty much know everything about and could not know if you liked it or not without writing it yourself?

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HOW TO CHOOSE A PLOT

The easiest way to find a topic that you like is to pick something you want to see in the canon universe .

That piece of advice is just a restructured version of common advice for novice writers. To write about what you wish you could see in the world, but cannot for whatever reason. Within the Warriors fandom, is is just about picking what you want to see in the canon universe that is not there. Same rule applies for any other fanfiction for any other fandom. If you want to write about what really goes down in the Dark Forest, go for it. How about what happened to the cats of BloodClan long after Scourge died? Do it. " Sometimes I would give anything for things to be different. " Did you want her like Firepaw did? Then ship those two like there is no tomorrow. It really is as simple as picking something you like. No tricks, no special circumstances, no nothing. Yet still, why do so many fanfics go unfinished? 

Everyone here has a general interest in Warriors at least, but what is it about the series that draws or drew you in? Is it the large battles? The forbidden relationships (I hope not)? The huge named cast? The fact that they are cats in a forest forming clans and killing each other? Think back to what hooked you on that first book after you started reading it. But not only that, think about why you kept reading it. We all know there are books out there with more engaging characters, more mature themes, and more action and thrills. So why Warriors , and what about it?

I have a writing exercise for you; it might help you pick a topic that you're willing to stick with the whole way through (this writing exercise existed long before this guide):

Write a poem beginning with "My soul is a _______." No more than 10 lines. Whatever you want. No restrictions on format or content. And try not to think about it too much...

...

Now, there is no answer key for this because there is no correct answer. Only you know why you wrote what you wrote. Ideally, it was the first thing that came to mind and was a strong enough image/memory/idea that you were able to write poetry from it (I hate poetry for this reason). Can you apply your poem's content to Warriors in any way, shape, or form? If you can, try branching out from it further. Do you see plot lines, characters, and a setting to match, all stemming from your poem? Is it interesting to you? Do you want to see more of it and its relation to Warriors ? The whole goal is to get you to start writing and not want to stop. That all starts with picking a plot line and topic that you, at least, want to try your paw at.

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IN CONCLUSION...

The topic is one of the most important things of the story. It may influence how many reads you get, or how far you can take it before becoming outrageous, but none of that matters if it is never finished. By choosing a topic and plot line you really want to do you, are more likely to stick with it when ideas get tough and it comes time to refine. Sorry you may have felt cheated by the lack of unique information in this section, but it has been written about here because of how true it is. It could not be more true for our Warriors fandom; the amount of abandoned fanfics we produce is truly staggering compared to other fandoms.

Writing stories is supposed to feel liberating, after all. What you start with helps it stay that way.

- Tyto

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5 June, 2019

This section covers one of the unique situations the internet has brought upon the literary world: whether to write a book in full before publishing it, or to update it little by little on a hosting site like Wattpad. As a Base section, it has little to no examples drawn from canon Warriors.

Let me get my opinion out of the way. I would rather every writer on the internet wait to release their stories until after they have written them from beginning to end. The internet has given amateur writers the ability to publish chapter one without having written chapter two. Wattpad, fanfiction_net, and other writing-focused websites facilitate this method of writing with built-in word processors. In the Warriors fandom specifically, it is the only way to finish a book… or to not finish a book. I see so many stories published, but none updated. Nor do they get rewritten when updates are years apart Nor should updates be years apart! Some stories are just not posted at all, even if a cover and character list has been made for them. Most stories are abandoned halfway through. All this stems from updating your story as it is being written.

But that is just my opinion. Now that I have gotten that out of the way, it is time to discuss why the Warriors fandom (and to an extent other fandoms of younger readers/writers) do when it comes to posting work on Wattpad or other story hosting sites.

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PUBLISHING WHILE WRITING

Updating our Warriors fanfictions is such an easy task. All we have to do is put a cover up (usually a picture of a cat with a script typeface title), add a short, ambiguous description so that you can change the plot later, and post the first thing that comes to our mind. Almost every one of these fanfictions start with a character index like the canon novels, especially if non-canon clans are used. And just like that, the first part of your fanfiction is done. Despite my passive aggressive bashing of this method of writing, I do know and understand why some people write this way. There are definitely benefits.

Time flexibility is one big reason to publish a story as you write it. It takes a long time to write a book, let alone one you like. What if you do not have three to four hours of uninterrupted time to sit there and write a chapter or two of a first draft. So you type it directly into a cloud word processor like the one on this site and get halfway through. You can write for as little as 20 minutes and not finish a chapter, only to come back later to do so and post it for all your followers to see. Not having time to write is an important factor on whether you actually write something or not. If you literally write whenever and wherever you can, little by little, you are more inclined to finish.

Motivation from your following’s feedback is another advantage to updating a story while it is being written. Assuming you are not a professional paid writer, time is almost a non-factor when motivating you; there is no deadline. When users respond to what you have written in chapter one, you are more likely to finish chapter two. You will make time to finish chapter two. We want people to read what we write, ideally. If they have something to say about it, more power to you in regards to motivation. Anything that keeps a story from being abandoned.

This may sound like I am endorsing ego stroking, but it is not necessarily a bad thing to write something that you want others to see and discuss. And it is definitely not the only motivation people have had for writing. Some poets have dozens or even hundreds of poems surface decades after their deaths. Aristotle spoke and wrote his philosophy simply to explain why he was right; the fact that people listened and believed him was a bonus. Writing to your fans only becomes a problem when you write to please them. Do not do this. There are enough Jayfeather x [your OC] fanfictions out there, written for nothing more than likes and views. And they generate a lot of likes and views, just as they do in other fandoms.

On to the cons: one disadvantage to publishing a story while it is being written is consistency between chapters. Especially in this fandom, I have seen consistency errors like you could not believe. If you are writing one chapter in March and the next in April, this is bound to happen. You forgot that detail about your main character’s eyes. You neglected that prophecy you started in chapter one for a little too long. Your characters forget their development, because you forgot what they were like at the beginning. Consistency errors can make or break a story for those who notice. No one complained too much when Firestar temporarily had blue eyes (I think they were blue in one book; do not quote me on that). But what if Firestar, all of the sudden, lost his tabby stripes? Or worse, what if we found mention of Scourge in the Dark Forest during the Omen of the Stars arc? These errors could be much worse, given that arc and the first were written years apart. If the books were just published chapter by chapter, these errors are not outside the realm of possibility.

A not-so-straightforward disadvantage: the ability to work on multiple projects simultaneously. When we have not committed to finishing one story, we can quickly move onto another. As I mentioned in the pros, there is little incentive to finishing a story that you have started. What if you like one of your supporting characters better? Just drop your current fanfic and get to work on your new super edition, even before the book they first appeared in is halfway done. Have a cool idea for a new story, starring original clans this time? Nothing is stopping you from simply writing both it and your first story at the same time. This would inevitably delay updates for both.

Working on multiple stories at the same time is something the Wattpad community is notorious for. Update schedules, ETA calendars, ‘random thoughts’ books containing spoilers for their other books; it is especially common in the Warriors fandom. We are just one person each. Splitting your attention between even two remedial tasks is enough to slow our efforts on both. You would not want to do that with both fanfics and real life. It can be very tempting to make a second story with a fresh idea while your first has not been finished; worse, if it has been posted half-finished. You may never get back to it.

Those are just some of the things that may come up when publishing a story-in-progress. Next, we will talk about the other option: writing a start-to-finish first draft.

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THE FIRST DRAFT

This may not be something you have ever done as an amateur or fanfiction writer. An overwhelming majority of us do not. If you are updating your story as you go (or planning to), then you do not have a first draft. To have a first draft means you have finished writing your story, in full start to finish, and no one has seen it (save the possible editor-friend). If you post chapter ten without having finished chapter twelve, then you have not posted a first draft. You have posted a finished work that will be read and discussed by your followers as is.

You can probably guess that the pros and cons of writing a first draft over updating as we go will be opposite. You would not be wrong; there are many perpendiculars here. Some of you will skip straight to the “which is better” answer. I would not recommend skipping.

First, we gain consistency when writing the entire story first . The first draft gives us an important ability: proofreading. Even if you make no passes at editing, you will undoubtedly catch more errors when copy/pasting from Word or Sheets than you would if you just wrote it directly to Wattpad or fanfiction_net. That missing apostrophe, that one cat’s fur color, all could be caught before being posted if you had a first draft (and an outline). It is just one more checkpoint your words have to go through before being posted. By eliminating the small errors, you are more likely to focus on the big ones; more on that later.

A first draft also allows you to focus and trim your writing and plot in general. This is discussed in depth in another section, so I will summarize it here. You get a chance to slim down your story by trimming away excess details, events, or even characters. Trimming your story is obviously going to shorten it. And Warriors fanfictions tend to hit under the 40,000 word mark (the average length of a novella) all the time. But more concise writing, even if shorter and more straightforward, is more entertaining than a jumbled mess that has so many things happening that even the author has failed to keep up with the details.

Of course, there are drawbacks even with the way professional authors write. Despite what people (like me) will tell you about drafting their work, Wattpad and other hosting sites work differently than the real literary world. The sites are like hybrids between social media and a publishing company, leaning more towards the social side. You have seen them. Some variation of ‘the good girl and the bad boy’ is always on the front page. That popularity contest many writers on this site run with is very real. Even more so in the fanfiction communities across the internet.

The amount of content you can put out is limited, as you have to finish your whole story before publishing a single chapter. Like I mentioned, social media/publishing hybrid. Content streams are important to your followers and the algorithms these sites use to generate traffic. A reliable update schedule is just as important to both. And without deadlines being forced on you by your legion of fans crying for the next update… you see where I am going with this. I, personally, am not a big fan of social media. I want my readers to enjoy the story as it is released, knowing it will be posted in full and edited with few errors. But I am a very, very small minority. Constant content is important to your followers. Just look at my follower count compared to others, my traffic compared to others. Waiting months or even years for another story to be posted on my account is not exactly good for growing a fan base.

This can be a huge turnoff for some writers. Other sites like Tumblr and DeviantArt allow simpler uploads and status updates to keep fans around for a bit longer. But the main content of both sites is images. Wattpad’s is literature. And it generally takes more hours to write a 60,000+ word novel than it does to paint a digital picture (this is not indicative of the skills needed for either task). Many people may not be willing to wait so long for updates. They do not think of you in the same way they do J.K. Rowling or the Erins. Six plus months for updates could be too long to wait on an amateur writer when there are thousands of other amateur writers out there on the internet. People would rather be drip-fed content than waiting for huge updates; just look at YouTube as an example. Writing first drafts does not have to kill your fanbase, nor would it. It can limit its growth, though.

Another big disadvantage is your motivation could be sapped in the span of writing your story. This is huge. I have friends in real life that want to write novels. But that first draft can be a daunting task. I also have friends in real life who use Wattpad to update their story as they write, editing only chapter-to-chapter as they are posted. At the very least, they have written something. Between the months, even years, it takes to write a book, motivation could be sapped by a lack of progress, life interfering, no sense of direction, or too many senses of direction. If your motivation is to have people reading your work (not necessarily have lots of votes), writing an entire novel from start to finish to get those readers can seem like a huge chore. And this does not even count editing or promotion. Who knows how many times that book can be pushed behind a continuous stream of other tasks.

So there it is. Pros and cons to writing both first drafts and updating a story as it is being written. As usual for things like this, there is no always correct answer. Now for the moment of truth.

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SO WHAT IS THERE TO DO?

There seems to be good and bad with both options, but that was all just observation and fact. Authors and literary experts will tell you that writing a first draft is done before anything. No one sees the first draft except for editors (or no one if you self edit, like most do). Only the subsequent edited drafts are ever shown to the public or publishing company. Whereas, on literature-hosting websites, almost every single user writes their stories just once, posting each chapter as it is finished. No outline, little editing. Therefore, their first pass also becomes their final draft.

My opinion on the matter is not important, nor is it definitive of an answer for this very specific question. But from all the personal research I have done for this section, I know many of you would benefit a great deal from writing a first draft before ever posting your story to Wattpad. Many Wattpad stories (not just the Warriors fanfics) have glaring errors in consistency, grammar, and the strength of their plot and characters. Yet these problems usually go undetected due to the younger sku of people who use the site and the sheer amount of content posted daily. The same happens on other websites with mass appeal and user-generated content (DeviantArt, fanfiction_net, Instagram, etc).

From the way I typed the above statement, it sounded like I just insulted the whole of Wattpad. I have not. All of us are varying skill levels, from beginner to even professional paid authors who use the sides. But, in this fandom, we are all amateur writers. And that does not mean unskilled. All of us could benefit from writing a first draft; there is a good reason authors do so instead of publishing sections in rapid succession over the internet (some do on Amazon, though). Writing a first draft helps the story, plot, and characters improve. More importantly, it lets you focus on improving as a writer. But it also means there is less of a chance of you finishing because other things can get in the way. It can also interfere with growth on your sites. My stories may be consistent, and of filling length and content, but it has done me no favors when it comes to growing my account and keeping me motivated.

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IN CONCLUSION…

This is a tough question with no correct answer. Take advice from professional writers, there is only one answer. Take advice from Wattpad users, there is another singular answer. You choose how you want to write your story; no one can force you to write one way or another. I did not write this section to convince you of one way over the other, but to simply give insight as to why someone like you would choose to write the way they do.

Sometimes the ‘what’ is more important than the ‘how’. Stories that people read, and that you enjoy writing, are always going to keep you motivated, consistent, and improving.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

8 June, 2019

This section covers some prewriting steps to take before you actually start writing, like the process of idea conception, determining if it is worth pursuing, and your real life environment’s influence on writing. As a Base section, it has little to no examples drawn from canon Warriors.

So that rush of energy with pictures came in and you have frantically recorded it. Now what?

Most people either stash it, scrap it, or build upon it after some time alone with it. That is step one, and this section is not entirely about that part. Everyone has a different ideation process (or none at all). And this can be a problem when help is required. If we just consider Wattpad, most people start branching off the very first thing that sticks in their head. The very first thing. It can be damaging to your writing and writing habits. So in this section, I want to help you get started and stay started writing.

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IDEA CONCEPTION

Idea conception is important; it is what you are writing, ultimately. An idea you had. A solid idea is much easier to work with than one that is hastily put to publish. Many Warriors fanfictions go all over the place with their plot and characters. It usually stems from an idea being written out at the moment of conception, having its plot, characters, and setting built around it. That itself is normal, but when it is thought of, outlined, written, and published all at the same time , it stops being normal. We may let that fly on places like DeviantArt with its rushed slash fics and text wall formats. Sometimes, Wattpad’s community likes to think it is above that. It can always be so if you think out your ideas.

One easy way to put your idea on a good foundation is to know exactly what you want to write. And I am not talking “I want to write a love story” or “I want a kit to leader epic.” I am talking about why you want a love story. How you want to tell that story, and with what kind of characters. These thoughts are meant to avoid as many future headaches as possible when it comes to really fleshing out a story.

Try this exercise for building out ideas if you are having trouble with that stage of pre-writing.
* This was the advice I gave to someone on DeviantArt when she asked how to start off her MLP fanfic with nothing more than a one-sentence idea. A variant of this advice floats around the site (maybe even this one), but here it is as I summarized it:

- Know the canon , at least to a degree of competence. You do not have to know every single cat (no one does), but at least know the main story arc, major characters, and why main events happened.

- What do you want to see in the canon universe that never happened? To some degree, it is important what you are thinking of did not happen exactly as you think of it in canon. Otherwise, you are just retelling a story already told and losing the main allure of fanfiction.

- How could you make that unique or interesting? You should not deviate from canon all the way, but alternate universes and OC-filled stories are always acceptable. As long as you followed the prior point, you probably have this stage down.

- Begin building a universe. Whatever you want, just go for it. If your fanfiction is set in the canon universe like most are, perfect. You can skip this step unless there is some kind of deviation from details already given (which there almost always is). Do not forget things like time period and important events. Do not worry about characters right now (more on worldbuilding is covered in other sections).

- Compare your plot idea to the universe/setting you just started building. The universe should add to the plot in some way, and vise-versa. This is especially true for stories that take place in the canon universe. If the canon cats were on a futuristic space station instead of a lake surrounded by forest, then they would not do things exactly the same, would they? How does your plot affect your universe? How does your universe affect your plot?

- Begin thinking about the main character(s). What kind of character should take the focus of the story? Where should that character be in regards to the universe they are in, be it canon or original? What do they do? Do not worry about appearances and names right now.

- Think about supporting characters and background events. What kind of cats or creatures does your main character associate with? Are they important enough to become secondary characters, or even main characters? If not, make them background characters or get rid of them. This is something particular for the Warriors fandom. We make clans, fill them with cats, give them names and history, and use them for just one or two chapters, never giving them any significant role in the story. The same goes for characters (more on background characters and events is covered in other sections).

- How does it all come together? Is the main character important (they better be)? You want to build your plot around the main character, but not have your MC be the only thing about the plot. They should be the driving factor to the plot; things happen because of their presence (advice on the MC is covered in its own section).

- Decorate! With all that done, now you can start truly worldbuilding. This includes details on your main character (name, age, etc.) as well as the supporting cast. The same goes for your world. What are the names of clans and their involvement with the plot? Are clans even in your universe? What is the weather like in your setting? What is the overall tone of the setting and the universe? Most cosmetic details will be nonessential to the story, but essential for keeping it unique. These are the details most fanfic writers obsess over.

This may be a bit overwhelming, but it does not take as long as you think. Especially when you run a few ideas through this filtering method. It keeps you from spending too much time on ideas that just do not work, or ideas you never liked in the first place. It saves you from making mistakes like promoting a background character to main character because you liked the personality you gave them (the one they should not have had in the first place).

An ‘elevator pitch’ of your fanfic is the final product of all this . This is an idea you can pitch to a corporate superior in the average elevator ride (around 15-20 seconds) and your superior will have understood everything you said and could start bouncing the concept back and forth with his colleagues. It is not something that is actually done anymore, but it is an expression that basically means “tell me your idea. You have 20 seconds to do so.” It is mostly for others to understand, but most of you are probably writing this alone in a dark room somewhere (I like dark rooms). Something to keep in mind is that elevator pitches are usually done once you have a solid idea and direction, but the ends are more important than the means in this case. As long as you are confident someone else can understand what you are going for in a few sentences, you have made your personal pitch.

Here are a few examples of ideas I have formatted as elevator pitches, both before or after I delved further into them:

- A desperate tom from a band of rogues is determined to unite the scattered and warring clans of Kyoto under the peaceful ways of his slain mentor. He realizes, however, bringing violent cats with no code of honor together may require a more, or less, delicate approach...

- In ancient times, a great battle takes place between two cat empires. An entire army from one side is lost, with no bodies or traces left. Commanded by a renowned she-cat, her littermate refuses to grieve and accept that his legendary sibling simply vanished. He joins the next army headed to her last known direction, hoping to find some clues as to what happened...

- An unknown prophet has begun spreading word that he saw a human revive from his grave after being tortured and executed, renouncing StarClan and proclaiming the human as his true god. A once-peaceful forest is on the brink of all out war over this news as his message begins to take hold, and it is up to one she-cat to bring the truth to light. But she does not even know anymore...

You might notice that some of these ideas are strange and sail far from canon territory (this is covered in another section) but that is okay. Though we are late in the ideation stage, it is still an idea, and can be whatever we want it to be. These pitches describe the kinds of stories I want to tell. You should also want to tell stories based on the pitches you create. Contrary to the idea of elevator pitches, you will likely be the only one to ever see those you create. But as long as you can read what you have written and begin bouncing detail and semblance from it, you have succeeded.

We have gone over ways to create ideas from nothing. But now it is time to see if these ideas you have made can truly stand on their own four paws. Specifically, this goes over what you can do with the idea you have chosen to go forward with.

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IS YOUR PLOT WORTHY?

Now that all that ideation work is done, we can get to the next step… which is not writing. It is a final fail-safe check to see if whatever idea you chose can carry itself for however long you want your fanfiction to be. If you want to write a novel, your plot should not show signs of resolving in chapter two (unless that is your intention). You might think the elevator pitch covers creating the basic plot premise, while the stepped method I listed before that covers it in detail. But this is not about creating the plot. Doing something like this is a bit harder than simply fleshing out our ideas. But there are some checks we can use without starting to write; by the way, do not start writing yet. We do not want you to struggle on chapter twelve out of thirty because you stretched your story as far as it can go. We do not want stretching and padding, and neither do your readers.

One check you can use on your idea is to write the ending first . This method is underrated, but used by some professionals for conceiving a more stable mid section and building better characters before you even start writing. Before your main character goes through a warrior ceremony, before their mate is savagely murdered by a clanmate, you have to know how everything ends for them.

Why do this? Writing the ending of your story first checks two things: it makes sure your plot can carry itself through your planned length , and it ensures your ending is satisfying, but not set in stone for you .

This is a problem that I see with many works on Wattpad. Particularly fanfictions, and most particularly the ones that are posted as they are being written. The plot, after dozens of chapters, becomes stale and aimless due to the writer not knowing where they were going with it. Their initial idea could not carry itself to the desired length the author had set out to reach. This is usually “solved” by adding new events and introducing plot twists to keep both reader and writer interested. Doing that detracts from the main plot, of course. I do not want you to be that writer. Even all the steps I listed above would not help you if there is no target for the plot to aim for.

This also makes sure your ending is satisfying given the parameters laid out by the plot and characters’ motivations. Did your promiscuous character get their comeuppance? No? Why not? Is the moral more impactful if they do not? What does the main character think of that? These questions could very easily be asked by a reader who wants to dig deeper into your story. The last thing you want is a forgettable story because the climax lost all momentum. No amount of good characters, meticulous plotting, and vivid setting can save you from a bad ending. Perhaps your plotline set up expectations to end one way and actually ended another (many novice writers mistake these for good twists). Even the most unexpected of endings need some foreshadowing.

With so many variables to account for when writing, both in and out of your actual writing process, writing the end first is almost like a safety net. The best part is you can still change it. The end is not set in stone. Even if you cannot think of a fully realized end before you have written your story, at least have some small idea of how events would play out.

With all that completed, it is time to think about events, character growth moments, twists, and other chapter highlights. This part is much easier than that stuff from above. All you have to do now is to write down as many possible events that could happen throughout yours tory as possible. These should be summarized in no more than one or two sentences, and each one of these snippets should be able to become a chapter should you write them out.

Some example events from a nonexistent fanfiction:

- Catpaw has her warrior ceremony and becomes Catclaw.

- A thunderClan cat kills Otherleaf, Catstar’s friend and medicine cat, leaving her distraught and reckless.

- ThunderClan finally attacks Catstar’s ShadowClan, while the other two clans stay back and wait.

- Catclaw steals a fish from a twoleg camp, but finds many more camps and no other animals wandering around; bad sign.

- Catkit is visited by a StarClan cat and receives a prophecy. Her impulsiveness and immaturity makes her draw many improbable scenarios.

- Catstar consults her medicine cat, Otherleaf, for advice on her prophecy. She does not like the ambiguity that Otherleaf comes up with.

- Catkit meets Otherkit and becomes friends with her, the two acting as character foils to each other.

As you can see, the events do not have to be in any sort of order, or have any kind of organization within your grand plot. They just have to be things that you might write chapters around in your story. As you begin writing, you will notice yourself coming back to this list and scratching off most of what you wrote. You might write down new events, or star important ones you are really drawn to. Character moments may be wrapped around some of these events. They may just be exposition chapters (which I personally discourage, but others encourage). They are yours to draw inspiration from, yours to scrap, and yours to write further.

Speaking of writing, we have much of our preliminary work done. While all of this would not create a true outline, it creates some of the most important parts of one. These steps, whether you decide to write a full first draft or post it as you go along, will give you far more consistency than keeping it all in your head would.

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ARE YOU READY IN REAL LIFE?

So now it is finally time to write. A solid idea, a plan of how we will start and end it, and some events to draw from when we get into it… there is just one more thing to account for. Real life. Problems within your environment can really make or break your story. Your mood, your equipment, time allotted, all can affect the story and quality of your fanfiction. If a solid idea was not holding you back, nor writer's block, nor ideas on how to end it, it must be something else, right?

The average Wattpad user ends up being a fourteen year-old girl (so says their own statistics). The Warriors fandom is made up of a slightly older age group, probably middle school to early 20’s. That is about the same age makeup for any fandom; of course there will always be outliers. The entire latter half of your upbringing happens from high school to mid 20’s, so much is happening in that time frame. Let's highlight a few of those things.

The Warriors fandom made almost entirely of people who are still in school. Whether you are in elementary school or college, that means homework, attendance, and extracurricular activities. While few Warriors fans are beyond college age, it only creates more obligations when you finish with your education. Finding time to write on weekends is a start, but that time competes with other things you want to do (academics come first, so says the owl).

Your free time is competing with any social obligations or desires. The time you spend with friends and family, whatever time you spend hanging out on Discord, or the time you spend with your significant other (should you have one) is time you are not spending to write. Your priorities are yours alone. Just know that writing takes a lot of time. Squeezing ten or so minutes here and there just is not going to cut it for anything more than a journal.

There are many unforeseen events in life and things you cannot compensate for. You could have a friend who moved away come visit. You might have a new pet to play with. Maybe your parents signed you up for a camp, or you have to be away from your writing space for a few days. You also have to eat, sleep, take breaks, watch Star Trek , etc. The unforeseen and mundane can pile up quick to eat into your writing time. But that goes back to your priorities and what you value most.

Of course, your time will always be limited. It is expected that you cannot devote every second of your free time to writing fanfiction. But it does become a problem when it saps your willingness to write with quality. If life is getting in the way, but you really really want to write, you will do one of two things: write in haste and under negative pressure, or not write at all. If you do not have the time to write at the moment, you do not have the time to write. Professionals will tell you to force yourself to write, and force yourself to make time to write. But their job is writing. Your job is not writing. Do not try to do everything. If something has to give, prioritize.

That being said, it is time to go back to real life things that can interfere with your writing. Specifically, minor distractions. The ‘small stuff’.

Your phone/web browser is a major source of procrastination. I am not talking about procrastination as a whole, but all the minor distractions these two things throw at you. Push notifications, ads, social media updates… other Wattpad stories. It is an obvious and easy target, but limiting internet use while writing is an easy way to keep potential distractions to a minimum. The only thing I am possibly doing on my dry-ass phone while writing is running an auto-farming mobile game atop a cooling fan (ironically this limits my contact with my phone, since the game uses most of its resources).

Get comfortable. If you are comfortable sitting hours upon hours in front of your computer, you will write more without even knowing it. Ergonomics are something you never notice unless they are bad. Uncomfortable chair, mushy keyboard, hot room. Some of the things that improve my ergonomics are a nice mechanical keyboard, an ultrawide monitor for more screen space, and a decent pair of headphones when I need them. The holy grail of computer ergonomics is a good chair. I mean a really good chair. But they are an investment to justify, and I work eight-plus hours a day in front of my computer. Using an external monitor for your laptop (if you use laptops) is a good place to start for good — not adequate, good ergonomics.

Do not write your stories on your phone. The ergonomics suck and it ignores my first point entirely.

Music is a double-edged sword. The right kind can help your concentration tremendously and get you in a certain mindset when writing. The wrong kind, obviously, serves as another distraction. I listen to gothic, death, and black metal and rock when doing tasks I do not concentrate intensely on. Nonfiction edits (like this guide), personal thoughts,or drawing will have this in the background. Sometimes, I use it when writing certain scenes to get me in the mood. Most of the time, however, voiced music can keep you from staying focused as you subconsciously go over the lyrics.

Coincidentally, classical music can distract you from tasks like writing. Just like with lyrics, your mind will be going over the carefully structured music. If you want benefits from sound or writing, I suggest lo-fi music or ambient noise. Check the facts for yourself, though. Do not just take my word for it.

Setting up deadlines and goals can provide a tremendous boost in confidence when writing longer fanfics. Make sure to keep these small and easily achievable. One chapter a day is way harder to accomplish than one chapter a week. Write 100 words a day, minimum? Easy enough. That is a tip from professionals: write something every day, no matter how small. Have a goal of writing a full-length fanfic? Promise yourself at least 10,000 words a month (about 330 words per day). These wide berth, easy-to-reach goals give you those small hits of pride and accomplishment that you will want more of. Simple goals snowball into larger ones, until you find you just ignored your goals altogether and finished early! Results vary from person to person, but that feeling of inching closer to your goal does not.

We all love Warriors , and we all have our limits. Whether you want it to or not, fanfiction cannot dominate your life. But make time for it if you want to do it. Devling too much into it can hurt your academic and social life. Putting if off too long creates habits of ignoring ignoring writing, even if you want to write. Prioritize your time, limit distractions, get comfortable, and set smaller goals. These tips are, perhaps, more important than the ideation tips I gave earlier. This will affect your writing whether yours stems from a good or bad idea. Keep these things in mind if you find yourself constantly failing to scratch your fanfic itch.

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IN CONCLUSION…

This is all a lot of information to take in at once. You might reference this section later on, and I consider it one of the more important ones in this writing guide. Your ideas, your plot and its structure, your real life, and your writing setup can all affect your story. All without ever writing down a single character or clan name. These things cannot be meticulously checked and crossed off some kind of ‘writing well’ checklist. No way you can make sure you are 100% distraction -free, or can leave several hours every weekend open to just writing. At least, these things are not expected of everyone. Pace yourself. Enjoy your writing.

A good idea does not always equal a good story. But it helps that the only thing you worry about when writing is the words to fill the page.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

June 13, 2019

There are not many guides out there that deal with how much inspiration to draw from canon. As a fanfiction, obviously, it must draw a lot from canon. But is there a guide that delves into acceptable practices when venturing beyond the canon? This section is that guide.

It is not like I hate Warriors . I wrote a whole guide and fanfictions on it. But there is one thing I have seen with fanfictions that parallels across genres and fandoms: a lack of exploration. Fanfiction pulls much from the work it is based on. Themes, characters, worlds, most fanfics pull these things directly from the canon. But in this fandom, much of it stays the same. The exact same. Same clans, same location, same characters (often post-Bramblestar, which the A Vision of Shadows arc canonized). While this is not a bad thing in of itself, it does stagnate the writing side of the fandom. Many of the best fanfics are born out of the idea that writers can fulfill a desire not met in canon, and it can be literally any desire. However this fandom, and to a certain extent the canon it draws from, does not allow too much creative flexibility.

While it is debatable what makes a good fanfic, we could all benefit from at least knowing how flexible we can be with the base content in canon. Or why this fandom, and many others, can stagnate while a few take an ‘anything goes’ policy.

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WRITING WITHIN THE CANON UNIVERSE

Some fanfiction, especially in the Warriors fandom, is written within the canon universe. By this, I mean the story, its characters, and their setting all exist in the established canon universe of Warriors . It usually retains few to no canon characters (taking place between or after major events) and almost always include an original character as the focus, and OC’s as the supporting cast.

Here is an example summary for our nonexistent fanfic:

StarClan has spoken. “Your world’s masters will drown themselves from a terrible mistake, and take you all with them. The only way to survive is to bury yourselves alive and let this tragedy unfold without you.”

Otherleaf, the ShadowClan medicine cat, is baffled by this prophecy. She discusses it with her friend and senior warrior, Catclaw, who becomes engrossed in it. Nothing will stop her from piecing together the long history of the clans to try and form a clear answer as to why they have been damned. Perhaps it is the mistakes of former leaders, or a long-standing problem that must be brought to light. Catclaw feels she must bring the truth of the prophecy to light before all pay for mistakes none of them were alive to commit.

That was a pretty standard description as far as Warriors fanfics go. If a description like this were on the back of one of the canon books, it would seem far-fetched for not mentioning established characters, but normal for staying with the same ambiguous plot setups and its use of the lake territories for its setting. But mostly that it uses the canon setting for its story, as well as clearly taking place in the same universe for its mention of ShadowClan. Though our fanfic uses the canon clans, most use original clans with the same territory of a forest or a lake surrounded by forest.

In most fandoms, stories like this are written. It is much more common in fandoms that have large character pools to potentially use. Incidentally, the larger the character pool, the less likely we are to use it. If you dabble in other fandoms, check how often they write stories in the canon universe starring their OC as the main character. Given the characters in Warriors , especially common here. Because most/all of the characters and plotlines are original, they require less knowledge of the source material and are a bit easier to write than stories that use an all-canon cast.

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WRITING WITHIN THE CANON PLOTLINES

This type of fanfiction is a bit less common than the ones we discussed above. These ones are firmly cemented in the canon, using canon characters, settings, and plotlines. These fanfics are not just in the canon universe, but they use everything that has been mentioned in canon. Many stories from the Harry Potter fandom do this, writing stories from the point of view of the three main characters instead of using their own original characters or settings. Sometimes, these stories are written from the point of view of a background or side character who did not get much focus in canon, going over their thoughts, feelings, and/or possible actions during the main plotline.

An example : we want to write a fanfic on Smudge, the kittypet that was with Firestar (then Rusty) before he joined ThunderClan. He makes three official appearances in canon, one each in Into the Wild , The Darkest Hour , and in Firestar’s Quest . They are all minor appearances, too. If we wanted Smudge to be our main character, we would be constrained to the rules in the canon. We could not make Smudge some edgy secret killer of the night, because he is fairly timid and conservative. And, because the Warriors saga takes place over years of time without Smudge once being mentioned, we could not write him into a clan without making our fanfic alternate universe. We can still use this to our advantage. Who knows what he was doing while the main plotline was happening. Smudge could have left his kittypet life and become a stray, dying on a street somewhere. He could have become a BloodClan member and retreated at the first sign of trouble; maybe Firestar, the only cat who would have recognized him, never noticed him on that battlefield. Maybe we write a “short stories” fanfic where he just stays a kittypet and discusses the life and adventures with others that made him so fearful of the unknown (I kind of want to write that). Just because we are using a canon character does not mean it is impossible to get creative. Plenty of writers already do it. Of course, this went over a background character being promoted. If our fanfic had Firestar as a main character, we would be much more constricted.

Occasionally, these types of fanfics are written with an OC as the main character. While they are the focus of the writing, they are treated as a background character in another character’s story. If we inserted Catclaw into ThunderClan during The Prophecies Begin arc, she could not be the leader. Bluestar and Firestar were the leaders. If we make Catclaw the leader, it becomes an AU fanfic. Also, if Catclaw were to interact in a big way with the plot or main characters, like if she killed another named character or became Firestar’s mate (even briefly) it would also break the story and send it into AU territory. These fears should not limit us too much, however. It is perfectly believable that our Catclaw OC could have confessed her love to Firestar and been rejected, affecting her throughout the story. Or she could interact with other named characters; plenty of them have holes in their stories not addressed in canon. Our Catclaw could have been part of those unwritten stories.

In other fandoms, these kind of stories are the most numerous aside from all the shipping fanfics. While not as common in Warriors due to the sheer amount of information that has to be taken in to know what each of those named characters was doing, they still exist.

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OUTSIDE THE CANON

These are, by far, the most common type of fanfictions in the Warriors fandom. Despite the wide selection of canon characters to use in our stories, we tend to make our own, along with their own clans to go with them. How far we deviate from the typical ‘four clans in a forest’ model depends on how far we are willing to drift away from canon-like settings and themes (covered more in another section). Note that there is a broad definition of ‘alternate universe (AU)’ in fanfiction, ranging from the same plot and characters in a different canon setting to a new cast, setting, and plot but in the same canon universe. Also keep in mind that, using Harry Potter as an example, if Hogwarts is the setting, then the Wizarding World is the universe. So if our fanfic featured african cats instead of domestic ones and took place in a fictional african setting instead of a fictional english setting, then it would be considered AU assuming we stuck to the clan as a social structure.

When we leave canon in all ways, we have the most freedom to do what we want. That is why it is so popular in this fandom. We can expand on the setting, lore/history, or themes of the Warriors series in ways that were not explained or expanded on in canon. We are not just limited to expanding on canon characters or plotlines here. For example, religion is a major theme that is called on greatly in the The Prophecies Begin arc. StarClan is this mysterious and ominous presence in the minds of all the main characters, saving lives and sending prophecies seemingly at random to the unknowing below… until the subsequent arcs where their presence is confirmed and even tangible at times. After that point, StarClan loses all of its mystery and, to a greater literary extent, their potency. It no longer matters if a cat does not believe in StarClan, because we know they are wrong. We know what happens to heathens, heretics, and nonbelievers, taking much of their characterization away as the plot progresses.

With the AU fanfiction, however, it does not have to be this way. We are not held to the same limitations. What if we decided to write a fanfic where StarClan does not exist? What if we did not tell readers explicitly that they did not exist, forcing them to rely on the words and actions of the faithful cats in our story? And just like that, our religious theme returns to its The Prophecies Begin potency. Because of how the later arcs dealt with StarClan, our now alternate universe can just ignore or retcon all of those changes.

Speaking honestly, Warriors is not a very malleable series. Remember when I said this fandom has tons of characters to choose from when writing, but tends to use their own? That is because most of the characters are written with little in the way of personalty, struggles and trials, and character growth. Many are named, but most names just lead to deaths. A few are memorable and manage to gain their place in the fandom’s hearts and minds. But even our protagonist throughout most of the series, Firestar, has very few defining characteristics above what we see in a typical ‘good guy’. In short, the main reason for this is the Erins writing later series to be more widely accepted by their target demographic. Adding things like laundry lists of characters, making StarClan have a physical presence, and bringing characters back to life were for the fandom’s appetite for fanfiction and broader content. Of course, no one is blaming you directly. How Warriors was established did not allow for much horizontal growth.

This is where the mistakes come in for this type of fanfic. Given the freedom we have to write what we want, how could we even make one when writing AU? If we take away the main themes and tropes from Warriors in our fanfic, then how much of a fanfic is it? It needs at least some semblance of the work it is derived from.

We can use Warriors and My Little Pony as an example. Regardless of what you think of the latter, it is a very different fiction from Warriors and a perfect comparison. Let us say we insert our warrior clans in the MLP universe, with all of its magical beings and civilizations intact. It might work. In the MLP universe, the ponies would be the closest thing to human. The problem is that our warrior clans would not be an unknown mystery to them like they are to the ‘twoleg’ humans in the canon universe. Talking animals and animal civilizations are also a thing in the MLP universe, so interacting with our warrior clans would be just another day for ponies.

As a writer, what do we do if our warrior clans do not mix into the MLP universe? Well, if we keep writing, we find much has to change. The warrior clans will have to, somehow, keep their power struggles away from the societies of other intelligent life. Their lack of magic would be a real hindrance in this; StarClan’s power is relatively weak compared to magic in MLP. Or we could go the opposite direction, and expand the clans to hold sizable territory. They would have to carve their own places out in Equestria (MLP’s universe) and hold it as their own against other more powerful magical creatures. There would also have to be a reason for them to have this territory. Also, we would have to explain how or why normal domestic cats the ponies keep as pets did not start talking or leave to join one of the cat clans…

… wow that is a lot to make up for. In all of this, are we truly writing a Warriors fanfic anymore? Or have we bent our Warriors rules so much to compensate for our My Little Pony universe that we have created our own original idea? That would not even count as a crossover. The moment we change too much canon information, tropes, or themes to better match what we want to write, we are not writing fanfiction anymore. It is not too difficult to figure out when we have done this. Does your fanfiction use a wolf clan and wolves as the main society and characters, but feature cat clans? Could be AU. Is it a high school story that no longer features StarClan or fighting and killing? You might have just written a book about american high school instead of a Warriors fanfic.

The possibility of mistakes should not deter you from exploring the places beyond canon. Many themes, crossovers, genres, and tropes have yet to be explored by this fandom. For example, I like to write my Warriors fanfics in the real world during different time periods and historical events. But that is just me. What will you write beyond the canon?

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IN CONCLUSION…

Those are just a few ways writers in this fandom ground their fanfictions. I discussed in another section about Wattpad being a hybrid of social media and a writing platform. Some people like to keep in mind the potential for reads and comments when writing. If you have ever asked the question why a generic fanfiction with spelling errors and long hiatuses gets more reads than a full length supposed ‘gem’, then you should research where priorities lie within fandoms. Each has different preferences. This one just so happens to lean towards original clans starring OCs in a setting and universe identical to the canon one. A few of you will keep this little disclaimer in mind when writing. That being said, You do not have to limit yourself to what you believe will drive your view numbers up. You can write whatever you want.

Whether your writing is among, within, or beyond the Warriors canon is up to you and the story you want to tell.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

June 15, 2019

This section covers the editing and revision process, should you choose to do so before you post your fanficion around the internet. Here I assume you are your only editor. Rather than giving specifics on how, it goes over the process as a whole.

You have done it. You finished your super awesome Warriors fanfiction… now what? For the sake of your story, I hope the next step is not to hit the publish button. All of us have read bad fanfiction. Most fanfiction is bad fanfiction, and that is not limited to our fandom. In all fandoms, most fanfiction is bad. But that is what happens when superfans, shippers, and cosplayers try their hand at writing, a task that still has professionals for a reason. That is not to say they cannot write great things, though.

In this section, I am not specifically discussing bad fanfiction only. Nor do I mean parodies or trollfics like Starkit’s Prophecy . Nor do I mean the arguably “only good because they are popular” ones, nor the one-offs or bizarre ones. In fact, most of my time will be spent on decent fanfiction. Why talk about the decent ones? Because one of the reasons good fanfiction emerges from amateurs is because of editing. Simple editing. Just looking at the words you have written more than twice. Let us go deeper into it.

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WHAT IS REVISION?

Revision is the process of going over your work again to create an improved version of it. It is that process that lets your search for those character arcs you completely forgot about, or that subplot you finished but never started. Most Warriors fanfictions are not revised or edited in any way (I have gone over why in other sections). But usually, it is not what you wrote that matters but how you present it. And, when writing fanfics, we do want our readers and fans to like it and want more of it.

Keep in mind that revision is not necessarily editing. Editing is the process of changing things, whether that change be good or bad. Editing would be changing our main character’s fur from white to gray tabby, or fixing some grammar mistakes here and there (and there, and there). Revision is going over our story with the intention of producing a better version of it when we are done. Like how your teachers in school would have you turn in rough drafts and final drafts of essays, your revised story is the final draft (or second, depending on how many revisions you do). Revisions tend to change large aspects of the story, like a character’s personality or changing the writing’s tone. These, again, are done with the intention of making things better.

Both are important. And they are not too different, just two parts of a greater literary whole: an improved story. Your goal is to be your own critic for once. Target your work, unsheath your claws, and put it through its paces. If you manage to tear it to pieces and say “this is trash,” then you probably need to edit and revise.

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EDITING AND REVISING A STORY

Do not panic if you do not like what you have written after giving it a read (who does). We would all love to keep tweaking this mess until it is perfect. But that is both impossible and something to avoid. If you are even reading this section, I assume you want to know what the best way to go about revising is. I will not go over taking and analyzing criticism here because I am assuming the only person to lay eyes on your draft is you.

There are many ways, and many guides, that go over how to edit your work. Almost all of these guides were written by people who use editors or show unfinished work to friends. We are on our own. And the only way you can edit and revise on your own is the way that works for you. There is no end-all answer I can give you. Editing spelling and grammar has an obvious process. Changing minor character details is straightforward. Altering the setting or thinking about plot points to change is not so easy when thinking of the task as is.

Here is an example edit from our completed nonexistent fanfiction. We have no idea how to think about a major character death’s impact on the plot:

- Catstar is the intelligent leader of ShadowClan . She has a cynical disposition and hates not knowing things, but a fervent sense of duty for her clan. Otherleaf is ShadowClan’s medicine cat and Catstar’s best friend . She is frivolous with responsibilities unrelated to her friends and job. But her personality is positive and charismatic. These two are character foils to each other , and their dynamic has swayed the plot between two possible endings.

- In our fanfic, Otherleaf is killed by rival ThunderClan , who Catstar has been bickering with for the whole story. Without her calm and wise medicine cat friend, Catstar attacks ThunderClan with the sole purpose to kill as many as possible. She loses many of her own, and the story ends. Not a very strong ending, we think . How can we improve it?

- What if we started outlining Catstar’s death instead of Otherleaf’s? Catstar is kidnapped and killed nine times over by ThunderClan. Now we have swapped main characters. Otherleaf might accept the death of her friend easier than Catstar, but that does not mean ShadowClan is off the hook. Their new leader is not as intelligent or aggressive in the face of adversity. When ThunderClan goes all in on an attack, he fails to keep them at bay. Otherleaf, being too passive in such matters, advises surrender. Now Catstar’s victory becomes Otherleaf’s defeat. Setting up a sequel, sure, but still not the strongest ending .

- What if the character death was unnecessary? What if neither Catstar or Otherleaf died? Catstar may valiantly charge forth and attack ThunderClan with purpose other than revenge. Otherleaf could caution mercy and long-term effects. Ultimately, ThunderClan is subjugated under ShadowClan , and Catstar must deal with a spike in power and disapproval from StarClan and the other lake clans. Better than our other two endings, we think .

- What if we thought of something completely different? What if we made ThunderClan way stronger than ShadowClan by inserting a previous battle that injures most of their warriors? How will our characters and plot change when the odds do not favor them? Will it improve our fanfic...

See? That was just with two characters. And all of those changes from one plot point . Since our goal is to make it better, we have found that we can write a stronger ending to our nonexistent fanfic by keeping both our main characters alive. Whether or not we decide to implement depends on our perception of our own work, what kind of story we are writing, if we want to take on the work of changing large swaths of it. Of course we can think of other scenarios, but that is just one example of what we can do with the revision process.

All of this critical thinking allows us to view a web of our story . During rereading, editing, and revision, we can really see what makes characters do what they do, why certain plot events happened the way they did, and what would happen if we altered them. Who knows, we might get a better story from it.

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OVER-REVISING AND DIMINISHING RETURNS

Over-revising our work can have a detrimental effect on it. There is such a thing as thinking too critically, and that is exactly what we do if we treat all of our revisions, edits, and rewrites as a new outline for further revision. If all we are thinking about is how to make our fanfiction better, then we have not written one yet. We will never know if our readers would have hated the Catstar death versus the Otherleaf death because we have not shown them anything. We keep revising it.

We can give ourselves headaches by overthinking things and trying to decide how certain parts of the story should go. Often, we think about adding more depth and complexity to the story. We would have to shift around all aspects of our story to make it work, but it is part of that ‘it can always be better’ feeling… No. No it cannot always be better. More time does not always equal a better story. At some point, you have to get it out there, for its sake, for your sake, and for your readers. The perfect ending will only exist in the minds of the readers, at that. If you hate it, they may love it and vise versa.

In the end it is up to you for how you want to go about revising your work, and for how long. If you do not think it is right then keep going. Just do not overdo it. When you start wondering about changing genres or swapping out the main character at the beginning, you have probably overdone it. Best to start a new story at that rate. But by all means, finish and release the first. Abandoned fanfics are the only thing worse than terrible ones.

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IN CONCLUSION…

As I mentioned in an earlier section, revision is optional on the internet (but highly recommended; most fanfiction writers do not). In the professional world, revision is just expected. Not only will it help you catch errors like mismatched fur colors and forgotten subplots, but it will help you learn why things in your story happen the way they do. Or the way they should not, in which case you can revise it.

If you need an analogy, think of it like software programming. You probably know how to use the iPhone or PC you are reading this on. But what about how that iPhone or PC works? Under that virtual hood are programming languages that make app icons bounce or windows close. Knowing how they work and why they work the way they do is like taking a critical eye to your work. While writing is much less literal than programming, the same principle applies. If you know what you want to do, and how to break that down into smaller steps, then you can accomplish your goal by following said smaller steps.

Editing and revision can lead to exciting directions you never thought your fanfic could go. It just takes another glance, preferably under a magnifying glass.

-Tyto

Chapter Text

June 19, 2019

This section pertains to readability. It is not on best editing practices or about specific languages. This ensures your stories are easy to read and digest for your readers. As a Base section, it has little to no examples drawn from canon Warriors.

You probably want to know why there is a section on readability. Everyone in the fandom can read and write. And almost every Warriors fanfiction is written in English, so no language barriers. But that is not readability. Readability is the ease with which a reader can understand written text. This pertains not only to the sentence structure and chosen words (syntax), but also to grammar and spelling (editing) and, most important, how easy it is to understand characters, plot, and setting. This is something often overlooked in the fanfic community as a whole. Some information from previous sections will spill over into this one, but it is all important. Here, I go over the common hallmarks of readability pertaining to Warriors .

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TECHNICAL READABILITY

You have all read fanfiction, or my previous sections. Simple errors are more common than you think. I will not sit here and tell you all grammar errors in your story will be fixed after reading this guide. We are all amateurs. We will make and fail to find some of our mistakes. But, specifically in this fandom, a startling number go unnoticed. As do a number of writing best practices. Sometimes these errors are so numerous it prevents people from reading a fanfic. This part is for those who honestly do not know best practices and some of the more obscure grammar rules. Obscure as they are, they are easy to spot by the reader when the writer makes a mistake on them. Even if the reader does not know the specific rule.

Here are some of those lesser known standards and practices :

- “This is what dialogue looks like,” said Catstar.

“Yeah,” Otherleaf said. “And we start a new line with a different speaker. If we have a lot to say and we want to break up a massive text block, we have a tool for that.

“We start a new line again! But this time, we leave off the quotation marks at the end of our last line. This shows the reader that the same speaker is talking, but breaks up what could otherwise be a hard-to-read text block of dialogue.”

- Use some kind of noticeable symbol when skipping forward in time, like [~] or [--]. Do not forget to leave this symbol on a separate line without any other words.

- Too many exclamation marks can ruin our tone. This is a very common mistake! I see it often, and so do you if you read fanfics. It throws the mood off, even if it is supposed to be exciting! Use these sparingly; they are there to add a punch to a shouting character in most cases.

- Wattpad has a built-in word processor that many of its users choose to write with. It is the same as the processors on any other literature hosting site. They suck. All of them. Use Microsoft Word or Google Sheets instead (Word is better, but Sheets is free). They have spell checkers and better formatting tools.
* The word processor is the reason most of your errors go unaccounted for.

That brings us to terminology errors . Canon grammar does not exist, as the rules of grammar just make sure you are following the standards and practices established in English. Canon terminology, however, does. You all know this. Most fanfic help guides are just books that relist the terms from the Warriors wiki. I will not list those here, since there is the Warriors wiki. But there are some common errors that stands above the rest, and they are pretty obvious:

- CatStar and OtherLeaf belong to Shadowclan.

- Clans should have deputies, unless specifically stated that they do not.

- “Cats don’t meow everything they say,” meowed Catstar.

- Clans do not keep precise date (you better explain if they can). They know time of year by season, which is not spring, summer, fall, and winter.

I am surprised how many of these errors get past us. Especially that capitalization one. We all read the books and/or wiki. We know how ShadowClan is supposed to be spelled, or that winter is called ‘leafbare’. In other fandoms, getting simple canon terminology wrong is enough to get our fanfic crucified in the comments section. But not in this fandom.

As I stated in previous sections, the Warriors fandom has younger members than most, and the users of Wattpad tend to be high school or younger. We also prefer to update our stories as they are written, like social media posts, rather than as whole works. Again, these are not bad things. It just makes us more prone to mistakes like this, whether they be from haste, sloth, or mood. And if the readers do not notice, what does it matter, right… is an argument I do not support. But enough on technical readability. There are plenty of other guides and websites that exclusively go over grammar and terminology, and this is not one of them. Let us go over the readability I am really talking about.

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READABILITY OF YOUR STORY

What I consider real readability is what the reader knows in your story. Of course, you know your ThunderClan will declare war on ShadowClan. It is in your outline and you have written it down… but what about your reader. Has your reader been given any foreshadowing that this would happen? Have any of the character’s actions led to such a thing? What about the plot; what has happened that has led up to an event like this? That is readability. Essentially, it is just communicating what you want to say better, but for writing.

Getting straight to it, an example plot summary from our nonexistent fanfiction:

- Catclaw of ShadowClan was off on patrol when she came across a cavern. She walked inside, but shortly in she found there was a lone badger resting. The inexperienced warrior ran off when it stirred and straight across ThunderClan’s border and into one of their patrols. She argues with them about being scared by a badger, but they do not believe her and she has to fight. She sends all three ThunderClan warriors running and heads back to camp to brag about it. Her clanmates then discuss a possible war with ThunderClan and what will happen at the next gathering. But, before any of that can happen, Otherpaw, the medicine cat apprentice, wants to see Catclaw in private. She has just deciphered the prophecy Catclaw had as an apprentice and cannot wait until the gathering to discuss it...

Did you notice anything wrong with that chapter summary? No? Neither do most readers and writers in this fandom. By the way, that summary was of a chapter from a fanfic on this very website (with names changed). That is why this section is here. This summary is not very readable for our audience. Yes they can process every event, but what about recalling them days or even hours later?

One chapter, one event. That is a rule-of-thumb professional writers stick to for the sake of readability. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, but it holds up in all other situations. Our nonexistent example was all over the place. First she finds a badger, then she fights off some hostile cats, then she discusses a war and talks about a prophecy. That is a lot of unrelated events for one chapter. And why is that? Maybe we could not write enough about one thing to fill a chapter, so we fill it with other events. These events can vary in importance, but the point is they are interfering with the main focus of the chapter. If our focus was on finding and foreshadowing the presence of a badger in the setting, then make the chapter about that. If discussing the possibility of war is that important, save it for another chapter. Maybe our fight with ThunderClan is relevant enough to stay, but just end the chapter with the fight.

This dividing of events into chapters would solve many problems in regards to readability across the fandom. Some authors just want to add too many things to their story. Too many subplots, too many love triangles. My other sections have discussed keeping our plot and grammar clean and consistent. To learn what kind of story we want to write and how we want to do it. And if there is no room in your story for an arc-spanning prophecy or a betrayal subplot, then shrink it or take it out. Stories that try to add too many details are quickly forgotten. It is one reason why so few events can be recalled from the canon Warriors books.

That takes us to the why; why is this problem never caught? It is because our readers are used to average readability. Like any fanfic writer, we follow the example of the canon laid out before us. Warriors has an extremely large cast of named characters, probably one of the largest out there. And all of them are visible with details and personalities described at some point. That is ridiculous for a book! So much so, that the Erins have to jump back and forth between characters in the middle of books to make sure each of them gets at least some time in the reader’s mind. Most of these characters exist to die or as plot devices; that is just how large casts of characters work in fiction, and there is nothing wrong with that, at least.

The problem comes in that it is done to the point of normality. It is normal to see a cat mentioned, have their physical and mental attributes described, have them do something, and then never see them again (the famous or infamous pre-prologue character lists). Warriors tells a very plot-driven story. So do fictional works like The Hunger Games, Divergent, Assassin’s Creed, and Family Guy . The characters are not always the ones driving things forward here. Sometimes this has to do with how the fiction was originally presented (especially in the case of episodic TV shows or games). Opposite of that, character-driven stories, are Game of Thrones, Bojack Horseman, and Steven Universe . These works’ plots are driven almost entirely by their cast’s actions rather than events laid out in prior. If you have seen or played any of these works, then you may have not realized how much a role the medium and target audience plays on the storytelling and readability.

Warriors is no exception; an extreme example, in fact. In our fandom, we love character death, bastard kits, prophecies, and drama. We have been given an excess of it. Therefore, our fanfics commonly have excess of these things, too. Perhaps to a lesser extent than canon, but still an excess. Again, this is not necessarily a wrong way to present fiction. But it is something we should watch out for if we want our fiction to be memorable. Some fictional works that get it somewhere in between are The Simpsons, Star Trek, My Little Pony: FiM, and Harry Potter . They are no better or worse than the other works mentioned, seeing as entertainment is a matter of opinion. But we tend to remember the final list of fictional works better. Just something to think about. Try not to bury our plot in a list of events or character moments.

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IN CONCLUSION…

So there you have it on readability. That last section was a mouthful, but an important distinction to make (more on plot versus character-driven stories is found in another section). Not only is it important to fix grammar errors and formatting issues, but useful for finding runaway subplots and useless characters. If we want our readers to hold our fanfiction in high regard, they must read through, understand, and remember some of it. No easy task, for sure. And I am not the go-to expert on readability. For more help, check some of the many writing blogs and author interviews out there. They also have tips for keeping your story lean. I just wanted to give you some insight as to what that may mean in our modest fandom.

Your fanfic, your rules. Just be sure that your audience knows them, too.

-Tyto

Chapter Text

June 22, 2019

This section goes over how to build up your main character and make them interesting enough to carry your readers through your fanfiction. Because I only go over the parts about main characters not covered in other writing guides, the entire section will assume you have chosen to use an OC as your lead rather than a canon one. As a Base section, it has little to no examples drawn from canon Warriors.

In Warriors fanfictions, there is one thing that most stories lack: an interesting main character. What do I mean by this? I mean a character that does not feel like they are driving the plot forward. One that is not saying or doing much aside from what the plot demands. They are characters. Sentient cats with their own thoughts, feelings, and morals. This should not surprise you too much. Warriors is a plot-driven series, and naturally has slightly weaker characters than other fictional works. Think about it. Scourge was flat (not static thanks to the manga). Tigerstar was static. Firestar was flat and static. And there are so many named characters we just cannot be bothered to remember.

If you do not know those terms, that is fine. This section goes over that. But first, we need to discuss the most important thing a character can do for their story.

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M.C. INFLUENCE ON THE PLOT

Regardless of development, death, or dynamic changes, your main character must do something! By that, I mean they must have some kind of influence on the plot, its setting, and/or other characters. They should not just be cameras for your readers to see other characters with (some novels with ‘narrator’ main characters do this, but not in this fandom). If the events of our plot would happen, start to finish, exactly as we outline them with or without our lead, then what purpose does that lead serve? No matter how flat and static Firestar was throughout the books, he still had a large influence on the clans and those around him. He still had to be there for the events in the story to happen the way they did.

For our examples, we will use other fictional works with Warriors. I will go over what the basic fiction is and what influences its main characters have on their universes:

- Warriors - A pre-teen novel series about sentient cats who live away from human society and have their own laws, religions, and politics (we know).

For the first six arcs, the books’ main protagonist is Firestar (Fireheart, Firepaw, Rusty). Firestar does not change throughout the story, maintaining his basic ‘zero to hero’ archetype throughout. However the plot directly involves him ( “fire alone can save our clan” ) and without him, the plot would have ended differently.

- My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - A Hasbro TV series about the fourth generation of its popular toy line My Little Pony . It mostly follows Twilight Sparkle, a young unicorn learning how powerful friendship can be, both metaphorically and literally.

Regardless of what you think of its fandom, the series has managed to capture the eyes of millions due to its characters. Their appearance helps greatly, but most of these characters have an impact on the episodic plots in some way. Twilight Sparkle is a powerful, book-smart pony who has had a great impact on those around her. Though she takes a back seat in later seasons, there is a whole cast of round characters to keep things fresh for its audience. For those who are fans, well-written characters include Pinkie Pie, Moondancer, Trixie, and Princesses Celestia and Luna.

- Star Trek: Voyager - The fifth TV series in the Star Trek universe, it follows the journey of the USS Voyager, led by Captain Kathrine Janeway, after it is hurled 75 light years from Earth into uncharted space.

While very few people in this fandom are also Star Trek fans, it still works as an example. Voyager specifically works because it is more character-driven than most series. Fans look back at what previous captains have done (Kirk, Picard, Sisko) and what they might have done in Captain Janeway’s position. It may not be the point of the series, but it is one of its best features. Many encounters happen the way they do because of the kind of person Janeway is.

All of these fictions have something in common; whether they are TV shows, books, character-driven, or episodic, the main characters has an influence on the plot or within the universe they are in. The stories would be different if they did not exist or were replaced by another character. Now with that basic out of the way, we will get into your main character’s character.

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FLAT, ROUND, STATIC, DYNAMIC

What do flat, round, static, and dynamic mean as literary terms? As I mentioned earlier, almost every character in Warriors is flat, static, or both. I will use who I can recall from memory for describing these character types.

Flat characters do not have many defining or interesting character traits. Their personality is shallow and can be summarized with one or two (often exaggerated) traits. For example, Firestar was strong and an inspiring leader without any flaws . That is important. There is nothing to round out his character. He is simply a walking hero archetype.

Round characters have depth, flaws, and feel like a balanced character. This is you. You are (hopefully) a round character. You have likes and dislikes, morals, people you love and hate, and unbalanced emotions. These things make you a round character. I cannot recall any round characters in Warriors off the top of my head. Regardless, you should not be using Warriors as an example for good characterization. And no, clearly evil Tigerstar who has a soft spot for certain cats is not ‘round’.

Static characters do not change throughout the story. Their opinions, morals, and goals stay the same throughout. They generally do not back down from said opinions, morals, and goals when challenged by a strong opposition or valid argument. Easy examples are Firestar and Tigerstar.

Dynamic characters are opposite of static ones: they change. Whether it be some moral revelation, tipping power scales, or a change in personal interests, these characters do not end the story the way they began. This change can vary to certain degrees depending on the story. The important part is that they are not the same cat (or person) or are in the process of changing (because no one changes instantly). One example would be Tiny and his transformation into Scourge in The Rise of Scourge spinoff comic.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when applying these to our characters:

- Flat characters can be dynamic (common with villains and protagonists). Round characters can be static; this is the most common type of character (common in episodic TV shows).

- Round, dynamic characters often take significant amounts of time to realize in a satisfying way for audiences. They are common in long-running, character-driven series.

- Flat or static characters are not bad . Background characters are often this, and serve to amplify the plot, setting, or main characters. Too many characters developing can confuse the reader as to who is important and what the story is really about.

- Characters do not have to do complete 360 transformations to be considered dynamic or have complex emotional states to be round. Think about how many of these transformations and states you have had throughout your life (minus maturing with age). Less is more applies.

- There can be more than one main character. The lead is often referred to as the protagonist for that reason.

Now that that is out of the way, we can get into how you can have characters of your very own come out just the way you have envisioned them.

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HOW DO WE DO THIS?

How do we make a lead and supports that are interesting and hold influence on their stories? First, there is keeping in mind that the character in question must do something in order to be a main character. Our protagonist absolutely better do something. Second, we have to decide what basic character type we are going for: flat, static, round, dynamic, or some combination of them. For the most part, that is it. Reasons for not doing this within the Warriors fandom are hard to pin down. I could blame the rarity of good characters in canon to reference. I could blame the fandom’s general age. I could blame the Warriors fanfiction community for its emphasis on quantity and speed over quality. It may be a combination of these things, or none at all. I may not have a reason, but I do have a solution to help you and your main character.

You can outline your main character in the same way you outline your plot, setting, and universe rules. I discussed a general method for this in an earlier section, but we do not have to use the same exact steps:

- First, determine where your main character fits within the plot. By this, I mean make your lead a catalyst, not a camera. The plot should be different if your main character changes.

- Ensure you know your main characters, and that they know themselves. Make sure they understand, to some extent, why they are the way they are. Even if they hate themselves, or know not where their motivations and morals come from, they should at least have some self-conscious .

- Take notes throughout writing your story on your main character’s actions. Are they changing? Are they making the plot do a 180? Note it so you have something to compare it to later to make sure your characters are staying on the path you want them to. Note that this method is more effective if you chose to write a first draft.

You probably hope there is a straightforward answer to fix your bad characters, should you have any. But good characters take just as much effort to write as a good narrative. Good main characters are the story. Without them, things are just not the same. Note that we could replace Firestar with some of the other main characters in the series and not much would change. But if we take Harry Potter out of Harry Potter , it is not the same.

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IN CONCLUSION...

That is the information I have on writing better main characters. I encourage those who want to be better writers to go back and read your older works; that is why these BASE sections exist. See if you can identify the flaws I have listed above to any of your main characters. Which of your characters are round, or static? What about their influence on the plot? And how can you fix some of these mistakes with your leads? Better yet, how can you ensure your lead and plot are sound from outline to ‘completed’ tag?

A strong character dominates all and makes everything else in your story better. And enjoy writing with your amazing characters.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

June 25, 2019

This section covers maintaining a theme throughout your story, and how to exemplify it near the end. As a section on theme, it assumes you are using one in your story and want to maintain it all the way to the end.

In most cases, the ending gives any story its punch. Readers will generally remember it better than other parts. If not that, it is what makes a story satisfying to read. Ending at the right point, on the right note. And one of those notes that should be hit in a Warriors fanfiction is the theme of your story… that is, if one was used. Most fanfics, sadly, do not have any sort of theme. When they do, it is often used incorrectly or clearly forgotten about when the end is reached. All books written for YA audiences have pronounced themes. Literally all of them. Warriors is no exception, even if it is written for an even younger audience than YA.

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WHAT IS A THEME?

A theme is the central topic a text treats. To narrow it down for genre fiction like Warriors , it is the central idea of the story. Themes in fiction attempt to portray a moral opinion from the author, a universal truth in life, or an argument for a specific virtue, be it good or bad. The plot, characters, setting all set out to convey this theme as tactfully as possible to the reader. As a result, this theme resonates throughout the entire story. All the way to the end.

One of the reasons people find certain fictional worlds so fascinating are the themes it portrays. Most, however, cannot simply list them off the top of their head. Same goes for Warriors . This is about normal. Themes are often not openly discussed by a fandom unless a particular episode or book was especially well done… or especially poorly done. Themes are meant to be subtle, after all. They lose much of their edge if we simply spell them out for our audience like a children’s show.

Here is a list of common themes found in Warriors :

- faith/spirituality

- nature vs nurture

- cultural interaction

- right, wrong, and gray morality

- obligation vs happiness

I could easily list several others, but these are the most common. You could probably guess that faith and nature vs nurture are pretty high up on the list (StarClan, Scourge, Tigerstar, etc.) Other themes like cultural interactions and gray morality are also pretty common (Mothflight, Ivypool, the tribes, etc.) These underlying themes are just as important to the story as any main character or lake. They make us think, make us angry, and sad. Why is that? Themes give moral weight to what the characters do and where the plot goes, investing us emotionally into the story. Underlying tones in the story make the actions of these characters and the directions of the plot have meaning to us, personally. Often, we all think the same way about particular themes in a fictional story, and would love to see them dug into deeper than the canon does; and thus, a fandom is born.

I will give two more examples with large fandoms, each having a heavier or lighter hand with theming throughout:

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic , regardless of what you think of its fandom, has some clearly defined themes that we can use here. It has many, but its main ones are friendship, family, duty, and honesty. Normal for a children’s show. Also normal is how in-your-face some of these themes are. Later seasons have gotten much better with this as the audience has matured a little, but most of the time the theme (or lesson) is summarized at the end of the episode. Not very subtle, but still effective.

Star Trek is not well known in this fandom, but the themes of duty, shared morals, greater good, culture clashing, and risk vs reward are not as obvious as the themes in MLP. The shows usually weave their themes into episodes with a more delicate touch, often ending in ambiguity. The Federation and Starfleet are even mocked constantly for believing their society is ideal for everyone in the galaxy (especially in DS9). Opinions are harder to form and themes are harder to grasp, but it has gained the massive following it has over the decades partly due to this.

Without themes, many stories would not have a point to being told (of course there are always outliers, but not in fandoms). Ever wonder why the popular Aqua Teen Hunger Force did not have a vibrant fandom but My Little Pony does? Themes. But enough about what. We should discuss how.

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ADDING A THEME TO YOUR FANFICTION

Now it is time to think about adding your own theme(s) to your fanfiction. But how? Adding themes is not as simple as adding events or characters. You have to really think about how it is going to weave into the actions of these characters or the directions of events. How does your story portray the theme you want to portray? Does it even do that?

And example from our nonexistent fanfiction is necessary , as bombarding you with information is useless:

- Cat was born the only surviving kit of a loaner, forced to grow up on her own after she grew out of nursing. She survived by any means necessary, trusting no one. In her adolescence she encounters Otherpaw of ShadowClan, who convinces her to come to camp. The leader accepts her as a member, as they need apprentices. Catpaw has a hard time adjusting to her new life surrounded by others, but Otherpaw makes that transition easier. Her potential blossoms and she and Otherpaw become close.

- Later, a ThunderClan raid takes their leader’s last life. Catclaw is made deputy, being the best uninjured fighter in ShadowClan. Ignoring her adopted morals in her new position of power, she wants raids on ThunderClan’s camp with the goal of killing kits and queens. The whole clan rejects this, the new leader wanting to attack head-on. Killed by his own plan, Catclaw becomes Catstar, and many of her clanmates are not happy with her.

- At an impasse, she consults Otherleaf. Eventually, she decides to attack them within the warrior code. Her clanmates can agree, and her time as a loaner helps her think of a plan to outwit rather than overpower. It works, and ThunderClan is subdued. Rather than taking revenge for killing two leaders and disrupting her adopted life, Catstar shows mercy to surviving members of ThunderClan. Her new outlook on a shared life is challenged when other clans express their grave disapproval for both her actions and role within ShadowClan (sequel begins)...

Did you get the themes from that example? The main ones were nature vs nurture and right and wrong. Where were they? Catstar lived as a loaner most of her youth. Her nature, as a loaner, is to survive by any means. Those instincts remained when she planned to kill kits and queens instead of attacking warriors. To her, this was the right course of action to save the lives of as many of her clanmates as possible. To the rest of the clan, however, it was wrong and strictly goes against the warrior code. Is anyone right or wrong in this situation? It is up to you, and that is partly why it is a theme. In the end, our main character accepts her adopted lifestyle in full and even uses her time as a loaner to help them win the day without resorting to her original plan.

The two things that drove our themes along were the characters and the plot. Even in basic storylines it is possible to have an impactful theme and satisfying resolution. And Warriors, as a plot-driven series, expresses its themes through the actions of its main characters as a result of their environment or events of the plot, rather than a deep exploration of personality or internal conflict. This does not mean it is not possible to have internal conflict or deep personality in our fanfics, though (that is one of the reasons we write them). Nor should you shy away from these things.

A key to adding themes to your story is to make sure they are not explicitly stated . In one of the other shows I mentioned above, My Little Pony , themes are usually stated at the end of episodes, or so obvious that we can predict how the rest of the episode plays out. No one wants to be told that Firestar represents the incorruptible lawful good. Show us. Do not tell us that Mothflight’s kits represents juggling personal happiness with important obligation. Let us see it in action.

Also important, the theme must be present throughout the important parts of your story . That is to say, you do not have to incorporate your theme about regret when your main character is giving the better fresh-kill to a group of derpy kits. Stick to important plot or character changing events to subtly incorporate your theme. We use motifs for this. A motif is a recurrent image, idea, or symbol that develops or explains a theme , while the them is still our central message. For example, a recurring symbol can be us pointing out a scar on our main character whenever our theme of nature vs nurture shows up. Where the scar came from could be important to showing our readers that it is, in fact, there to represent something about our character.

Keep in mind that a central theme ranks very high up on our list of things that can affect your story. It can even outrank our main character in some cases (first six arcs of Warriors , The Catcher in the Rye , The Hunger Games , etc.) It is important that we take the time to really mix them well into our plot and characters. Preferably before we start writing our fanfic. Only then can we drive it all home with a satisfying conclusion.

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ENDING WITH OUR THEME

The ending of the story is everything past the beginning of the climax. This part of your story is more influenced by your theme than the main character or even the plot as a whole. Your theme was alluded to throughout your story. Here is the big reveal of sorts. If your theme is about nature vs nurture or culture clashing, your audience may learn what you think about such things. It is just as important to them as knowing how the plot resolves or what happens to the main character. One thing to always keep in mind is that the theme cannot be dropped in at the end. That is a general rule of all kinds of writing: important information at the beginning.

Our example from our nonexistent fanfiction is needed. Here is a summary of the end so you do not have to scroll up:

- Catstar decides to ask Otherleaf for help formulating a plan within the warrior code. Eventually, she comes up with one that does and includes her preferred form of fighting. Outwitting ThunderClan, ShadowClan wins the fight. Catstar shows mercy to the survivors rather than taking revenge for disrupting her adopted life. But the other clans are wary of her actions, and the fact that she is a leader but not clan-born.

After ShadowClan defeats ThunderClan, Catstar has shown her character development by not going through with her plan to kill kits and queen of ThunderClan. She also shows mercy to the survivors of the battle and allows their clan to continue on. Though it is just an example, our nonexistent readers would call that a deserved ending. A deserved ending is one that readers expect based on events within the story ; it is something that genre fiction like Warriors strives for. Note that these endings are expected, not predictable. We expect Catstar to make a decision on what to do about ThunderClan. We do not expect Catstar to kill Otherleaf and defect to ThunderClan. We have not set anything up for that at the beginning or the middle.

Where does the theme fit in with this? Our most prominent were nature vs nurture and right and wrong. During the middle of our story, Catstar wanted to deal with ThunderClan efficiently since they just lost two leaders and dozens of warriors to them. She wanted to raid their camp and kill off kits and queens until they surrendered. The warrior code would have us believe this is wrong. But our main character was a loaner forced to grow up against the odds. To her, this was right. The way to inflict maximum damage on ThunderClan while risking as few ShadowClan lives as possible. That plan was in her nature, but it was not the way she was nurtured via ShadowClan and Otherleaf. Had our theme been different, say it was about personal happiness vs obligation, our nonexistent story would have ended different. Our characters and plot would have been different. The message of our fanfic would have changed if our theme changed.

This is why the theme is considered such a necessity in fiction writing. You get a completely different interpretation of the story if a few events and characters alter it. For example, what if Catstar did go through with her plan to raid ThunderClan and target kits and queens? What if she succeeded? She could be ousted as leader, as would anyone who agreed with her and carried out the raid. She would have lost Otherleaf as a friend. Our theme of nature vs nurture stays the same, but our message is different. And your readers will think differently about the story as a result.

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IN CONCLUSION…

There you have it. Themes act as the main idea of your fanfic, and they have a large impact on how said fanfic ends. If our theme changes, our characters and plot change with them. Our ending changes. Our reader’s perception of our story changes. Vise versa for if our characters and plot change. The theme is just another layer to add onto your fanfics to give your readers a purpose for reading them (albeit a big layer). It gives your story a point.

It is important you know why you wrote what you did. Enjoy your writing and everything it may, or may not, stand for.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

June 27, 2019

This section goes over the use of plot devices in Warriors. Much of the information about plot devices comes from tvtropes.org. Be warned, TvTropes is a time eater. Visit at your own procrastinating peril.

You come to a point in your story where you need to advance the plot, but have no idea how. This is writer’s block. You may not have any idea how to move into the climax battle scene, or how to bring your prophecy back into the story now that your main character is leader. This is why fanfiction in general gets abandoned so often. And, while this section is not specifically about writer’s block, it is about a tool that all fiction writers have in their arsenal: plot devices.

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WHAT IS A PLOT DEVICE?

A plot device is anything that moves the plot forward. Anything. People who write fiction, from the multi-million dollar empires to the amateurs of the internet, use plot devices as ways to advance things forward when nothing else possibly could. Many believe plot devices to be bad; there are a plethora of writing blogs and how-to books out there that tell you to avoid them like greencough. But they are not bad. You will find it very hard to write genre fiction without referring to them. That being said, do not fall back on obvious crutches. You know it when you write them. You have seen them in all fiction you have read, seen, or played. Your readers know them when they see them, and they roll their eyes when they do.

Here are some quick examples of some of the most common plot devices in writing, just to give you an idea:

- chekhov’s gun - A device or object is given to an important character early in the story and promptly stored away for later. Much later in the story, during an important event, the character uses this object and changes the course of the event or the entire plot. Commonly used as a deus ex machina.

- deus ex machina - A situation is hopeless and unsolvable for an important character until this device shows up. It is unannounced, not foreshadowed, and never before seen. It resolves the hopeless, unsolvable situation to allow the important character to continue the story. Usually used in sci-fi/fantasy.

- red herring - An event, character, or object is inserted into the story to direct the audience’s attention away from something significant. Near the end, the very thing they had been distracted from was of the utmost importance, and the red herring was meaningless. Often used in crime fiction.

- MacGuffin - An object of great importance. It is so important that if this object did not exist, there would be no story. This object is the center of any character’s actions and sometimes their motivations. It can be the plot itself. Often, money is this object in fiction.

Most plot devices are derived from commonalities in life itself. For many people in the industrialized world, money is their MacGuffin. They need it to survive or to advance their goals. Sudden bad weather is a deus ex machina for millions every year, getting people out of boring events, school, or stressful situations (of course causing many more problems than it solves). You have seen these things before. They are all around you. If you open up a history book, you will find many situations featured ‘plot devices’ that altered the course of events.

There are many, many plot devices out there. Hundreds to use in your story. Some offshoots of others, specifically tailored to a genre or theme. I recommend TvTropes to see a comprehensive list spoken in plain english; no ‘instruction manual’ entries there.

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WARRIORS AND PLOT DEVICES

Warriors does not have many of the common plot devices used in other fictional works. Mostly because of the simple nature of the canon fiction. But like I said, every story anywhere has a plot device. Unfortunately, the Erins tend to use plot devices in the worst way.

Prophecies and characters.

Those are their go-to plot devices. And they are not very well used. Starting with characters, it is a rule-of-thumb to not use characters as plot devices. Having meaningless, throwaway characters is common, right? They are used for stereotypes on sitcoms and as fanfiction bait in YA novels. But they are used for everything in Warriors . Need to give a character motivation? Character. What about an object to win over by completing a task? Character. Shock value to show how dangerous an environment is? Kill a character. Need to sate your fandom’s bloodlust…? You get the point. This is one of the reasons the canon has so many named characters, but so few of them matter. If you have a named character in your fanfic that can be replaced by a tomato and have a 0% impact on your story, they should 100% be demoted or removed from your story.

Of course, there are ways to use characters as plot devices and have them be more than just that. Give them some personality and give them something to do in the plot. Notice how I said something to do in the plot, not the story. If a character has no impact on the plot or its characters, and is not a background character, they really have no point existing. Background characters exist as plot devices in most cases (there is a section in this guide all about them). Use those. Not named characters who are described. And adding depth to your characters by having their actions, no matter how small, matter in some way brings them into the story and out of the “spontaneous death in chapter 20” section in your outline.

Moving on to prophecies, their problem in canon is they are often underutilized. Do not get me wrong. Prophecies, omens, visions, etc. are alright in fiction. They are staples of it, in fact. But how Warriors uses them, or does not use them, really hurts their potency. Prophecies are supposed to seep into the entire plot. Every action the beholder of said prophecy takes is in its name (or running away from it). The Erins often throw prophecies out there and do nothing with them until they are needed as a plot device; they do not matter until they are needed. Look at “fire alone can save our clan.” Only in two points of the first six arcs does this prophecy ever matter: when Firestar kills Scourge and when he kills Tigerstar (arguably, when the forest fire happened you can say it mattered more than the other two times. But that is a debate on interpretation). This prophecy is extremely important. How come we hardly see it in action?

A way to alleviate this: incorporate your prophecy into your character’s actions rather than letting it hang over the plot. If there is a prophecy about the future, one that is supposedly irrefutable and inevitable, then your characters may be doing everything in their power to see it through, stop it, or figure out what it means. They may be common, but a prophecy is not normal. It is not supposed to be normal. Abnormal circumstances call for abnormal actions. Investing your characters in the prophecy (often their own, anyway) brings it into your plot. This makes it all the more important, and potent, for your readers.

These are not the only two plot devices in Warriors. They are just far and above the most common. Ironically, fanfics tend to keep their prophecies closer to the stories than the canon work. But, as stated in prior sections, character development is a weak point for fanfics.

You can use whatever plot devices you want in your fanfic. Personally, I use some of the more common ones. Ido research on how to correctly use them, or how to use them in unexpected ways. When I get to editing my story, I find ways I have messed up their use. I honestly cannot tell you how to use plot devices; they are tools. Different tools make for different results. Do some research and see which ones will work best for you. Just do not do too much research into these things. Otherwise you will never get anything done.

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IN CONCLUSION…

This section may have been sparse on new information, but it is meant to be claw marks on a tree. Be careful with plot devices. They are tools. Like any tool, there is a wrong way to use them. They are only predictable if we do not modify them for our purposes. They are only used incorrectly if we do not research how they were used in the past. You can use them any way you want, anywhere. There is likely a literary tool for what you want to do. Again, TvTropes is the go-to website for looking this information up (and it will waste your time at some point).

Plot devices will never fix a bad fanfic, nor will they ever be responsible for good ones. They are just another tool used to get you to your final product.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

June 28, 2019

This is a section about making your character deaths have more meaning in your stories. It does not go over how specifically to kill, nor does it cover how to write drama into a death. It also does not cover death as a broad concept or theme, sticking specifically with character death and its significance on a plot.

Death is commonplace in Warriors ; with a cast of 200+ named characters, you expect many of them to die given they are rarely significant. But that is what this section is for. Fictional works with large casts like Warriors tend to kill off many. Some of these characters are written just to die, which I would not recommend. When a character is killed incorrectly, your audience notices. You have seen enough fiction to notice when a character is done dirty with a haisty or ill-timed death. Here, we will help you avoid this in your own fanfictions.

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CHARACTER DEATH IN WARRIORS

Warriors uses the trope “Anyone Can Die” throughout its arcs (term from TvTropes). It means that, at any given moment in the story, you feel as though any character can die. The main character, background characters, plot devices, supporting cast, no one is safe from this trope.

Cats have died for obvious reasons, like Tigerstar versus Firestar. One of them had to die, and we knew and accepted this. There are dependant characters, like kits, who have died as a result of their parent’s actions. Strong warriors have been felled by diseases like greencough, and healthy queens have died giving birth. Stuff has fallen on cats (somehow). They have drowned, burned, been poisoned, and murdered. One of the better deaths was Tigerstar at the hands of Scourge; all nine lives, one swipe. Down goes villain #1 for good (we thought). However, they have also been written in and killed for nothing but shock value. They have died to sate the fandom’s bloodlust and appease fanfiction writers. They have been written off to prevent problems from being solved, or murdered as plot fuel. They get things wrong, but Warriors is one of the few series out there that uses “Anyone Can Die” well.

So how do you guys fare against the Erins? As much as I hate to give broad criticism, not so well. Characters in fanfics often die for the sake of plot fuel, character motivation, or regret in writing them. Dying for plot fuel or character motivation is not the worst thing you can do, but it has no impact for readers. They never get to know these characters, so their death does not mean much to them. They have to pretend they do, though, because your main character cares about that death that your readers do not. As far as regret goes, I have read some author notes at the end of chapters stating they were glad they killed off certain characters because they did not like how they turned out. Some have even asked which characters they would like to see die next! What? You do not take requests from your audience here. This is not a role-play. Obviously, I cannot sit here and berate you forever. We are all amateurs here. Our AU ShadowClan fanfic is not exactly meant to be shelf-ready. But we can at least make our use of death as a plot device that much more impactful by giving meaning to its use.

Here are some examples of how I have seen character death done in Warriors fanfics. These are actual deaths from different fanfics here on Wattpad; name changes courtesy of our nonexistent fanfic (no calling out authors here):

- Catstar and Otherleaf are walking along in the forest, when WindClan cats jump and assassinate her, life by life, while Otherleaf watches. Otherleaf goes mad with bloodlust and orchestrates a revenge plan from her ShadowClan. WindClan’s leader and Catstar’s assassins are killed the same way she was.

- An apprentice that Catstar had when he was Catclaw died during the final battle. Readers saw very little of this apprentice, but Catstar comforts her in her final moments. He feels it was his fault for sending her into battle so young. He vows revenge on her killer, which he swiftly gets.

- Catstar encounters a cat from the enemy side during the final battle. The cat reveals itself as the mother of a cat from Catstar’s clan. The mother rejects Catstar’s request to join her clan. She asks for death, eventually forcing Catstar to kill her.

- Catclaw is giving birth to healthy kits. Otherleaf, the medicine cat, is unable to stop her slow and peaceful death from blood loss. After Catclaw dies, her kits are divided among nursing queens and never told of what happened.

- The leader, Otherstar, is attacked in a raid from EnemyClan. She tells her deputy and old apprentice, Catclaw, that he must become leader and fulfil his prophecy. When asked about it, Otherstar states she had lied about how many lives she had; it is the first anyone (including the reader) is hearing of it. She whispers something (almost)  romantically intimate and then dies; words that he does not catch onto until his leader ceremony.

Can you spot the problems? We have cats going crazy with bloodlust and altering their intelligence and personality around a death for plot convenience. We have a sad apprentice death inserted into a final battle for nothing more than shock value. There is a suicidal mother who, for no given reason, just has to die. We have death during birth and a subsequent scrubbing from history about said death for no reason (a popular choice in the fandom). And we have a leader who miraculously loses her last life in a raid, maybe confessing her love for our main character right before her passing; how convenient she should only have one life right at this moment. Right when we need to make a -star out of our main character.

All of those were examples that I found from three different fanfics around Wattpad. They are fairly common across others; there is definitely no shortage of character death examples in this fandom. But those deaths lack meaning. They are usually written in at the last minute to advance our main character or for the sake of making a death ‘sad’. But these deaths are not sad. Nor are they impactful… well, a few have some redeeming qualities. We should bring those out.

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ADDING IMPACT TO OUR CHARACTER DEATH

The Klingons would have gawked at most of the deaths in Warriors . Because of the use of an all-is-fair-in-death trope, characters die for many different reasons other than in battle. One thing that is different here than in other genre fiction is that Warriors deaths are not always good. They are rarely heroic. They usually do not get time to say last words. But many also lack meaning to the greater plot or event the localized story. Fanfiction deaths even more so.

One thing you should always make sure of, no matter who you are killing, is that the death must have meaning. Does it impact the plot, even a little? Will it change the outlook of a main character, even if just temporarily? Does this death change certain events around? Whether you kill a background character or your protagonist, the death must mean something to something else in your story. This is where most fanfics falter using this trope. Writers often mistake the Erin’s open door policy to death as a challenge of bloodlust or a challenge to kill characters our readers love and hate. While many deaths in canon lack reason, they manage to resonate in some way, shape, or form for the overall story. Even Firestar, a character that lacked any depth whatsoever, died in a way that impacted ThunderClan’s legacy in the seventh arc (even if his lives were taken away for seemingly stupid reasons just to give one inevitable moment impact). If a character’s death has meaning to the story or other characters, it will mean something to the readers. A shallow death is better than a pointless one in literature.

That being said, here is another thing that fanfic writers do wrong: believing they must have the heroic sacrifice. Characters do not always have to die for their morals, past sins, or in lopsided combat. Some of the more common deaths, like death giving birth or kits dying, do not follow this idea. It is usually reserved for our main characters and our protagonist. Most of these deaths are vapid because they only reinforce the idea that the death was to rattle our audience, or that we are building them up to be heroically sacrificed. Worse yet it often happens to good friends of the lead, and the deaths often mean nothing to anyone but said lead, and only for a few chapters before they are swiftly forgotten. Why are they forgotten? Because the death of that good friend had no reason to happen. Given the natural order of events presented, or a twist gone wrong, that character would still be alive. Death to make the audience feel bittersweet about a character dying for their beliefs or after seeing an error in their ways is a trope best saved for books like Divergent . We, with a canon series that uses a death trope well, can do better than Divergent . That is not to say it should never be used, just that it is not the only way to end the lives of your major characters.

My final tip for you, on that note, is that minor and background character death can also have meaning. Often times, we are caught up in what main characters to kill that we forget all about our background characters and our supporting cast. We just use them as plot fuel when we want to kill them, and that is just not right. It is the same thing the Erins do in later arcs, one of the few mistakes they make with the “Anyone Can Die” trope. But the death of background characters does not just have to be for shock value or to stick a violence warning on our description page. They can mean more than that. The easiest example to take is from war in real life. How many people in the 1930s moved to enlist at the word of Nazi Germany’s atroceties? How many more have been compelled to end a war when they hear nothing was gained in losing hundreds for a hill somewhere in Vietnam? Many have their opinion on war and what it is fought for. Those whose lives may have been impacted did not know those who died but it resonated with them enough to take action. In that person’s life, the unknown soldier a continent away was a background character. They themselves are the main character. And they were compelled to act, in some way, by the death of that background character. You will be surprised on how many good examples of background character deaths you can find in history. Your stories can do this. It can give most of your character’s deaths meaning.

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IN CONCLUSION…

Character death is one of the few tropes Warriors uses well. Many characters die in canon and it is only natural that many more die in our derivative fanfics as well. But all we need to really make those deaths resonate is to have them mean something, even something small. Have them change the plot or a character even a little and the death of said character now invests your audience. Keep in mind that character death and death are not the same trope. While character death is common in Warriors , death as a concept is used poorly after the first arc. It is not the same as what you have just read.

You want your fans to outpour their support for your dead fictional characters. All it needs is a bit of influence over your story.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

June 30, 2019

This section focuses on what to do when writing a character acting out of their usual tropes and tendencies. It is something many professional writers struggle with as well, and is a very difficult concept to use to one's advantage. It is a literary double-edged sword.

Writing someone out of character is like a wildcard. You only want to use it as a last resort, or when you really, really want a scene to resonate with your audience; this trope is usually used to force a reaction or event. Skilled writers can use it to bring out the best traits in a character; it sounds contrary to having an out of character moment, but it is not. I should start this off by reminding you that I am an amateur writer, too. This concept is simple to understand but hard to master and by no means have I mastered it.

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WHAT IS BEING "OUT-OF-CHARACTER"

An out of character moment (also known as breaking character) is where a character acts out of their established personality, morals, beliefs, etc. in a conscious effort by the author to move the plot out of a dead end. A character who is revealed to be working as a double agent for another clan or shows their true asshole side is not out of character. Rather, they are showing their true natures and hidden motives in a surprise to both other characters in the story and the readers. A real out of character moment involves a character doing something that said character would otherwise not do. In any circumstance. At all. Remember that this is a trope rarely used. It is planned by the author and is only done on accident if the author really was not paying attention to what they wrote previously. And even then a quick reread of what you wrote will reveal it. During a moment like this, the character’s personality morphs into something (usually) opposite of what they were before. While our double agent is not out of character, our socially anxious cat who perfectly seduces her way into the heart of another warrior for info, only to never display or explain this ‘super seduction’ ability again, is out of character. That is an important difference.

You know what, now for the why. As I mentioned, out of character moments are used by authors as plot devices to pass through a literary brick wall, sometimes one of their own makings. We will use Firestar for example. What if StarClan had turned on him, just him, and Tigerstar and the Dark Forest were just not problems. What would he do if he saw a StarClan cat (particularly Spottedleaf) attacking Sandstorm or another cat he cared about in our theoretical alternate universe? Even if he won, he is put in a tough spot. The Erins did not write Firestar to be the bad guy, nor did they write him to question faith or the good in other cats. If StarClan cats come down with the intent to kill, assuming everything that happened in the prior three arcs to Omen of the Star happened as is, then he would have no answer. The logical choice for his character would be to step down as leader and take whatever punishment StarClan saw fit for him. This would make him lose his place as the main character, though. The authors have written themselves into a corner. The only choice would be to go out of character and renounce StarClan and try and keep hold of power for the sake of keeping him in the story…

See how hard that was? Look how far off the rails I had to take the Omen of the Stars arc to bring Firestar to an out of character moment. This is often how difficult they are to do and why they are so rare in fiction. What are the odds that all of that happens? That the Erins would forget so much of the prior stories and worldbuilding that they would have to band-aid it so viciously? It is almost unheard of.

Though earlier, I did state their was a way to use them to your advantage. Extremely rare, but it happens.

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HOW TO USE THIS TROPE (WHEN WE HAVE TO)

Fanfictions do not fair so well with out of character moments. They are extremely rare, however, as most of us tend to stick to our main character’s strengths. There is the odd time when we might want to know how to use this trope just in case.

If it is one mistake I see when finding this trope around this site it is writers not using them when they have to. This trope is to correct your error as an author, remember? It is like wrapping a wound that is not there. In worst cases, it is like slicing yourself with a knife on purpose, then wrapping it. Self-inflicted wounds are never a good idea. Especially in your writing. I guarantee a good out of character moment can be replaced with decent character building instead. That character building adds to what we have already written. This trope only circumvents that for our convenience. Yes, this goes against my point of using these on purpose, but I was talking about how to twist them to your advantage. At the end of the day, your readers will see good characterization instead of a bandage if you manage to pull it off. And very few do.

A good use for out of character moments is when your character is faced with an ultimatum. If inevitable events are about to occur in your plot, this trope may be necessary. This is equivalent of backing your main characters into a corner. They have nowhere else to go but through the obstacle or to StarClan. Animals do irrational things when they lose control of their own fate. Using this trope in a position like that is one of those opportunities to turn it into something good. Remember, your characters must not have control over the situation. If they do, your audience will certainly find the path they could have taken. And that will be in their heads instead of your attempt at awesome characterization.

It is probably better if I show you an example from our nonexistent fanfiction :

- Catstar, the pacifist leader of ShadowClan, is forced to make a decision between aiding ThunderClan and RiverClan in a war between them. ThunderClan is led by her mother, and her littermates are senior warriors there. RiverClan has captured Otherleaf, her best friend and clan-loved medicine cat, and threatened to kill her if they are not aided. The battle draws near, and Catstar knows she could lose both if she does not choose one…

Seems like Catstar meets the criteria for use of this trope. While we do not know all the details, we have assumed that our fanfic had ThunderClan and RiverClan just really going at it. Screw the warrior code and everything. We know that Catstar is a pacifist, and not native to ShadowClan. Somewhere in the story, negotiations just stopped working. We know that WindClan and SkyClan are not touching this at all. We know that Catstar’s clan would prefer to save Otherleaf. And we know that Catstar cares about her family, despite being the leader of a rival clan. Most importantly, we have written ourselves into a corner… or have we? This can go down a few ways.

- Catstar, the pacifist leader of ShadowClan, declares war on RiverClan. She cannot turns her back on her family and feels ThunderClan is in a better position than their opponent. Their combined efforts destroy RiverClan. Catstar finds Otherleaf killed in their medicine den. Her family says she did the right thing and accept her, but she is filled with regret. Her clan starts to question her leadership…

- Catstar, the pacifist leader of ShadowClan, declares war on ThunderClan. She was raised with Otherleaf in ShadowClan, and puts their needs over her biological family. RiverClan is slightly outmatched, but with combined efforts they beat ThunderClan and topple her family’s dynasty. Her clanmates tell her they have killed all senior members of the clan in battle, which destroyed ThunderClan’s resolve. Catstar is devastated for choosing to wipe out her family (and any info she may have received about her past). Otherleaf is even disappointed in her decision to attack another clan so readily…

And that is it. Or is there a third option? This is an ultimatum, after all. Our lead has no control over the situation. A neutral pacifist backing a side during war seems out of character, but she does not want to attack. She is not out of character , just forced to choose between the death of two things she loves. If we really wanted her out of character, and did not want it to read like an ass-pull, we would have to do something bizarre:

- Catstar, the pacifist leader of ShadowClan, does not respond to either clan. Instead, she orchestrates a plan to kidnap her mother, ThunderClan’s leader, and rescue Otherleaf. Her plan seems to work: they assassinate her mother and take her body while she is reviving. They blitz RiverClan while they attack their enemies and take back an injured Otherleaf. ThunderClan, without a leader, and RiverClan, without leverage for help, decided to keep attacking each other anyway. Meanwhile Catstar is interrogating her mother into learning about her past, and is at a greater peace of mind knowing Otherleaf is safe…

See what happened there? Our story took a different direction. If a heated war between ThunderClan and RiverClan seemed to be our plot before, then the story of Catstar in full seems to be it now. 1) Our pacifist Catstar has just outwitted two warring clans. With what conniving mind? If she is a pacifist, she would have no need to learn to think like this. On top of that she is perpetuating a war that she probably tried to stop. Her pacifist persona is temporarily shattered. 2) She acted selfishly, from a character standpoint. This third ending worked best for our ShadowClan, yes, since they have their medicine cat and they no longer need to pick a side. But her intention was to just let ThunderClan and RiverClan do what they will to each other and worry about what she wanted.

What is the best part about this out of character moment? It had a decent twist. Not the greatest ending, and nothing groundbreaking, but it did not end the way we had set it up to. Also, we have left some things open to reader interpretation. Catstar has just rescued her friend and may learn about her past with as little violence as possible. On the flipside she has condemned two clans to prolonged violence; ShadowClan was to join a side and end the war. Without their warriors, the two clans may have needed to fight longer to win. Were her actions selfish, or genius? It is up to our readers. And reader interpretation is better than a reader scratching their head any day (unless we want to confuse them). And with that, we have used an out of character moment to help us more than it should have.

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IN CONCLUSION…

Out of character moments are best saved for when we have truly written ourselves into a corner. This tends to only happen in published content with an ongoing and unfinished narrative (like TV shows, movie series, or fanfiction on sites like this). I am not saying they cannot be used intentionally, but they should not. Many of you will mistake this for a badly written twist, even if you are a reader and not the writer. Good characterization and a consistent plot are better than inserting a left turn for the sake of it.

This is an emergency literary tool. You have to be pretty deep in your corner to use it. And also pretty creative to twist this wildcard trope to your advantage.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

July 2, 2019

This section specifically focuses on the villains. Villains are not necessarily antagonists by default, as an antagonist is someone or something that opposes the protagonist’s goals. It goes over common uses for villains and how to make them more effective.

There is no shortage of antihero/antagonist centered stories out there. In many fictional worlds, the antagonist captivates audiences more than the protagonist. This means the villain is being pushed aside as a go-to trope. Audiences grow tired of the enemy who, with no reason or motive, seeks to do something that no one ( no one ) wants. But villains do not have to suck. To put it bluntly, writers and industries make them suck. We will talk about that now.

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PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE

The villain is an evil character; their motivations, actions, or personality can be considered evil when they go against the established norm of the universe they inhabit. It is one of the most common archetypes in human history, and has spanned religion, region, language, and folklore. Warriors is no exception. It has several villainous characters. As I said earlier, the villain does not have to be the antagonist. It just ends up that way in most stories.

An example for context. I will go over villains in other fictional worlds and describe why they are villains rather than just antagonists:

- Warriors - Two obvious examples: Tigerstar and Scourge. Tigerstar’s initial evil was killing Redtail so he could advance in rank. He also teamed up with Scourge to dominate the forest. He also encouraged Brambleclaw to kill his half brother, Hawkfrost. Yes he got a backstory, but it did not justify or explain why he wanted to subjugate and conquer. Scourge, while also having a backstory, cannot be justified enough to be sympathetic. He wants to control the forest and expand his BloodClan. He even betrays his partner, Tigerstar, by killing him in cold blood in the middle of a battle . Neither are particularly well-written, but they are classic uses of the archetype.

- My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Despite what you may think of its fandom, we have plenty of villains in this children’s show. Tirek, a centaur who can absorb other’s magic, is an obvious example. His end goal is simply to become more powerful, and is supposed to be one of the show’s representations of selfishness. Magical theft is a pretty high crime in this universe, so Tirek is pretty high up there on the most wanted list for the inhabitants of Equestria. He is straight up a villain. The same kind you would find on 80’s Saturday morning cartoons.

- Naruto - This anime is over 20 years old. And it took almost as long to reveal its main villain: Madara Uchiha. He is what you would call a sympathetic villain. His goal was to end all wars, famine, poverty, and everything else bad about the world. His means: lock everyone in a state of perpetual hypnosis, letting them psychologically live out their idealized lives (a little like The Matrix ). Are his intentions good? Yes. Are his means? No. Not in the Naruto universe.

- Star Trek (any series) - Villains have been kept out of regular appearances in this famous fictional universe. The show tries to portray different psychologies and moral viewpoints. Therefore, villains generally do not get a place in the show. The ones that do show up are given one-off or very minor roles in any given narrative. Even Khan and Dukat, two of the most evil main characters in Star Trek , stay away from being all-out evil. They are antagonists. And while they are considered bad, others in the universe sympathise (and even help) these characters for reasons other than causing discord or malice.

These examples are here to show you what a villain looks like versus an antagonist. Remember, in stories where villains appear, they are generally the antagonist. Not all fictional universes have or need villains. But a vast majority of them do. And they are no better or worse for it. They are always bad, but they are only bad for the reader when the writer writes them poorly.

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VILLAINS FOR YOUR FANFICTION

Villains are easy to write. That much is true. But fanfictions still tend to mess them up sometimes. Given that our villains are pretty standard and well portrayed as such in canon, we have decent examples to draw from. Think of villains as other characters. They require work, thought, and time in focus to make them compelling enough to carry the plot and protagonist through to the end. I will cover character villains here.

Speaking of here, here is an example villain from our nonexistent fanfiction:

- Catpaw, an apprentice of ShadowClan, has abandoned her clanmates and her littermate, Otherpaw. She had received a prophecy from StarClan that said that, between the two, one would destroy the lake-forest. She simply could not ignore it any longer, as the nightmares tormented her night after night. It was a long time in the story before anyone heard anything from her. Many fights and skirmishes broke out as clans became more aggressive towards each other. She emerged one night as Catstar, leader of EnemyClan. And she would subjugate all of the lake and her littermate to prevent the destruction she felt was coming. Otherstar, now leader of ShadowClan, leads hers bravely against her littermate. Eventually the other clans follow and win. Through it, they learn the importance of not fighting. Hostilities end and the clans try to find peaceful solutions to their problems from then on.

Seems like a normal fanfic plotline, right? But we have some problems for the villain. Not knowing the arc of our main character, Otherpaw, our Catstar did not really have one. The entire reasoning behind her actions is that she is convinced a prophecy will bring ruin to the lake territories unless she does something about it. Obviously, we know she is the destruction her prophecy foretold. For her, it is justification to subjugate the forest and kill her littermate. But is it justification enough for our audience? Our villain here has more motivation than Tigerstar, but she is still not very interesting. The plot that revolves around her actions does not have much tension in it, either. Why is that?

For starters, our villain lacks anything for our audience to latch onto; our villain is unobtainable. This means that there is no way, shape, or form that our audience could picture a human in the real world doing such a thing for such a reason. This is not relatability. This is a matter of our audience seeing our villain in their minds, but being unable to make a character of them. Unless it is your goal, villains must be more than evil for evil’s sake.

A reason they fail to grasp our villain is because they lack characterization. Being a villain is an archetype, not a character trait. It is something that summarizes or encompases our entire character. And yes, the villain is a character. They may not need as much work as our main character in terms of internal struggles and secrets, but they need work. Our villain has to be more than just evil for our audience to properly grasp their concept.

Third, remember when I said main characters must drive the plot? The opposite goes for villains. They cannot be the sole driving factor for the plot. Our main character’s actions have to have some effect on it. If they do not, then why is our main character our main character? Our Otherpaw could be replaced by anyone. It does not take a littermate to know that Catstar’s actions are detrimental to the quality of life in the lake territories. And if the only thing to do is stop Catstar, then why does it even have to be Otherpaw?
* I know that we have not gone over other factors in the story, like if Otherleaf even had a character arc or what subplots, if any, we went with.

This nonexistent fanfic has its fair share of problems. Our villain is the one we have decided to highlight here. Nothing obtainable, no characterization, total control over the plot. We do not want to write 80’s Saturday morning cartoon villains. At the very least, modern media has put the spotlight on them more. Our audience wants them to be compelling, too.

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IN CONCLUSION…

Your villains can have character. Just because the ones in canon lack it does not mean yours have to. It is important, especially since almost all Warriors fanfics fuse the role of villain and antagonist. Give some rhyme to your villain’s reason. If your villain is to be your protagonist’s target, they better have a reason to be targeted, an argument against it, and an explanation for targeting everyone else. Otherwise your main character may hit them, but your audience will not.

Your evil must have a face. Otherwise it is just a destructive force of nature your audience cannot fathom beyond just that.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

July 3, 2019

This section goes over antagonists and what makes them. The villain, who is specifically an evil character, is not covered here. Villains are usually antagonists, but antagonists do not have to be pure evil. There is a broader definition of antagonist than there is for a villain.

Antagonists, like villains, are as old as recorded history. No matter who you are or where you come from, there has always been someone or something to oppose your immediate or long-term goals. Antagonists are popular in modern media, with whole movies being made just from their point of view. Plenty of Western dramas, tragedies, and religious stories revolve around antagonists. We get more freedom with them and what they can be.

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ANTAGONISTS IN WARRIORS

Antagonists are characters, objects, or force that opposes the protagonist. For example, an antagonist can be an arrogant rival, a dark lord bent on destruction, or even a natural disaster. Keep in mind that, while antagonists are often villains, villains cannot be hurricanes. Because they are just something that opposes the protagonist, they can be virtually anything.

Warriors has a long list of antagonists including but not limited to: abandoned kits bent of rage against society, overambitious warriors, jealous lovers, forest fires, and even StarClan. Notable examples include Tigerstar, Scourge, Brokenstar, the Dark Forest itself, and Sol. Unfortunately, the list generally consists of villains for our main characters to overcome. It is not a bad thing, but given the scope of themes and topics the series covers it can do more with what it has. One thing the canon does do well with its antagonists is make them products of the societies the audience sees. Sol, Tigerstar, and Brokenstar were all clan cats once. Scourge came from a foster home for pets and just had a few bad days in a row (a much different experience from the other main kittypet in the story, Firestar). Sol was obsessed with a then-absent clan and it drove him to nearly worshiping it.

The Erins have done a much better job with antagonists than Disney has (noting some of the most well-known ones are Disney villains). This laundry list of antagonists to choose from may not be the best springboard when it comes to writing better ones, however.

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ANTAGONISTS IN FANFICTIONS

As expected from our derivative fanfictions, antagonists are plenty. Just like in canon, almost every single story has an antagonist as one of the main characters. They are usually the villains who our protagonist is trying to defeat via a prophecy or something. What else is there to expect? The antagonist is a core element of fiction, and almost every fictional work across all of history and mediums has one. No surprise our fanfictions do, too.

That does not mean there is no room to improve our antagonists. Most in Warriors fanfics can be reduced to a villain misinterpreting a prophecy, a villain written in at the last minute, or a littermate of the main character who betrays them in some way. Disabilities are popular antagonists in the Warriors fandom, but even then we tend to add a hateful character to scorn the disabled cat in question and make the audience feel sympathy for them. Was the disability not enough of an antagonist? Moving on to the jealous lover, writers here just love to make them cross the line one too many times. If jealousy led to obsession every time in Warriors and in real life, there would be a lot more murders and thefts in both worlds than there already are. Our antagonists can be more than targets or manifestations of evil.

Here is an example from our nonexistent fanfiction. Note it is part of the same example I gave in the “Out of Character Moments” section (no need to go back and reference it):

- Catstar, the pacifist leader of ShadowClan, must decide who to help in a war between ThunderClan and RiverClan. Catstar is of ThunderClan originally, and her mother is its leader with her littermates its senior warriors. RiverClan is holding hostage the much-loved Otherleaf, Catstar’s best friend and medicine cat. ThunderClan is asking for her help as family rather than as a clan, stating they are losing more every day. RiverClan threatens to kill Otherleaf unless she helps their clan. She has been given an ultimatum and must decide soon before their final battle.
* We had written possible endings for that scenario in the “Out of Character Moments” section, but we do not need them here.

There are a few key takeaways from this. Our antagonist is not one singular cat, but is a choice. Of course, ThunderClan and RiverClan’s leaderships are also antagonists. But the question of ethics and kinship are what Catstar must ultimately deal with. Let us look at the situation closer and see what makes this situation work.

First, our main character’s antagonists do not stand for what she stands for; the differences are great enough to warrant action against each other. Catstar is a pacifist. Obviously, the leaders of ThunderClan and RiverClan are not. The very nature of their war and the decisions they are trying to guilt and force Catstar into are what makes them antagonists. Catstar would never do this to another clan, nor would ShadowClan be at war in the first place (under her leadership, at least). By opposing her in such a way ThunderClan and RiverClan are our tangible antagonists, with the ultimatum they gave her the moral one. Opposition is important when considering an antagonist. A reason to go against them is where most of your conflict will come from.

A second point is that neither side is evil for the sake of being a narrative and literary target. ThunderClan and RiverClan are not acting with evil intent, nor are their actions evil. Guilt-tripping and kidnapping are just nefarious means to an end. Both clan’s leadership wants to defend their territory and their clamnates against an enemy they think is wrong. Even if our pacifist Catstar finds war and those who perpetuate it wrong, they are not. From ThunderClan’s point of view RiverClan is evil, and vise versa. And when put on the moral scale of the Warriors universe as a whole, war is not considered an evil action in of itself (otherwise clans would not mainly consist of trained fighters).

Speaking on antagonists as a whole in this series, Warriors has a large cast of characters and so do your fanfics. An antagonist (or villain antagonist if you choose) allows you to do a number of things with your characters:

- Explore part of a character’s psyche that would otherwise be ignored by the plot.

- Give your main character an overarching goal that does not involve violence (like converting an antagonist to their morals or escaping their influence).

- Help a character identify their own flaws and fix them, or even pronounce them.

- Become a problem a character cannot fix by defeating it in battle or moving away from it; maybe the antagonist is an earthquake or anxiety.

This is one of the good parts about not using a straight up villain in your fanfics. You can have your adversary be a mental state or the morals of another non-evil cat. This pushes the conflict in your story to ‘gray morality’, the same types of conflict people can find in real life. In the Warriors universe, the main plotlines are black and white from a moral standpoint. There is good and there is evil. But some of the super editions and subplots from the less important books tend to explore the perception of good and evil rather than good and evil itself. Take some time to explore your characters and the universe you have built for them in your outline. Do you need a villain? Does your antagonist even have to be another cat?

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IN CONCLUSION…

Antagonists are in all fictional and nonfictional stories. They are the center of most conflicts and the motivations of our protagonists. The fact that they can, and have, been anything means they can be anything in our Warriors fanfics. Of course, they should be grounded in something our audience can grasp. Making an antagonist too evil is what drove modern audiences away from Disney-like villains. But it is your fanfic. If you want an epic tale of good versus evil, there are plenty of entertaining references out there.

The antagonist is a core element in your story. Take the same time to develop them as you do the main character, and your audience will subconsciously thank you.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

July 5, 2019

This section goes over the plot and its scope, and the technical aspects of formulating one. It does not go over ideas. Here, I assume you are writing an outline of sorts before you ever start a draft or publish a prologue. As a Base section, it has little to no examples drawn from canon Warriors.

If you need help with the plot, you are not alone. You have seen bad movies or tedious books. Where the director added way too many elements in a 90-minute block, or when a writer just never stops writing books for a series. These are problems with the plot and its scope. These problems cross mediums and skill levels; there are some poorly written best sellers out there. That being said, there are plenty of good stories to drown out the bad ones. But this guide makes sure your fanfiction does not fall in with those, and this section is specifically to help you with the plot.

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PLOT AND PLOT SCOPE

The plot is the sequence of events in a story where each event affects the next via cause and effect. Whether your plot is about adopting a stray cat or a multi-book battle between StarClan and the Dark Forest, the previous event must affect the current one and the current one must affect the next event. That is what makes the conflict a story rather than a sequence of unrelated events. For example, what you probably did on a day off was a sequence of unrelated events. That is not a story. It becomes one when a prior event affects the next one. If you are sitting at home and a friend calls you to go to the river with them, then it is a plot point in the story of your day. You left your house because your friend called you. It is a core element in writing and I am sure you get the idea.

Plot scope is the range and amount of events covered within a single story. The range of events refers to the amount of time passed. The amount refers to the number of events covered. While a basic idea in of itself, scope tends to get overlooked in the Warriors fandom. And it is easy to tell why; the canon novels tend to go pretty far off the initial parameters set in The Prophecies Begin arc. Warriors is not the best example when referencing scope. We go from ‘fire alone can save our clan’ to ‘the ancestors of cat heaven manifest in the living world to fight the ancestors of cat purgatory’. Regardless of how far it goes, it would be difficult for us to scale a single fanfic that far out of its initial scope. Remember, the Erins are several writers with paychecks and deadlines. You are solo and without a deadline. Expanding the plot’s scope should have a reason and be the result of narrative events prior.

Deciding on a consistent plotline is harder than most think. How many fanfics have you read where new characters are constantly added, or events become more and more ridiculous? The plot is the foundation of the story. The last thing you want is an ever-expanding mess of occurrences.

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FORMATTING YOUR PLOT

In the section “What to Write About,” I went over ideation of stories and how you could organize your thoughts into a cohesive work. I briefly glossed over the plot, stating what you wanted to write about was just as important as the characters you chose to play it out. I will focus on the plot specifically now.

There are many ways to organize a story, many looping back to theatre. While plots have no technically correct way to structure them, it is a good idea to start with one of the structures that have been laid out by history (Western history, in our case). I could go over what led to these methods of storytelling, but it mostly boils down to who said what first back before printing presses were a thing and the masses were dumb. Instead, I will go over things taken from these historically sound plot structures that no author should be without.

First is the basic five act structure: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement . This roughly translates to an expositional beginning, followed by a tension-building mid section, and topped off with a climactic ending that resolves things. This is the same plot structure you may (depending on when you were in school) have learned in English courses. It has been around for as long as civilization has existed. It is a sound method of writing out your story simply because it is recognizable and easy to understand. There are variants of it that have come around. Episodic plots are usually without a resolution since the story must continue through months or years of real time. Flashbacks tend to start close to the climax, then run through past events to show readers how and why the climax is occurring the way it is. Most fanfics do not go into the offshoots, but the basic act structure is a good place to start when you have no idea what and where to put plot elements.

Each event in your plot must have meaning; the previous event should have, in some small way, caused the current one to happen. I mentioned this above, but it is the most important part about plotting out your events. Countless Warriors fanfics out there completely miss this. Events are written and forgotten about, characters are added last minute, sequels are set up by not ending the current story. These kinds of mistakes are common in stories that are updated without an outline or a rough draft to work from. If the prior event did not cause the current event, then how did the current event begin? That is the most basic part about a plot. And that does not mean that deviating from this is completely wrong. The episodic format messes with this a little, since each episode is only loosely connected to the last. But we are not writing for TV here. Most Warriors fanfics are either a trio or more of books or a very long one-off. We are deriving from a series that has over 30 loosely connected novels, novellas, and comics. Keeping our plots consistently moving in the right direction is important to avoid ending up with a series of loosely connected stories when we do not want them.

Warriors may be an extremely long series of novels, but your fanfics are not. Keep in mind that doing something as extensive as the Erins have done with the canon will be much more difficult for you than it was for them. That leads us into our next point.

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SCALING YOUR PLOT

This gets overlooked in the fandom, and it is understandable why. Warriors is a long series of books written by several writers with professional deadlines and editors. The canon stories cover many different subplots of romance and coming-of-age, branching from a main plot that spans four arcs with several books each, and with more being written beyond that. You are one singular writer (in most cases) with no editors or proof-readers (in most cases) and no deadline. Writing something of that scope is going to be very difficult at the least. And we generally do not want to strive for something that big right from the start.

That is not to say there are not long works out there; stories like Fallout: Equestria (MLP fanfic) and Worm (original web novel) come to mind. Those stories easily top out well over 400,000 words and were written solo. They also took years to finish just the first drafts and were combed over several times for consistency, taking even more time. Writing at an ideological grand scale without the literal grand scale of professional publishing deals is possible, but exhausting. And the last thing I want is for you to quit in the middle of your story because your ambition outweighed your ability. There are methods we can use to keep the scales of our plots under control if we do not want to write stories like Worm , though.

One such method is to shrink the scope of your plots by limiting your chapters; one event per one chapter. Many fanfics I read out there have a problem with how many things happen in one chapter. Sometimes characters will be learning about combat moves and talking to older cats about their prophecy. These two events are separate and, unless linked otherwise, should be in separate chapters. Having more than one relevant event per chapter can confuse the reader as to what is important. The possibility of character growth and plot advancement are important. Keep them both in your story, but keep them separate if they are not related to each other.

This next point counts only if your story is broken into major sections or you have multiple books: one major event per section/novel. It may seem odd at first. Why would you only have one event per whole book? By ‘event’ I mean really important event. Something that affects our characters or the universe they inhabit in a big way. In terms of a multi-novel story, our main character receiving a prophecy is not a major event. Our main character killing their littermate and losing an ear in the fight because of our prophecy is a major event. In canon, the scope of the plot in each book was condensed down to ensure they would not bog us down with too much information (they did that anyway with how many characters and super editions were introduced; do not do that). Remember your plot structures. Not absolutely everything needs to be front-loaded.

Keep in mind that limiting the scope of your plot or the events within it does not mean limiting the plot itself. If you want to write a kit-to-StarClan story complete with prophecy, love triangle, and evil littermate, go for it. Just be sure to lengthen your story appropriately to fit all the extra words, themes, and characters. No one in this fandom is afraid of lengthening their fanfics given how long the source material is. But knowing when and how to lengthen them goes a long way for your readers’ attention spans.

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IN CONCLUSION…

Warriors is a plot-driven series. Structuring the plot is, therefore, very important to how your characters and world will develop. Be sure that each section of your story has meaning, and that major events are broken up to minimize confusion. Also keep in mind that plots move forward (in most cases) and each event must perpetuate the story in some way. Chapters cannot just pause the story to insert a love triangle or villain reform, not unless those things help advance the story we want to tell. No matter the length of your fanfic, whether short story or novel series, it must tell a continuous story. And it must do so within a reasonable amount of words. Do not be afraid to cut characters or add chapters for the sake of cleaning up the story for your readers.

Structuring and organizing our plot may not be world building or character sheets, but it builds the core storytelling of our fanfic. Without it, we just have cool characters in a nice world with nothing to say.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

July 9, 2019

This section goes over prophecies specifically, not the plots they are attached to. It assumes your reader has not started reading your story, so it may be of varying help if you are halfway through publishing it.

Let me get my personal opinion on prophecies out of the way first: I do not like them. As in, I do not like them as an inevitability. If the prophecy has to happen that specific way, then where is the suspense? If it can never be disproven then what is the point? If they are there to throw readers into a series of red herrings or if they are not solid bound-by-lore-magic truth, then they are more acceptable. But that is not the case in Warriors . It was not the case in Guardians of Ga’Hoole . It is not the case in almost every single work of fantasy that has them. And it is not the case for your fanfictions.

That being said, almost every single Warriors fanfic in existence has one. I am in a clear count-on-one-hand minority in my opinion of them. Our canon has dozens of prophecies that its entire universe hinges on, so it makes sense we use them, too. Let me help you improve them.

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PROPHECIES IN WARRIORS

A prophecy is a plot device used as a call to action for some or most of the major events in a story. Plenty of longer works like The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter are based on prophetic predictions and omens. These things, whether prophecy or not, drive the story forward by giving a reason for our characters to act. In Warriors , literal prophecies foretold by the universe’s gods, StarClan, are used.

The events of the first four arcs were based on the prophecy “fire alone can save our clan.” In the end, it told of an orange-coated cat leading ThunderClan through certain ruin. And exactly that happened. Firestar saw ThunderClan through one of the toughest times in cat clan history. The moment the first book referred to Rusty’s orange-hued fur, we knew it was him; that and he was the main character.

The first prophecy worked so well because it arguably spanned the series in a meaningful way. No, it does not follow through to A Vision of Shadows , but that is because the Warriors was supposed to end with Omen of the Stars . Through that arc, it follows to the end. There are many events that happen between the first and last book that are not related, but these are treated as subplots or are even given their own books to keep from deviating too far from the main prophecy. The second reason it worked was its simplicity. This does not have to detract from depth, especially from something that may have to span a whole novel or a series of them. In that case, it should not be too straightforward in its execution. Bluestar was just being stupid when she thought her medicine cat was predicting a forest fire instead of the rust-colored cat that she herself made an apprentice (in her defense a forest fire did happen and it arguably changed things for the better, but that is another debate).

There are dozens of prophecies and omens to make examples of, but everyone knows the first one. We do derive quite a few of ours from variations of it, and sometimes we stick a little too close to it. Other times, we just have at it and include whatever we can.

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PROPHECIES IN FANFICTIONS

I find that prophecies in fanfictions are not as well executed as the ones used in canon. Often, they take far too much from canon prophecies or copy them outright. This is only bad because it has already been done in canon. If you copy one of their prophecies but change the words, it is easily deduced by a fan who read the books (which is all of them).

Here are some example prophecies found in fanfics on Wattpad, Deviantart, and fanfiction_net. These are copied exactly as the original authors wrote them:

"Moon and stone will save the Clans"

"There will be three, born against the code, who will save the Clans from the darkest threat."

"Black will rip Petal to shreds. Shadows will take your clan. One can save them with the force of Fire."

"A young kit who holds the power of the stars in her paws will stop the setting sun of Ember."

“The darkness was never meant to be, and two cats, high and proud will lead and destroy.”

The first and second examples are close to how most writers in this fandom write their prophecies. Problem is they are a bit too simple. In the first, we just have to look for cats with ‘moon’ or ‘stone’ in their names and we have our main characters. In the second, we only need to find the cats given up for adoption, abandoned at another clan’s border, or kits of strays, kittypets, and rogues. Finding our main subjects in both of these prophecies is simple. It is exactly how “fire alone can save our clans” was set up. Using a similar prophecy reminds our readers of this canon one, and now they can guess our main characters by their physical features, names, or circumstances of their birth. Worse yet, the story can predictably mimic the overarching plot of the first four canon arcs.

The third example has a problem with being too confusing. It is not hard to understand (or predict), but it is hard to discern the important parts of the three unrelated events referenced. If we broke that third prophecy into three smaller ones, they could each stand as their own parts or books. The events do not mix into each other very well unless each event happens one after the other; that may be even worse than the prophecy being simply busy. If the ‘Shadows’ take a clan after ‘Black rips Petal to shreds’, then the author has just given away major plot elements. And if the plot rides the prophecy like the canon ones did in Omen of the Stars , your readers have a predictable and busy novel ahead of them.

The fourth example holds up the best as is. Our main character would be an obvious choice for this mystery she-kit, but it could be another born halfway through the story should the author choose. Options are left open. The ‘power of the stars’ could also be anything as far as powers are concerned. There is just one issue that puts it in these examples; the others suffer from this problem, too. ‘Ember’ is given off as a name, and we are told this Ember is ‘the setting sun’. The moment a cat with ‘ember’ in their names shows, we know they will have to be stopped. It is common in Warriors fanfics for a main character (particularly a littermate or a mentor) to turn evil halfway through and become the antagonist. Whoever this ‘ember’ cat is has just been tagged as the antagonist. Sure there is room to throw readers for a good twist (like if ‘ember’ were a good but naive clan leader or something) but it will likely not turn out this way. Our kit has powers and/or a connection to StarClan. Our reader’s expectations are altered to think a certain way of this prophecy now.

The fifth example has some of the same problems as the first and second, but is worded better than either of them; it is not irredeemable by any means. We know something will happen to disrupt the peace of the clans in this story, and that this something will give rise to two cats (not hinting at who they could be is a nice touch) who will lead and destroy. We assume one will be our protagonist and one will be our evil antagonist. Problem is it seems we will have to force this ‘darkness’. It will have to be evil and destructive, enough to get our ‘lead’ main character’s attention. Ultimately this prophecy hinges on name drops and circumstances of birth, just like the first two examples. It is not super easy to predict like them, but it is once we have all of the proper information. The mystery and potency of this prophecy would wear down as the story progresses, which is not what we want from something that is supposed to carry the plot all the way through the story.

We have just gone over the things that can detract from prophecies and, by extension, our stories. But how can we write better ones when canon has pretty much used the underlying idea many fanfic plots are derived from (that is, a cat saving a clan from a rising threat)?

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BUILDING ON YOUR PROPHECY

I encourage all of you looking to improve your prophecies bounce ideas around as to how you want your plot and characters to progress. Adjust your unwanted prophecy rather than scrap it at first. Many of the obvious or busy ones can be fixed by simply changing our syntax or tone a bit.

For our example prophecy, we will use the first one from the list above and compare it to the first canon prophecy from Into The Wild (along with a list of the other prophecies so you do not have to scroll up too far):

"There will be three, born against the code, who will save the Clans from the darkest threat."

"Black will rip Petal to shreds. Shadows will take your clan. One can save them with the force of Fire."

"A young kit who holds the power of the stars in her paws will stop the setting sun of Ember."

“The darkness was never meant to be, and two cats, high and proud will lead and destroy.”

* "Fire alone can save our clan."

* "Moon and stone will save the Clans"

The starred prophecies are telling you the exact same thing. The fanfiction prophecy is clearly mimicking the canon one. However, the canon one holds up a little better for a few reasons.

The first is not as obvious at first glance: you can replace the word ‘will’ as a linking verb. This is one part where the canon’s use of StarClan in later arcs hurts your fanfic (more on that in another section). We know the power they are capable of. Using the word ‘will’ is a guarantee something will happen because StarClan says it so. Almost all of the examples above use will as a linking verb. While it is not a problem in all of them, it is in some. And it is the easiest fix we can do:

"Moon and stone can save the Clans"

"Moon and stone must save the Clans"

"Moon and stone should save the Clans."

Changing nothing but our linking verb, we have made our prophecy sound a bit better. Using the word is not wrong from a grammar standpoint, but it does imply something else. From our audience’s point of view, ‘will’ implies StarClan will take action or that our main character will likely be the hero. Replacing that word is a simple act that can go a little way to making our prophecy sound a bit more ominous.

Another thing we can do is add descriptive, abstract details. Normal writing advice would tell you to avoid using purple prose or needless description wherever you can, unless an in-universe moment calls for it. This is one of those times. StarClan speaks in riddles with most of their prophecies and omens, and so can you:

"The stone, only under a full moon, can save the clans"

"The light as guide and the stone as guard must save the clans."

"Only by the will of the moon above and stones below can the clans be saved."

The first implies that an abstract ‘stone’ object or character can save the clans, but only under a full moon. We no longer know what this ‘moon’ could be, but we do know the ‘stone’ must work with it if it is to succeed. The second still implies two cats, but they are given the roles of guide (the ‘light’) and the guard (the ‘stone’). They have been given more prominence in our story and have hinted at them being our main characters. And the third gives an ultimatum of sorts to the clans in question; they must follow through on their prophecy. In this case the ‘moon’ and ‘stones’ do not imply cats, leaving things open for interpretation for both the characters in the story and our audience. A few descriptive words can really make our prophecy stand out as ominous and unpredictable.

The third tip is to simply avoid using proper nouns in our prophecies, or hinting at names. While our revised prophecies are coming along nicely, we could still be implying names. But this goes for all prophecies. Check back with the examples above. Notice how many capitalize nouns or imply name prefixes or suffixes. These are dead giveaways to our audience to look for specific characters who will do exactly what the prophecy states. This could spoil plot points and events before we even get to them, as the actions of the prophecy may force them to take the route that should otherwise be a choice for them and an unknown resolution for our readers.

"Beware an enemy who seems to sleep."

This is the prophecy from Rising Storm in The Prophecies Begin arc. It warns that Tigerclaw is still a threat, even after being banished from ThunderClan. While we as readers knew that we had not seen the last of him, his name is not hinted at. No proper nouns are given. Even Fireheart thought it referred to a disease going around ShadowClan (that idiot). This omen works because of its implied ambiguity. Our enemy could have been anything the Erins wanted. If our prophecies and omens were written in such a way, we could have much more freedom to bend them around later in the story. Now, back to our re-revised prophecy examples:

"By light it must be revealed. By will it must be crushed. Only then can the clans be safe."

"The path must be lit; only then can the darkness be found and crushed under the might of the clans."

"Before the darkness can be crushed, the path to it must be lit by those above, among, and below."

By not using possible name prefixes or suffixes in our prophecies, we are removing an easy way for our readers to predict and interpret them. We want them to struggle a little as to what these words could mean. They have even become a bit more outlandish. They imply new story elements, like battles, teamwork, and direct assistance from StarClan. These prophecies are more our own and a part of the plot rather than something tacked on out of perceived necessity or to satisfy the plot we had already written.

So after all that, we come out with three different potential prophecies. We go from this:

"Moon and stone will save the Clans"

To this: 

"Before the darkness can be crushed, the path to it must be lit by those above, among, and below."

The other two written along with the one I personally think is best work as well. Either way, our prophecy is less obvious to a reader at first glance, more ambiguous, and more interesting to read. Those three small rules can really turn around a prophecy that may be too busy or predictable. They have broken us away from the format used in canon and have allowed us to better incorporate them into our story as we go about writing it.

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IN CONCLUSION…

So we have learned how the canon prophecies word themselves, then how they are mimicked in fanfics. With some syntax editing and broader thinking, we have made the prophecy more our own without getting rid of its core message. Most importantly, we did not have to scrap it and start over. All from changing around a few words. Remember, it is okay if our readers eventually figure it out. They should around the same time our prophecy’s subject does, or a little after. As long as they cannot guess the end of your story before they have finished the beginning, it is fine. On a related note, I advise you leave your prophecy out of your book description. Reveal it in your story, not before it starts.

We do not need complex prophecies, just mysterious ones. An omen from the gods should rattle your audience just as it does the characters in question.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

July 11, 2019

This section deals with making original clans that do not copy those from canon. It exclusively focuses on original content. So if your story takes place in a point-for-point canon setting, it may not help you too much.

When writing Warriors fanfiction, most of us decide to create our own clans for the characters to romp around in rather than use the canon’s. There is nothing unexpected about that, but keep in mind that most fanfics across most fandoms choose to use canon settings exactly as presented. Sometimes it gives the readers too much familiarity with their setting, which means that any and all deviation will be unexpected and seen differently. There are still ways to keep canon settings unique, like exploring seldom seen parts of a location, seeing it through the eyes of a different character, or seeing the setting in the past or future. This way, we can make our setting different from the canon’s without removing that all-important familiarity that draws our fans in.

Warriors does not have this luxury…

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CLANS IN WARRIORS

Ever wonder why we always use our original clans over the Erin’s? The clans, factions, and settings of the Warriors universe are very rigid, meaning even minor alterations to their traits can push our fanfiction into AU (alternate universe) territory. Worse yet, they could scare our potential readers off by sharing canon names and nothing else. Few people want to read our story where the description ends with “In this universe, ShadowClan is good and ThunderClan is shady.” But why not? It is because of how plain some of the clans truly are, and how hard-set their traits are. Using ShadowClan as an example:

- They are located in open grassland, so they rely more on stalking and ambush tactics more than other clans.

- It is rumored ShadowClan cats are taught at a young age to be ruthless and detached, but that is not always the case.

- At most points in the series, ShadowClan holds more land than the others, and is far more territorial as a result.

- ShadowClan warriors are taught winning battles is more important than following the warrior code, and are more likely to use dishonorable combat techniques.

So what would happen if we took those traits of seclusion and perceived ruthlessness away? They would not be ShadowClan anymore. Aside from owning more territory than the other clans, they would be exactly like them.

Clans in Warriors lack unique culture and social norms. Acting shady is not a social norm. Having your camp in a trench instead of hollowed out trees or rock formations is not a unique culture aspect. They are just basic traits. ShadowClan is no more different than ThunderClan. But these small traits are treated as cultural differences for the canon clans. The majority of ShadowClan cats are supposedly ruthless, more likely to ignore the warrior code, and know how to ambush better than others. This has not really proven true. Their cats stalk no more than RiverClan’s. Their nefarious outliers are no more evil than ThunderClan’s. There really is little in the way of divisive traits amidst the clans.

Nothing is truly stopping the clans from dissolving their borders and uniting. Cultural, religious, and political reasons prevent it in the real world. But in Warriors , none of that exists. The events that split them up in the first place do not hold up anymore. They were killing each other thinking there was not enough prey to go around, so StarClan proved them wrong and it caused them to divide for their own good. Much later, they are guarding their borders and making rules about hunting territory. If there is enough prey and land to go around, why even divide and defend in the first place? There is no political or economic (economic being resources) reason. Everyone has the same religion, so there is no religious tension among the clans. And there are no real cultural differences between them, so no cultural rifts. If they brought their borders down, they could live in peace and better regulate hunting, disease, and external threats like Sol and Scourge.

The only thing keeping our clans separate is the Erins and the demands of the plot. But this presents us with an opportunity to explore the clan cultures that never were.

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YOUR FACTION, YOUR RULES

So the main difference between your clans and the canon’s is that you can go more diverse with yours than the Erins can with theirs. Your original clans are likely away from the canon, even if they are located in a forest or around a lake. There are probably four of them, maybe a tribe thrown in depending on how many super editions you have read. And after all that, your clan probably reads like this:

- Catclaw is from DarkClan, a mysterious and ruthless clan that only acts in its best interests. DarkClan lives in an exposed area that lacks trees or large rocks, so they had to learn how to skulk quietly through short grass instead. They also hunt and fight at night to avoid having their movements tracked by the other clans, who operate during the day. Catclaw, one day, would like to unite the others under ShadowClan rule… but not today. Someday, though. The thought always persists...

DarkClan sounds a lot like ShadowClan, does it not? And our non-canon lake setting is a lot like the ones the clans moved to after the forest fire. Our four clans, divided carefully by the warrior code, all seem to mimic the canon ones. And no matter what we write, DarkClan (which is a surprisingly common name in fanfics) always seems to be the ‘bad’ clan, right? Sadly, most original clans are written to mimic whatever clan the writer took inspiration from. All cats who live out in the open learn to be super stealthy and territorial. All who are near rivers know how to swim and only eat fish. You do not have to do this! Your clan, your rules. Remember, the Erins did not give the canon clans enough culture for you to take any good inspiration from them.

This section is here to help make your clans different. Using the same number of clans or the same biomes is not as bad as copying the canon clans outright. What can we do to make our factions stand out?

For starters, we can focus on the name, and other small, subtle details that convey culture to our readers. There are not many subtle details about the clans in Warriors . Not only is everything from politics to social customs stated directly from characters to audience (words over action), but there is no difference between these details among the clans. Even different regions in the same country have some cultural differences. People in California may live in the same country as those in Louisiana, but dietary choices, mannerisms, and dialects are different. This does not even count living conditions, economic differences, politics, or biome. You do not need to have clans be drastically different from each other, not even as different as two provinces in the same nation. But when you see one clan’s cats care for elders like they were leaders and another using kits for that work, it shows (not tell) details about how a clan goes about its business.

Branching from that, an original clan is your opportunity to add subculture. A subculture is one that branches off of a primary majority. In the case of our Warriors fanfics, clan culture in general would be the main (assuming we are writing a story about clan cats). This is where we have to start brainstorming, for the only decent subculture that exists in canon is the tribes. They are almost exactly like clans, expect for the name swap for StarClan, their leadership hierarchy, and how they go about political disputes. At their core, they are just like clans, and their culture derived from them. Maybe you make a clan that does not follow the warrior code, or one that has an overzealous belief in StarClan. The only thing to remember about subculture is that it must branch from a primary one. BloodClan’s habits would be subculture of clans. A band of rogues is subculture for nothing. The good part about adding subculture to a canon concept that has none is we can do virtually anything. I am a strong advocate of adding them, as I use them in almost all of my original clans (and since I write AU fanfics, I have a lot of original clans).

Be careful for single-trait cultures and culture copying. By single-trait cultures, I mean making a society based around one dominant trait with all other pursuits, developments, and interactions sidelined. BloodClan had this problem. The only things they cared about were violence and domination; it is in their name. They were forgettable for that reason. The only thing BloodClan brought to the story was Scourge. By culture copying I mean taking an existing society and transplanting it directly into your story. This is very popular in modern media and novels. Ever noticed how the ‘bad guys’ in sci-fi and fantasy always resemble Romans, Nazis, or cartels and gangs? Out of all those traits between those three societies and you choose to take only domination, racism, and questionable ethics? We can do better than that. What about what the Romans ate and why they did so? How about including what your Nazi rip-off culture did to their environment? Taking a culture from real life is normally fine, but copying them makes them forgettable. Look into these cultures and societies and see what really made or makes them stand out other than the obvious traits. The most dominant cultures in human history have many subcultures and traits that gives them broad appeal or set them up for success internally to last centuries. So can your clans (to an appropriately scaled extent, of course).

There are so many aspects to culture, religion, and politics that affect a society. Even environment has an effect on these things (it has a major impact on these things, in fact). Your clans can be altered significantly from the canon’s. You might decide you do not even want clans or clan politics! Worldbuilding tends to snowball once you start with the big details and work your way down.

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IN CONCLUSION…

The Erins left out culture and interesting differences with their clans, but you do not have to with yours. Of course, most will derive from canon, and there is no problem with that. But when the canon has nothing to offer your fanfics on a particular subject, it can be hard to make your derivative work stand out. Warriors is a minority in this case, as many professional fictional works have problems with too much cultural worldbuilding. In any case, your MarshClan can be different from their RiverClan. Much different. All you have to do is let yourself explore (should you want to).

Each step your DarkClan takes away from their ShadowClan is one where you can make yours into what theirs never was. Your faction, your rules.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

July 13, 2019

This section covers behaviors in real life cats versus cats in Warriors. Warriors is a fantasy novel where realistic cat behavior has rarely been implied or shown, so having unrealistic cats is not technically wrong. So this topic can be taken or left, for it is not as much advice to improve as it is something to think about.

How realistic cats are in Warriors is something that is never really discussed by the fandom. It is one of those topics that is only brought up by a disgruntled fan or in fanfiction guides like this one. And when it is, no one discusses how realistic cats would make the series better - or if they would make it better. You figure a 30+ book series about cats would have some realistic depictions of them, right?

Well…

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CAT BEHAVIOR IN WARRIORS

Cat-ification is my word for making the cats of Warriors behave closer to their real life counterparts; this is not an actual term (or even a grammatically correct one). The cats in one of the only novel series about cats out there do not really act like cats. They act more like us. For example:

- The cats sleep at night and are active by day. Always. It is a special circumstance to be active at night.

- They care deeply about the concepts of parenthood and kinship. They mate with the intent on doing so for life.

- Mothers use their experiences to teach their kits to grow up like or better than themselves. The father is even known and present.

- They are active most of the time they are awake. Climate and food availability do not affect this.

- Females do not go into heat, so kits come as they will. It is not uncommon for less than a full litter to be born.

There are more traits, of course, but these are the most obvious. The important takeaway is that the Erin's cats act more like humans than actual cats. If any of you own a cat, you may have noticed it does not, in fact, fight for Stars and clan when it leaves the house for extended periods of time. Bonus downer points if yours is indoor only. So why is it that a story about literal domestic feral cats has none of the expected cat behavior?

Cats that act less like cats are easier for readers to grasp and imagine. You would think that only cat lovers are reading a lengthy fantasy series about cats. You would probably expect everyone reading has a cat, or studies them intensely in hopes of owning their own one day. This is not the case. Not even the Erins are cat experts (last I checked, one of the former ones was a dog person). In a story about humans, it is easy to grasp what they might or should do based on their age, location, and status. We generally have an idea what a seventeen year-old college freshman is like, or a fifty-something detective promising to retire after that last cold case. We do not have to be them, but there is information on them. They exist in real life (to certain degrees) and they are still human in the end. Cats on the other had cannot speak, are not as smart or as complex as us, and have a much more limited range of motion. We only talk to humans… most of the time. If the Erins wrote 15 minutes of Firestar grooming his crotch and thinking nothing of it, we would wonder what the hell we were reading.

Cats that act more human also give more freedom to the authors in regards to storytelling and character behaviors. If the Erins had to deal with the fact that cats are active whenever it is easiest to get food, day or night, are very skittish of each other, and are pretty damn lazy, there would not be much room for conflict. Why get jealous of other couples if there are plenty of toms and she-cats to go around? Why fight over territory when our protagonist could just claim the high ground of a tree? No social structure, no romance, no gods. It would make for a pretty bland 30+ books, right? After all, most human behavior is limited to humans.

It seems pretty easy why the Erins would choose to anthropomorphize their cats as heavily as they did. Could they have made a compelling series about animals acting more realistic? Absolutely. Just look at Watership Down (it is about rabbits, not cats). But it would not be the Warriors we all recognize. So what about those of us who want to write cat-like cats instead of humans in cat bodies?

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CAT-IFICATION IN FANFICTION

As expected, the cats in our fanfictions act about the same as the ones in canon. I think the only time the Erins beat us in realism is during birthing scenes, where they go into great detail that we often do not (yeah, pregnancy and birth is the part they choose to be realistic above all else). Our stories are derivative works, after all. This is expected. And this is not a problem. If the cats in our fanfics do not act realistic, so be it. They never had to.

For some of us, however, we might actually want our cats to be cats. What if we do not like how off the Erins are about cat behaviors? Well, it is not impossible to write a Warriors fanfic with realistic cats. But there are definitely a few things to keep in mind when doing so:

- Cat’s sleep cycles depend on safety and food. Most cats are active at night for that reason, hunting mice, birds, and rats that are taking advantage of the decreased human activity. Cats can see just fine at night or in near total darkness, unlike humans.

- The concepts of kinship and family do not exist for cats, nor do they take on life mates. If a she-cat goes into heat and a littermate is the only one around, she will take him. Cat’s genes have also evolved to prevent inbreeding from being a problem.

- Queens go into heat and get pregnant, on average, twice per year. One queen could easily bring four to ten live kits into the world in that span, a reason they are considered an invasive species. Cat mating, contrary to what canon implies, is not the slightest bit pleasant or romantic.

- Queens nurse their kits and leave them when they are weaned from nursing. The kits do not stay together, rather they just scramble. The father is not present for anything unless the queen has birthed among humans; they may allow the human to introduce the father if he remains in close proximity or is also a pet.

- Cats only travel in groups when they absolutely have to, whether it is for survival reasons or safety from stronger predators or humans. They are normally very territorial and will attack cats who enter their marked borders.

- Without being socialized early by humans, a domestic cat will act far closer to its wild relatives than most other pets would. They do just fine outside of captivity, as they are often an apex predator in developed areas.

This is not all of the information available, of course. For more, use Wikipedia. They have an incredibly in depth fact sheet about cats that is much more accurate than the hundreds of others online (the odds of you needing their exact height to the centimeter for your fanfic are near zero). The cats in Warriors do not follow any of these behaviors. Not one. Yet every single domestic cat in the world does. Even the feral ones. The ancestors they derived from also follow these behaviors to the letter; they are actually much more skittish than their domesticated counterparts. But they look no different from them, so your warrior cats did not descend from sabre cats or whatever. But I think you already knew that.

Since this is not a section on advice to correct an error, I have no right way to incorporate this behavior into your fanfic. It really is your discretion. But I can provide an example: my own fanfic. In A Reign of Thunder and Lightning , I intentionally made my cats more realistic. In addition to leaving the fantasy world and joining the real one, I had clans operational 24/7, toms banned from being around kits, and cats not knowing (or caring) who their parents were. I also tried to portray the anxiety that some cats can feel when in unfamiliar or unfavorable situations, since the setting is a human war zone and StarClan had gone dark. All of this, of course, pushes that fanfic deep into alternate universe territory. But I wanted it there. While the setting change had more to do with that than the cat behaviors, the cats were not a small part of that decision. I personally prefer a story about cats to be close, at least close, to how they might act in real life. More than anything else, that rigidness of the source material irked me. That does not make Warriors bad, nor do I think it is bad. But using realistic cats was my way of making my fanfic stand out in a good way and writing what I wanted to see from canon but never got to. Is it correct or incorrect? Neither. Good or bad? The readers are the judge of that.

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IN CONCLUSION…

If you are particularly concerned with how much like cats your fanfic’s cast acts, feel free to seek more information about them. Realism is not something that comes up often in our fandom, so I thought I would bring it up. It might provide a different type of story, or allow more options when storytelling than if you pulled 100% from the source material. It makes for something different. Not right or wrong, but different.

Most of us are not cat experts, but it pays to know. After all, none of us are human experts when we write about them.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

July 15, 2019

This section talks about the main religion in Warriors, StarClan. It goes over what the canon has allowed us to do with them, as well as some unique use cases for them that expand on the religion. Everything here carries over to all the names for StarClan mentioned in canon as well as its counterpart, the Place of No Stars.

StarClan in general is treated as the heavenly body of Warriors . In canon, it had some pretty limited uses up until The Power of Three arc started, then their power and reach extended greatly into the mortal realm of the clans. While this caused some major continuity errors with The Prophecies Begin arc, it really allowed fanfiction writers to do whatever they pleased with it. There are many ways to use StarClan better than the Erins, though.

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DIVINE OVER-INTERVENTION

StarClan is the Warriors universe equivalent to your general god pantheon and afterlife. Cats go there (or to its underworld counterpart the Place of No Stars, aka the Dark Forest) when they die, not forming or following a pantheon of god cats; StarClan is simply everyone who has been lost. They live out the rest of their ‘existence’ in Silverpelt and watch the living below. They fade out of existence when forgotten by the living in full, which usually takes many, many generations. They have exerted their influence on every single arc in the series, and in most auxiliary books. They give out prophecies and omens, speak to medicine cats, oversee important ceremonies, and guide cats in times of trial. Many see StarClan in the form of their deceased friends and family. Unlike StarClan the Place of No Stars is easier to reach, for one just has to seek its influence to be corrupted by it. A cat does not have to be evil to be in this underworld; they just needed to ignore the two rules for getting into StarClan: believe in them, and follow their rules. All seems normal as far as this literary trope is concerned.

There is just one issue with StarClan, and that is their power. They are simply too influential to the story at large. Nothing, literally nothing , happened in the first four arcs unless StarClan knew about it or had even the smallest amount of paw in it. There is absolutely zero doubt they exist, no matter how many deniers and nonbelievers the Erins try to throw at us. Both StarClan and the Place of No Stars are able to field themselves on mortal battlefields and fight for and against the living. They can give extra lives to cats they deem most worthy, and reincarnate those they feel still have work to do. They can even give cats powers, giving them a huge power spike compared to their other mortal companions. Worst of all is that they shattered the limits and restrictions that were implied in The Prophecies Begin arc. This power spike was done for the sake of breaking the limits the Erins had unintentionally placed on themselves in the first arc, as well as to expand what the young and hungry fanfic community wanted to do with them. In the end we are left with a heavenly body that has a not-so-consistent power level.

Other than that, StarClan is a standard god pantheon and afterlife. So what does that do for us? Not much. That can be good or bad depending on what kind of story we want to tell, or what kind of rules we are binding ourselves to.

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STARCLAN IN FANFICTION

The mysticism set up in the first arc quickly evaporates, unfortunately. It prevents StarClan from being as strong a narrative tool as the deities of other fictional works. The only bit of it that remains is that StarClan has no god pantheon. It is a congregation of the deceased, just like the Place of No Stars. No one controls or directs them. And they do not seem to have influence over humans (this is great; the last thing we need is cats destroying bulldozers and summer camps or whatever). Regardless of these restrictions, the tighter restrictions in storytelling methods ensure that StarClan remains inconsistent and demystified. This is copied over in your fanfics.

The most common use for StarClan and the Place of No Stars in canon is as a plot device. They are shaped, buffed, and nerfed depending on the demands of the story. Since our fanfics are derivative works, we derive their use of the afterlife. Most of our stories use them as plot devices as well. We do tend to steer clear of the amazing feats that they have performed in canon, leaving them at their The Prophecies Begin power level. Despite us dialing it back with the reincarnations and the ghost cats killing living cats, we almost exclusively use them for prophecies. Main character gets a premonition, they do what they need to do throughout the story… so why was StarClan involved? Well of course they gave out the prophecy. Who or what else would.

Honestly, it is surprising to see such restraint in our use of one of the strongest tropes in any fictional work, especially since novice writers tend to really get behind using pantheons and afterlifes for literally everything. This restraint does make our use of them a bit too predictable. Of course they will be present in the leader ceremony, and there to guide our MC through their prophecy. Luckily, StarClan’s malleable powers create some interesting use cases.

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DIFFERENT USES FOR STARCLAN

The Erin’s liberal changes to StarClan’s power gives us the same freedoms for our fanfictions. We are not writing nearly as much as they have already, so we can have a consistent power ceiling. Our divines can match the needs of our plot, and it would all still derive from canon since they have done so much there already. Because of this, there is no one correct way to use StarClan or the Place of No Stars. At the core, they are tropes and plot devices; of course they can be so much more than that, and some fanfics have already done more with them. I will go over examples and ideas on how to use StarClan if you want to go beyond the standard ‘gives prophecies and stores dead relatives’ approach.

In many fanfics out there StarClan’s power is greatly diminished, preventing them from impacting the plot and storytelling too much. While this usually makes them a plot device, it saves room for the characters and setting to do their thing. Since most of the powers given to them in canon are ignored anyway, this is how we normally see StarClan in our stories. This is equivalent to the power they had in The Prophecies Begin arc and is only considered ‘underpowered’ because of what future arcs have done. There is nothing wrong with using StarClan as a plot device, but it is probably not the exciting new approach you were hoping to hear.

In a few fanfics, I have read a description of StarClan that has ill intentions (purposefully or not) for characters or for the world they inhabit. These characters either spend the story being slowly corrupted by them or running away from them and their prophecy. In the most literal sense of this type of StarClan, they become the villain. In this case, it is usually one or a few cats who use their position in Silverpelt to manipulate the mortal world to their own liking. They usually mention their evil dead cat’s plan in the story’s description (do not do this). Without a regulatory pantheon in cat heaven, this is entirely possible in canon, too. We just do not see it. In a lighter use case of nefarious StarClan, they warn that the MC in question must lose something precious to them (usually a mate or littermate) to fulfil their prophecy. The MC subsequently tries to alter their fate in any way they can. Whether or not the prophecy is inevitable depends on how it is written by the author. The Erins have done this with a few omens throughout Warriors , but the stakes are too low for anyone to really resent StarClan in a non-evil way. Nothing is stopping your fanfic from holding resentful or unwilling believers.

One thing I have almost never seen in fanfics is the complete absence of StarClan and the Place of No Stars. Because of the confirmed existence of these places in canon and the influence they hold, fanfic writers are always reluctant to omit them entirely. And it can be argued that the only reason the canon happens the way it does is because of StarClan and their prophecies (and their corporeal ghost warriors). Their absence would also push your fanfic into alternate universe territory. I have read a single story description omitting them: they stated their influence waned over generations of weakening belief, so the clans were at constant war with each other without the warrior code or their heavenly body to guide them. This is the way I think of StarClan in my own fanfics. I think ‘what does StarClan add to the story if they directly intervene’ and I usually decide against such an action. If they did not exist at all, it would make for quite the different story about a political and social structure that was invented by them in the first place.

On that note, I have never once seen varying beliefs and subcultures emerge from StarClan or the Place of No Stars. Everyone in canon believes and follows StarClan in the same way, with the same customs and practices that they even do together sometimes. The only subculture in the faith from canon is the tribes, and this is loose at best since they mostly just rename things the clans already do and have a slightly different social hierarchy. This lack of subcultures within this shared faith comes from the clans having no unique cultures of their own (see the ‘Original Clans’ section for more detail on this). Since the clans are the same, their belief in StarClan is so as well. But this is fanfiction. You can do what you want. For inspiration, there is no better place than the centuries following the Protestant Reformation. Christianity had splintered into several major sects, from the traditional Catholics, to the ultra-hardcore Puritans, and everything inbetween. This is common among all of the world’s major religions, however. When millions of people follow one faith, it is reasonable to think they would not all agree on how it should be followed. The same could be said about our cat clans (plus, a bunch of ultra-zealous Puritan-type StarClan worshipers would make for a pretty cool fanfic).

These are just friendly nods to the possibilities this religious body holds. StarClan can be more than the prophecy-giving plot devices, or the deus ex machina at the end.

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IN CONCLUSION…

StarClan and the Place of No Stars do not need to be so overpowering to be impactful in our stories. Doing things like taking inspiration from real religions or subtracting them from our plot can make their presence feel more important to the story without overshadowing the power of our moral characters. Available to you is a spectrum of intervention levels that you have complete control over.

Do what you will with the feline divines. They can be anything from a plot device to a setting; it is a fanfiction, after all.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

July 18, 2019

This section covers using settings not or seldom mentioned in canon, and what they can do for storytelling. It is more so about taking a new approach to typical fanfics rather than a general guide on setting. As a Base section, it has little to no examples drawn from canon Warriors.

The setting is something that must be decided before a story is written. Your characters will look and act different and have different problems depending on where they are in the vast cosmos of fiction and reality. It can have just as much an impact on a story as a good character or an unexpected ending. In many fictional universes, the setting is the entire reason for the plot’s direction and its character’s actions. In Warriors , it is somewhat true. Some of the events are a direct result of its setting.

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THE SETTING OF WARRIORS

The forest and lake territories are what comes to mind when we think of Warriors’ setting. While they were established by StarClan, one could argue that the clans would have no reason to fight if they stopped perpetuating their own political conflicts. Especially since there is little competition and enough food to allow these clans to exist at the same time. Beyond that, the setting provides weather hazards, other dangerous animals, and the occasional twoleg problem. There are natural landmarks that help divide territories, like a river and tall hills, and there are central focal points for cats to have nonviolent, plot-related conflicts in. Overall, it is not a very difficult setting from a storytelling standpoint. It is also a very recognizable one. There are many trees, open fields , and quiet human settlements nearby. The lake setting is the same, but with a lake doing most of the dividing over natural landmarks. A setting like this almost seems too familiar. That is because it is based on a real-life location in England. Same general climate and same wildlife. If it was not for the layout and lack of a name, we could say Warriors takes place in England instead of a fictional location.

Now why do that, all that work in dividing territories and building up the map via conversation and story (and the literal drawn map), only to stick so close to real world inspiration? For starters, the authors were trying to keep the setting as easy as possible to understand in short bursts of text. The Erins, like many other YA writers, use lengthy, wordy descriptions when talking about setting. Love them or hate them, they are not needed to describe a forest or a lake. But these lengthy expositions can build upon a setting that is easy to recognize with unique details and quirks. They can also be woven flawlessly into battle scenes and conversations, where the attention is not on the surroundings. It is much easier to describe a cat jumping off an oak tree than a cat leaping from the bark of a disturbed treant. This setting is also easy to write about without doing much research. This is not a knock on the Erins, but they write a lot of books. How much time could they possibly dedicate to worldbuilding biodiverse fictional settings, or learning about the weather patterns of mountainsides or jungles? There are a lot of Warriors books. It is easy to describe a forest; everyone knows what a forest looks like.

Do the forest and lake territories do anything wrong, aside from their crimes against geological possibility? No. But these plain settings can limit what we do with them in the future. Aside from a bad snowstorm or a flood from rain (or a forest fire), what can be done to make this setting have an impact on the plot that we have not already seen? A nondestructive one, on that note? Look at BloodClan. They were located in a suburban alley. The less hospitable setting had a major impact on how they handled themselves and the groups they came into contact with. Dropping a normal clan in this setting could have an equal impact, especially since what little culture they have is a direct result of their religion’s influence on the setting.

Nonetheless, the forest and lake territories are pretty good settings. They work, and they do no make us think too hard about them. But this section is labeled ‘distinct’, so we should get into making our setting different.

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WHY USE A DISTINCT SETTING?

Based on descriptions I have read, I will take a guess and say it is rare to see a Warriors fanfiction use a setting other than a forest with a river or a lake surrounded by a forest. Those who do often weave it in with their description or on their (dreaded) alliances page. The reasons I have stated above for the Erins using such basic settings carry over to the derivative works; many fanfic writers want to focus on the story they are telling or the conflict between their original clans. There are some compelling reasons to go off the grid, though.

One of these reasons is that it easily allows you to go beyond the established norms and traditions of canon clan life. Because so much of the clan’s political boundaries and religion are based on the setting, changing that setting could have a huge impact on our fanfic. If the stars are not visible because of the light pollution of a city, how much importance would our cats place on StarClan? Would our clans have time to worry about petty border disputes if there were wolves and cougars stomping around? For all we are concerned, wolves could become the cat’s gods and city pollution could keep our cats less than perfectly healthy. In those cases the setting has a pretty big impact on the plot, but are just small examples. I will go over those later. For now, focus on what you could do with your clans and their actions if they were not in a forest or around a lake… 

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HOW FAR OFF THE GRID?

Normally, a section like this would not exist in this guide. But there are so many ways to use non-canon settings that the community just does not do. If anyone needs a paw in knowing what could work, look no further than:

- Urban - When I mean urban, I mean urban. Barely any trees, no grass lawns, highrises that block out the sky, and lots and lots of humans. Cats do not do well in cities. They are known for ravenous breeding and attacks on birds and pet dogs, so they are generally rounded up and killed by city governments. Moving about in broad daylight would see so much human attention that it may not be worth it. A clan of 30+ cats would almost certainly be spotted. The stars are hidden behind a veil of smog and light pollution. It might even be difficult to write about due to how many aspects of city life you would have to include. But a story about cats romping around a rat-infested sewer network or an abandoned apartment filled with homeless is definitely something different.

- Suburban - Using the typical American suburbs as an example, we have grass laws, parks, wide streets, pools, and lots and lots of birds. Suburbs, from an animal’s point of view, are quiet, biodiverse, and somewhat indifferent to their presence. Humans would not care about seeing a cat roaming around like they would in a city. Food would be abundant from all the birds, scavengers, and human food trash (unlike cities, it is not in the gutter). Cats could form clans and kill each other without much attention here, just as they do in canon. It would be a fun change of pace without straying too far from the temperate nature setting canon uses (unless we leave temperate areas, as I use the United States as an example here).

- Rainforests - Our cat is no longer an apex predator in such a setting. Traditional rainforests, like the Amazon or the Congo, would be very difficult to live in, and temperate rainforests, like those found in the United States, would still be hard. There would be too much rain to dig camps out on the ground. Clans would have to share hunting grounds with big cats, swift birds, and ants. Livable territory would become more important than in the canon forest settings. Diseases would thrive in the humid environment. And there are plenty of poisonous plants and animals to scare away even the largest of predators, let alone our little domestic cats. Some species have been introduced to and conquered rainforests by evolving to be a little larger. And there certainly would be no humans around. Primal instinct takeover, anyone?

- hostile environments - This is not a particular setting. Rather, it is places a domestic cat clan would surely die in. Places like Siberia, the Louisiana Bayou, the Congo Rainforest, they are dangerous enough for humans. But what about a species that does not have the size, tools, or biology to survive in such an environment? What would clan structures be like on an icy tundra where plants have a hard enough time growing? How would you treat injuries without them? Equally as important as the hostility in this case is the reason. How did your cats end up in a desert or a cliffside in the first place? That reasoning makes the story more believable. After all, why would a cat clan choose to leave their future generations to a dangerous land that no creature could truly thrive in?

- real-life settings - These are the settings I default to, and the ones that will default your fanfic to alternate universe. Fanfiction in general defaults to a real-life setting for two reasons: to tell a high school AU story, or to tell a historical AU story (of course this does not count if the fictional work in question takes place in reality). In most fandoms, humans or humanoids are the subject. Our cats would have a much different time during World War I than Harry Potter; they certainly would not be perpetuating such a conflict. In Warriors , I advise real life settings for historical significance or to match the theme or tone. I would make a grimdark story take place during the Black Death or on a battlefield (I have). There are literally millions of potential settings and time periods to pick from here. It is easily the most freeing type of setting to do. Also, I am the only one I have ever seen using real life (not bragging or looking down on anyone, just no one else does this), probably because of how difficult it can be to link the significance of using a real setting over a fictional/fantasy one. The canon never had to justify itself like this. Still, it is very liberating to write in this setting, so long as it holds significance to the story somehow.

- space - I saved the best for last, did I not? Yes, you could write your fanfic in space! Of course not literally in space, but on a starship or another planet. How would such conditions take their toll on a cat, conditions that already do a great number on humans? Could they adapt clan life to such an environment like a space station with no vegetation or the cold but habited surface of Mars? What would change about their religion now that they are literally among the stars? It is a very interesting setting to think about, and since it is fanfiction you can do it (for the record, I do not think there is a single Warriors fanfic that takes place off Earth).

This list is not all of the settings you could use. Theoretically, you can use whatever you could possibly imagine or research that makes sense. This is just a list of examples I felt would be likely candidates (yes, including space).

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IN CONCLUSION… 

There are so many ways you can flip the traditional tropes Warriors and its accompanying fanfictions use by changing the way you think about setting. Forests and lakes are nice, but there are way more places in the world that cats have adapted to live in, mostly places near human settlement. You can even challenge yourself by writing in a real-world place or somewhere that no one else has ever written in… for Warriors fanfics, that is.

The setting is just as much a character as the characters themselves, and has the potential to be just as interesting to read about as they are.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

July 22, 2019

This section discusses humans in the Warriors universe, what they do, and how they might be used to enhance fanfiction. As Warriors is an animal story, they are generally regarded as plot devices rather than characters; to date, no canon story treats a human as a character.

In any book about animals, humans make an inevitable appearance. Whether they are exploring the abandoned area the story takes place in, intervening directly with one of the characters, or their domain is the setting, they are always ready to act as a plot device. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Yes, I have railed plot devices before, or at least the idea of using complex topics and tropes as poorly used plot devices. In a story centered around animals a line is usually drawn between them and humans, and that line is often very pronounced. In such stories, Warriors included, they often cannot be controlled. Rightfully so. We are the apex creatures of planet Earth, after all. But just because our animals (often) lack the ability to control us in stories centered around them, it does not mean we have to be out of sight all the time.

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HUMANS IN WARRIORS

Known as ‘twolegs’ to the cats of the Warriors universe, they are treated roughly the same as other books about animals, albeit with less screen time. Humans are a constant threat for cats. They run them over with their ‘monsters’, walk around their territory uninvited, and have literally destroyed settings in rare occasions. Saying humans are a dominant force is an understatement, but saying they are the dominant force would be incorrect. That title goes to StarClan and, to a lesser extent, the Place of No Stars. Some books about animals use their humans similarly. In Watership Down , humans are the cause of the conflict in their tearing up of the moors the rabbits live on, forcing them to move. But are they the cause of all the character development, minor conflicts, and the ending? No. Same can be said about the humans in Warriors . Did some insane homeless guy give Spottedleaf her prophecy? No. StarClan did.

This comes at little surprise. Animals cannot speak to us in the same way we speak to each other. With Warriors being about feral cats, it would not make sense for them to openly communicate with humans. If they cannot communicate effectively with our characters or interact within the boundaries of our setting, then their role in the story is usually demoted. In the canon’s case, to plot devices. Children exist to get scared off by our feral cats, cars exist to kill minor characters, they can destroy parts of the setting on occasion, they ignorantly strut through clan territory, and they bring things with them that they may lose. And they… actually, that is about it. They do not do much else in canon aside from these minor inconveniences. Sure they may kill a cat here and there, but it is usually nothing serious to the main plots in the books. The worst they have ever done, in fact, was presumably bring dogs close enough to the forest to allow Tigerclaw to manipulate them (I only say presumably because the dogs certainly were not there in books prior to A Dangerous Path ).

It is unfortunate that humans are often underutilized in Warriors . But the Erins certainly use them better than how they are used in movies about animals: as evil beings looking to cut down a forest for no other reason than to build luxury housing or something. The Erins do not even use them poorly. But they could be used in so many more ways than they are. Some situations may have even benefited from their presence.

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WHY SPECIFICALLY HUMANS?

There are plenty of plot devices out there for us to use in any storytelling medium. Some are not easily available to us with animal stories like Warriors . This is where humans come in.

Everyone writes different fanfiction. While there is only one group of Erins, there are thousands of amateur writers out there who have written fanfics about their work. It is reasonable to believe we all might use humans differently than they did. Most tend to omit them. Others use them as an unstoppable force. And very few use them as the main antagonist. Regardless of how they are used, humans act as a plot device on a very high level. By high level, I mean humans can be as abstract as a hurricane and just as easy to understand. They might not fit into every story, as a result, but they are a predictable plot device. In the confines of an animal story, there is only so much humans can do without taking attention away from our main animal characters. As such, few bits of their language and references can appear, or only so many cultural customs and behaviors. Without these traits, humans become abstract. From a literary standpoint, this is not bad. It means that seeing a human in a story about feral cats is not a good thing for them.

It is story time! Here is one from when I was in high school. Living in a new-ish built [California suburb] was nice. There were trees everywhere, courtesy of the government. Where there were trees, there were many bees and other insects that helped said trees bloom and blossom better. And that meant a very healthy bird population. And this meant that there was more than enough food for feral cats, born from the abandoned pets and wandering loaners. One night, around 02:00, loud meowing echoed up and down the street. The screech of heavy brakes woke everyone. That was unusual in such a quiet neighborhood. I just went back to sleep, though. I had school in the morning. When I woke up naturally, my mom told me that a utility truck stopped just in time to prevent running over a shoebox full of kittens. That box was being pushed by none other than their mother! Clearly accustomed to feral life among humans, she was living off (and literally in) our trash. The driver, who knew how to deal with feral domestics as a landscaper, had left the kits and their mother with our roused neighbor across the street. The mother did not freak out, nor did she try to slip away when all grew quiet again. This is very uncharacteristic behavior for feral cats for those of you who do not know, and even stranger for a nursing mother. She allowed herself and her kits to be handled if it meant temporary shelter.

At that point, the annoyed resident of [California suburb] banded together to try and rid themselves of the cats. They all shared their stories on how they would stalk their birdfeeders, sleep in their emptied swimming pools during winter, and attack their pet cats whenever they were let outside. That was nothing, however, to what the neighborhood birdwatchers (there were a lot of them, apparently) noticed. Several bird species had straight-up disappeared. They suspected having given up on their insect-ladin paradise to avoid the out of control cat populace. This neighborhood’s property values were rising fast, so the government of [California city] was eager to help. That all happened in that year’s February. The feral cat population was down to almost nothing by the end of that summer. Animal control had swept through our massive suburb and caught all the tomcats they could, killing or neutering them. I went from seeing three regulars in our backyard to one, a few times a week if I was lucky enough to catch her.

Point being, who knows what those cats were doing before that intervention. If this was a Warriors fanfic that you wrote, they could have been doing anything before those animal control officers showed up. I would like to see StarClan stop a group of semi-overweight men with enough dead fish and cat pheromones to capture a whole clan.
* Bonus note: with the feral cats decimated, the birds came back way slower than expected. The city sprayed pesticides, at their expense, around the neighborhood for years to keep insects bearable in summer. The wasp population is still excessive to this day.

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USING HUMANS IN YOUR STORIES

So our familiar twolegs can do quite a bit to our stories if we allow them. While most will not use them at all, some of us will. And when we use them, we remember what I said earlier about their use in canon: they are a dominant force but not the dominant force. To our cats, humans are just a force of nature. They cannot understand many of their actions, they know they do not act to harm them specifically, and they cannot predict or alter human intervention. Thus, force of nature. To our warrior cats, StarClan is the dominant force that indirectly has the most influence on their customs and motivations. That is not to say they can never be more than that; it is a fanfiction, after all.

While the Erins do not use humans incorrectly, they have greatly limited their role based on the confines of their larger story. We, however, can give our humans as much power over our story as we want. Think about humans doing anything from cutting down forest area, to building residential areas that can act as our setting, to their capture-and-release neutering practices. What would our main character do if their whole clan was captured and made infertile? That would certainly mess with them in a way that affects their actions and, therefore, the actions of our main character. Going the opposite way, we could have a biologist in the area studying a local feral cat population; in our case, the main character’s clan. What if they found out she used food to attract cats, and helped them with ticks and injuries? Think of the power that grants to a clan who has this mysteriously useful twoleg on their side. What would the other clans think of such intervention? Because we are not limited to the confines of some multi-arc plot, we can make our humans do whatever we want.

Second, humans can ground our story in reality and broaden the scope of our setting. I know that Warriors takes place in a fictional setting. But that fictional setting is so close to reality that it might as well be. Your fanfic could take place in a real setting, one that is varying degrees of hostile or friendly to animal populations. A gated wildlife preserve and a warzone are two very different places for animals. Sanctuaries and battlefields are easy to imagine for us, and there is plenty of reference and history to draw from. Speaking of history, many ancient cultures worshiped animals. Cats were common on these divine lists. What if our clan struggles were sacred and praised by onlooking humans, ignorant of their ‘gods’ political and religious strife? What a role reversal, and certainly nothing standard in this fandom. For canon, ‘reality’ includes seasons, forests and lakes, and human ignorance. We certainly can add more to that list if we want.

There is one more thing we can do with our humans: we can make them friends of our cats, or exist with or alongside them. You have heard of stories like Black Beauty, Life of Pie, and The Call of the Wild ; if not, they are stories where humans coexist with animals in some capacity. These are the most common types of animal stories, as this is the most common scenario in real life for humans and animals. Coexisting, in this case, is easier than conflict. So birds learn to deal with power lines and people put deer crossing signs around forest roads. At no point in Warriors do clan cats and humans interact in a meaningful way. That is okay, but we can do much more in our fanfics. We do not have to have these two separate societies of animal and human, and mixing them can really shake up our take on the canon material. Super editions have never been told from a kittypet’s point of view. We have never heard of suburban trash being a reliable source of scavenge. Domestic or not, animals and humans live together in real life. And that is another source of inspiration to draw from.

There are plenty of ways to use humans in fanfics now that we have decoupled their use in canon from ours. Not mandatory by any means; some animal stories do not need a direct human presence to be good stories.

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IN CONCLUSION…

Humans have the potential to be one of our most powerful plot devices. Only a fraction of their use cases are ever observed in canon, and we can do much, much more with our fanfics. While we can use them as an unstoppable force of nature, they can also live with our cats or be used to justify a distinct setting. In the context of our animal story source material, this is one of those plot devices that you can get really creative with.

You do not have to fall back on forest fires, evil clanmates, or even StarClan for your fanfic. Should you choose, twolegs can be equivalent to all of those things and more.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

August 8, 2019

This section discusses the general differences between plot driven and character driven fiction within the Warriors universe. It mostly exists as a reference for other parts which have mentioned this concept before. As a Base section, it has little to no examples drawn from canon Warriors.

This section seems like an odd fit for a Warriors fanfiction writing guide. And it is; we already have established what kind of fiction Warriors is and how it conveys itself to readers. But, as a concept I have referenced in other sections of this guide several times, I figured it is time I explained it better. More general definitions exist somewhere on the internet (particularly TvTropes) but, as usual for this guide, it is highly specialized. So let us explore this concept as it pertains to our source material.

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HOW WARRIORS TELLS ITS STORY

Plot-driven stories rely on lore, setting, and external forces to carry a story and its characters from beginning to end.
Character-driven stories rely on individual decisions, personalities, and changes to carry a story from beginning to end.

Warriors is a plot-driven series, through and through. I have stated that a few times in this guide already. This is understandable given the content and target audience, and it is not a bad thing. There are some character-driven moments woven in, such as the romance subplots or the occasional emotional flare-up. But, for the most part, the omens, setting, and external forces carry the characters and audience through the story. Tigerclaw being kicked from ThunderClan was far more important to the story than where he was born or how he was raised. Scourge’s life as Tiny took a back seat in importance to his invasion of the forest territories. The uses of these important characters in regards to the lore and setting is far more important than their motives or their backgrounds, and their actions are more or less determined by the plot rather than their previous actions (because, again, their upbringing and motives were not as important to our understanding of the story).

In canon Warriors , the world itself is more important than the characters in it in regards to driving the narrative forward. We will look into that idea a bit more.

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PLOT-DRIVEN FANFICS

Plot-driven stories easily more common and popular than character-driven ones. The books that you see on best seller lists or are the popular ‘flavor of the month’ are likely plot-driven. Some examples include Epic of Gilgamesh, Harry Potter, Iliad, Guardians of Ga’Hoole, Assassin’s Creed, The Simpsons, and of course, Warriors. All of these stories are more reliant on their lore and external forces than the characters to create a compelling story.

Here is an example from our nonexistent fanfiction to show just what I mean:

- Catkit was the runt of her litter. She was ignored by her siblings and mother after failing to grow like they thought she would. She was the last to become an apprentice due to her size alone. As Catpaw, she would often roam the forest with her mentor, Goodheart, or her best friend, Otherpaw. While Otherpaw had many friends and a loving family, she liked Catpaw the best. Catpaw became a warrior, still the last of the apprentices to do so, and Otherleaf became a medicine cat. One day, while Catclaw and Otherleaf were roaming the forest alone, they were ambushed by a ThunderClan patrol. Waking up from the lost fight alone and injured, she returned to ShadowClan to find it sacked by both RiverClan and WindClan.

Knowing the behavior was unusual, Catclaw learned from a StarClan omen that they were being manipulated by Dark Forest cats. Despite not knowing their motives or goals, Catclaw decided she will rally support for her cause among skeptical clanmates, with only Goodheart believing her in full. Then she will save Otherleaf from the corrupted ThunderClan. The other clans are still a threat, and so are the Dark Forest cats manipulating everything from the shadows...

I am basically writing book one of our fanfic trilogy or arc. The plot would work if placed in a canon setting, and is very plot-driven.

Of course, there are those of you who will say “Tyto, books like Harry Potter and Warriors manage to have compelling characters.” And you would be right. Plot-driven does not have to mean the story is devoid of character development. It does mean said character development has less of an impact on our story than the actions they take or the demands of external forces like StarClan’s prophecies.

Using our nonexistent fanfic as an example, we start with Catclaw. Catclaw being isolated as a runt and garnering little faith among her clanmates has little to do with the plot itself. At first glance, this appears to matter a lot. But what if Catclaw had grown as a kit to be just as strong as her littermates? What if she no longer needed Goodheart to help her confidence, or Otherleaf did not take her as a best friend? Would this stop the Dark Forest from manipulating the clans into capturing and attacking others? No. Catclaw being a runt has more to do with adding a subplot, adding character development fuel, and aiding her motivation to stop that mess. But Catclaw being a runt does not drive our plot forward.

So why would we seemingly gimp our Catclaw in such a way? It is not gimping in regards to the kind of story we want to tell. One about intrigue, hidden motives, and action. We do not want to tell a soul-searching journey or one about drastic changes in Catclaw’s life. For our story we, and many other writers, rely on making characters relatable and transparent. This gives lots of room for expansion to our cast without having to give each character a development arc or large amounts of ‘screen time’. That way, we can focus more on the interesting world and story we have created.

The story we are trying to tell does not have to do with years of self development or dealing with painful parts of one’s past. The entertainment is in the world itself, not our characters. Catclaw’s journey is our story, not Catclaw herself. Now onto the reverse.

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CHARACTER-DRIVEN FANFICS

These stories are not nearly as common as their plot-driven counterparts, but they are definitely not rare. Some of the most enduring stories in history are almost entirely character-driven, including Hamlet, Pride and Prejudice, and The Catcher in the Rye . Modern examples include Game of Thrones, Bunny Girl Senpai, and Bojack Horseman . These stories tend to garner higher reviews by critics but lower interest from consumers; these are the type of stories that are often considered the ‘good’ fiction. That fiction that people might read and, admittedly, get bored with but still say it is good simply because it does not rely on action or lore to propel the story.

We use another example from another non existent fanfiction to show what makes them a bit different:

- Catkit was the runt of her litter. She was ignored by her siblings and mother after failing to grow like they thought she would. She was the last to become an apprentice due to her size alone. As Catpaw, she would often roam the forest with her mentor, Goodheart, or her best friend, Otherpaw. While Otherpaw had many friends and a loving family, she liked Catpaw the best. Catpaw became a warrior, still the last of the apprentices to do so, and Otherleaf became a medicine cat. One day, while Catclaw and Otherleaf were roaming the forest alone, they were ambushed by a ThunderClan patrol. Waking up from the lost fight alone and injured, she limps back to ShadowClan camp, convinced that her weakness got Otherleaf captured. She explains to her leader what happened, but he brushes it off by saying she was too weak and Otherleaf could be retrieved later.

Catclaw began training alone at night out of self-hatred and to end the isolation and disrespect she constantly faced from her clanmates. Her aggressive training led to constant injuries that did not go unnoticed. Goodheart tried to convince her to stop, but she ultimately allowed Catclaw to continue. Catclaw took her mentor’s complacency as motivation and approval. Some time later, at a gathering, ThunderClan’s leader was eager to negotiate for Otherleaf’s release. Furious from blaming herself and exhausted by her training, Catclaw attacked the leader, starting a brawl between the clans. It ultimately led to Catclaw’s suspension and further mockery. Ashamed and still angry, she left the clan to try and free Otherleaf herself and show everyone she is not to be messed with...

I could go on with this. But the main point to be made is that our protagonist’s personality is the story.

Going back to a point I made earlier, character-driven stories are not necessarily ‘highbrow’ for not relying on action and lore to carry their plots, nor do they have to bore their audience by going on and on about the protagonist’s thoughts. But it does mean that our setting and overarching plot are less important than the characters and their development. Unsurprisingly, these types of stories tend to be one-offs and lack sequels or arcs of any kind (not that they cannot have them). They also tend to be rare in the Warriors fandom, given the source material is not like this at all.

Using our nonexistent fanfic as an example, we only are dealing with Catclaw in this case. Otherleaf’s kidnapping and ThunderClan’s sudden aggression are not as important as where Catclaw’s actions have gotten her. Notice how we did not need to go over that aggression. In fact, the most important detail of that main character being snatched up was that ShadowClan’s leader wrote off Catclaw’s concern due to her size and personality. It does not mean the leader is unconcerned, nor does it mean the situation is unimportant from a literary standpoint. It simply means that Catclaw’s actions and potential growth are more important than what happens in the story’s world . Catclaw herself is our story, not the world she inhabits.

So why would we seemingly forgo using epic settings or grand schemes in our storytelling in favor of a single cat that might garner mixed reactions from readers? The goal is to tell a story that is strictly about Catclaw and her impact on the setting and those around her. As a result, the world becomes more or less just a place for stuff to happen. Characters, even supporting ones like Goodheart, become irreplaceable and can change the plot dramatically if developed or removed (what if Catclaw had zero positive reinforcement). Specific personality traits become major reasons for certain events happening. If Catclaw was confident despite her size, she may have trained harder when she was a kit and not been as harsh on herself. What Catclaw felt during her upbringing still matters in the context of the story, because she is the story.

Our story purposely does not have a grand plot or a massive cast of supporting characters. Each addition matters, and so do their personalities. This is a story on emotional condition and how it affects decisions and, most importantly, the consequences of those decisions.

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IN CONCLUSION…

Plot-driven and character-driven stories are not polar opposites. There are plenty of books, TV shows, and movies that fall between these two baselines. And just because a story is one does not mean it cannot be the other. There are even a few works out there that neither have heavy character development nor a grand plot ( a few ; do not get too many ideas). On that note, Warriors is a series driven by its plot, so for more advice on what to do if you want a character-driven fanfic, see the “Plot & Plot Scope” and “The Main Character” sections. Ideally, you decide what kind of story you want to tell before you start writing it. To summarize, plot-driven stories are driven by overarching elements and lore, while character-driven stories move forward based on the actions and consequences characters endure due to their personalities and emotions. TV Tropes probably has other ‘subtypes’ for fictional works listed if you want even more information.

How you go about telling your story is up to you and the points you want to make, if any. The goal tends to be the same, anyway: an entertaining story.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

August 11, 2019

This section highlights the use of supernatural powers in canon and in fanfictions. It also goes over good ways to use powers and how they can be used incorrectly or suboptimally.

Before reading this section know that I, Tyto, am against the use of confirmed supernatural powers in my fanfics (by ‘confirmed’ I mean powers that are not up to interpretation, superstition, or belief). In my opinion, powers trivializes many of the problems certain characters face and adds unnecessary power creep to the canon world. But just because I think they are bad does not mean they are. That being said, many Warriors fanfic writers choose to use powers, secret fighting techniques, or the like. They are not as ubiquitous as prophecies, which are seen in nearly every single story, but they are common enough to be a major element of the fanfic community. Unfortunately, powers tend to be very hit-and-miss, even in canon.

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POWERS IN CANON WARRIORS

We start with the first arc, The Prophecies Begin . Here, there is only one supernatural power: nine lives given to leaders by StarClan (one could argue that omens granted to medicine cats count, but for me it does not). No one else had anything. It allowed them to shoehorn in a good deal of filler about how leaders lost lives and why they might be on their last ones, but it was a very sparing use of power. It was not without its flaws, however. During Firestar’s fight with Scourge, we knew Scourge had lost when Firestar’s next life kicked in. That was the point, of course, but much of the suspense of the fight was removed because we have seen this in action before. No character should have been upset when he was killed during the fight. Even the readers knew at this point. Unfortunately, it goes from good to bad in the very next arc.

While the list of powers in canon is not very long, they shake up the distribution of power greatly throughout the story, at the same time contributing very little themselves. This list of powers includes things like the ability to walk through dreams, invincibility in battle (a horseshit power), ultrafine hearing, predicting the future, and spiritual connection. The power creep (pun intended) started in The Power of Three and never went away until A Vision of Shadows . It snowballed pretty far out of control, to some mixed opinions. Nonetheless, the community loved them.

Why all of this, though? In Omen of the Stars , the final arc of the original books, StarClan cats are literally among the living fighting Dark Forest cats, who are doing the same thing. There are several other powers added in. But none of that really means anything. Many power additions do not help Firestar kill Tigerstar, so it made many of these additions feel hollow. Argue all you want. Lionblaze’s invincibility did not do one damn thing for Firestar. It was partly the fans. Fanfiction had been using powers longer than the Erins, so they figured adding them to canon would satisfy them. And it did. There is another literary reason. The main premise of Warriors was so limiting that they had to add a major plot device to keep things interesting. I have largely debunked this throughout the guide, as there are plenty of ways to make Warriors appealing without relying on such plot devices. But the Erins did none of that (I am not saying I am better than them).

Worse yet, it all disappears in A Vision of Shadows , and we are to practically pretend that StarClan goes back to staying in Silverpelt and invincibility does not exist. The Erins really dropped the ball on this plot device. It makes sense that powers are used incoherently in fanfics as well.

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POWERS IN FANFICTIONS

To start, I will list powers I have seen from skimming through fanfiction on both Wattpad and DeviantArt. None of these powers are from spoofs, crossovers, alternate universes, or satire. All have been taken from fanfics with intent to write serious, like the canon stories:

- moving at impossible speeds / short range teleportation

- healing any injury with love or other positive emotions

- injuring other cats out of hatred or other negative emotions

- invisibility / supernatural obscurity * *

- conjure shields / force fields for self or others * *

- flight * *

- travel in the realms of Silverpelt or the Dark Forest * *

- reincarnation / rebirth

- secrete poison / poisonous blood

- supernatural strength * *

- shape-shifting

- seduce any cat romantically (always given to females)

- conjuring / reflecting light with eyes to hinder opponents (yeah, that is a thing)

This is not every example I found, just the ones I found at least twice. The ones with * * next to them are by far the most popular powers I have seen. Some of them are even in canon now. Surprisingly, fight is very popular in this fandom. Traveling to Silverpelt is unsurprisingly popular (screw you, Jayfeather).

Nonetheless, I have spotted a big problem with these. In the context of the Warriors universe, these abilities are overpowered. Many of the abilities in canon are overpowered, too. This is not because the characters are weak, but because they are cats. Cats can only do so much, so give one the ability to never be injured in battle and you have a pretty big power spike for the universe’s power level. Even the first and most basic power, the nine lives for leaders, was pretty strong. Firestar would have lost to Scourge in a fair fight, and that would have been the end of the plot.

How is this simple nine lives power balanced? Every leader has it, so long as they believe in StarClan. In general, the only way to balance these supernatural powers is to give equal or greater power to the antagonist(s). If that is not done, the protagonist (and by extension the audience) has little to fear in terms of failure. But sometimes it is not as simple as giving both friend and foe the same powers. Think about how many powered cats ThunderClan had. Now think about ThunderClan, and how it is the most popular clan, the most powerful clan, the ‘main’ clan. And not just because our protagonists are there. No other clan has nearly as many cats with powers as ThunderClan has. They are heavily favored. They are overpowered. It makes for predictable subplots (or even main plots) in canon and the ThunderClan-like clans in fanfics are not much better about this in regards to using powers. If a cat cannot be hurt in battle, their actions can be justifiably reckless. If a cat can walk in Silverpelt whenever they want, they would be wise to all potential threats and troubles. These powers are not very well conceived because giving an opponent equal invincibility or premonitions does not enhance our narrative, like a plot device should (think about a protagonist and antagonist with invincibility).

So looking at the powers on the list and what I just said, why even use them? And how would they be best balanced in our fanfics?

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WHAT, HOW, AND WHY POWERS?

So we want to avoid problems that canon has with power creep, and we want our main character to have a cool supernatural power. But with how destructive they can be from a literary standpoint, why use them? And why is it that much of the fandom uses them poorly, too? The Erins dropped the ball with powers, but you do not have to.

We are writing a nonexistent fanfiction starring our nonexistent protagonist, Catclaw. Our story is pretty typical for a Warriors fanfic: clan with a reckless leader, ‘bad guy’ antagonist, a romantic subplot, and a prophecy from StarClan to kick things off. But we want to add powers to the story.

We first need to ask what power we want. And, in this case, we choose force fields. A force field is not just a bubble shield that protects our Catclaw from harm… at least, it does not have to be. Our power does not have to conform to the general description of what we want. A force field, therefore, does not just have to be a simple shield. It can be. Or we can go a bit more realistic with it (force fields are real concepts in physics, by the way). We could use them in a more scientific way, making them repel the force of an incoming object rather than block it. We can force our protagonist to project it under their own power rather than simply have it activate on its own. We can make the field permanent so that no one, friend or foe, can approach. Or we can go full fiction with it and have our cat shooting kinetic blasts from their paws. So long as you explain the rules somehow, almost anything that makes sense in the world could be a power. This makes choosing a power much more difficult because it really opens up our choices, but it makes our choice malleable. If we do not like how it works, we can simply modify it. Many writers in general forget this when using plot devices.

That takes us to how we will go about adding force fields to our Catclaw, from a literary standpoint. As in, how can we keep our power balanced or prevent it from making our protagonist into the second coming of Lionblaze. There are a few things we can do. First, we can decide how strong we want our power. If Catclaw can project force fields, do we want her to be able to shoot kinetic blasts from her paws, cast a shield around herself and allies, or do we want her to just limit the power of objects and attacks coming towards her? There are many options, but we want our power to be balanced in the context of our universe. A good place to start for balance would be to give our protagonist and antagonist, who or whatever that may be, similar power. If our antagonist has no supernatural powers, then maybe they will have far greater numbers or be smarter than our protagonist. If it is a force of nature, perhaps it is something that could not be paw-waved away by our powers. It is all about finding ways to keep our power interesting without killing suspense or surprise. Finally, we can always give our power weaknesses and drawbacks to using. Our Catclaw could spend a great deal of energy for just momentary use of her force field. Maybe it requires an emotional outburst or a collected mind to control. Perhaps her force field is not strong enough to work on really large cats. If you decide to add a weakness or drawback, it should be something believable and warranted. Something that prevents the reader from rolling their eyes when the solution to a plot point suddenly becomes unusable.

Before our Catclaw’s powers can be decided, along with their strengths, weaknesses, and rules, we must ask ourselves why we want them there in the first place; what is our fanfic missing that powers add? We must justify the use of a plot device that will have such a large impact on our story. Using our nonexistent fanfic as an example, we can use them to shake up the usual formula fanfics follow. We did say it was a run-of-the-mill story, so what if the powers served to alter how events in the story happened? Our powers could come with no warning from StarClan, or they could be difficult to control. They could also alter our character. What if Catclaw’s powers stemmed from emotions? At one point, I said her force field could be passive and keep everything away from her. Perhaps that passive use of her power comes from a poor upbringing or a tragic event?

That is enough theorycrafting for now. The why for you is the most important. Why would you give your characters supernatural powers in your fanfic? The Erins added powers into canon after The Prophecies Begin because the community really latched onto the nine lives for leaders idea. They must have felt canon was missing or underutilizing something and sought to add it in via fanfics. In other sections, I have said I think it was complexity that Warriors was missing. Maybe fans attempted to add that by throwing another plot device into the mix. More realistically, they just liked the idea of a main character running through some cat’s dreams or reincarnating after death for its wow factor alone. Do you want to represent an idea or concept with a tangible plot device (symbolism)? I have seen some writers do this with good and evil characters. Maybe a more fantastical cat story appeals to you and Warriors did not provide that. Whatever your reason for adding powers, you just need a reason. Even the wow factor counts. This is not a mandatory plot device, as proven by the first canon arc. Do not feel obligated to add it just because they are prevalent elsewhere.

There are many ways to add, balance, and adjust powers for our needs. If fanfic writers can explain flight and force fields, you should have no problem with things like dream walking and invisibility.

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IN CONCLUSION…

Now you know that powers are just another plot device. Albeit, one that is not used very well in our source material. Fanfics certainly get crazier with their use of powers over canon, but they vary in how well they are utilized. Most poor use cases stem from thinking like the Erins did early into the series: too rigidly. With the right amount of tweaking, you can tune any power to be exactly what you want it to be. As long as it makes sense in your story and has a reason for being there in the first place, you are good to go.

I might not like powers, but many of you do. Manipulate them well and they can add rather than detract from your fanfic.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

August 15, 2019

This section focuses on disabled cats in fanfictions, and the mistakes often made when writing them. It also discusses what to watch for when writing them and the fandom’s perception of disability. As a disclaimer, I am not disabled or impaired in any way.

Disabilities have always been a tip-toe subject in literature. In western fiction, they are often used for comedy or token representation with little to no outstanding character traits other than their disability. In the Warriors fandom, people flock and flaunt over them like celebrities due to the circumstances of the canon arcs. Some people actually look to disabled characters as a way to show that such a condition or state of mind does not have to exclude one from all the things that normal people do. In this and many other fandoms, those looking forward to disabled characters will usually be disappointed.

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DISABILITY IN CANON WARRIORS

Warriors actually has quite a few disabled cats. Many super editions and auxiliary stories feature them in some capacity, often physical disabilities. Though not one of these major examples is a good one that can be studied for writing purposes. Not one major disabled character is written well.

Our example cat was obvious: Jayfeather. He was, by far, the most unrealistic cat to ever grace the Warriors universe. No, it was not his powers or personality that made him so. It was his disability. Jayfeather was a blind cat. Ignoring the fact that a blind surface-dwelling mammal is a death sentence for all but humans and pets, Jayfeather was easily able to sidestep his disability with his power to walk in the dreams of other cats and visit afterlifes from time to time (even after losing his powers in A Vision of Shadows, his place has already been solidified in the fandom). His disability was treated more like a gimmick than an actual disadvantage. Replace it with a missing leg or a speech impediment and it would have no effect on the plots he was a part of. But fans love Jayfeather. If he was not blind, they would love him less. And, by the Erin’s standard on disabled characters, he is a good example. He is not.

Jayfeather’s disability did not reflect what his reality would have been; he was a romanticized cat. It was added for namesake only, or by an overzealous mind championizing disability instead of portraying empathy. No matter the origins, Jayfeather’s personality or powers are not the discussion here. It is his blindness. Want a more realistic example from canon? Snowkit from the Dawn of the Clans side arc. Snowkit was carried off by an eagle because he did not hear it coming. Not nearly as interesting, but it is a more accurate depiction of a disabled mammal in the wild. Granted, Snowkit was nowhere near as important as Jayfeather to any event in canon, but his disability is not romanticized (and he does not get enough ‘screen time’ for it to be so). Romanticizing a disability does not have your readers empathize with said condition, instead allowing them to view it as an exotic advantage of some kind, or as a charming trait, or even self-indulge for those who may look to said characters for relatability. It may be nice in some areas of fiction, but disabilities are one trope romanticism should be left out of.

But this section is not here to bash the Erin’s writing. It is here to help you not write disabilities like they have in regards to their main characters (unless that is your goal; romanticized disabled characters are common across fanfiction in all fandoms).

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DISABILITIES IN FANFICTIONS

As a disclaimer before going any further, real cats have a very small pool of schizophrenic and confusion-based mental disorders they can suffer from. And of course there are birth defects, just like any other mammal. Humans have a far wider array of disorders and disabilities they can suffer from, more than any other creature on the planet, and many of them are human-only conditions. That is just the nature of our ultra-complex biology.

Due to the subpar example set by the Erins in this regard, the fandom has no good examples to pull from for disabled major characters. So disabled cats in fanfictions are often mary-sue representations of the disability in question (as it pertains to humans). This can be said about any fandom that features a disabled character in their canon. But it is especially prevalent in YA fiction like Warriors . Romanticised is what I mentioned previously. Romanticism sees an emphasis on emotion and individuality, as well as glorification for the past and what is natural . If a birth defect is a natural thing that happens sometimes, it can be romanticized. In fanfictions, unlike canon, disabilities are always a very pronounced character trait. Instead of simply romanticizing the character with the disability, the disability itself is the focus of the romanticizing. Worse yet, the empathy or help one with said disability might receive is also romanticized.

What do I mean by that? We need two examples from our nonexistent fanfiction. One for a physical and one for a mental disability:

- Catclaw had finally been promoted to warrior, despite being born completely deaf. She had trained hard, but her friend, Otherpaw, had finally managed to convince the medicine cat to let her pass on. She was proud, a hard worker, but proved less than useful on the battlefield. She could hear nothing, forcing her to constantly look around. ShadowClan’s leader kept her on camp watch, and she sadly passed her time dealing with kits. One day, the kits who followed her around started to mimic her constant head turning. It served them well in training exercises when looking for signs of an approaching cat. The leader decided to let Catclaw return to full warrior duties, including educating the rest of the clan in her unique method of spotting danger without sound...

...

- For her entire life, Catclaw seemed to be afraid. Unable to look another cat in the eye, jumping at shadows, keeping her ears down to try and block out what she deemed noise. Being completely healthy, ShadowClan’s leader saw no need to take her off warrior duties. Otherleaf, the medicine cat, could find no problem and admitted she had no fix for what was going on inside her mind. Catclaw always felt alone and unwanted, her clanmates deeming her too different. One day, she decided to break her cycle of pity by teaching apprentices and showing ShadowClan she could be normal. She taught them to be overly cautious of their surroundings and listen to the forest around them. One night, this perception saved an apprentice from a ThunderClan ambush. The leader was so impressed with her that he made her teach every apprentice and warrior the perceptionary tricks born of her affliction. Catclaw finally gained the respect and acceptance she craved...

Had I gone into these examples more, there would have definitely been some teasing as a kit or a long scene where the medicine cat ‘exposition-explains’ everyone what specific condition Catclaw had.

These two examples show two disorders that hinder quality of life to varying degrees. But they are not good examples. They are more typical of what would be seen in Warriors fanfics. The disability is romanticized. How? Both our physical and mental disabilities prove their use to those around them, and equate themselves to a normal-functioning cat. Deafness provides no advantages that hearing does not. And autism cannot be as good in a group setting as a normal mind. These conditions are called conditions (or disabilities depending on severity) for a reason. You do not have to write exploitation fiction, where our disabled character would be bullied, prove inadequate, and depressed the whole story, but you do not want to write fiction where the disability is an advantage. Because only in fiction could losing a normal function be advantageous.

This is not a hit on disabled people. It is reality… or as much reality as can be injected in a fictional universe about cats. If a disability is spun into some kind of advantage, it takes away any impact that said disability can bring from a literary standpoint. The person who may be reading this character and looking to them for some semblance of relatability will see a character who is better off for being disadvantaged. No one is better off from being disabled. And promoting such afflictions in this way sees people congratulate and praise being disabled rather than looking for ways to mitigate or cure the disability. Warriors fanfics especially have a problem with romanticizing it. Not that fanfiction is the sole cause for people of the western world praising instead of helping. But we are dangerously close to the Steven Universe and Undertale fandoms when it comes to pandering to romantic ideas of being disabled.

It is not all bad. As TvTropes said, the remaining 10% of fanfiction is worth going to StarClan for. So there are ways to do this trope well.

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A DISABLED MAIN CHARACTER

As I stated earlier, the fandom tends to use disabilities as a character trait more than the Erins did. Odds are if you have decided to include one, they will likely be the protagonist, or at least a major character. But we have established that most (not all) fanfictions romanticize the disability, portraying it as some kind of advantage and not acknowledging it as an issue. How can you prevent yourself from doing this, whether on accident or on purpose? Here are a few things to keep in mind when writing disabled main characters.

First, remember that, and I mean this with no offense or prejudice, that a disability is always a hinderance, especially among wild animals. The idea is that a healthy person can do things more efficiently and easier than a disabled one. That is why the status is called ‘disabled’. And if your goal is to portray one, do not forget that you are portraying a disadvantage. Whether it be physical or mental, detrimental to quality of life or a constant nuisance, this is not a positive aspect of modern life. It is a delicate subject that is hard to discuss sometimes.

On that note, remember not to have your clan (or whatever your main group) overcompensate for a disabled character. This especially applies to mental disorders. Speaking from pure logic, a disabled cat would either be kicked out of the clan or confined to camp duties. No leader would rely on a disabled cat in battle or in crucial positions. Clanmates overcompensating is part of the disability romanticism. It makes readers believe disability is something to be celebrated rather than aided. If our characters are afflicted just to gain praise and sympathy, they might as well be healthy mary-sues.

Third, and I cannot believe I have to mention this, research the disability you want to use. Physical and mental disabilities can be vastly different in terms of severity and classification. And most conditions do not even classify as a disability. It does not surprise me to see fanfics across the web take such broad liberties with the term ‘disabled’. Some classify temporary depression from a mate dying as disabled. Others call a mild speech impediment a mental disorder. Anything to romanticize it, I guess. We are not the Steven Universe or Undertale fandoms. We Warriors fans are better than that. Much better than that. A cat with two broken legs is not disabled. A cat with a missing leg is. Do some research and read how the disability you want to portray works. Think about how to incorporate it into the character, or into events if they are a main character.

Finally, I should elaborate on the fact that animals suffer from a much smaller list of disorders and defects than humans. That is the nature of not evolving the brains or built-in tools to work through complex problems. For humans, it is a biological price paid for our complexity and intelligence. For example, ADHD is a popular disorder to use in this fandom. A cat in real life cannot suffer from ADHD because their brains are not complex enough. So if you wanted to portray that disorder, you would have to justify its existence and incorporate it in a way that makes sense within the literary confindes of the Warriors universe. In short, do not put in the description of your story “in my headcanon cats know what ADHD is so they can identify it btw my character has ADHD.” Do not do that. Instead, show the disorder in action when facing a problem and write about it how cats might view it, especially since they lack the tools and intelligence to diagnose it so accurately like humans can. You are writing an animal story, after all.

All of these points are here to remind you that your character has a disorder or is disabled and is a main character or the protagonist. Ideally, if you decided, the disability would play into the conflict, plot, events, or character development in some way, shape, or form. To a healthy clan cat, a disability is always a negative. Keep that tension, whether it be anger, pity, or self reflection, in your story. If you want being disabled to be part of the conflict, then make it a problem. Jayfeather is a romanticized example that we do not want to emulate. Many fanfic writers love him, and many emulate him for their own disabled characters. Unless your intention is this type of character, avoid it.

If you keep those points above in mind, you should be in good shape for adding disability to the forefront of your characterization. This section is not the definitive answer, but it is as close to one as you will find in regards to Warriors fanfics.

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IN CONCLUSION…

While there are more disabled cats in fanfics than there are in canon, they are never written in such a way that portrays disability. The characterization of such an affliction is just as important as the character’s other traits. We do not want to romanticize the disability and we certainly do not want to championize it as a good thing. That trivializes both the disability and the character portraying it. Now, some fans will want to write those kinds of stories, and that is fine. I certainly will not stop them. Just note that that you can do better. You have this, and many other, guides out there to help you write to your fullest in regards to this trope.

The last thing this fandom needs are more mary-sue cardboard cutout tragic fanservice romanticized protagonists. Especially disabled ones.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

August 19, 2019

This section goes in depth with how to apply common tropes in Warriors to your own fanfictions. It also discusses how to incorporate said tropes without copying the scenarios from canon outright. This is not a guide on what tropes to use and when, nor will it give general knowledge on those outside Warriors.

Tropes are elements in fiction that are common enough to be seen in multiple works. For example, if real life was a fictional work, then eating would be a trope. It is done differently depending on who and where you are in the world, but it is common enough to exist across the entire ‘genre’ of real life.

There is a reason common tropes are used in works of fiction. Whether they be movies, books, TV shows, graphic novels, these tropes serve to unite individual stories into a genre. It is why romances usually have love triangles, or why action movies have well-timed hazards. Without these tropes, these genres would be hard to distinguish from each other. And without subtropes, works within these genres would tell the same story. A common problem in literature, however, is a genre that relies too heavily on the common form of its tropes to tell its story. This is amplified for YA and fantasy fiction, and even more so for the fanfiction that it spawns. So let us delve into the tropes of Warriors and see what makes them work so that we can write better fanfics from it.

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WHY WARRIORS HAS ITS TROPES

Warriors , like other long, sprawling fictional works, use many tropes to tell its story. Most of the ones used are sub-tropes of the common ones to keep things consistent. This creates its own problems sometimes.

Some of the most common tropes in Warriors are the animal characters (obviously), “blank-slate protagonist” (Firestar), the no-frills setting, nature vs nurture, forbidden love, and life being unfair. Obviously, these tropes are common because they appear so often between all of the arcs and side stories. Not every single story needs every one of them for it to be common usage. These are a few of the main tropes that the Erins used for the framework of Warriors . So why these over other tropes? Our blank-slate Firestar allows us to easily relate to his motives and desires, as they are the same as basic human instinct. The common settings (a forest, a lake, foothills, etc.) let the young target audience easily imagine the details (as I discussed in a section dedicated to setting). Tropes like nature vs nurture, forbidden love, and unfairness are added to help the series stand on its own, and it stands pretty far apart from other animal stories; it has more in common with Star Wars then it does with, say, White Fang or Animal Farm .

This whole section exists because the main tropes used in Warriors are often overused or exaggerated greatly by the fandom. The same goes for any other fiction/fanfiction relationship. Fanfics have a reputation for going overboard when following canon tropes. They exaggerate them, revolve whole stories around single ones, and mash them up with other tropes to create a monstrosity of a story. Depending on which tropes are amplified, a Warriors fanfic can be overly violent, dark, or sad for no good reason. Sometimes, the Erins overuse their tropes. Most of the time, fanfic writers do.

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CANON TROPES IN FANFICTION

When it comes to fanfiction, we tend to take the canon tropes and overuse, overcomplicate, and bash them together to make our stories. It is not like other YA fandoms do not do this, and it is not like we are professionals or anything. Still, it can get out of control most of the time for a few key reasons.

First, the tropes used in canon tend to be overused or over exaggerated in fanfics. I bet you have noticed how in almost all fanfics there is some kind of omen from StarClan, or friends from enemy territory are made, or how they always seem to start as kits. But not every canon book has a prophecy, and not every main character started out as a kit. Writers tend to write what they know, and if these tropes stuck with them better than most then they will use them. Other times it is simply their favorite aspect of canon, so they exaggerate it.

One other reason could be that they are trying to use as many canon tropes as-is as possible to attempt to make a better Warriors story. As with all fanfics, some remnants of the canon series must exist. If we use no tropes from canon, than our fanfic strays too far away to even be considered AU; it might as well be an original book at that point. And once you have made an original cat book, this guide stops helping you. There are those out there who believe filling a fanfic with exaggerated canon tropes is the only way to justify said fanfic to the audience. After all, casual fans of Warriors do not read fanfiction.

This is not a trend unique to the Warriors fandom, however. Across the many other YA fandoms, the most popular stories tend to be the ones that stay the closest to the canon, or exaggerate one single aspect of it. Many of these core and hardcore fans are not fans of the series as a whole, but of a few notable peices of it. Some Warriors fans may like that the story takes place away from human civilization. Others might find the religious-based politics mixed with the disadvantaged life circumstances (i.e. no trade, science, etc) intriguing. Most just like that the story is about cats. These fans tend to be the reason that the grammatically questionable trope-filled mess you just read is way more popular than what you would say is a ‘good’ story.

All of this just comes down to identifying your audience and what kind of fan you want to write to. Most want to see familiar tropes. That is fine. Some want to see something different. Even fewer want to see something that pushes the concept beyond its canon limits. And many want to read about cats having human-like sex. Your story’s popularity somewhat depends on your target audience, or the audience it picks up. But what if you just want to write your best? What if you want to actually target an audience and taper expectations?

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USING TROPES BEYOND EXPECTATIONS

No, it is not just figuratively and literally writing a better story.

While quite a few readers in the fandom prefer close adherence to canon formulas or physically intimate romances, it does not bar you from doing something different. Tropes are not something you have to pick and use as is; you can mix, match, and alter them as you see fit. This allows you to write the story you really want, assuming you are not writing the standard Warriors fanfic. But for our example, we should use an expected trope. How can we make “kit-to-leader” different?

Our goal here is not to change the trope , but to alter it to our liking. One way to reliably do this is to trim the trope down, taking what we want from it and leaving or incorporating the rest elsewhere. Personally, I find the kit stage useless in most fanfics, so I want to remove that and start my protagonist as an apprentice. But to retain our trope, I still want their kit-hood to be an important part of the story. Our main character could always reminisce about it. StarClan could revert them to this form in their dreams. They could forget about it, with clanmates hiding a terrible secret. As long as we show the stage at which they were nothing (hence the ‘zero-to-hero’ aspect of this trope), the trope stays intact.

Furthermore, we can mix this trope with others to make a new variation of the standard. Starting as an apprentice is enough for me, but you want more. Nothing is stopping you from taking a trope you like and mixing it with our common one. For the sake of the example, you choose to mix our “kit-to-leader” trope with the bleak undertones of a grimdark world. Now to successfully mix, you ideally make an outline and plan this out before writing a single word. Have to make sure you did not try to mix oil and water. But your grimdark rise through the ranks works. Seniors die off unexpectedly and unfairly, leaving junior cats like the protagonist to fill spaces they are not ready for physically or mentally.

Congratulations. We have taken the standard “kit-to-leader” trope and made it into what we wanted. There are so many more ways to mix this, and many other, tropes the way we want while leaving the core of them whole. Nondestructive altering will leave us well in the green for what constitutes a Warriors fanfic.

Now, there are other ways to alter, replace, or use tropes in unexpected ways. Most will not, of course. But if you want to, nothing is stopping you from making seemingly impossible combinations. This can be especially useful for drawing in those readers who do not want to read about not-Firestar leading not-ThunderClan against not-Tigerstar.

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IN CONCLUSION…

When writing Warriors fanfics, we do not have to stick to a copy-paste formula for using tropes, nor do we have to exaggerate them for the sake of views (unless we want to, of course). To put it bluntly, most fans prefer the reliably processed foods as opposed to doing more for less. There is nothing wrong with that so long as you know your target audience and what kind of story you want to write.

Tropes are the core of our fanfiction. Balance is not necessary, but knowing how to manipulate it can make for some truly memorable stories.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

August 21, 2019

This section specifically discusses background characters, the often nameless, faceless masses that are meant to fill space, and their purpose in literature. We are not discussing supporting or secondary characters.

In almost every fictional work, there are characters that seem to just exist for the sake of it. Those unnamed masses, the soldiers destined to die in the shadow of the charging protagonist, or the stranger who kindly gives our frantic character directions and is never seen again. These are background characters. And calling them ‘characters’ is a bit of a stretch, as they do not exist to be characters. They simply populate the world and fill space. But they do not have to be useless. When used right, they can convey a great deal of information with a few short sentences.

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BACKGROUND CHARACTERS IN WARRIORS

Warriors has an absolutely massive cast, hundreds of cats gracing the fictional universe with varying degrees of impact on it. Its main and supporting cast are quite a bit larger than other fictional works. And its background cast is by far one of the largest out there. I guarantee that not a single fan could name more than 50 without the wiki...

But that did not stop the Erins from doing so.

Most of Warriors’ background characters have physical descriptions, and all of them are named. And that is a problem. There is a reason why they are the “nameless faceless masses”. A good 90% of all named cats in canon are more or less useless. Those that are serve to hammer home a point for a supporting character or be used in shallow plot devices. There are better ways to use background characters, but this is by no means a bad use case. They are throwaways. If anyone is to be sacrificed to a plot device it should be them.

The problem comes in the fact that they, useless background characters, confuse the reader as to who is important or not because they are named and described (looking at you, ‘Allegiances’ page). If a character is going to have a name, even a bad one, and a description, even a shallow one, they had better be useful to some degree. If they show up only to get hit by a car or killed by a badger, then why even describe them? It makes the reader think they are important. They spend precious seconds remembering who that cat is and what they do, only for their efforts to go to waste when they are never seen again after calling the protagonist a coward or something.

Background characters make great subjects for fanfiction, however. Among fandoms, some background characters even rise to MC-level popularity due to some weird quark or appearance. Still, it is rare to see a fanfic written with one as the protagonist. That being said, there are many things we should not do with our background cast.

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WHAT NOT TO DO WITH BACKGROUND CHARACTERS

First and foremost, you must remember these characters' place. They are background characters. They are to be tucked away in the back, thrown into the jaws of dangerous plot devices, or used in an expository manner.

But of course, there will always be nay-sayers who think otherwise. Some of them may even be reading this guide, thinking:

"But Tyto, there are plenty of popular books like Harry Potter and A Song of Ice and Fire that are filled with named background characters. And some of them get really popular . Explain!”

- A very concerned Catstar

“Tyto, if background characters are so insignificant that they should not be named, explain shows like The Simpsons or My Little Pony: FiM. These shows’ background characters are even better known and liked than their main casts. They have whole episodes dedicated to them and constantly generate fanart. Explain that!

- A very inquisitive Otherleaf

Do not do that.

Do not draw your inspiration to give every single background character a unique appearance and place among your cast from popular media. And here is why.

For starters, visual and written media have completely different ways of conveying stories; do not use it as inspiration for your writing. Visual media has the advantage of being able to display the description of a character. Even if they only show up for a second or two, they appear and the potential is there for them to be more than what they are in the future. Often they are not, and are swiftly forgotten by the viewer. As for written media, these characters are often treated like plot devices. They may have whole paragraphs dedicated to them, but what after that? Nothing. The one or two-time appearance of the character is what keeps them in the background. The formal name and the unassuming dress keeps them in the background. The same goes for your cats, who do not even have clothing to rely on to convey information.

Common in fanfiction, the background characters are given too large a role or a recurring role in the plot. At that point, they have ceased to be background. The reason books like Harry Potter can have so many named and described background characters and get away with it is because they are, in actuality, throwaway characters that serve only to move the plot forward. They are plot devices, they are obstacles, but they are never anything more. There is a big difference between being a plot device and moving the plot forward. And for every background cat you have moving the plot forward outside of a plot device is time taken from the main and supporting characters. If a cat rushes through the woods and warns our main character of an impending attack, they are background. If a cat raises our kit protagonist through the first thirty pages and then disappears and is never mentioned again, they were not background.

Then there is the argument that some fictional works get popular because of their background cast. This does not happen. Ever. And if it does, then the creator put the wrong characters and story front and center. When My Little Pony: FiM got huge, it did so because it was not another oversaturated lich draining the life from the parents who had to watch it with their children. Its characters, world, and writing actually held the attention of more adults than kids with its relatable stories. The background characters were an added bonus thanks to the massive fandom that sprung up around the show. Harry Potter and A Song of Ice and Fire had many background characters, but started with good premises and characterization and were popular at a time when fantasy was a top genre. Fans flocked to them, and when their fandoms sprung up, their characters got fan art, were inserted into fanfiction, and were discussed on forums. All of them, including those in the back.

A diverse and interesting background cast does not make your story successful. And if your background characters really are that great, why are they not the main characters? Now that that information has been explained, we can get to the part about using them as intended.

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WHAT DO I DO WITH BACKGROUND CHARACTERS?

So if we should not give them too much of an image and not too big a role in the plot, what do we do with them? We treat them like the nameless, faceless masses they are written to be. We do almost nothing with them.

By almost nothing, I mean we use them as disposable plot devices (just be careful not to make these particular plot devices too important). They blend into the background as a crowd of unknown cats amids the gathering for the protagonist. They help build the world by being “well kept” or “scarred and tired”. They have a few lines here and there, maybe a couple of appearances as that once-named deputy that died near the beginning. They are not given primary or secondary roles in our story. They are tertiary characters. And they usually exist because clans consist of more than just the protagonist (in most cases).

In Warriors , these characters have too many details attached to them to be great examples. But they are good examples. In a rare instance for this guide, I say use the Erin’s background cats as inspiration for your own cast of masses.

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IN CONCLUSION…

Your background characters exist to populate your story and use plot devices that the main character cannot (due to plot armor, worldbuilding, etc.). Maybe they will have a name mentioned. Rarely they will be described for the sake of a plot device. Not everyone should be like this. Think of your background characters like the people you went to school with or lived around growing up. There were (possibly) hundreds or thousands of others. You might have known a lot of names and faces. But only a few were your friends and family. And the rest faded into the background of acquaintance. These characters make your world feel alive and do so much by doing so little.

This is a fanfiction, not a TV show or an engineered best-selling YA series. Not every cat should have the spotlight.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

August 23, 2019

This section details the middle of the story, or any point after the beginning and before the climax/end. It goes over what could cause the middle to falter and how to go about fixing it. It does not discuss what exactly to add to a story.

So here you are a few chapters in. You have established the setting and main characters. The conflict has begun and some of the unknown elements have been foreshadowed. And your super fantastic ending dances around in your head. You just have to get through the middle. That dreadful area where the vast majority of your words are, and you cannot think of anything to put there. Why is this? Well, for most fictional works the low point tends to be the middle. Worse yet, many writers and bloggers will tell you to focus on the beginning and end instead. But the middle is just as important as the other two parts. It is most of your words, most of your character development, and most of your story.

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THE MIDDLE OF WARRIORS NOVELS & FANFICS

Describing what makes a good middle can be highly subjective, as it is mostly dependant on what kind of story you are telling (and subsequently, what kind of story the reader chose to read). But there are some things to look for from a literary and technical standpoint.

Our specific example will use the entire The Prophecies Begin arc, as the individual books are simply too drawn out and numerous to explain easily. Going over the main events of the arc:

- Rusty becomes Firepaw after being accepted into ThunderClan and leaving his pet life behind [beginning].

- Tigerclaw kills Redtail and betrays ThunderClan, getting him expelled. Fireheart becomes ThunderClan's deputy [middle] .

- Fireheart becomes Firestar and clan leader after Bluestar is killed defending the clan from dogs [middle] .

- The clans unite against the threat of Tigerstar and Scourge after it was revealed he was trying to divide and conquer [middle] .

- Tigerstar is swiftly killed by Scourge; Scourge himself is killed by Firestar after underestimating the power of StarClan [end].

These are the most important events that happened within The Prophecies Begin arc and they have a significant impact on the rest of the series, up to A Vision of Shadows .

There are a few things to keep in mind with this one versus the others. The absolute most important thing to take from that arc is it does not save everything fun and interesting for the end or the beginning. That is great. Many fictional works have problems spreading the good stuff throughout the story. Character deaths, border shifts, major battles and disputes, none of it is hoarded to the end. Of course there are significant events that happen during the climax, like Scourge’s invasion and Tigerstar & Firestar’s first deaths. But the middle is not a dredge of words like it is in most books… or even most of the other Warriors books.

Looking at another arc, Omen of the Stars , it has more in common with the fanfictions out there than the first arc. The worst thing that it does is subvert the main characters and plot line with subplots, secondary characters, and a mess of ultimately pointless events. This is bad. In previous sections, I always have noted that the main characters and plot should always have the most time dedicated to them. Omen of the Stars was built upon two other faulty arcs before it that simply added too much to keep the story established in The Prophecies Begin on track. Each moment you spend away from the story you have built means those secondary events better be significant in some way, or interesting at least. They are usually neither in fiction that skimps out on the middle. Much of what happened after the first arc did not help conclude Omen of the Stars .

Moving on to fanfiction, we have the same problems. The main difference is that fanfics never sprawl six-plus books at a time, and a vast majority are one-offs.

Many fanfics have problems with sidelining the main characters and conflict. Yes, they will probably still appear in every chapter, but what do they actually do in those chapters? If they solve another notch in their prophecy or have to recover from a significant injury that affects them the rest of the story, they are doing main character stuff. They are contributing to the plot and conflict. But what about all of those kit rescues, love triangles, and background character deaths you see? That tends to be a majority of the content in the middle. While this is not wrong, it often takes the place of the protagonist and plot instead of complementing it. Everything good is saved for the end or beginning. While the Erins had dozens of books to pad out, the majority of fanfic writers just have one. It makes our dragging middle section a little easier to solve than theirs.

It can be a huge deterrent to readers if they get ten or so chapters in and realize that the momentum the writer started with (i.e. and exciting ‘hook’ like all the writing blogs recommend) has already disappeared.

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POLISHING YOUR MIDDLE CHAPTERS

So how do we go about fixing the middle of our fanfictions? The exact cause of this sag can be a number of things: writer’s block, writing chapters weeks or months apart, the plot being too short to carry itself the desired length, or the author adding too many events and characters. There are ways to fix it, however. I cannot say they are simple, as the middle takes up most of your chapters, words, and events. Your character developing moments (if applicable) and other memorable plot points happen here as well. So I will not tell you to simply write a better story. That advice rarely helps.

Consistency can kill the momentum of a story, especially if it starts off exciting and is followed by an unreasonable amount of worldbuilding or something. To keep things consistent, keep an outline. Write down every major plot point you want in your story. I guarantee most of the ones you write first will be the end and the beginning. If you struggle to find something to fill the rest with, try rearranging these plot points and see if there are any that can happen in the middle of your story. Most fanfics just put character deaths or betrayals in this spot. Prevalent in Warriors , yes, but there are more than just those two tropes.

Keeping with consistency, do not forget the passage of time and maybe hold off on that time skip. If your protagonist starts the story a senior warrior, then fine. But if they start a kit and become a senior warrior shortly after, then there are large chunks of time you could be filling with potentially interesting events. Training sequences, wise words, foreshadowing, all could happen between that chapter-one-to-two-transition of kit to senior. Whole chapters can be added between similar jumps in time.

Consistency is pretty much a requirement when writing, but what if that is not your problem? Some fanfics have issues where their main cast of characters fades away in favor of sub-plots, secondary characters, and new introductions. If you have problems with your main character losing interest halfway through the story, reevaluate their role in it. What is it your main character does in regards to the plot? To the other characters, and to the setting (or to whatever is applicable)? This is one of the main problems the canon suffers from with the books in Power of Three and The New Prophecy . If this is the case, refer to your outline. Who was this character, and what was your intended role for them in your fanfic? If you do not have an outline or are writing as you go, look at what you have already written. You can scrap it or rewrite if unpublished, and if published you can build upon the character you have written rather than the one you intended. But an outline of some kind is highly recommended for keeping character roles in check.

The simplest thing to do is to write a summary of every chapter you have written after you write it. Every couple of chapters you add, you can read the summary of what you have already written and reevaluate your pacing, character growth and development, or add something interesting if previous chapters were calm or centered around exposition (ideally you would not have a chapter dedicated solely to exposition). And if you find that one chapter goes off course from your intention, you can either correct it or build upon it in the next one.

Most writers on the internet update their story as they go, forgoing outlines, writer’s notes, and summaries. If that is you, then do not be afraid to take your story in a different direction than you intended. After all, you cannot rewrite a couple of chapters when you are about to get to the ending and expect your readers to reread them. You have dug your hole already, but it does not have to be a grave. Whatever your middle became without an outline or other prep work, go with it. You might be surprised at how nice it turns out towards the end, whether you intended it to be so or not.

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IN CONCLUSION…

The middle of your fanfic does not have to be so jarring to write, but it certainly is not easy. Even the Erins struggle with the middle of Warriors . In fact, think of any or all the books you vaguely remember. How many of those events took place in the middle? Most of what you remember is the premise and how it ended, guaranteed. So this is not a problem localized to a fandom or to amateur writers on the internet. Outlines and planning help, sure. But they are not set in stone, and sometimes your intentions do not match what you have already written. Maybe it can be even more interesting than what you planned.

Remember, your readers will never get to the good stuff at the end if they never make it through the middle. Do not let it sag.

- Tyto

Chapter Text

February 2, 2021

This section details the differences between the genre fiction that is Warriors and typical literary fiction, how literary fiction has been and is viewed, and how to incorporate literary concepts into fanfics. As a Base section, it has little to no examples drawn from canon Warriors.

You may have heard a term thrown around certain writing circles, or writing forums and sites, or critical reviews of books: literary. Specifically, literary fiction and how it’s supposed to be something different from genre fiction. Technically, it is. It’s a particularly confusing topic because of how the idea of writing (and, more broadly, storytelling and how it’s perceived) has evolved over the thousands of years it’s been done. It’s a term that holds plenty of weight or none at all depending on who you’re talking to.

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WARRIORS IS GENRE FICTION

First thing’s first: Warriors is genre fiction. Through and through. For those of you who don’t know what that term means, genre fiction (formally known as popular fiction) is fiction written, filmed, animated, etc. into a particular genre. Genres might include crime, romance, sci-fi, fantasy, and many others with smaller subgenres within. Popular works include Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, the DC and Marvel universes , The Hunger Games, and Twilight . Animal fiction is also considered genre fiction by contemporary standards, and that’s where Warriors fits in. Talking animals puts it squarely in this realm.

On the other hand, literary fiction is fiction created for the purpose of teaching something, portraying something, or telling the story of a subject or subjects. It is deemed to have a certain artistic and/or literary merit (the root of its debated definition). Something that contributes to the collective experience of life, suffering, growth, or some other broad concept of existence, at least by literary standards. Well-received works include Lord of the Flies, A Clockwork Orange, Bojack Horseman, Animal Farm, Pride and Prejudice, and Nineteen Eighty-Four. The defining traits of literary fiction, from a contemporary standpoint, can come across as a bit presumptuous to readers who like what they like. But there’s a lot of older stories on this list, and some were very popular for their time. Also note how much more difficult it is to quickly generalize the main idea of some of these stories compared to generalizing Warriors.

Going back to Warriors, themes in the series can still be found in literary fiction, despite it technically being genre fiction. Lord of the Flies has themes on authority, Pride and Prejudice has romance, Animal Farm uses anthropomorphized animals as characters. All of these subjects are found in Warriors. It’s not like these two types of fiction can’t blend together… Actually, whole papers are written about whether there’s merit behind dividing or combining them. That high level discussion goes outside the scope of this guide. But relating to Warriors, there’s something to be said.

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WHY CAN’T WARRIORS BE LITERARY FICTION?

[Beyond this point, I should note, is mostly my own observations and opinions. No one internationally recognized or certified body defines what literary fiction is, so quoting outside sources would just be quoting another’s opinion.]

That’s the real question for this section: can Warriors fanfics fit in the literary fiction category? They share themes with well-known literary works. And it’s not like it's the first animal story out there; Religions and ethnic folklore featured talking animals that pray long before the Erins were around. First, let’s look at the broader genre of Warriors . It’s categorized as children's literature and sometimes YA. There are no Warriors books intentionally targeted at adults. And all Warriors fiction features talking animals. The other series of novels to the Erins’ name, Survivors, Seekers, and Bravelands , also feature talking animals and are targeted at a young audience, though they pivot from Warriors with their in-universe social structures and the species of animals. Warriors books have their own narratives, but tie into the same universe and take place in a chronological order. The books share themes like nature-vs-nurture, gray morality, and faith (for more discussion on the themes of Warriors , see the similarly titled sections). There’s certainly narrative talent in the series. It has adult fans, even, and is pretty violent and dictated by in-universe geopolitics. It’s far from just another children’s book about talking animals. So why, by the standards defined by literary fiction, does it and more popular genre fiction hold little to no literary value?

If we go deeper into literary fiction, from the points listed above, it generally has some kind of connection to the human condition. While Warriors isn’t particularly deep, its themes alone would qualify it for literary fiction. No literary circle or publishing house would ever categorize the series as such, though. It has talking cats who are also the main characters. Immediate disqualification.

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WHAT WORKS CAN BE LITERARY FICTION?

Let's take a look at three relatively well-known western animal stories.

Black Beauty is our first example . Black Beauty is the story of a stallion going through life with many different owners and handlers, some good and some bad, and commentating on how each of them acts, his thoughts, how others feel about it, etc. The 1877 book, written by Anna Sewell, was written primarily to shine a light on the mistreatment of horses as both working and recreational animals. It ultimately led to changes in both the United States and the United Kingdom on how horses were handled. As the book became more popular, such ideas spread across the entire western world. It’s one of the best selling books of all time, and one of my personal favorites. Its intended audience, and audience at the time, was adults. Though, over a hundred and forty years later, Black Beauty is regarded as a children’s book. While children’s literature is by no means insulting in and of itself, it seems demeaning that the book’s characters, horses, relegates it to that. Black Beauty lost some of its literary merit because, over time, the literary community believed talking animals were for children. If it was the rise of their portrayal in animation, the diminishment of fictional universes in fictional books from the extremely turbulent 20th century, or the changing of an audience becoming more exposed to forgein cultures and customs, animals couldn’t be serious. Does it lose some of the punch behind its themes and morals if targeted at an audience of children? In the minds of critics, probably (though western society has changed its collective opinion on pet ownership and replaced horses as working animals over the last century.) Warriors features talking animals. Warriors , while violent, isn’t nearly as apathetic as Black Beauty’s original print. Yet both are treated the same.

Let's look at another example, this time from the realm of American animation: Bojack Horseman (yes, another horse). The characters in Bojack Horseman, created in 2014 and led by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, are anthro animals and regular humans revolving around an celebrity anthro horse named Bojack who lives in Hollywood. I won’t spoil anything. Bojack Horseman relies on dark humor, tragedy, and comedy to hit home its themes of mental illness, self-help, and the impact one person can have on the lives of others. The show is dark, unrelenting, and mature. Yet, being animated, the show becomes locked into the “animation” category when regarded with any literary merit. It certainly got better treatment than Black Beauty, as no one thinks for a second this is a children’s show, but it still carries around the same stigma other animated properties do: “animation is a genre, not a medium. Therefore, it is always an animation first and ___ second.” Animation is a medium, not a genre (though that’s a different discussion; Warriors is literature!) And when it’s seen as a genre first, it goes right into genre fiction status, no matter the content, context, or quality. Bojack Horseman received better literary acclaim than other works of fiction evaluated in such categories (because it’s better), but awards and recognition is always animation first, ___ second. Warriors does not nearly portray mental states like Bojack Horseman, but it is not absent of character development and dynamic characters (though it is lacking in the quality of them vs the quantity of characters in general). Bojack Horseman stands on its own as an example in relation to literary fiction, as it isn’t written content. But the same rules apply, so to speak.

One last example: Animal Farm (there’s also a horse in this one). Written by English author George Orwell and published in 1945, it is the story of farm animals who rebel against their human owner and take over the place with a system where all animals are supposed to be equal. Over time, the system breaks down due to corrupt individual wants and poor leadership. It was written as an allegory for the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin, and what Stalinism had negatively done to the original concepts and perception of Marxism and socialism. The book has been the center of many debates on politics and socialism in general, but a few times it was the center of a debate on literary merit. Being in so many political discussions did it no favors in how it was perceived as a start-to-finish story in many literary circles. A few times it was discredited from literary grace by its use of animals as characters to “target” the masses (this was true and intentional), the simplicity at which its themes and morals are portrayed, and the fact that it makes no effort to hide its portrayal of the Soviet Union as the main focus. If this story didn’t feature animals as main characters, I’m certain it would never be on any school curriculum (though, it has some interesting history with the CIA in why it's taught in schools). None of this stuck, of course, but it was discussed in such a manner at some points of its endless involvement in educational debates. As far as animal stories go, this is the most well-received one in the western world. It’s long past any of these debates; its “literary brilliance” is cemented forever in the minds of those elitist literary scholars everywhere (who are probably parroting ‘communism bad, so this good’ instead of analyzing its merit as a story and a lesson).

Animal stories tend to be a mixed bag, by nature, in how they’re created and received. So there’s hope for our Warriors fanfics yet, right?

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CAN WARRIORS FANFICS BE LITERARY?

That’s the problem with the question. Warriors , by loosely accepted definitions of what makes a work of fiction “literary,” is not literary. The young target audience, talking animals as main characters, and a focus on a grand saga of conflicts keeps it out of that circle. As do the Erins; I don’t think they have any intention of making Firestar open up about his existence in a corporeal afterlife anytime soon. But could it ever be literary? Yes, I believe. Through fanfiction.

That’s one of the best parts about writing fanfiction. You can write what isn’t in your favorite fictional universes. Warriors is quite a step up from normal children’s books and goes toe-to-toe, in my opinion, with normal literary and genre fiction (which, by the contemporary standards of now, 2021, are politically and socially-charged fictional nonfictions with a surface-level opinion that hits like a poorly-crafted blunt instrument, shattering on impact to the dismay of the somehow surprised author and the delight of armchair writers with the gall to call white-knighting or condemning the story a debate [and sometimes there’s some good ones]). Warriors gives you the tools to write something far outside its usual tropes, a benefit and hindrance I discuss in other sections of this guide pertaining to world-building and character. The only constraint we have is resembling the Warriors universe a bit and using some of its themes. Other than that, nothing is stopping us from writing a super complex romance in a Warriors fanfic, or the complete transformation of an individual on a journey, or the life story of a cat based on our own real lives. Those things supposedly give a story literary merit. Those things deem it a ‘literary’ story. This has been done in genre fiction. It’s why genre fiction resonates so well with audiences and completely eclipsed dedicated literary fiction in popularity, (Remember how I said earlier that many older works were deemed literary? Truly products of their time reflecting their eras and readers of the past) Warriors included. It may always be a Warriors fanfic first, but it doesn’t have to be just a Warriors fanfic (not that that’s bad). Does this mean genre fiction is just the evolution of literary fiction? Or do stories like Fifty Shades of Gray and Twilight demand a clear separation of these two broad concepts? Outside the scope of this guide. That can be for you to debate.

I have tried this. Two of my fanfics, Warriors: A Reign of Thunder and Lightning and Warriors: Bleed , attempted to incorporate the basic ideas of literary fiction with genre fanfiction. I won’t make this an ad for my stories and will not claim them as examples, but I certainly had my reasons for trying. I saw many Warriors fanfics out there stuck fairly close to the source material. Not that that’s a bad thing. I just wanted to try something different. At the time I was writing A Reign of Thunder and Lightning , my literary diet consisted almost exclusively of op-eds, exposes on the tech industry, and scholarly essays. Part of what I wrote reflected what I was always reading. The rest of me wanted to take a few ideas (fanfiction, historical, mental health) and mash them together into a situation I think is still plausible for canon Warriors . Bleed was more or less the same, though my reading includes more impersonal historical accounts these days (none influencing the process). I think I did this better in Bleed than A Reign of Thunder and Lightning , though the latter performs significantly better at the moment. Ultimately, I just wanted to make something targeted closer to my age group than canon Warriors’ younger skew. Sticking with just the good contemporary fiction, most of it targets YA (which can also include children these days) or adults. In my opinion, much of the fiction targeted to adults is more a recounting of someone’s life with little to no entertainment value purposefully attached. The good stories aren’t bad because of this. Just lacking, again in my opinion, some narrative abstraction to really make them stand out (ironically). Just as we can make Warriors tell deep human stories, nothing is stopping the same from happening in other genres. How many adult fantasy books out there aren’t erotica or tie-ins to licensed properties? That’s what was going through my mind when I wrote A Reign of Thunder and Lightning and Bleed : how many fanfics out there discuss adult themes? As I said, I won’t talk about either book. But that was the question I sought to answer. Whether I succeeded or not is ultimately up to the reader, but I think I did to some small degree.

I don’t want this to be a “I tried it, so should you” kind of thing. You don’t necessarily need one, but I had a reason to want to make my stories use less of Warriors’ genre tropes and more literary ideas. It affected the story’s presentation and deviated quite a bit from normal fanfics. To me, it was worth it.

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IN CONCLUSION…

If Warriors isn’t literary fiction, why is this section here? The points made aren’t necessarily something fanfics can improve or avoid.There is no objective conclusion that literary fiction is better than genre fiction, or vice versa. But literary fanfiction doesn’t have to be off the table just because Warriors is hard genre fiction. My own stories aren’t the only times I’ve seen Warriors fanfics leave the realm of genre fiction. Writers of the past and present have incorporated literary themes with genre tropes to create great stories. How far they lean in one direction or another, or if any direction at all, the merit of the content is hardly judged by this. Going the literary route is just another way of making your story your own, just within the universe of Warriors .

Whether your fanfic is more literary or rooted deeply in the canon’s genre tropes, your creation can still be Warriors. One way or another.

       - Tyto

Chapter Text

November 9, 2021

This section covers any sexually explicit content that may appear in Warriors fanfics; That is, anything that’s specifically written to be erotic in some way, shape, or form, or using it as a narrative tool. It will only cover explicit sex, not implied sex (surprise pregnancy with no known mate, chapter ends right before characters do it, etc), nor will it discuss the morality of explicit sex in animal fiction, nor is this a biology lesson on cat reproduction. I will also not give my opinion on whether or not scenes like this should be used in Warriors. I also will not speak on the maturity of the fandom or the average age of its members as reasons for or against such content.

Every single fandom ships characters. And, like shipping, every fandom pairs characters off in the bedroom for many number of reasons (or lack thereof). Warriors has its share of sexual content. Unlike other sections in this guide, there is no objectively justifiable reason to include explicit sex in Warriors fanfics because it isn’t featured in canon. But fanfiction can be whatever we want, and for some that includes sex. I’ll go over what could possibly come from this, good or bad. The only reason this type of content is different here than in other fandoms is the feral physiology of its characters.

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USE OF SEX IN CANON WARRIORS

There isn’t much to say here: Warriors canon does not include sexually explicit scenes. In a series aimed at children, this wouldn’t be a good idea. Doubly so in a series where all the characters are domestic cats and other animals (physically, at least). Sex is just implied as in many other works of fiction, from characters having kits, forbidden relationships, and taking mates. Stories spanning generations of characters, however, make it more interesting.

In political thrillers, space operas, and other works of fiction spanning vast distances and sporting long timelines, sex tends to be a common theme. Who sleeps with who, has a child or forbidden relationship with who, screws up the bloodline, all of this can be important to those types of stories,which Warriors can loosely associate with. While it features far less of these incidents than the average political thriller, these themes are still at play from time to time. Most of it is background dressing, but sex has gotten many main characters in or out of trouble. Sometimes it results in new characters, death, or major character development. While none of the scenes are explicit (most aren’t even brought up) , it means it’s not out of the realm of possibility to use sex as a narrative tool in Warriors fanfics. In a series spanning multiple generations of characters, sex is going to happen. It’s also going to be written into fanfics one way or another.

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EXPLICIT CONTENT IN WARRIORS FANFICS

While the canon includes no examples, there is no shortage of sexually explicit Warriors content out there. As a moderately sized fandom, it’s bound to show up for especially popular characters or plot points.

Most explicit material in Warriors fanfics comes from lemon-fics and slash-fics. Most aren’t as good as their equals from other fandoms for one reason: to write sexually explicit Warriors content, one must research how domestic cats, or other animals, have sex as opposed to humans. And domestic cats, like most animals, don’t have sex for pleasure. This results in content that reads more like human sex transplanted onto your favorite Warriors characters. This is less a critique of lemons and Warriors and more of a fact that it can’t be as interesting to readers as these same stories involving humans, unless the reader was specifically looking to read about cat sex or enjoys the series enough to overlook their physiology. If the reader and writer know this and just want a ‘plot-what-plot screwfest’ featuring their favorite characters, none of this matters. But, in short, there are no examples from real life to pull from. If, for a Harry Potter slash-fic, we wanted to read a story about Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy getting it on and there are no examples in canon to pull from (there aren’t), the blanks can be filled with examples and narratives from real life or other works of fiction to make the work satisfying erotically and/or narratively. The same can’t be done for explicit Warriors fics without a specific type of reader in mind. Cats biologically can’t have sex like humans. So, in the end, all Warriors sexually explicit fics feature human sex implied through domestic cats. 

And the context does matter in some cases. It means using sex in fanfics not intended soley for pornography must be used carefully. Adding a decent story to an erotic Warriors fanfic doesn’t count as using sex as a narrative tool beyond arrousal, either (unless some deeper commentary on sex or the culture surrounding it was attempted somewhere; not that it has to, anyway). While using explicit sex as a narrative tool is very rarely used and often frowned upon, it’s still not out of the realm of possibility to help make a compelling Warriors narrative.

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ARE SEXUALLY EXPLICIT SCENES VIABLE?

Sex scenes in most fandom’s fanfiction and professional media exists as fanservice, or something for the audience to gawk at. Fanservice on its own isn’t a bad thing, but it generally isn’t meant to add anything narratively. As mentioned previously, the use of explicit sex in Warriors fanfics can’t be used to wide effect for fanservice or eroticism (if used outside of lemon-fic and slash-fic) as in stories about humans. While seldom seen outside of lemon-fics and slash-fics, explicit sex in Warriors fanfics can serve some purpose and isn’t outside of the realm of possibility.

Also as mentioned above, the key difference between explicit sex in Warriors fanfics and fanfics of other fandoms is the characters all being animals. This presents an interesting opportunity to portray sex in a way that’s almost forgein to humans. While we all know or can learn most animals, in this case domestic cats, have sex soley to reproduce, we’d have a hard time imprinting this sole intent on humans. It would be unrealistic for us. But for a story about cats, I’d be realistic. Not that realism is our goal. The goal is to use the simple animal nature of sex between cats as a stark contrast to the complicated reasons two humans might have sex. The concept of love leading to sex doesn’t exist in cats the way it does for humans (yes, cats do fall in love in the canon and have sex because of it, but the point here is to try and justify explicit sex’s narrative inclusion). The explicit nature of such a plot point could drive that point hard into the reader; the sex could be portrayed as raw, instinctive, and with a singular purpose. It would be a great way to show your readers that your cat characters are not only animals, but also far from humans in the purpose and aftermath of one of the most intimate things people can do.

Another way to use sexually explicit scenes in Warriors fanfics is to portray the dominance of one character over another, a corrupted form of love or affection, or used in portraying the effects of physical and mental weakness. For humans, such actions would be harassment, assault, or rape. It’s all a normal part of mating for most animals, cats included. Narratively, this can be taken a step further. If one character used sex to dominate another character (and the receiving character reacted as an animal would), it could portray an intense state of mental weakness or devotion. It can also be used to portray the dominance of one character over another or a group of characters without resorting to violence or questionable morals. Just as in portraying sex as something to be done with purpose, the inclusion of an explicit scene for this helps remind the reader they are reading about animals and not humans. That animals take actions for much simpler reasons than humans. The paths taken tend to be more direct.

A small point on shock value here: a sexually explicit scene between animals in a book would almost always serve this purpose. Reading such actions between two humans is already strange enough in this context. Most believe sex like this (that is, dominant, unromantic, passionless, tool-of-survival) is not fun for anyone, thus creating the shock value when portrayed in addition to rebranding the “attacker” in question as something less than human: an animal. This can be good if we’re actually writing about animals. In our case, domestic cats. Such shock value can still clash against heavily anthropomorphized characters like in canon Warriors and should be considered if adding an explicit sex scene to a fanfic.

In this case, an example from our nonexistent fanfic would help to show what I mean about all this:

• Catstar, proud leader of ShadowClan, rules her clan with the intent on taking down ThunderClan. Over the years, she’s heard the decaying clan’s new ruler, Enemystar, is an isolating tyrant who executes his own members with groups of loyal outsiders and plans on taking all territory for himself. He has also been kidnapping high-ranking members of other clans, her medicine cat and friend, Otherleaf, included, and sometimes releasing them.
  
  

• She attacks on a foggy day; perfect for an ambush. But Enemystar has the drop on her and captures her. Later that day, Catstar wakes with Enemystar, his outsiders watching. She sees a perfect opportunity to take him down. They fight, but she is pinned. Without submitting or conceding, Enemystar forcibly mates with her. He says he needs more strong kits to replenish ThunderClan’s numbers and guessed the attack from Otherleaf, who submitted to his rule and told him everything about Catstar’s personality and battle knowledge.
  
  

• Over her moons in captivity, she learns some of the clan members actually like him since he’s leading them through tough times, despite his blatant ignoring of the warrior code. The clan is no longer decaying and is stronger and more level-headed than ever. One of those converts is Otherleaf. Enemystar tells Catstar she can return to her clan once she’s borne his kits. She agrees, fearful for her life and her pride shattered.
  
  

• Once she gives birth, she is told never to return to ThunderClan territory. The other clans are shocked to find she’s still alive. But she doesn’t return the same leader. Over the moons, ThunderClan further isolated itself and stopped participating in gatherings. The dying, out-of-control clan is not at all what she’s been told. And Catstar no longer has any idea how to take it all in...

In this example, the story could continue without the sexually explicit scene. But the character of Enemystar would not come through as efficiently as showing other displays of his “new age” rule of ThunderClan. Furthermore, if it was just implied he impregnated Catstar instead of it being shown, we would lose context as to how and when the exact moment her character broke; In this case, after being defeated in battle and assaulted in front of others, taking a litter of kits from her, shattering her view of ThunderClan and Enemystar, and taking her pride away. The addition of the scene, in this case and briefly, makes both Catstar and Enemystar animals who solve their problems like animals but come out of it all characters in a book humans will read. We use the fact that Warriors fanfics are animal fiction at their core to our advantage. The meaning of such a scene would change in fiction about humans or more intelligent creatures. All of that can come through with the addition of just one event.

Being careful with the addition of sexually explicit scenes is paramount, however. It can easily make a character into a sadist or predator. Not that using explicit sex to convey this is technically wrong, but it replaces animal thought processes of sex with human ones just like for erotic Warriors fanfics. Just something to note.

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IN CONCLUSION…

While Warriors canon doesn’t make use of sexually explicit scenes, fanfics can. It doesn’t have to be limited to just lemon-fics and slash-fics and even loses some of its literary value when used this way (not that these fics have such goals). Explicit sex’s greatest contribution to a fanfic could be making these otherwise anthropomorphic cats feel truly animal. But caution is necessary. These are domestic cats. Reading about them having sex, narrative or otherwise, could easily put off many readers or subtract from the story depending on how you write the characters’ reactions. There are also justifiable reasons to avoid the shock value these scenes bring. Especially when used in a serious capacity, as reactions may vary to references of sexual violence, assault, rape, domination, or similar ideas.

Just like any other, explicit sex is a literary tool. It ranges from arousal and fanservice to raw characterization and strong themes. Its addition to a Warriors fanfic is reliant entirely on context.

 - Tyto

Chapter Text

March 5, 2022

This section covers how I go about writing Warriors fanfics. Specifically, the process I use to get my ideas from my head to a completed story. It’s entirely based on my own writing process and some advice from various sources. Nothing in this section is objectively correct, as there are many ways to go about writing stories. Take it as just another person’s writing preference. I follow my methodology quite rigidly and prefer a lengthy process from start to finish. As a Base section, it has little to no examples drawn from canon Warriors.

There are many, many ways to go about writing fiction. Some people are able to churn out novella after novella and never slow down while others take years or more to finish just one story. None of these processes are wrong, technically. I can’t speak to the methodologies of others, unfortunately. Nor can I really critique them if they put out content for whatever purpose. I can only say from my perspective.

So here’s a start-to-finish guide to how TytoNoctua writes Warriors fanfics.

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WRITING PROCESSES FOR CANON WARRIORS

Warriors is written by Erin Hunter, a pen name for a collective of writers making content for the same franchise, mostly novels. The series started in 2003 with two writers and an editor who came up with the idea and has grown to several series of novels spanning dozens of novels over a decade with spinoffs, a massive fanbase, and merchandise. The writers who make up Erin Hunter have changed over the course of it all, but the original trio, Cherith Baldry, Kate Cary, and Victoria Holmes, saw Kate and Cherith write novels individually and have them checked for consistency by Victoria. This process allowed them to make each book feel somewhat unique and keep up with the scope they wanted to achieve (cited in an archived interview by Kathleen Bolton for the blog ‘Writer Unboxed’). The end goals have changed as new writers come on board and old ones step away at times, but Erin Hunter has always been a group of people.

That’s the big difference between people writing fanfics and Erin Hunter: most of us are just one person . It would be difficult to compare the writing process of an entire group to just us. To put out a series with the same scope as canon Warriors would be difficult solo. Most fanfics, however, aren’t a series. But those spanning multiple books often take longer to write. This is not a problem; the Erins write fiction professionally and fanfic writers usually write for fun, often in their spare time. Myself included.

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MY PROCESS: TOOLS

I find many in the Warriors community write directly in the word processors included with services hosting fanfics, like Wattpad or fanfiction_net. While usable, they offer a fraction of what a proper word processor has, like a limited spellcheck dictionary and, often, no grammar editor. I’d never recommend writing a whole book within the Wattpad or fanfiction or Deviantart editors. It’s a quick way to lose progress if there’s a service disruption and causes you to miss simple errors like punctuation. But that’s just me. As for the tools I use:

Microsoft Word (2016) - My preferred word processor because of its robust grammar dictionary and auto-correct features, like automatically capitalizing the first word of each sentence or adding apostrophes to contractions. I prefer it over Google Docs, its main competitor, even though Docs has a far better online version and has no paywall for features. I use the paid, standalone version for Office 2016 (paid a third party on ebay; not recommended), not Office 365. Both Microsoft Word and Google Docs (and any other word processor I don’t know about) is better than what Wattpad or fanfiction_net could offer.

Google Drive - I use this as an offsite backup for everything I’ve ever made under this account and it gives me access to my stuff while away from my personal computer. Eventually, I’ll outgrow the 15 GB free storage they give, but that’s because I use it for 4k images. No amount of written fanfics will fill that up.

Google Sheets - Used mainly to store ideas and do outlines. There are other programs better at outlines than Sheets, like Campfire Blaze or OneNote, but Sheets is free and can be formatted in enough ways for what I need from outlines. It’s also free and tied to your Google Drive account, so it goes wherever the rest of your stuff does.

Other tools I use but don’t contribute directly to the writing process:

• A browser with an adblock. I prefer Firefox, Chrome, or Edge private windows with 2 separate adblocks running.
• A Windows PC running Windows 10. The OS is probably the least important part, but I’d personally never write on Android or iOS devices.
• Adobe Illustrator for my covers.

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MY PROCESS: THE IDEA

All of my fanfics start with an idea that’s written down somewhere safe. For me, this is a Google Sheets document backed up with an offline copy. From what I’ve seen in author’s notes and firsthand accounts, most fanfics live in the heads of their writers until written down or forgotten. I strongly suggest keeping an idea notebook of some kind to keep track of ideas, good and bad. I personally prefer paper, but use digital for this account. When I think of the idea, I record the date I first thought about it, a name for it (if I can’t think of one, a placeholder is used), a genre or literary concept the fanfic falls under, the primary themes, if any, and a short synapsis. Small notes are made if needed, like songs that inspired the idea or events I really want to write. If I decide to go through with it, I build an outline. For the rest of this section, I’ll use the first fanfic I put out, Warriors: A Reign of Thunder and Lightning . There will be no references to the story.

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MY PROCESS: THE OUTLINE

I already have a section all about outlining a fanfic in full versus writing the fanfic as you think of it, so I won’t discuss which is better and why. I always use an outline. I always recommend using outlines.

Mine are done in a Google Sheets document. Each story has its own outline with the amount of information used based on how long the fanfic is. For A Reign of Thunder and Lightning , the outline included info for all named characters, research on World War 2, and character development moments. I also store chapter ideas here. As to how far I go with an outline, I write as much as I think I need to make a complete story. The beginning and end are thought of at this point. Character’s physical and personality traits are logged for reference here. Things like tone and theme are fleshed out here. The outline is not the end-all, though. A Reign of Thunder and Lightning had no real plan for the middle of the story in the outline (also a section in this guide helps with writing the middle of fanfics). In the sequel, Bleed , much of the outline was scrapped when the middle and a main character were completely rewritten. But I would have been far less organized without it. Formats can be anything, since this program isn’t designed for fiction writing. Mine looks something like this:

This isn’t the full outline, but it is part of the template I created after writing A Reign of Thunder and Lightning .

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MY PROCESS: WRITING

Now comes the hard part. I simply load up Microsoft Word and get to it. I use default formatting to organize chapters, writing in sequential order; that is, I’d never write the final chapter first. I write in Times New Roman 12pt for those who care, starting a new document when a new part is reached or when a document goes above 45,000 words (for some reason, Word 2016’s spell check freaks out past 50k words). I write from start to end with no regards to editing. I write how I envisioned the fanfic in my head. This is the longest, hardest part.

The second draft is most of the editing. In A Reign of Thunder and Lightning , I used Word’s comment feature to make notes about things I wanted to change like chapter order or important moments. I do this in the same documents. It takes me about half the time it takes to write the first draft to edit it.

The final draft is where I take the finished second draft and go over it from an editor’s perspective. I’ve copy-pasted this document away from the first/second draft to avoid any destructive editing. The creative writing is done. Here, I just check for grammar and spelling. To help, I use the text-to-speech function in Word to read the story aloud to me, pausing and fixing mistakes as I go. For more subjective mistakes, like dialogue not sounding right aloud, I use my best judgment. Still, I am not thinking about changing characters at this stage. That’s what the second draft was for.

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MY PROCESS: EXTRAS

For those who don’t know, I don’t talk to people about my fanfiction or disclose any identifiable information about myself under TytoNoctua. While I’m not famous by any means, my real name and other aliases have to be public-facing enough to require curating what I say and do online. Putting a drawing of a cat on my Twitter account is one thing. But I’d get the wrong kind of double-takes if I put Warriors fanart on my timeline. I want this account to be a creative haven where I can write whatever I want without it affecting my life. But it does mean I use a slightly different process than I would if I was writing under my real name (as of March 2022, I have only one short story published under my real name. It was written when I was much younger, is long irrelevant, and not on the internet).

For some relevant bits of information:

• I sometimes listen to music when I write. The end of A Reign of Thunder and Lightning was written to “Confusion - The Gathering,” for example. Most of the time, I find it a distraction. I concentrate better with ambient mixes or lo-fi sound somewhat themed to what I’m writing.
• A comfortable place to write helps with the writing process greatly. In college, I was able to write for hours in a busy, massive library and barely at all alone in my paper-walled creaky dorm room.
• I try to do almost everything at night. I prefer less distractions and writing for longer periods of time, which is easier to do at night.
• If I have writer’s block, I try to power through it. Especially if I am writing a first draft. The idea behind this is I can always change what I’ve written since I don’t publish until everything is final. If I can’t think of anything to write, I refer to any source material for inspiration. If I can’t concentrate on writing, I stop.
• If I plan on stepping away from writing for a while (a month or more), I reread what I wrote before writing more unless ideas are fresh in my mind.
• I back up everything I’ve ever written and drawn in my Google Drive as well as a hidden flash drive. This ensures if I ever lose my accounts or the data on my computer, I never lose work done under TytoNoctua as long as everything is kept in sync.

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IN CONCLUSION…

To summarize my writing process:

1. Think of and record an idea with broad details
2. Make an outline featuring characters, chapters, and important events
3. Write a first draft with little regard to “good” writing
4. Edit it for a second draft using comments and notes for revision
5. Complete the final draft as a grammar and sanity check for it all. Release

When it comes to writing Warriors fanfics, I have a pretty cut-and-dry process that I follow close enough each time I do it. I have revised the process over writing A Reign of Thunder and Lightning and Bleed to a point where I am going through the process much faster with the third book. Regardless, there are probably plenty of programs and methodologies not compatible with my process. That doesn’t make them bad. Again, my way isn’t objectively correct. It’s just my way. And none of this may be relevant if I find myself preferring better methods for me in the future. But, for now, this is my process.

There are many ways to write fanfiction. I choose more traditional means, but that’s just me.

• Tyto

Chapter Text

July 29, 2024

This section covers the use of animals other than cats in Warriors fanfics and what they can bring to a story regarding characterization, motifs, or just fun and unusual twists.

Warriors is inherently xenofiction. That is, stories from the point of view and perspective of a non-human subject. Aside from highschool AU’s and fanart, you won’t find a human’s perspective. There are plenty of non-cat species, but rarely as major characters and tropes and even less so in fanfiction, animation, and other fan works, aside from a few well-known events. Why is that? And how can you write things to be different?

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OTHER ANIMALS IN CANON

The overwhelming majority of non-cat animals in canon are prey animals with no characterization. Small mammals, frogs, birds, rabbits, fish and anything likely found in an English park or countryside like the story’s setting is based on. They are hunted and eaten, and rarely express anything beyond basic instincts.

Aside from the rat leader who can speak the cat’s language and acts as an obstacle in Firestar’s Quest , prey animals are never characters. In the context of Warriors , this makes sense. With such an extensive list of named characters, plot threads, and over a long period of time, the cats require most of the focus. Prey animals are too necessary as prey to warrant such attention. This doesn’t make it impossible for fanfiction, but it means you are unlikely to see them as anything more than food.

Larger animals, like dogs, foxes, badgers, and birds of prey, are rarer but far more impactful when they show up. They always appear as hostile brutes or hungry predators, though, terrorizing for sport, hunting and maiming cats, speaking unintelligible babble. Dogs are the most represented here, having injured and killed dozens of characters. Like prey animals, dogs and other larger animals rarely show anything beyond basic instincts.

Midnight the “badger” is the only exception. I say “badger” because she is, technically, an ancient spirit who presents more like a guardian to the clans than an actual badger. Badgers are shown with the same ruthlessness and desire to attack cats as any other large animal in Warriors ; Midnight even fights against them at one point. But her being a badger instead of another StarClan cat shows characters, and the audience, that the coming Great Battle is bigger than just one cat, or clan, or StarClan to handle alone. A guiding hand and ability to speak cat exemplifies this. While her role and characterization is limited, it’s an example of what a non-cat character can be.

In canon, other animal species are plot devices, story beats, and momentary obstacles, but never characters. At the time of writing this, even other cat species rarely make any appearances and have never done so as full-fledged characters. That isn’t to say it’s bad; Warriors is a story featuring a massive cast of characters over a long stretch of time.

But, in my opinion, it feels limiting that so many animal-specific scenarios go unexplored in Warriors . The series does have a narrow focus when it comes to characterization, and that’s okay. But stories featuring animal protagonists have so much potential for situations that would feel out of place in stories about humans.

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POWER IMBALANCE BETWEEN ANIMALS IN FANFICS

Since canon only offers a few appearances of other animal species, we'll have to do a bit of guesswork with how best to add them to our fanfictions. And just because we’re trying to make them more than one-off plot devices doesn't mean we have to ditch their malevolent attitudes or frightened chirping or anything like that.

One thing that makes animal stories interesting on their own is the natural power imbalance within the animal kingdom. A big dog versus a cat is self-explanatory, so let's focus on prey animals for now. A blue jay could never hope to beat a cat in a fight. The differences between these two animals is so lopsided that one would never match the other in any scenario. They would probably have very different perspectives on life, too. In fiction, however, this matchup doesn’t have to forever relegate prey to food.

Here’s an example for what such a scenario to look like:

Catclaw charged through the undergrowth as fast as she dared. Where did it go wrong? The new twolegplace was such an obvious solution to the prey shortage ShadowClan had been dealing with. Lazy songbirds overfed by housefolk and easy to reach with all the trees. Her belly was full and her muscles were strong for the first time in moons. Yet every time they journeyed back for another hunt, something else went wrong. The plump, lazy things had to be conspiring! Eating near dogs, roosting at dangerous heights on thin branches, calling on crows to mock the ShadowClan warriors. Crows who would soon learn their language.

But that wasn’t the worst of it anymore. As Catclaw’s paws finally hit familiar territory, the only thing she could think about was how much blood Otherleaf had lost. How her chatty purrs were silenced by the talons of a hawk. A deadly warning capped by a call in their tongue: never come back. None of them saw it coming. Catclaw didn’t see it coming. Her best friend was bleeding to death on her back and all she could see was how barren ShadowClan territory seemed. They would have to return to the twolegplace again. But at what cost next time? Stars, was her friend's life not enough!?

By giving prey animals a little more character, we have a new scenario. They begin learning about their problem. Maybe they’ll learn the cats’ language with the help of the crows (and maybe one of these birds becomes a character in its own right)? Perhaps they convince hawks to scare the clan cats more, picking the lesser of two evils? If more clans show up, then what? The cats still hold the power here, since they can just leave for good and the songbirds can’t fight them. The setting itself practically becomes a character. On its own, this scenario isn’t a story. But it makes for a compelling problem.

Situations like this are where the rat leader in Firestar’s Quest shines. He’s a prey animal who uses his intelligent leadership to actually fight and win battles against cats (albeit rat colonies have been credible threats before). By speaking most of their language, he has made his group into something that can threaten a whole clan. Unfortunately, he’s just a minor obstacle in that book. But that potential to be more than the meal can add an interesting dynamic to fanfics. Especially when it comes to making the environment itself a part of the plot.

While I can’t cover every possible scenario in this guide, here are some things to think about regarding prey animals in your stories:

• Since all animals don’t speak the same language, having a prey animal speaking cat can make a world of difference as far as characterization goes. Imagine if a magpie could convey its fear of being eaten in front of a hungry cat.
• Because small animals can’t fight cats, people often intervene on their behalf. A clan overhunting a certain bird or rodent could prompt a twoleg response. Perhaps the prey animals know this?
• Cats aren’t much smarter than the animals they hunt. Even in Warriors, it wouldn’t be unrealistic for prey animals to play a more clever role in their survival.
• Cats aren’t natural to the environments they inhabit in Warriors. While this is never touched on, hunting can have disastrous effects on their environment and, therefore, their food supply.
• Prey animals don’t always have to be on the same page when it comes to cats. They can be just as hostile towards each other as the clans have been.

Due to their portrayal in canon, integrating prey animals into your fanfics is tricky. But just because the power dynamic always favors cats doesn’t mean it always has to. Especially if you’re considering making a crow or a hare into a character.

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ANIMALS AS THEMES, FOILS AND MIRRORS

Other animals in Warriors have often appeared as hostile intrusions or predators, but they never say anything and are often an obstacle or plot device. Common tropes can help us expand on these appearances. And one of the most effective ways is to use other animals as representations of ideas, themes, or characters.

Eagles have represented everything from freedom to overwhelming power, and dogs have been manifestations of loyalty or mascot/comic relief characters in their own right. But cats would see these animals very differently. A vicious dog might be a nuisance in other fiction, but can be an existential threat to the clans. Even if confined to a yard or the stuff of legends for certain cats, these animals can easily be expanded on.

Here’s another example, this time focused on a potential predator representing something:

The twoleg shed adjacent to its occupied counterpart was the perfect hiding spot from her pursuers. The clever crows were helping owls and hawks find and attack all the new warriors hunting the twolegplace, even at night. But even they, who could easily dash from the shed’s wide-open doors, feared what was inside. Catclaw had crashed right into a pile of sleeping dogs! They didn’t stir, not even a little. Her heart was already pounding against her chest. She covered her mouth, not daring to let loose another breath.

But, deep in the core of her belly, she didn’t fear them. The trio’s long snouts, all black fur, wild claws and wilder snoring, they didn’t feel real. Catclaw had seen them in action toying with a still-missing ThunderClan warrior who’d gotten too close to the yard’s bird feeder. The way they’d so carelessly kicked and pinned and snarled at the poor tom. Then the vicious creatures just slept, all in a day’s fun. Catclaw wondered if this was how the songbirds saw her. Was she an unstoppable fury that thought no more of its actions than these dogs had towards that warrior? What did that make the hawk who’d killed Otherleaf defending its hunting grounds, its deadly warning now seasons unheeded? No, Catclaw thought. She had the warrior code. She had to survive, they didn’t. She was just a cat who got lucky finding food for her clan. These dogs were the real monsters. And the twolegs who kept them. And the songbirds, hawks, and crows. All of them.

Existential crisis aside, Catclaw superimposes fear, fury, and indifference to the sleeping dogs. Earlier in this story, they have already been shown as monsters. Seeing them sleeping, no more disturbed by the harm they’ve caused the cat clans than the cats who themselves hunt the songbirds is where the comparison draws from. This lopsided power dynamic is what helps Catclaw attribute being a monster to those dogs and not herself. The conclusion is hammered home by the fact that her friend was killed. Perhaps there’s some deep-seeded blame for finding the twolegplace in the first place?

Dogs, eagles, or foxes don’t have to be chasing cats just to make them credible inclusions. Even though the above example featured dogs being malicious, it could’ve also been a conversation. These animals would have a fundamentally different outlook on life and could offer insight to the cats, or the audience directly, on the more primal aspects of their behavior. It can be as simple as survival or as complex as boredom.

Here is another non-exhaustive list of things you can use predators for, besides foils and power dynamics and the like:

• Most predators (including cats) attack potential competitors if there’s an opportunity.  This behavior can be expanded on to portray a broader food chain problem or foreshadow a bigger threat.
• Some animals, like badgers and foxes, may live in packs or family units when food or threats are abundant. This makes them significantly more dangerous to cats than one-off encounters.
• Predators are opportunists. If an eagle finds a den of foxes is mostly newborns, it would hunt that first over a cat. Would a clan tolerate one predator if it means a more immediately dangerous one is driven off?
• Cats are highly agile, vicious, and hard to catch. Most hostile animals would likely attack a camp to eat the kits rather than go toe-to-toe with a group of adult cats.
• You could easily make a dog or a cougar into an old wanderer that leaves the clans alone, or even members of cat groups themselves (a lynx or a wildcat).

I believe predators and other threats to cats can make compelling characters and interesting thematic representations. And since most fanfics take place in settings similar to the forest/lake territories, encounters could be deep and abundant.

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ANIMALS WITHOUT A PREDATOR-PREY DYNAMIC?

While there are few instances of other animals being more than plot devices in Warriors , what about animals with no relationship to even feral cats? What about horses, deer, bears, enormous river fish, or anything else that would, under normal circumstances, never interact with cats? Few have even been mentioned, like Sharptooth from Moonrise (The New Prophecy) or farm animals from various books. And only the former has been as much as a momentary obstacle. It makes sense, as these animals live very different lives from cats. But that means they can inhabit roles that have little to do with clan culture or cat mannerisms or anything like that without feeling out of place.

Here’s a third and final example involving an animal that has little to do with cats in general:

From her spot on the roof of a twoleg nest, Catclaw spotted bushes rustling too much to be other cats. To her surprise, a deer and its kit stepped over a shallow fence separating the nest’s yard from the nearby thunderpath. It beant down to eat from a bird feeder that had fallen from a tree, its kit doing the same. An excited snort from a second deer kit gave her hiding spot away. The adult snorted back to its kits. Catclaw couldn’t be chased off by those birds. Not again!

“Keep your voices down,” Catclaw growled. “You’ll wake up the dogs.”

“This yard doesn’t have any dogs,” the doe responded.

Catclaw’s eyes widened “You speak cat?”

“When you go to enough yards, you pick up all sorts of speaking.” She motioned to her kits to keep eating. “You’re not one of theirs?” she motioned to the twoleg nest.

“I’m no kittypet! I’m Catclaw of ShadowClan, on patrol looking for one of those nasty crows to snatch.”

“Oh.” The deer’s tone numbed. “One of those awful forest cats who keeps hurting the songbirds. You know, the cats who live here never do that.”

Awful? Catclaw wasn’t in the mood. “These birds have been getting clan cats hurt or worse. And what makes you any better? You’re stealing from them!”

The doe motioned her kits to leave over the fence while she folded her ears back. “Serves you right. I don’t eat them!”

The deer’s hard look was the only warning Catclaw knew she’d get before giving her away, so she scrambled from the yard. What was she going to do, fight a deer? She could only take her wounded pride and return to ShadowClan empty-pawed, again. Catclaw yowled in frustration after crossing the thunderpath into the safety of the wilds. This wasn’t fair! Why were the clans being punished for trying to keep themselves alive? Why did the deer get to freely steal from the songbirds while her clan’s struggle to survive made her the villain?

Deer and cats don’t interact under normal circumstances. But, given their tendencies to wander into yards for food, encounters aren’t impossible. While the doe in the example thinks much like the birds from the previous examples, she can’t really be viewed as good or bad in Catclaw’s mind. The deer forces her to think about her situation without the whole predator-prey dynamic. A true third party.

Animals appear in this context a lot in other media . In Warriors , this can be an interesting twist to the loners and outsiders who commonly appear. The inability for cats to react with their instincts to such creatures makes deeper criticism and introspection of their livelihood more palatable for characters and the audience. Such thoughts could be deeper and more grounded in truth than biased from the lives of each character. Almost like a critic interjecting into the story.

Of course this isn't the only way to use animals like deer or horses. So here is a final list of ideas to keep in mind:

• StarClan doesn’t have to be the only faith in your fanfics. Cats could revere certain animals like deer or horses as deities of some kind. Even giving animals mystical powers or presence like Midnight the badger would be believable.
• Guides and gurus are commonly depicted in fiction as animal spirits or animal-like people. This would be a perfect role for neutral animals to inhabit.
• A strength of using these animals in fanfics is their natural indifference to cats and a cat’s inability to do anything about them.
• Be mindful of the biome, should your fanfic stray from an English forest or lakeside. While Warriors plays loose with its wildlife because of this, a fanfic that takes place in, say, a North America-like mountain range opens up different interactions with new kinds of animals that would be hard to justify in canon.

Animals like this have the highest potential to work as characters if included in your fanfics. Inversely, their indifference to all things cat could also make them interesting plot devices, obstacles, or motifs.

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CLOSING THOUGHTS

Other animal species are common in Warriors , but their use as characters or fleshed-out themes and such is very limited. Whether they be prey, malicious predators, or a random cow here and there, their roles and appearances are too scaled back in my opinion. It makes sense with how much of the story is focused on the sheer volume of characters. It would add an extra layer to the xenofiction side of things if other animal characters more frequently appeared or affected clan life other than being food or killing a cat here and there. In fanfiction, there are plenty of ways to do this without breaking continuity, especially if you decide to use an original setting with original clans, or no cat groups at all.

The settings in Warriors are full of animals, big and small. It wouldn’t be unrealistic for at least one to learn to speak cat.

• Tyto