Breaking the Code - 2017 Rewritten Edition

by 1230james

After three moons of peace past the Dark Forest war, the Clans are rocked by a critical, new prophecy. On the ground, four kits are born in ThunderClan. Jayfeather realizes one of the kits resembles Half Moon. A turn of life-changing events which challenge the Warrior Code are about to unfold. Will the Clans survive challenging their Code, or will it lead to instability and chaos?

1. Preface

Breaking the Code

- Preface -

Please note that this is a preface, meaning that this is not part of the actual story. The real story begins in the next chapter.

This fanfiction is a rewritten version of an original version written in mid-2014 by a JayxHalf-obsessed me in 8th grade. It spanned thirteen chapters and contained 14,243 words. After three years, I am back to retell a story of a similar plot.

The original story involved some things I now consider undesirable in my own literature (most notably the existence of relatively poor grammar. I remember one line that read, "Halfkit sneaked into the medicine cat den." In addition, some unrealistic elements, such as one point where Jayfeather was thought to have been killed, was buried, then showed up later perfectly fine. Realistically, he would have suffocated.), so I intend to recompose the story with an improved plot and more content. You can imagine how rushed the story was when you realize each chapter had only a little over 1,000 words each. I feel like this story deserves the penmanship from an author more mature and knowledgeable rather than some silly 14-year-old middle school student.

The new story, I hope as I write this preface before beginning to plot out the story, will have more words per chapter, more chapters, a slower-paced plot, plot points that make logical sense, improved language, and overall, a better experience for the reader.

I understand that most of the Warriors community consists of growing elementary and middle school students who are easily entertained by lower-quality literature found on the internet, and that's just fine. I also realize that there are older audiences, such as high school students, and perhaps even young adults, who enjoy reading literature such as those found here [FanFiction]. I feel like all readers should be able to enjoy what any author writes if the content is appropriate for all audiences, and I wish not to disappoint, confuse, and/or bore older readers with fast plot lines, poor language, and illogical events. I hope I can please as many audience members as I can.

As for you, always remember that reviews are for giving the author critical feedback. I don't mind if I get plenty of reviews that say things like, "OMG WOW XD Branchpelt is soooo funny!" but I do like to see feedback from users who have valuable input.

I'd like to thank and apologize to those users who gave such reviews in the past, calling me and my original story out for being generally poor in quality. Obviously, as a naïve kid, all I did was disregard them as they came in. I hope that many of you who criticized it will see this and see the new and improved version of the same story you once read.

To those of you who read the original as it was written and now are reading this new version, I hope you enjoy this one as much as (and hopefully more than) the original.

To the new readers, I ask you to stay and give this story a chance. If you read the original then please don't be deterred by the poor quality, and I hope you find the remake far more enjoyable.

A little bit more about the story itself: it takes place about three moons after the Dark Forest battle. Chronologically, this means it takes place shortly after The Last Hope, but far before the events of The Apprentice's Quest. Be prepared for any spoilers for Into the Wild, Dovewing's Silence, and anything in between. The Breaking the Code story plot is basically just about a reincarnation of Half Moon being born in ThunderClan, and how she and Jayfeather go about attempting to start a liberalist movement to amend the Warrior Code to allow an exception for medicine cats to have mates.

The original story, now titled Breaking the Code – 2014 Legacy Edition, is available on my profile. I suggest readers to avoid reading it before finishing this edition of the story to avoid (1) spoilers and (2) a poor reading experience. It merely exists as an artifact of my personal history, and for user availability for any user who needs it.

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I'd like to extend my thanks to a number of key individuals. Firstly, an elementary school friend named John who introduced me to the Warriors series. Without him, I wouldn't have met plenty of lovely people over the years, nor would I have the pleasure of writing this story.

Secondly, my friend Michael who introduced me to deviantArt, where I would go to make more friends and colleagues, and connect with previous ones. It also provides me with another medium for which I am able to publish chapters of this story, allowing greater feedback output.

Thirdly, my girlfriend (I met her on deviantArt) who was the amazing artist who drew the cover for this submission. She is also a great motivation to convince myself to work on projects and other tasks to the best of my ability.

Fourthly, a friend who used to go by the alias "xxSus-Chanxx" (at the time of writing this preface, she went by "Jaddels") who owns all intellectual rights to Bitterfrost as an original character, who made an appearance in the original Breaking the Code as well as this one.

If you read through this whole thing, then good for you. I appreciate your time and attention.
I sincerely hope you, and everyone else who reads this, will enjoy the 2017 Rewritten Edition of Breaking the Code.