31 May, 2019
[This guide was copied, as is, from Wattpad. At the time, I had no intention of posting it here. Please excuse any discrepancies.]
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?
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?
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.
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
