July 18, 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 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.
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.
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…
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).
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
