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.

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. Its use of tropes to fit into one or more genres is an afterthought to the ideas being presented. 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. Contemporary readers and writers often put an emphasis on the 'what' behind writing instead of the 'why', and this idea can narrow the use of certain tropes and themes to specific genres and audience expectations (ex. Political stories always remark about current events; Romance must either be a non-fiction lesson about love or be pure escapism; Everything in a story must have thematic or representative purpose or it is bad writing, etc). But there's a lot of older stories on this list, and some were very popular for their time. There is also a reason lists of "scholarly" books are always populated with old stories, as writing fiction purely in this way has fallen out of favor. 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.

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.

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. It was a combination of their use in animation, the inclusion of more real-world events in fictional books due to the extremely turbulent 20th century, the changing of audiences becoming more exposed to foreign cultures and customs, and a sharp decline in the use of animals as tools. 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?

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.

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. I personally prefer to read and interpret fiction with the intent of the author and portrayal of its themes first and everything else, like its use of tropes or its uniqueness for its own sake, second. 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