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