Warriors: Solemn Wishes (Warrior Cats Fan Story)

Author's Notes

I thought it would be interesting to elaborate on unseen/unclear parts of the story, for anyone who is curious on what was going on in the background as I was developing it.

I'm going to be writing a sequel, where most of the unspoken parts of Solemn Wishes get touched upon anyway, but for those of you that can't wait to hear the details, well, here you go.

1) I had a massive spreadsheet containing the entire plot, an editable allegiances list (to keep track of changes to ranks without editing the published allegiances), one table of family trees per Clan, and a pinglist for a Discord I'm in. Unfortunately none of you will ever see this spreadsheet.

2) I didn't have a spot in the story to mention this, but the ThunderClan traitors did get punished by Mazestar. Bulletfang and Patchydream got exiled, while Pebblefoot and Servalnose were demoted back to apprentices. Mazestar don't play no games.

3) Originally, I wanted the climax of the story to center only around Redwhisker and Acorntail, so I planned for Oceanbutterfly to go back to RiverClan after Chapter 25 (her confrontation with Mazestar) in order to preserve her deputy rank, since she was risking it by staying away so long. When I came to this point in the story, I scrapped that storyline because I realized it made her into a massive bitch who prioritizes her rank over her mate's safety. So I saved her character by having her stay with the two, but in order to keep it realistic, I was forced to have her demoted. Which is okay, at least it sticks with the story's theme of love or whatever.

4) Another thing I wasn't able to work into Chapter 28 or the epilogue was what happened after Bronzestar demoted Oceanbutterfly. He made Lonelyblue his deputy, but after what he said, his reputation declined so badly that he ended up resigning as leader. When Lonelystar became leader, he (as well as much of the Clan) liked Oceanbutterfly and wanted her back, but by that point she had made plans for a family with Redwhisker, and turned down the offer.

5) Waveclaw is the surrogate father of Redwhisker and Oceanbutterfly's kids!! I thought that stating it outright would be a little too on-the-nose, but I did hint at it during Chapter 28 and the epilogue. I love surrogacy and adoption and I think Warriors needs to stop ignoring the former and demonizing the latter.

6) Originally, Hornstar and Mazestar were planned to be secret lesbians who came out about their relationship later in the story when Acorntail and Redwhisker's bravery inspired them. This was thrown out the window when I remembered both of them already had mates (Mazestar with Beeleg, Hornstar with Eelfur).

7) Most of the reason for the massive timeskip between Chapters 27 and 28 is so that I can put a leaf-bare in there, because in the sequel, I'm going to have a lot of background characters evaporate and get replaced to avoid inbreeding. And with the leaf-bare timeskip, I can just say they all took the L from starvation or some bullshit. How to write background characters when you're a lone fanfiction writer and you hate keeping track of background characters 101.

8) Solemn Wishes and any other stories of mine were made more so to tackle political/social issues in a Warriors setting rather than to follow the script of a normal Warriors book. That's why you see so little normal Clan life and so many character dynamics. Sue me, I guess.

9) I was utter shit at keeping track of things such as weather, time of day, and time passage. I've learned to plan these ahead of time and my new spreadsheet for my next fan story is much more cohesive. Learning from your mistakes!!

10) One of my greatest regrets was failing to follow up on the body shaming that Oceanbutterfly experienced. I kind of just...didn't get a chance to address it, and there was never strong-enough persecution for it to take prominence in the plot. In the next book, I hope to provide a proper resolution on that conflict.