Writing a Warriors Fanfiction: The Complete Guide

Character Roles

The first place to start is deciding on what the character's role is. This will shape their actions and personality. While the true meaning of some of the following titles are debated heavily, this is what you should know:

Protagonist - The main character who is a key part to the plot. They start it and end it. At its core, the protagonist is looking to change something.
Antagonist - This is generally used in place of "Villain" (but it's debatable whether or not they're interchangeable). They are against the protagonist's pursuits. They don't want to change. *Antagonist does NOT necessarily = bad and protagonist = good. They are only against each other.
Side/Minor Character - These characters are largely involved with the story, but don't contribute as much as the main character or ultimately resolve the climax.
One-Offs - Characters that only appear once and then never come back again. When it comes to things like series, they may be a large contributor for one part but then never return. However, in just a single story, they have little impact and only appear for a short amount of time.

Again, we'll use an example. Let's go back to Into the Wild and see if we can put these titles on some of the characters.

Protagonist - Firepaw. He's the main character and he proactively furthers the story. He seeks to change his life and the way Clan cats think of him. And he, like many others, wants to get rid of Brokenstar.
Antagonist - Brokenstar. As ShadowClan leader, he certainly does not want to be driven out. He wants to keep things the same and stay the leader, effectively going against Firepaw.
Side/Minor Characters - Graypaw, Sandpaw, Dustpaw, and Ravenpaw. They tag along with Firepaw in his adventures and are involved in some side plots.
One-Off - Because Warriors is such a massive series, practically no character is ever seen just once. But just within Into the Wild, Spottedleaf could be a one-off. She appears very early in the story, only to be killed off.

When designing a protagonist, they can either be proactive or reactive. Proactive protagonists take initiative and start the plot on their own. They try to get to their goals on their own. Reactive protagonists do not want to start the plot, but are somehow forced into it. Stuff happens to them, they don't make stuff happen.

The best antagonists are not so bad at their plan that the protagonist(s) can easily defeat them, but not so good that there is no hope of winning. They should be somewhere in the middle. A good antagonist can also have some sort of justification for their pursuits that actually makes a little sense. Remember: villains aren't born, they're created. The villain shouldn't be evil because they "love being bad", they should have some motivation that makes them feel justified in their pursuits. Nobody thinks that they are actually the villain, everyone thinks they are the hero, the person on the right side.