Warriors Fanfics: Specialized Writing Guide

Theme & Ending

June 25, 2019

This section covers maintaining a theme throughout your story, and how to exemplify it near the end. As a section on theme, it assumes you are using one in your story and want to maintain it all the way to the end.

In most cases, the ending gives any story its punch. Readers will generally remember it better than other parts. If not that, it is what makes a story satisfying to read. Ending at the right point, on the right note. And one of those notes that should be hit in a Warriors fanfiction is the theme of your story... that is, if one was used. Most fanfics, sadly, do not have any sort of theme. When they do, it is often used incorrectly or clearly forgotten about when the end is reached. All books written for YA audiences have pronounced themes. Literally all of them. Warriors is no exception, even if it is written for an even younger audience than YA.

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WHAT IS A THEME?

A theme is the central topic a text treats. To narrow it down for genre fiction like Warriors, it is the central idea of the story. Themes in fiction attempt to portray a moral opinion from the author, a universal truth in life, or an argument for a specific virtue, be it good or bad. The plot, characters, setting all set out to convey this theme as tactfully as possible to the reader. As a result, this theme resonates throughout the entire story. All the way to the end.

One of the reasons people find certain fictional worlds so fascinating are the themes it portrays. Most, however, cannot simply list them off the top of their head. Same goes for Warriors. This is about normal. Themes are often not openly discussed by a fandom unless a particular episode or book was especially well done... or especially poorly done. Themes are meant to be subtle, after all. They lose much of their edge if we simply spell them out for our audience like a children's show.

Here is a list of common themes found in Warriors:

- faith/spirituality

- nature vs nurture

- cultural interaction

- right, wrong, and gray morality

- obligation vs happiness

I could easily list several others, but these are the most common. You could probably guess that faith and nature vs nurture are pretty high up on the list (StarClan, Scourge, Tigerstar, etc.) Other themes like cultural interactions and gray morality are also pretty common (Mothflight, Ivypool, the tribes, etc.) These underlying themes are just as important to the story as any main character or lake. They make us think, make us angry, and sad. Why is that? Themes give moral weight to what the characters do and where the plot goes, investing us emotionally into the story. Underlying tones in the story make the actions of these characters and the directions of the plot have meaning to us, personally. Often, we all think the same way about particular themes in a fictional story, and would love to see them dug into deeper than the canon does; and thus, a fandom is born.

I will give two more examples with large fandoms, each having a heavier or lighter hand with theming throughout:

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, regardless of what you think of its fandom, has some clearly defined themes that we can use here. It has many, but its main ones are friendship, family, duty, and honesty. Normal for a children's show. Also normal is how in-your-face some of these themes are. Later seasons have gotten much better with this as the audience has matured a little, but most of the time the theme (or lesson) is summarized at the end of the episode. Not very subtle, but still effective.