Warriors Fanfics: Specialized Writing Guide

Character Death

June 28, 2019

This is a section about making your character deaths have more meaning in your stories. It does not go over how specifically to kill, nor does it cover how to write drama into a death. It also does not cover death as a broad concept or theme, sticking specifically with character death and its significance on a plot.

Death is commonplace in Warriors; with a cast of 200+ named characters, you expect many of them to die given they are rarely significant. But that is what this section is for. Fictional works with large casts like Warriors tend to kill off many. Some of these characters are written just to die, which I would not recommend. When a character is killed incorrectly, your audience notices. You have seen enough fiction to notice when a character is done dirty with a haisty or ill-timed death. Here, we will help you avoid this in your own fanfictions.

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CHARACTER DEATH IN WARRIORS

Warriors uses the trope "Anyone Can Die" throughout its arcs (term from TvTropes). It means that, at any given moment in the story, you feel as though any character can die. The main character, background characters, plot devices, supporting cast, no one is safe from this trope.

Cats have died for obvious reasons, like Tigerstar versus Firestar. One of them had to die, and we knew and accepted this. There are dependant characters, like kits, who have died as a result of their parent's actions. Strong warriors have been felled by diseases like greencough, and healthy queens have died giving birth. Stuff has fallen on cats (somehow). They have drowned, burned, been poisoned, and murdered. One of the better deaths was Tigerstar at the hands of Scourge; all nine lives, one swipe. Down goes villain #1 for good (we thought). However, they have also been written in and killed for nothing but shock value. They have died to sate the fandom's bloodlust and appease fanfiction writers. They have been written off to prevent problems from being solved, or murdered as plot fuel. They get things wrong, but Warriors is one of the few series out there that uses "Anyone Can Die" well.

So how do you guys fare against the Erins? As much as I hate to give broad criticism, not so well. Characters in fanfics often die for the sake of plot fuel, character motivation, or regret in writing them. Dying for plot fuel or character motivation is not the worst thing you can do, but it has no impact for readers. They never get to know these characters, so their death does not mean much to them. They have to pretend they do, though, because your main character cares about that death that your readers do not. As far as regret goes, I have read some author notes at the end of chapters stating they were glad they killed off certain characters because they did not like how they turned out. Some have even asked which characters they would like to see die next! What? You do not take requests from your audience here. This is not a role-play. Obviously, I cannot sit here and berate you forever. We are all amateurs here. Our AU ShadowClan fanfic is not exactly meant to be shelf-ready. But we can at least make our use of death as a plot device that much more impactful by giving meaning to its use.

Here are some examples of how I have seen character death done in Warriors fanfics. These are actual deaths from different fanfics here on Wattpad; name changes courtesy of our nonexistent fanfic (no calling out authors here):

- Catstar and Otherleaf are walking along in the forest, when WindClan cats jump and assassinate her, life by life, while Otherleaf watches. Otherleaf goes mad with bloodlust and orchestrates a revenge plan from her ShadowClan. WindClan's leader and Catstar's assassins are killed the same way she was.