Tips on making a Warrior Cat fanfiction!

Seasons & Sickness

So, I know I technically finished this book awhile ago, but I thought of some other things I'd like to mention:

Seasons. I often forget to keep track of the seasons when I'm writing my warriors fan fictions. I've noticed other people have done it too (so it's not just a me problem.) Changing seasons are a good way to show how much time has passed. 

When you're writing about the seasons, you don't have to say "it was leaf-bare now." I usually say something like "a chilly leaf-bare gust of wind cut through my fur." Because, remember, the seasons will affect your cat. 

Some things to remember:

Green-leaf (summer): Some days will be hotter than others. When it's hot and muggy, there's usually lots of bugs, so you can write about flies buzzing around your cat's ears or how dry their throat is. 

Leaf-fall (autumn): the beginning of autumn right after summer is usually pretty warm. It'll get colder as the season goes on, until you reach leaf-bare. Leaves fall off the trees (unless you're ShadowClan and you live in a pine forest) so you can write about the leaves crunching beneath your cat's paws. 

Leaf-bare (winter): Leaf-bare can be a dangerous time, because it's so cold. Your cat will definitely be thinking about how cold they are, and how hungry they are because prey is scare. It would not be realistic for your cat to catch a giant fat squirrel in the middle of leaf-bare. Even if they're a great hunter, that's really not a thing. Leaf-bare usually brings sickness, like white cough and green cough, so keep that in mind too. 

New-leaf (spring): At the beginning, the Clan will be very relieved to have warm weather again. It also usually rains a lot. Prey starts coming out again. A lot of rain can also bring sickness, too. 

Now, these seasons may not apply to your story let's say, if you're writing about the tribes instead. It's pretty much always leaf-bare up there. 

Sickness. Sickness and injury are a part of Clan life. Let's start with battle wounds. So, I've seen cats get injured in fanfics, and then the medicine cat just slaps some herbs on the wound and the next day the cat is fine. Unless they have a fast-healing superpower, this isn't realistic. 

You have to think about the severity of the wound. If it's a deep wound, it will be bleeding a lot, and slapping some marigold on there will do nothing. You need to stop the bleeding first (using moss, cobwebs, leaves, etc.) Then, clean the wound. I see this step forgotten a lot. Yes, marigold and goldenrod will help prevent infection, but if you were in a battle, there can be all types of yuck in your wound you need to lick out. After all that is done, then the medicine cat will put on the herbs and the cobweb dressing. After a battle, your cat will also be sore and stiff, and they will need to take it easy. Sometimes, they even have to stay in the medicine cat's den if the wound was really bad. 

Let's go deeper into infections. Infected wounds are very dangerous. For humans, we have antibiotics. Warrior cats do not. So, your cat will either A. Be able to fight off the infection with the help of some herbs. Or B, die of the infection. If the infection is bad, the wound will usually smell, and the cat will have a high fever (your body will be heating up, trying to burn out the infection.) 

For sickness like green cough, white cough, yellow cough, red cough, a lot of these happen during leaf-bare. Remember that elders and kits are the most vulnerable.