8 June, 2019
This section covers some prewriting steps to take before you actually start writing, like the process of idea conception, determining if it is worth pursuing, and your real life environment's influence on writing. As a Base section, it has little to no examples drawn from canon Warriors.
So that rush of energy with pictures came in and you have frantically recorded it. Now what?
Most people either stash it, scrap it, or build upon it after some time alone with it. That is step one, and this section is not entirely about that part. Everyone has a different ideation process (or none at all). And this can be a problem when help is required. If we just consider Wattpad, most people start branching off the very first thing that sticks in their head. The very first thing. It can be damaging to your writing and writing habits. So in this section, I want to help you get started and stay started writing.
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IDEA CONCEPTION
Idea conception is important; it is what you are writing, ultimately. An idea you had. A solid idea is much easier to work with than one that is hastily put to publish. Many Warriors fanfictions go all over the place with their plot and characters. It usually stems from an idea being written out at the moment of conception, having its plot, characters, and setting built around it. That itself is normal, but when it is thought of, outlined, written, and published all at the same time, it stops being normal. We may let that fly on places like DeviantArt with its rushed slash fics and text wall formats. Sometimes, Wattpad's community likes to think it is above that. It can always be so if you think out your ideas.
One easy way to put your idea on a good foundation is to know exactly what you want to write. And I am not talking "I want to write a love story" or "I want a kit to leader epic." I am talking about why you want a love story. How you want to tell that story, and with what kind of characters. These thoughts are meant to avoid as many future headaches as possible when it comes to really fleshing out a story.
Try this exercise for building out ideas if you are having trouble with that stage of pre-writing.
* This was the advice I gave to someone on DeviantArt when she asked how to start off her MLP fanfic with nothing more than a one-sentence idea. A variant of this advice floats around the site (maybe even this one), but here it is as I summarized it:
- Know the canon, at least to a degree of competence. You do not have to know every single cat (no one does), but at least know the main story arc, major characters, and why main events happened.
- What do you want to see in the canon universe that never happened? To some degree, it is important what you are thinking of did not happen exactly as you think of it in canon. Otherwise, you are just retelling a story already told and losing the main allure of fanfiction.
- How could you make that unique or interesting? You should not deviate from canon all the way, but alternate universes and OC-filled stories are always acceptable. As long as you followed the prior point, you probably have this stage down.
- Begin building a universe. Whatever you want, just go for it. If your fanfiction is set in the canon universe like most are, perfect. You can skip this step unless there is some kind of deviation from details already given (which there almost always is). Do not forget things like time period and important events. Do not worry about characters right now (more on worldbuilding is covered in other sections).
- Compare your plot idea to the universe/setting you just started building. The universe should add to the plot in some way, and vise-versa. This is especially true for stories that take place in the canon universe. If the canon cats were on a futuristic space station instead of a lake surrounded by forest, then they would not do things exactly the same, would they? How does your plot affect your universe? How does your universe affect your plot?
- Begin thinking about the main character(s). What kind of character should take the focus of the story? Where should that character be in regards to the universe they are in, be it canon or original? What do they do? Do not worry about appearances and names right now.
- Think about supporting characters and background events. What kind of cats or creatures does your main character associate with? Are they important enough to become secondary characters, or even main characters? If not, make them background characters or get rid of them. This is something particular for the Warriors fandom. We make clans, fill them with cats, give them names and history, and use them for just one or two chapters, never giving them any significant role in the story. The same goes for characters (more on background characters and events is covered in other sections).
- How does it all come together? Is the main character important (they better be)? You want to build your plot around the main character, but not have your MC be the only thing about the plot. They should be the driving factor to the plot; things happen because of their presence (advice on the MC is covered in its own section).
- Decorate! With all that done, now you can start truly worldbuilding. This includes details on your main character (name, age, etc.) as well as the supporting cast. The same goes for your world. What are the names of clans and their involvement with the plot? Are clans even in your universe? What is the weather like in your setting? What is the overall tone of the setting and the universe? Most cosmetic details will be nonessential to the story, but essential for keeping it unique. These are the details most fanfic writers obsess over.
This may be a bit overwhelming, but it does not take as long as you think. Especially when you run a few ideas through this filtering method. It keeps you from spending too much time on ideas that just do not work, or ideas you never liked in the first place. It saves you from making mistakes like promoting a background character to main character because you liked the personality you gave them (the one they should not have had in the first place).
An 'elevator pitch' of your fanfic is the final product of all this. This is an idea you can pitch to a corporate superior in the average elevator ride (around 15-20 seconds) and your superior will have understood everything you said and could start bouncing the concept back and forth with his colleagues. It is not something that is actually done anymore, but it is an expression that basically means "tell me your idea. You have 20 seconds to do so." It is mostly for others to understand, but most of you are probably writing this alone in a dark room somewhere (I like dark rooms). Something to keep in mind is that elevator pitches are usually done once you have a solid idea and direction, but the ends are more important than the means in this case. As long as you are confident someone else can understand what you are going for in a few sentences, you have made your personal pitch.
Here are a few examples of ideas I have formatted as elevator pitches, both before or after I delved further into them:
- A desperate tom from a band of rogues is determined to unite the scattered and warring clans of Kyoto under the peaceful ways of his slain mentor. He realizes, however, bringing violent cats with no code of honor together may require a more, or less, delicate approach...
- In ancient times, a great battle takes place between two cat empires. An entire army from one side is lost, with no bodies or traces left. Commanded by a renowned she-cat, her littermate refuses to grieve and accept that his legendary sibling simply vanished. He joins the next army headed to her last known direction, hoping to find some clues as to what happened...
- An unknown prophet has begun spreading word that he saw a human revive from his grave after being tortured and executed, renouncing StarClan and proclaiming the human as his true god. A once-peaceful forest is on the brink of all out war over this news as his message begins to take hold, and it is up to one she-cat to bring the truth to light. But she does not even know anymore...
You might notice that some of these ideas are strange and sail far from canon territory (this is covered in another section) but that is okay. Though we are late in the ideation stage, it is still an idea, and can be whatever we want it to be. These pitches describe the kinds of stories I want to tell. You should also want to tell stories based on the pitches you create. Contrary to the idea of elevator pitches, you will likely be the only one to ever see those you create. But as long as you can read what you have written and begin bouncing detail and semblance from it, you have succeeded.
We have gone over ways to create ideas from nothing. But now it is time to see if these ideas you have made can truly stand on their own four paws. Specifically, this goes over what you can do with the idea you have chosen to go forward with.
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IS YOUR PLOT WORTHY?
Now that all that ideation work is done, we can get to the next step... which is not writing. It is a final fail-safe check to see if whatever idea you chose can carry itself for however long you want your fanfiction to be. If you want to write a novel, your plot should not show signs of resolving in chapter two (unless that is your intention). You might think the elevator pitch covers creating the basic plot premise, while the stepped method I listed before that covers it in detail. But this is not about creating the plot. Doing something like this is a bit harder than simply fleshing out our ideas. But there are some checks we can use without starting to write; by the way, do not start writing yet. We do not want you to struggle on chapter twelve out of thirty because you stretched your story as far as it can go. We do not want stretching and padding, and neither do your readers.
One check you can use on your idea is to write the ending first. This method is underrated, but used by some professionals for conceiving a more stable mid section and building better characters before you even start writing. Before your main character goes through a warrior ceremony, before their mate is savagely murdered by a clanmate, you have to know how everything ends for them.
Why do this? Writing the ending of your story first checks two things: it makes sure your plot can carry itself through your planned length, and it ensures your ending is satisfying, but not set in stone for you.
This is a problem that I see with many works on Wattpad. Particularly fanfictions, and most particularly the ones that are posted as they are being written. The plot, after dozens of chapters, becomes stale and aimless due to the writer not knowing where they were going with it. Their initial idea could not carry itself to the desired length the author had set out to reach. This is usually "solved" by adding new events and introducing plot twists to keep both reader and writer interested. Doing that detracts from the main plot, of course. I do not want you to be that writer. Even all the steps I listed above would not help you if there is no target for the plot to aim for.
This also makes sure your ending is satisfying given the parameters laid out by the plot and characters' motivations. Did your promiscuous character get their comeuppance? No? Why not? Is the moral more impactful if they do not? What does the main character think of that? These questions could very easily be asked by a reader who wants to dig deeper into your story. The last thing you want is a forgettable story because the climax lost all momentum. No amount of good characters, meticulous plotting, and vivid setting can save you from a bad ending. Perhaps your plotline set up expectations to end one way and actually ended another (many novice writers mistake these for good twists). Even the most unexpected of endings need some foreshadowing.
With so many variables to account for when writing, both in and out of your actual writing process, writing the end first is almost like a safety net. The best part is you can still change it. The end is not set in stone. Even if you cannot think of a fully realized end before you have written your story, at least have some small idea of how events would play out.
With all that completed, it is time to think about events, character growth moments, twists, and other chapter highlights. This part is much easier than that stuff from above. All you have to do now is to write down as many possible events that could happen throughout yours tory as possible. These should be summarized in no more than one or two sentences, and each one of these snippets should be able to become a chapter should you write them out.
Some example events from a nonexistent fanfiction:
- Catpaw has her warrior ceremony and becomes Catclaw.
- A thunderClan cat kills Otherleaf, Catstar's friend and medicine cat, leaving her distraught and reckless.
- ThunderClan finally attacks Catstar's ShadowClan, while the other two clans stay back and wait.
- Catclaw steals a fish from a twoleg camp, but finds many more camps and no other animals wandering around; bad sign.
- Catkit is visited by a StarClan cat and receives a prophecy. Her impulsiveness and immaturity makes her draw many improbable scenarios.
- Catstar consults her medicine cat, Otherleaf, for advice on her prophecy. She does not like the ambiguity that Otherleaf comes up with.
- Catkit meets Otherkit and becomes friends with her, the two acting as character foils to each other.
As you can see, the events do not have to be in any sort of order, or have any kind of organization within your grand plot. They just have to be things that you might write chapters around in your story. As you begin writing, you will notice yourself coming back to this list and scratching off most of what you wrote. You might write down new events, or star important ones you are really drawn to. Character moments may be wrapped around some of these events. They may just be exposition chapters (which I personally discourage, but others encourage). They are yours to draw inspiration from, yours to scrap, and yours to write further.
Speaking of writing, we have much of our preliminary work done. While all of this would not create a true outline, it creates some of the most important parts of one. These steps, whether you decide to write a full first draft or post it as you go along, will give you far more consistency than keeping it all in your head would.
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ARE YOU READY IN REAL LIFE?
So now it is finally time to write. A solid idea, a plan of how we will start and end it, and some events to draw from when we get into it... there is just one more thing to account for. Real life. Problems within your environment can really make or break your story. Your mood, your equipment, time allotted, all can affect the story and quality of your fanfiction. If a solid idea was not holding you back, nor writer's block, nor ideas on how to end it, it must be something else, right?
The average Wattpad user ends up being a fourteen year-old girl (so says their own statistics). The Warriors fandom is made up of a slightly older age group, probably middle school to early 20's. That is about the same age makeup for any fandom; of course there will always be outliers. The entire latter half of your upbringing happens from high school to mid 20's, so much is happening in that time frame. Let's highlight a few of those things.
The Warriors fandom made almost entirely of people who are still in school. Whether you are in elementary school or college, that means homework, attendance, and extracurricular activities. While few Warriors fans are beyond college age, it only creates more obligations when you finish with your education. Finding time to write on weekends is a start, but that time competes with other things you want to do (academics come first, so says the owl).
Your free time is competing with any social obligations or desires. The time you spend with friends and family, whatever time you spend hanging out on Discord, or the time you spend with your significant other (should you have one) is time you are not spending to write. Your priorities are yours alone. Just know that writing takes a lot of time. Squeezing ten or so minutes here and there just is not going to cut it for anything more than a journal.
There are many unforeseen events in life and things you cannot compensate for. You could have a friend who moved away come visit. You might have a new pet to play with. Maybe your parents signed you up for a camp, or you have to be away from your writing space for a few days. You also have to eat, sleep, take breaks, watch Star Trek, etc. The unforeseen and mundane can pile up quick to eat into your writing time. But that goes back to your priorities and what you value most.
Of course, your time will always be limited. It is expected that you cannot devote every second of your free time to writing fanfiction. But it does become a problem when it saps your willingness to write with quality. If life is getting in the way, but you really really want to write, you will do one of two things: write in haste and under negative pressure, or not write at all. If you do not have the time to write at the moment, you do not have the time to write. Professionals will tell you to force yourself to write, and force yourself to make time to write. But their job is writing. Your job is not writing. Do not try to do everything. If something has to give, prioritize.
That being said, it is time to go back to real life things that can interfere with your writing. Specifically, minor distractions. The 'small stuff'.
Your phone/web browser is a major source of procrastination. I am not talking about procrastination as a whole, but all the minor distractions these two things throw at you. Push notifications, ads, social media updates... other Wattpad stories. It is an obvious and easy target, but limiting internet use while writing is an easy way to keep potential distractions to a minimum. The only thing I am possibly doing on my dry-ass phone while writing is running an auto-farming mobile game atop a cooling fan (ironically this limits my contact with my phone, since the game uses most of its resources).
Get comfortable. If you are comfortable sitting hours upon hours in front of your computer, you will write more without even knowing it. Ergonomics are something you never notice unless they are bad. Uncomfortable chair, mushy keyboard, hot room. Some of the things that improve my ergonomics are a nice mechanical keyboard, an ultrawide monitor for more screen space, and a decent pair of headphones when I need them. The holy grail of computer ergonomics is a good chair. I mean a really good chair. But they are an investment to justify, and I work eight-plus hours a day in front of my computer. Using an external monitor for your laptop (if you use laptops) is a good place to start for good—not adequate, good ergonomics.
Do not write your stories on your phone. The ergonomics suck and it ignores my first point entirely.
Music is a double-edged sword. The right kind can help your concentration tremendously and get you in a certain mindset when writing. The wrong kind, obviously, serves as another distraction. I listen to gothic, death, and black metal and rock when doing tasks I do not concentrate intensely on. Nonfiction edits (like this guide), personal thoughts,or drawing will have this in the background. Sometimes, I use it when writing certain scenes to get me in the mood. Most of the time, however, voiced music can keep you from staying focused as you subconsciously go over the lyrics.
Coincidentally, classical music can distract you from tasks like writing. Just like with lyrics, your mind will be going over the carefully structured music. If you want benefits from sound or writing, I suggest lo-fi music or ambient noise. Check the facts for yourself, though. Do not just take my word for it.
Setting up deadlines and goals can provide a tremendous boost in confidence when writing longer fanfics. Make sure to keep these small and easily achievable. One chapter a day is way harder to accomplish than one chapter a week. Write 100 words a day, minimum? Easy enough. That is a tip from professionals: write something every day, no matter how small. Have a goal of writing a full-length fanfic? Promise yourself at least 10,000 words a month (about 330 words per day). These wide berth, easy-to-reach goals give you those small hits of pride and accomplishment that you will want more of. Simple goals snowball into larger ones, until you find you just ignored your goals altogether and finished early! Results vary from person to person, but that feeling of inching closer to your goal does not.
We all love Warriors, and we all have our limits. Whether you want it to or not, fanfiction cannot dominate your life. But make time for it if you want to do it. Devling too much into it can hurt your academic and social life. Putting if off too long creates habits of ignoring ignoring writing, even if you want to write. Prioritize your time, limit distractions, get comfortable, and set smaller goals. These tips are, perhaps, more important than the ideation tips I gave earlier. This will affect your writing whether yours stems from a good or bad idea. Keep these things in mind if you find yourself constantly failing to scratch your fanfic itch.
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IN CONCLUSION...
This is all a lot of information to take in at once. You might reference this section later on, and I consider it one of the more important ones in this writing guide. Your ideas, your plot and its structure, your real life, and your writing setup can all affect your story. All without ever writing down a single character or clan name. These things cannot be meticulously checked and crossed off some kind of 'writing well' checklist. No way you can make sure you are 100% distraction-free, or can leave several hours every weekend open to just writing. At least, these things are not expected of everyone. Pace yourself. Enjoy your writing.
A good idea does not always equal a good story. But it helps that the only thing you worry about when writing is the words to fill the page.
- Tyto