On My Own | A Guide to Writing Warriors Fanfiction

Spelling, Syntax & Structure

If you read no other section of this guide fully, let this be the one you go through thoroughly. No skimming here, only in-depth, between-the-lines, fully-concentrated reading. I'm dead serious.

Alright, maybe not that serious, but I will be addressing mistakes I see much too often in Warriors fanfictions in this chapter. It is my hope that we can educate all writers and, one day, eradicate all of these mistakes.

One of the most important things you can do to keep your readers following your story is give them proper grammar, correct spelling and nice white space between paragraphs. Misspellings can be incredibly distracting to readers, especially if the word is constantly misspelt and spellcheck (or a dictionary) could have clearly fixed the problem. And don't even get me started on novels that have a giant blob of text with no paragraph spacing...

I, like a lot of us, once started off that way too. But, with an investment in a dictionary and thesaurus, as well as countless hours spent researching punctuation, I have come a long way. Another great way to learn how to write properly is by doing that other thing we love doing best: reading! Yes, that's right, even reading a book and taking care to look at how sentences are formulated or how punctuation is used can help you write. There have been times where I didn't read for quite a bit and my writing suffered as a result, so do yourself a favour and sit down and read for at least 20 minutes a night to help keep up your writing skills.

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Let's start this part off with... Spelling!

The three words I see misspelt most often are 'prologue', 'rogue', and 'allegiances'. I understand that sounding out prologue and rogue is rather tough, but dictionaries (and spellcheck) exist for a reason - not to mention the original Warriors books! All it takes is a moment of your time to notice that the 'u' and the 'g' are reversed, and only a second more to fix it. 'Prologue' looks much better than 'prolouge', and I bet a whole bunch of readers will think so too. Same goes for 'rouge' (which is either a colouring powder for your lips and cheeks, the word 'red' in French, or the name of a high-end restaurant). Allegiances is also tough, but every Warriors book has it. Crack one open and check your spelling before posting!

The next word misuse I have a problem with is 'your' and 'you're'. 'Your' is a possessive adjective and is often followed by a noun - the use of 'your' signifies someone's ownership over something. In Warriors, someone might say:

"these are your herbs", or
"can I share your prey?", or
"your tail is on fire!".

'You're', however, is a contraction, which means it is actually two words condensed into one - 'you' and 'are'. This is often followed by a present participle (or, more simply, a verb ending in -ing). So, you might say

"you're running away", or
"you're not going to get away with this!", or
"you're sleeping again?".

The simplest way to figure out which you should use is first figure out whether the word that comes after is a noun or a verb. If that poses a problem for you, just try saying the sentence out loud, saying 'you are' in place of 'you're'. If 'you are' doesn't work, then the correct word to use is 'your'.

Another common mistake is 'their', 'there' and 'they're'. Like with 'your' and 'you're', 'their' and 'they're' follow the same rule: 'their' signifies possession of a group of others, while 'they're' breaks into 'they are' and is usually followed by a verb. 'There' likes to follow it's own rule and describes a place in the setting.

"Where are you headed?"
"There."

Simple as that.

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