Erin Hunter reveal: Ten secrets from the Warrior Cats books
EXCLUSIVE from editor Vicky Holmes
BY VICKY HOLMES
Hello! My name is Vicky Holmes, and I am the original Erin Hunter. I created the very first stories and characters, and worked with Kate Cary and Cherith Baldry to write Series One to Four, as well as the Super and Special Editions and the first three books of novellas. Oh, and a series of manga novels, and even a play! Phew. Best times EVER.
I thought you might like to hear about ten surprising secrets from the early days of Warriors, when it was a much smaller enterprise than it is now; to be honest, it felt as if Kate, Cherith and I were having fun with stories about kitties that no one would ever read!
- In the first manuscript, Tigerclaw was called Hammerclaw. The name really suited him, sinister and powerful. At the VERY last minute, days before the book went to print, someone said, “How would a cat know what a hammer is?” We all looked at each other, went YIKES, and I suggested the name Tigerclaw as a kind of desperate substitution. It took a long time for me to stop typing Hammerclaw automatically!
- ThunderClan was originally called StarClan, because that seemed like the nicest name and therefore we wanted to use it for the central Clan. As soon as I started thinking about a religious dimension for the stories, I realised that StarClan was the obvious name for their ancestors twinkling in the sky. ThunderClan felt like a good second choice because the Clan was so close to the thunderpath.
- I really, really wish that cars weren’t called “monsters”. I cannot tell you who came up with this name, but it wasn’t me!
- The original Warriors map is based on an area in southern England called the New Forest (in fact, it is very ancient forest!). I grew up not far from there and it seemed an ideal location for the Clans because it offers a variety of very different environments close together. There is a massive road running through it, stretches of open moor, and dense woodlands. The big difference from the home of the Warriors is that the New Forest is home to its own breed of native pony (called, unsurprisingly, New Forest). Oh, and there isn’t a nearby ridge of jagged rocks with mining tunnels underneath.
- Nowadays, manuscripts are edited electronically, with corrections made via the Review facility in MS Word documents. But back in the early 2000s, manuscripts were printed out on hefty stacks of paper, which I hauled around in a special briefcase. I made all my comments and corrections in purple pen directly onto the pages, then mailed the annotated manuscript back to Kate or Cherith so they could use it to write the second draft. I went through dozens and dozens of purple pens, and insisted on using one specific type – nothing fancy, just a fine-tipped biro in a lovely rich shade. When the supplier said they were going to stop manufacturing this pen, I bought up every available box in a panic. I still have about three boxes left of my precious purple pens, which I use for everything, from shopping lists to writing in cards. Purple pens forever!
- Because the manuscripts were portable, I used to carry them around with me, working whenever I could grab a moment. I have edited Warriors manuscripts on trains, in pubs, on a sun lounger, on tiny café tables. I used to write a quick note on the page telling Kate or Cherith exactly where I was to excuse the state of my handwriting!
- Kate and Cherith are, of course, brilliant writers with a passion and knowledge for cats that makes up for the fact that I actually prefer horses and dogs. However, Cherith has an occasional tendency to use more words than we need, and words are precious when you are limited on how long the book can be. I used to call this “woolly” writing, because it was a bit vague, and I wanted it to be sharper, crisper, snappier. After a while, I stopped writing “please tighten this up, it’s a bit woolly” at the edge of the page, and instead simply drew a little sheep with my purple pen. Cherith instantly knew what it meant, and it became our private joke, so that she would always flick through the manuscript looking for little purple sheep before she started work. Soon I only had to draw a tiny sheep’s head peeking around the edge of the page for her to get the message! We still talk fondly about our little purple sheep, which are sadly impossible in these high-tech days of onscreen editing.
- Titles are HARD. Some, like Into the Wild, are obvious and easy, but others took ages to conjure. Book Two, Fire and Ice, was very difficult, probably because I was in shock that I had to write another book about cats so soon! The hardest of all was Dark River (Power of Three Book Two). I honestly thought it would be published without a title, it took us so long to come up with one. It seems obvious now, of course, but we went through a million ideas first!
- I have absolutely no idea how the cats are related to one another in Series One. We only ever thought we would do six books (actually, I thought it would be ONE when I first started working on Into the Wild!), so it really didn’t matter how the cats in the cast list were connected. I just needed a variety of names, colours and ages to give me material for the stories. I only started thinking about family connections in Series Two, and then everything became a lot more complicated… The reason the other Clans appear to be so much smaller in the first lists of Allegiances is because I only came up with names for the cats that we encountered in the stories. I knew there would be the same number of cats in each Clan, but I wasn’t going to waste time creating characters that I didn’t need!
- The badger called Midnight was not my idea, and in fact I was quite resistant to introducing another species that could speak “cat”. But I was won over when Cherith made Midnight talk like Yoda – “Small warriors you are” – and she became a powerful character that brought great depth to the stories on her rare appearances. I would have loved to do a Super Edition that focussed on Midnight, where she came from, how she knew Rock, the blind cat in the caves, and why she knew so much about the lives of these random cats.
I hope you have enjoyed this peek into Warriors’ past. I have a million happy memories of my time as Erin, and I will never, ever grow tired of hearing you talk about how much you love the stories. Thank you for being the best fans in the world! May StarClan light your path, always.
Vicky
