Filling in the blanks: an insight into the creative process on Ivypool’s Heart
BY THE STORY TEAM
A series with as long a history, and as deep a mythology, as Warriors presents both exciting (sometimes intimidating) opportunities and unique (sometimes intimidating) challenges for a creative team. It’s exciting because, two decades in, there is an abundance of material on which to build, and so much mythology with which to play. But the challenges are unique in that because so much of said mythology is very well-established, it is not always easy to pull things together into a satisfying narrative arc without stepping outside the boundaries we’ve created. It is also occasionally very difficult to find enough gaps in the established fictional timeline within which we can tell a new story that doesn’t cause continuity problems, or simply break canon. Hence, it can be intimidating when one of the team proposes crafting a story set within the “long ago” timelines.
Thankfully, the Story Team have experience with this challenge, having fully come on board as contributors for the fifth cycle of books, Dawn of the Clans—the 6-book arc that tracks the original formation of the Clans. We knew there were key characters that had been alluded to across the previous four arcs and six super editions and numerous field guides that we had to consider “set in stone.” One of the “unique challenges” presented by Dawn was that we had to figure out how to craft a compelling and exciting six-book arc when the majority of the readers know what has to happen by the end of Book #6. We made the decision to focus on doing deep dives into the core characters’ personalities and thoroughly exploring their relationships. That really opened up new ways to engage the Warriors readers, even with the constraints placed upon us by the demands of a “prequel” series.
At every stage, we tried to keep in mind that—as in real life—the sweeping histories that inform the present-day characters and scenarios were not “histories” at the time. They were events that occurred within the day-to-day lives of a group of seemingly ordinary cats who were unaware that their actions would go on to form the foundation of a belief system held dear by subsequent generations. Once we had reminded ourselves of this, brainstorming the stories for Dawn of the Clans became a lot easier, because we knew our end goal from the very beginning and trusted that even expected moments, like the forming of the first Clans or Gray Wing dying*, would feel even more monumental. The most exciting part was knowing that the trials and tribulations, conflicts and resolutions, playing out across the arc would echo and reverberate many years later.
With the publication of Dawn of the Clans, as well as other titles such as the super edition, Moth Flight’s Vision, plus the novellas Thunderstar’s Echo and Shadowstar’s Life, the Warriors books have covered much of what we might term the Clans’ “origins era.” The creative team has always been aware that there are a number of years, a number of generations, that have not yet been explored. While readers have expressed interest in knowing more about those unexplored years, and we agreed that such stories would be very exciting, we also knew the challenge would be in getting readers to invest emotionally in characters they’ve never heard of.
One of the advantages of Dawn of the Clans was that it allowed us to give life and voice to characters that had either been seen in StarClan, alluded to in expository dialogue in previous books, or appeared in our field guides. Any new characters around whom we tried to center a story wouldn’t have that advantage. We are also keenly aware that, arguably, one of the series’ most appealing qualities is the fact that readers often like to fill in the gaps in the mythology with their own invented characters and stories. This series is not just the Story Team’s “sandbox”—readers are encouraged to invest their time and imagination to make the Warriors world that much richer. Therefore, we know that it’s a big responsibility to dive into the series’ history and establish something as canon.
But sometimes, an idea arises that is just too exciting, and this was definitely the case when we began brainstorming Ivypool’s Heart in the early months of 2023. As discussed in Stephanie’s article last month, one of our drives in developing the storyline for this super edition was the chance to explore the emotional ripple effects that would have naturally followed the conclusion of A Light in the Mist. While the series has moved on with the A Starless Clan arc, we knew that Rootspring and Ivypool would grieve Bristlefrost’s death for a long time, especially as she died in a manner that meant she couldn’t go to StarClan. We also knew that, within the timeline, the Clans were dealing with some rather serious and important problems, which would likely not allow much time or space for Rootspring and Ivypool to process their grief. So, very quickly, we realized that something would need to take those characters away from the Clans.
They needed to be given some kind of quest that was important enough that they would leave during the events of A Starless Clan, while also involving travel across a long enough distance to provide opportunities for quiet moments, during which they could reflect, grieve, commiserate, comfort each other and, hopefully, heal. Since all five Clans are directly affected by the goings-on across the eighth arc, the problem could not be big enough to pull away leaders—and yet, it needed to feel like a big enough problem to sustain a whole super edition. (Bit of a conundrum, let us tell you!)
What could feel crucial, and yet—at the same time—speculative? What would Clan leaders think needed looking into by senior warriors, but not leaders themselves? After a few hours’ spirited brainstorming, the team’s thoughts began coalescing around the idea that the prophecy—for it is always a prophecy!—would have to allude to events and a mystery beyond the living cats’ memories, and it would have to pose a question that no living Clan cat could answer. But what of StarClan? we asked ourselves. Why wouldn’t StarClan offer an explanation, even if it was one of the vague and cryptic variety that leave our living cats puzzled for several books before they figure it out? From this question, came another, more exciting question…
What if it’s something that StarClan has forgotten? While we’d assume that the spirit cats we’ve seen on occasion should know everything that happened between their era and the day that a cat named Rusty arrived in the forest, what if there were events that occurred—major, Clan-shattering events—within those years that had somehow faded from their memories? What could that possibly have been? It was at this point in the original brainstorms that one of the what-would-happen-if? ideas that I’d had some years ago came back to me.
During one of the team’s more freeform early brainstorm sessions for the novella that would become Shadowstar’s Life, I had an idle thought about all the things that could have happened in the “lost years” after Dawn of the Clans: What if ThunderClan and WindClan had to be allies against some great threat? And what if they called themselves “StormClan”!?
I don’t mind admitting, I got super-excited by this notion, and whenever it was time to begin plotting a new super edition, I would think about suggesting StormClan as a starting point. But, as mentioned earlier, I was rather hesitant to suggest it too forcefully, because we’d be taking the series into an unexplored era, and there was no way of knowing for sure that we’d create the kinds of characters and stories our readers would come to love as much as they love the cats they already know. But here, finally, was a storyline that naturally presented an opportunity to introduce StormClan into the mythology! I suggested it during an early Ivypool meeting, the rest of the team agreed it was an exciting direction to explore, and we began discussing all the reasons that two of our original five Clans might merge into one. The instinctive answer was that there was a threat—possibly one or more of the other Clans, or possibly rogues who threatened ThunderClan and WindClan to such a degree that they formed an alliance to protect themselves. We were confident that we could construct a compelling Warriors story around this kind of setup, but we continued to ask ourselves, was there another set of circumstances that could bring two Clans together? Something a little more unexpected?
What would happen if the leader of ThunderClan and the leader of WindClan fell in love? And what if the besotted pair eschewed tradition and convention, and defied StarClan and the warrior code, by merging their two Clans so that they could be together?
The team knew very well that we were setting ourselves a most daunting task, but it was one that we were happy to take on. Imagining the repercussions of two leaders falling in love and declaring themselves a new, super Clan opened up so much potential for conflict, so many possible storylines. Every time we came up against a puzzling development that had us asking, “But how could this have happened?” we enjoyed grappling with the question, rather than feeling overwhelmed by the difficulty of finding the answer. We became more and more convinced that we had the makings of a super edition that we would be excited to develop, and that readers would be excited to read. Each answer we came up with led us to create characters and scenarios that we were eager to flesh out—it’s always a good sign when we’re having so much fun that we can’t wait for the next brainstorm to come around.
Once we had figured out broad answers to the questions that we had been asking, we returned enthusiastically to the beginning of the story, in the present day, and sketched the beats that would kick everything off: Whistlepaw, the young medicine cat apprentice, receiving a perplexing vision, containing the curious symbol that she draws in the dirt during an emergency gathering. We had a strong feeling that Warriors readers would be as intrigued by this as we were and would be anxious to learn some new information about what happened to the Clans during a lost, forgotten era. And in Galestar and Stripestar, our two star(Clan?)-crossed lovers, we felt we had the beginnings of a pairing that readers would find endearing, even in the short snippets in which we see them across the main Ivypool plot, and a backdrop to their love story that felt rich and vivid.
And now that we have spent significant time in [StormClan's] era of the series’ history, we hope it will not feel strange if we revisit it in the near future…
This many years, this many books, into the series, it is always a thrill to find new stories and characters to explore. We’re so happy that Ivypool’s Heart is finally published and that readers get to see what had us so excited more than eighteen months ago. We’re delighted to introduce a new era into Warriors and to continue to build on the history and mythology of the series. And now that we have spent significant time in their era of the series’ history, we hope it will not feel strange if we revisit it in the near future…. Was that a hint?
Maybe…
[*A “fun” (?) piece of Warriors trivia is that, as far as any of the team can remember, no cat got more stays of execution than Gray Wing. While his story concludes in Book #6 of the fifth arc, he was marked for death many times during story lining—the earliest outlines for The Sun Trail ended with his death, and there were many, many discussions across the middle books of the series in which we asked ourselves the question, “Should this be the moment?”]
