One important element of a good Warriors story is the prophecy: a message sent from StarClan to the living Clans, meant to help them avoid danger, find the solution to a problem, or understand what will happen to them in the future. On the story team (and, admittedly, this idea may have crept into the books), it’s become a bit of a running joke that StarClan’s messages usually raise more questions than they answer. Each prophecy is  a  puzzle given to the living cats to figure out. Some of the cats take this challenge more gamely than others. Certain cats—especially those who feel a sense of urgency about their problem—get frustrated, wondering why StarClan won’t just tell them what to do. In The Apprentice’s Quest, Jayfeather reacts to Firestar’s prophecy about embracing what’s found in the shadows with, “What does that mean? If you try really hard, do you think you could be a bit more obscure?” And in the upcoming Super Edition Graystripe’s Vow, Graystripe—acting as temporary leader while Firestar goes off on the quest to find SkyClan—and Cinderpelt go to the Moonstone to get advice from StarClan about a problem ThunderClan is facing. When the advice that comes back is less than clear, Graystripe is disappointed. He’s left wondering how Firestar deals with this sort of advice—is there some sort of trick to understanding it that he’s missing?

Some prophecies (“Fire alone can save our Clan”) seem pretty straightforward—at least to readers. But others (“There will be three, kin of your kin, who hold the power of the stars in their paws”) take much longer to figure out. There are prophecies (“Only the Blazing Star can blunt the claw”) that are resolved over the course of one novel. But often, it takes several books for the events alluded to by the prophecy to take place. And sometimes, as in Vision of Shadows or The Broken Code, the main characters are just kits or apprentices when the prophecy is revealed. It takes moons for the characters to gain the wisdom, confidence and knowledge about the Clans to understand what the prophecy really means, and what their role in it might be.

Putting together a good prophecy takes a lot of thought and discussion amongst the story team. And even then, readers would probably be surprised by how often the prophecies change between drafts, based on input from our editors and writers. In the Vision of Shadows arc, Firestar sends a prophecy to the medicine cats early on. But it took several drafts, and much discussion, to arrive at the final wording. Originally, Firestar was going to tell the medicine cats, “Only the cat who finds what is lost can prosper.” We wanted something that could be misinterpreted as referring to the lost kits found toward the end of Book 1—but actually referred to SkyClan, and the need to find them and settle them by the lake. But as the story went on, it felt awkward that this led Alderpaw and Needlepaw, the apprentices who are sent on The Apprentice’s Quest, to constantly debate about what “the lost thing” might be. Was it in SkyClan? Were Twigkit and Violetkit “the lost thing”? “The lost thing” just didn’t sound right—it lacked the heft and mysticism of the previous Warriors prophecies. And so, in a late draft, we finally arrived at the final prophecy: “Embrace what you find in the shadows, for only they can clear the sky.

One challenge in coming up with the perfect prophecy is timing. While the story team always has a rough idea of where an arc is going, and how it will be resolved, we break down one book at a time—meaning that as we’re plotting Book 1 of an arc, we may have no idea what will be going on with the characters in Book 6. And it isn’t uncommon for a planned ending to change as a result of what happens midway through the arc—maybe a character changes, or isn’t as connected to the action, or (sob!) dies. But somehow, the prophecy given in Book 1 must still be fulfilled. The perfect prophecy can adapt and change with the story, so that the final chapters feel surprising, and yet inevitable.

What are some of your favorite prophecies of the series? And what elements do you think make up the perfect Warriors prophecy?