Warriors Rewrite

[Ten]

A long time back, someone at FoF had the idea of rewriting Into the Wild -- several foffers took interest and decided to revamp it with better descriptions, better characters, and a better plot, all from the perspective of Tigerclaw instead of Rusty. I would like to continue this project, enlisting the help of Starless scribes and any random guests who happen to pop by.

Of couse, if this story is to portray Tigerclaw in a positive light, then some key plot points will need to change. There are also some characters I'd like to present a different take on. The storyline and dialogue will be the same in essence, only tailored to our goal.

STORYBITS TO CHANGE:

the Fire Prophecy -- "Only fire can save the Clan", or whatever it was. In our story, Spottedleaf regrets becoming a medicine cat and spends her off-hours ogling a handsome orange tabby kittypet. Either high on catnip or during a sensual dream, she thinks she's getting a message that a tabby the color of fire will save the Clan, and she passes the message onto Bluestar, a crazy old hag who's obsessed with a delusion that ThunderClan is in need of more cats. So, while out hunting, Bluestar sees Rusty and decides he must join ThunderClan.

Tigerclaw killing Redtail, with Ravenpaw as witness -- If Tigerclaw is our good guy, then he can't kill Redtail, unless there's a strong reason to justify it. Ravenpaw will need a reason to frame Tigerclaw for Redtail's death. Ideas?

Yellowfang -- Bluestar wants her to join the Clan because of the fire-colored kitty prophecy (Yellowfang will be a cream tabby). Tigerclaw thinks she's a ShadowClan spy. Should he be right?

ShadowClan's corruption -- In the original, ShadowClan uses their abundance of healthy kits as a reason for demanding hunting rights in the territories of the other Clans, and they're training apprentices younger than six moons older. Also, I think Brokenstar kills Raggedstar or something like that. Should we keep this?

Barley and the rat attack -- I have something in mind for this.

Tigerclaw's accusation -- In secret, Tigerclaw tells Longtail and Darkstripe that during the journey to the Moonstone, Ravenpaw slipped away from the group long enough to have told ShadowClan that Bluestar would be gone from camp, giving them their chance to attack. Is Ravenpaw really a traitor?


CHARACTERS TO CHANGE:

Tigerclaw -- He fears for the future of ThunderClan; their leader has gone batty, prone to bad judgements (such as letting a kittypet into the Clan), and he wants to take control and restore TC to its former glory because as it is, this Clan is something of a joke to the others. Always trying to get others to see reason, he's an unfriendly tom, prone to sarcasm and barks of annoyance, making him one of the less popular warriors. We'll need a lot of development on him, so please share any ideas you have on beliefs, personality, backstory, etc.

Bluestar -- As explained earlier, she's been in power far too long, paranoid about the Clan having enough warriors and nurturing a tendency to micromanage. Firepaw is her teacher's pet.

Rusty/Firepaw -- I have a couple of ideas for him, stemming from his lack of fear. The first is that he's a sociopath, ditching his Twolegs out of boredom and seeking blood and mayhem. The second is that he's suicidal, but I'm liking the sociopath idea better. Tell me what y'all think.

Ravenpaw -- His characterization will depend on what motivates him to frame Tigerclaw. Since he's Tigerclaw's apprentice, we'll need to know a lot about his personality, too.

Yellowfang -- A lot of folks think of Yellowfang as being an awesome, sassy old lady, and in our rewrite we could make that much more apparent, starting by deleting all her sniveling praise for Firepaw. What should be her reason for leaving ShadowClan? Is she a spy? Any further elaboration on her personality?

Spottedleaf -- For our adaption, she'll be a horny, drugged-up black-and-orange tortoiseshell conducting a secret romance with Firepaw.

Redtail -- We'll make him a ginger tabby instead of a tortie.

Blackfoot -- We'll make him a black cat instead of a white one.

Brokenstar -- He needs a new name.

Raggedstar -- He needs a new name.



I'm working on an outline of the original book, and once we decide on the plot changes, we can begin (re)writing. Please post any ideas you have.

[Draco]

I enjoy this idea. I enjoy this idea a lot.

Maybe Ravenpaw killed Redtail to try to make the clan more fearful? If Ravenpaw was working with Spottedleaf to get Rusty into the clan, throwing the news of a prophecy and the death of her deputy (I believe he was the deputy?) might make her look for more cats to recruit into the clan. Spottedleaf could have also arranged the first meeting of Graypaw and Rusty somehow?

[Ten]

"I enjoy this idea. I enjoy this idea a lot."
--
Excellent.


"Maybe Ravenpaw killed Redtail to try to make the clan more fearful?"
--
I'd thought about Raven killing Red himself, but he'd have to be a very strong and skilled apprentice in order to kill the deputy. Also, if he managed that, I'd expect him to be forthright about his alibi instead of waiting so long to tell Firepaw. It's not like Tigerclaw has any incentive to make anything up to protect him.


"If Ravenpaw was working with Spottedleaf to get Rusty into the clan, throwing the news of a prophecy and the death of her deputy (I believe he was the deputy?) might make her look for more cats to recruit into the clan."
--
We'd need a motive for Ravenpaw to be working with Spottedleaf, then.

Rolo suggested that Ravenpaw is so sensitive, he takes Tigerclaw's constructive criticism as personal attacks and wants to get back at him. He's always muttering spiteful lies about him, and Firepaw hears one of those lies -- that Tigerclaw killed Redtail.


"Spottedleaf could have also arranged the first meeting of Graypaw and Rusty somehow?"
--
Under Spottedleaf's influence, Bluestar would have sent Graypaw on a patrol near Twolegplace.


I've worked a little more on the outline, and turns out I've forgotten about a couple of things: Tigerclaw saying that Ravenpaw had gone off during the journey to the Moonstone so as to tell ShadowClan that Bluestar had left camp, and Tigerclaw sending Ravenpaw out to hunting in ShadowClan territory (although he could have been lying to Firepaw about that).

Should Ravenpaw be a spy for ShadowClan, like Tigerclaw says? Is he mistaken? Or will he not say any of this?

[Axolotl]

Alright, I won't claim to have as much warriors knowledge as any of you here at starless, but I will indeed claim to have a brain that works of its own accord and has been known to produce at least decent suggestions, so let us hope that this time it sees fit to do what it has before.

It has been quite a time since I read the first book, so my sources for thoughts on this mostly come from what you have said combined with facts from the warriors wiki.


Taken from the wiki-
" During a fight with RiverClan, Redtail died at the paws of Tigerclaw, an ambitious ThunderClan warrior who hoped to become the next deputy of ThunderClan. Tigerclaw lied about Redtail's death, telling the rest of ThunderClan that the RiverClan deputy Oakheart had killed Redtail, and that he had killed Oakheart to avenge his fallen clanmate."


What if- and I realize it is a stretch to even suggest this, for personally I think it sounds a bit odd, but I'm suggesting it merely because you /did/ ask off of neo, and because I feel the need to attempt to input something, despite my lack of ideas- Redtail did not die by Tigerclaw, but committed Jauhar (The honorary self immolation of men in order to avoid death, capture, or dishonor at the hands of their enemies) after being beaten in a fight with Oakheart? He considered it in his best interest to die whether than admit he had allowed sunningrocks to be taken, and be looked down upon for such an act, being an honorable cat, and instead chose to take the verification of that fact to his grave?

So therefore, Redtail committed a form of suicide for his own honor, Oakheart thinks he killed the Thunderclan deputy, and Tigerclaw appears at that moment, sees Oakheart over Redclaws body, and fights him. In the bloody battle, the riverclan cat dies, and tigerclaw walks over to Redclaws body and stands over it, mourning, crying, thinking... or perhaps attempts to try and bring the body back to camp, I honestly haven't a clue.

Anywho, ravenpaw shows up at that moment, sees the dead riverclan cat, the dead thunderclan cat, and tigerclaw covered in blood, stooped over the limp form of Redtail. He thinks tigerclaw killed them both, but tigerclaw pleads for him to not spread rumors, as he isn't very popular in the clan, and he doesn't want what little prestige he has dropped to an all time low by such nasty rumors. Ravenpaw agrees to not tell anyone of what he thinks happened in exchange for tigerclaw to make a few little hints toward bluestar about the recruitment of some new cats for spottedleafs benefit- for Ravenpaw is in love with the Thunderclan medicine cat and would do anything for her. He tells tigerclaw to direct the leader toward the place where rusty resides, which the tom does in exchange for Ravenpaws silence. Bluestar takes graypaw with her, they find rusty, and yadda yadda yadda.

Blahblahblah insert more of Ax's odd words here.
Just a thought as to how you could make tigerclaw the anti-bad guy and show ravenpaw in a more sinister light.

Feel free to completely delete this because now that I copied it out of my wordpad, I find myself feeling rather silly.
Don't think any less of me for being a nutter~

- Mr. Ax

[Draco]

We'd need a motive for Ravenpaw to be working with Spottedleaf, then.

~~X

She's his drug dealer and she's raising her prices.
Um... maybe he wants to one day become leader? After all, most kits dream about it -- maybe a dream he wants to make reality? She could make up some nonsense about a vision with a cat that looks like he does leading the clan or something like that.
... I don't know. Dx

[Ten]

Nov 28, 2010 23:38:20 GMT -5 @Axolotl said:

What if- and I realize it is a stretch to even suggest this, for personally I think it sounds a bit odd, but I'm suggesting it merely because you /did/ ask off of neo, and because I feel the need to attempt to input something, despite my lack of ideas- Redtail did not die by Tigerclaw, but committed Jauhar (The honorary self immolation of men in order to avoid death, capture, or dishonor at the hands of their enemies) after being beaten in a fight with Oakheart? He considered it in his best interest to die whether than admit he had allowed sunningrocks to be taken, and be looked down upon for such an act, being an honorable cat, and instead chose to take the verification of that fact to his grave?

hm. This would require a few tweaks, because during the battle for Sunningrocks, it's Redtail telling Tigerclaw to give up and back down because they can't win -- not sounding like the sort who would do this. That's not a big thing to change, but I want us to be careful about how much we do away with, since I want to seem like this is a different perspective on the same book, rather than a whole different story.

Nov 29, 2010 17:02:02 GMT -5 Draco said:

Um... maybe he wants to one day become leader? After all, most kits dream about it -- maybe a dream he wants to make reality? She could make up some nonsense about a vision with a cat that looks like he does leading the clan or something like that.
... I don't know. Dx

It's as viable as him being her spoony.
Although to be honest, the second time I read this book,
Ravenpaw sounded like he had a crush on Firepaw.



UPDATE: I've finished the "outline" of the original book, which has turned out to be not very outline-y, which you will understand if you read it.

One option for collaborative writing on this project is the adobe buzzword program -- make free accounts for that and it should be easy to share the full-text document and edit it together. Before we get to that, though, we need to decide on a definite plotline (with a strong, driving conflict) and convert my outline-y majig into regular narrative format.

[sephri]

Is this still happening? I'd love to be involved.

[Ten]

I still haven't gotten any farther than the faux outline of the original book, but here -- I'll attach it to this post so that y'all can look at it and think about what to change.

Attachments:

[Cloud]

Okay! Here's my blabberings about this, since my interest has been re-fired up about it.

Issues we need to resolve:

-Why Fire came to the Clan in the first place and how
-what Tigerclaw's, Redtail's, and Ravenpaw's motives are
-Why ShadowClan is doing what they are

-unfinished-