Post by Silentstar on Jan 6, 2011 23:08:25 GMT -7
The Warriors world has a few quirks to their writing that goes beyond having its own terminology. And while nobody is required to write in the full Warriors style if they don't want to, it does help one "fit in" better. Therefore the following should help everyone who has never read the books or who wasn't paying close attention when they did.
The word Clan is pretty much always capitalized, even if it's a part of another word, such as StarClan. The only time it wouldn't be if you're referring to groups of cats who live in a group that calls itself a clan but doesn't have the same culture as the warrior Clans, or if you're referring to a group of related cats as a clan for whatever reason. Since this virtually never comes up, remember to capitalize Clan.
Wherever there is dialogue, the "say" verb is never ever used. And nothing is yelled, for that matter. Most often any other possible verb is used to describe the dialogue, but otherwise everything the cats say is either mewed, meowed, hissed, yowled, purred, or growled. Growls are warnings, purrs are for anything said happily, yowls are equivalent to yelling, hisses are for anything said angrilly or fearfully, meows are for anything said strongly, and mews are for anything said quietly, calmly, or by a kit.
Apparently, cats do not laugh. Instead they mrrow with amusement or happiness. Mrrow is always in italics.
Not just in dialogue but in the rest of the text, the words anyone, anybody, someone, somebody, no one, nobody, everyone, and everybody are replaced with any cat, some cat, no cat, and all cats respectively.
Tails are used for gesturing, almost like hands for people. Mouths are pretty much only used instead of tails when something needs to actually be manipulated. Cats point with their tails, indicate that they've heard something with a tail flick, roll their eyes and flick their tail when they are having a teenager moment, use their tails to cover another cat's mouth to shut them up, put a reassuring tail on another cat's shoulder, etc.
Cats don't seem to measure time in years. In fact, the only time they seem to directly keep track of time longer than a few days in length is when they're talking about the age of a kit. Cats older than six moons seem to more or less ignore their age except how it relates to their physical and mental health and maturity - for example, warriors retire due to old age when they feel too old to be doing warrior duties and not at a specific age even though it's around the same age for every cat. Events up to a year in the past or future are generally referred to by the season (as in, last leafbare). How long ago past events even further than that happened is usually explained by some other reference point, such as "it happened when Lionheart was a kit". Things that happened so long ago that there isn't such a reference point are usually referred to as having happened "many seasons ago".
There is no universal animal language in the Warriors series, unlike many animal fictions. Each species seems to have its own language that can't be understood by the others. However, while extremely rare it's not unheard of for a creature of one species to learn the language of another, and kittypets, for example, seem to gain a basic understanding of Twoleg words even though they never learn to talk back.
The word Clan is pretty much always capitalized, even if it's a part of another word, such as StarClan. The only time it wouldn't be if you're referring to groups of cats who live in a group that calls itself a clan but doesn't have the same culture as the warrior Clans, or if you're referring to a group of related cats as a clan for whatever reason. Since this virtually never comes up, remember to capitalize Clan.
Wherever there is dialogue, the "say" verb is never ever used. And nothing is yelled, for that matter. Most often any other possible verb is used to describe the dialogue, but otherwise everything the cats say is either mewed, meowed, hissed, yowled, purred, or growled. Growls are warnings, purrs are for anything said happily, yowls are equivalent to yelling, hisses are for anything said angrilly or fearfully, meows are for anything said strongly, and mews are for anything said quietly, calmly, or by a kit.
Apparently, cats do not laugh. Instead they mrrow with amusement or happiness. Mrrow is always in italics.
Not just in dialogue but in the rest of the text, the words anyone, anybody, someone, somebody, no one, nobody, everyone, and everybody are replaced with any cat, some cat, no cat, and all cats respectively.
Tails are used for gesturing, almost like hands for people. Mouths are pretty much only used instead of tails when something needs to actually be manipulated. Cats point with their tails, indicate that they've heard something with a tail flick, roll their eyes and flick their tail when they are having a teenager moment, use their tails to cover another cat's mouth to shut them up, put a reassuring tail on another cat's shoulder, etc.
Cats don't seem to measure time in years. In fact, the only time they seem to directly keep track of time longer than a few days in length is when they're talking about the age of a kit. Cats older than six moons seem to more or less ignore their age except how it relates to their physical and mental health and maturity - for example, warriors retire due to old age when they feel too old to be doing warrior duties and not at a specific age even though it's around the same age for every cat. Events up to a year in the past or future are generally referred to by the season (as in, last leafbare). How long ago past events even further than that happened is usually explained by some other reference point, such as "it happened when Lionheart was a kit". Things that happened so long ago that there isn't such a reference point are usually referred to as having happened "many seasons ago".
There is no universal animal language in the Warriors series, unlike many animal fictions. Each species seems to have its own language that can't be understood by the others. However, while extremely rare it's not unheard of for a creature of one species to learn the language of another, and kittypets, for example, seem to gain a basic understanding of Twoleg words even though they never learn to talk back.