Vicky Holmes, AKA the "OG Erin Hunter," shares a look back at the creation of the beloved series and the lore behind some of "Warriors" most iconic moments.

I’m a pop-culture writer covering everything from TV and movies, to music, Broadway, books, and games.

I recently spotted a Warriors book on my shelf and had a strong urge to pick it up and flip through the pages. That turned into reading the pages, and I quickly remembered just how good the series is. I think I enjoyed it even more as a full-grown adult than as a middle schooler.

The world-building, the lore, the battles, the betrayals, and the character development are all masterfully done — and now, whenever I walk past the woods by my house, I stop and think, "Is there some secret battle for territory going on at this very moment?"

To learn more about the books that sparked millions of kids' love of reading, I reached out to the Warriors team with some burning questions. Thank you to Vicky Holmes for taking the time to chat!

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Vicky: I am Vicky Holmes, the OG of the Erins, which means I am responsible for the world, the original characters, and the first four series (as well as all the extra-series books written during that time, including Super Editions, Special Editions, manga, and novellas).

Vicky: The location of the first series is indeed based on a real place: the New Forest in the county of Hampshire in the south of England. I grew up not far away, and it’s a magical place with a very varied landscape inside its bounds. There is dense ancient woodland, areas of cultivated pine trees, vast open heathland, and willow-shaded winding rivers. 

I’ll be honest: I wasn’t inspired BY the New Forest. Instead, once I had come up with the idea of four Clans living in different locations, but close together, I realised that the New Forest fitted the bill. 

The maps in Series One are based VERY loosely on the forest, but you couldn’t possibly turn up there and use the books to find your way around! (And to the best of my knowledge, there are no feral cats living there — just wild native ponies, deer, foxes, and pigs!)

Vicky: That’s right, I was originally asked to work on a single book, and at the end of that storyline, Firestar became the leader of ThunderClan. When my editor at HarperCollins, the American publisher, read the storyline, she said it felt like we could expand this into six books. I remember sitting in that meeting thinking, "Eek! There is no way I can come up with six books about cats!" 

I used that first storyline as the overarching plot thread for the individual books. I had a plan that each book would be its own more or less independent adventure, as well as contributing to the overall story of Firestar ascending through the ranks. 

That’s how I approached the rest of the series: six-book story arc first. This way, I knew where Book One would begin, where Book Six would finish, and then individual storylines.

Vicky: HarperCollins chose that number for Series One, but Series Two was initially only going to be THREE books! We all thought that would be the end, so I came up with a classic "relocation under pressure" storyline, as told so perfectly in Watership Down — where the rabbits have to find a new home because their original warren is destroyed by humans. 

The books Midnight, Moonrise, and Dawn came to me quite easily as a trilogy. The cats learn of the imminent journey in Book One, travel in Book Two, and find their new home in Book Three. 

However, the first series sold so well that HarperCollins understandably changed its mind and requested six books for the second series. This meant that I had to come up with three additional stories set in the Clans’ new home, AND I had to create a new map! 

The lake and the mountains where the Tribe of Rushing Water lives are products purely of my imagination, created to serve the stories I wanted to tell.

Vicky: I am 100% a planner! I don’t write the first line until I know exactly what will happen in each scene, what the characters will do, say, and feel, and where the story will be on the very last page. 

Of course, the way that I work is based entirely on my enthusiasm for a hyper-detailed storyline. I didn’t write any of the main series books myself. I had my brilliant co-authors, Kate Cary and Cherith Baldry, to transform my storylines — which were about 30,000 words long, half the length of the finished book — into glorious first drafts. 

Kate and Cherith took it in turns to write the books. They would send their manuscripts back to me for editing and tweaking in order to make them sound perfectly "Erin," and to tell the story that I had in my imagination at the very beginning.

Even for the books that I wrote on my own — the Special Editions and several of the novellas — I always started with a detailed synopsis. I don’t like surprises!

Vicky: No, I was always comfortable with the mythology and spiritual traditions we created at the start of the series. I knew that I wanted my cats to have some kind of religious beliefs that chimed with their natural environment. From that, it was an easy step to imagine them looking up at the stars and seeing the glittering eyes of their ancestors. 

I loved having StarClan to send dead cats to, because it meant I could keep my favorite characters in the stories! I also liked that the Clan cats had some inkling about exotic felines such as lions, tigers, and leopards, but that they viewed them as we see unicorns and dragons: they probably didn’t exist, except in exciting stories!

Vicky: We were deliberately Shakespearean, right from the start! I drew heavily on his work for archetypal villains, thwarted lovers, self-doubting heroes and valiant companions. My inspirations were not just from high culture: there are moments that I lifted straight from Avengers, the first Gladiator movie, and even Rambo! 

We always knew that Firestar needed an archenemy, one who would never accept him as a Clan cat because of his "kittypet" origins. Once I came up with the idea of Bluestar becoming a weak leader due to dementia and age-related deterioration, Tigerstar’s machinations suddenly grew in scope.

Then I realised that to a struggling Clan, Tigerstar might be everything they dreamed of in a leader — so I dangled him in front of ShadowClan in their time of need, and they took the bait.

However, when it came to the final showdown, I wanted to thwart the readers’ expectations. They had spent the last six books waiting for Firestar to take on Tigerstar in an ultimate battle. What if I put Tigerstar into battle with a different enemy, and left Firestar in the position of being horrified and saddened by his death? 

At the point when Tigerstar dies, Firestar doesn’t feel any sense of triumph or justification. Instead he and the readers think, "Oh no! One of our greatest warriors has fallen! Can we defeat this terrible enemy without him?"

Vicky: Tigerstar’s death is pretty gruesome because I had to figure out a way for him to lose all nine lives at once. He hadn’t been leader long enough to lose any before the showdown with Scourge — but I knew I wanted this to be his absolute end. 

Rather shockingly (considering that I am a peace-loving, animal-crazy vegetarian), I decided that Scourge would have to rupture seven major organs, each of which would have ended one of Tigerstar’s lives. It is by far the most violent of any of the death scenes in Warriors, and not one I would repeat. 

The brilliance of the scenes is entirely down to Kate and Cherith. They never shied away from my suggestions of gore and tragedy! Their writing always made me wince and want to look away, which I figured would make for a gripping reading experience. 

The books were originally aimed at the upper end of middle grade, readers aged 10 and over. We have much younger readers now, and sometimes I do think, "Gosh, I hope these stories aren’t too much for you!" But we live in a pretty cruel world, and I feel it is the responsibility of any children’s author to take their audience gently by the hand and introduce them to all kinds of experiences, positive and negative, in the safe space offered by an open book. 

I will always try to present an element of hope at the end of the saddest stories. Occasionally my editors did push back when I got a bit too cheerful with my literary culling! I recall one storyline was returned to me with the comment that it was "relentlessly gloomy," which made me laugh.

Vicky: It is much easier to kill off a character when you know they will be popping up in StarClan (or the Dark Forest)! There are two cats that I was particularly sad to write their demise, though. 

Feathertail in Series Two was a tragic loss. She died so bravely, giving her life to save the Tribe of Rushing Water from Sharptooth. But she had so much to live for. Cranky, awkward Crowpaw was falling in love with her and becoming a true Clan warrior thanks to Feathertail’s gentle influence. She travelled so far, yet never reached the lake or saw the place where her Clanmates would find a safe new home. She was fun to write, and I would have loved to see her have kits. Poor Feathertail. 

The other cat I mourned for was Cinderpelt. StarClan told her of her coming death in a Series Three scene that always felt both cruel and heartbreaking to me. Cinderpelt had to watch her apprentice, Leafpool, get distracted by a forbidden relationship with Crowfeather, all while knowing that she would soon die and potentially leave ThunderClan without any medicine cats. The badger attack was thrilling, but I did feel very sad when Cinderpelt had to say goodbye to her beloved Clan.

Vicky: So many, but my pride always includes immense gratitude to Kate and Cherith, and their astonishingly fabulous writing that brought my ideas to life. There are many moments that I treasure in Warriors — for example, Silverstream’s death giving birth to Graystripe’s kits. It was just so shocking that I could include that in a book for children, knowing my readers would accept it and understand the vastness of what this meant for both Clans. 

Some others are Midnight the badger, because she had infinite untapped knowledge that I never needed to explain, spoke like Yoda, and made me smile. Ravenpaw, the cat who is most like me, because I could never live in a Clan and follow other people’s rules all the time. He spends a blissful life with his beloved Barley, but reveals at the very end that he had always, in his heart, been a warrior.

But above all these is the tiny scene which sparked the whole of the third series and all the associated storylines: the moment when Squirrelflight is trapped on top of a cliff by Ashfur in the midst of the burning forest. Ashfur wants to destroy Squirrelflight by killing her children — Jayfeather, Hollyleaf, and Lionblaze, who are cowering beside her.

To save their lives, Squirrelflight has to convince Ashfur that their deaths won’t matter to her — because they are not her children. I have raised a child that isn’t biologically mine, and I love them as fiercely as any mother, so I knew how Squirrelflight would feel. She might as well have ripped out her own heart and sent it plummeting into the flames.

By revealing the truth, she thwarted Ashfur’s murderous plan, but she also broke the hearts of the cats who believed she was their mother, jeopardised her relationship with Bramblestar, and shattered the trust of her Clanmates. Wow. ALL the feels.

Vicky: I stepped away from creating the books after Series Four. I left the stories in the very capable hands of a much larger team of editors and writers who have taken my ideas and flown with them far higher than I could have managed! It is utterly astonishing that the books have found their way into the hearts of readers all over the world, and there is still demand for more. 

This January was the 23rd anniversary of the publication of Into the Wild, yet it is still one of the bestselling titles, especially since the launch of the graphic version of Series One last year. I am humbled, and thrilled, and moved beyond words to see my cats thriving with new creators and new generations of readers. 

It is quite surreal to see the Warriors merchandise appearing in stores, but wonderful to know that the series is expanding beyond books to toys, online games, and beyond. 

I never in a million years dreamed that I would have the chance to work on a series with this much scope — and it’s all the most astonishing because (sssshhhh) my true animal passion is for horses!

Vicky: Thank you! Everything that matters to me is inside the stories that I created, so every one was written with heart.

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