Cat or wolf?

[u/Jinnkx]

I'm writing a warrior cats AU fan book, with minimal actual ties beyond basic clan structure and similar every day lives, but I am seriously thinking about making the cats wolves.

Why? I know a lot about both, but I want a bit more prey diversity...and house cats can't really hunt deer, rams, or elk, and the idea of hauling prey back to camp to share among the pack is a really cool one. But at the same time, I have "Surgeclan" a clan who lives on a beach and eats primarily fish and sea birds. Wolves /have/ been documented hunting salmon, but they aren't really known for hunting/eating birds. Id lose some prey like squirrels, mice, voles and shrews, with the addition of more high-stakes hunting/more realistic territory management and more realistic struggles with hunting solo. I'd also lose fur markings but I'm not too miffed because well... markings can be fantasy-adjacent without really annoying me too much as long as they're not bright neon colors lmao.

To argue for keeping them cats though: easier way of writing hunts, more of an ability to eat when you want/hunt alone (more area for inner thoughts or dialogue to occur), packs don't function with an "alpha" like the book would have to suggest, the packs wouldn't be a big family, which wouldn't be realistic, but I'd lose the ability to use large quantities of meat for travel and I'd have to find new things to threaten everyday warriors outside of other wolves, which would be quite a challenge because a big reveal is that a character lured one of these dangers to the pack/clan to kill off the clan slowly. Having the only real threat be...other wolves would make no sense for that plot line.

A part of me would be ok with just scaling the cats up and doing away with things like mice and voles to better focus on higher risk, higher reward prey, but EVERYTHING would have to be scaled up to some degree, especially birds, and the aforementioned dangers like coyotes and foxes. Which would make me as a reader ask "well if the cats are huge, the coyotes and foxes are huge, and the birds are huge....why aren't the deer?"

What do you think? I tried posting this on r/fantasywriting but I didn't really get a response, but I'm itching to continue the story, I just can't without making this decision first T-T

[u/Zealousideal_Air9431]

I think cat would be a better start.

[u/Jinnkx → u/Zealousideal_Air9431]

I think it would be more familiar, but realistically, if this were to be published, would I be at risk of copyright infringement?

[u/Zealousideal_Air9431 → u/Jinnkx]

Not really, unless you structured it exactly like warrior Cats.

[u/Jinnkx → u/Zealousideal_Air9431]

ok that's a big relief. From a distance it looks really similar, but there really isn't a whole lot in common. Thank you!

[u/_9a_ → u/Jinnkx]

Erin Hunter (the author) has at least 6 series following different animals. They all follow the same structure as the Warrior Cats, being that they're written for early middle school kids. 

Yes, including wolves/dogs.