All-Star Hawaii author notes

All-Star Hawaii Author Notes - Episode 7 (Welcome to Shark Beach)

I don’t have a lot to say about this episode because, for the most part, it is pretty straight-forward. Ahi and Keko merge. Ahi has a 6-4 advantage. And Ahi picks off the most athletic Keko. End of story. It’s pretty much like every other merge episode in the history of the show: completely predictable.

Of course… that being said, there were a few interesting things in this episode that you might not have noticed.

And I'll try to keep these short, so I can start episode 8.

1. Boston Rob’s interview at the beginning

Of course this was an homage to one of my favorite scenes in Survivor history, Rob’s “Rotu Trashing Confessional ” that happened right after the twist in Marquesas. Even though a lot of stick-up-their-butt types took offense to Rob’s humor back in 2002, I thought it was great. It was so refreshing to see a player just sit there and make fun of everybody else in the game. Seriously, Rob didn’t care. He just wanted to sit there and be the comedian. He had absolutely no concern about how the players were going to react when they saw it on TV, nor did he care that he was crossing some sort of line he probably shouldn’t cross. Rob knew he’s get a laugh if he said that the General had a little dick, so he said it. And I’ve always appreciated the spirit behind that particular interview.

So anyway, of course I was going to have an homage during Hawaii, and here it is. This time Rob accuses Alicia of having an extra chromosome. Classic Rob.

I imagine that if Boston Rob ever reads All-Star Hawaii, he will probably enjoy it.

2. Rob as a strategist

One of the flaws in my original story was that I made Rob too much of a buffoon. I don’t know why I did it, but for some reason he was like a cartoon character. He was like Yosemite Sam. He’d walk around spouting orders, and people would just laugh at him. In particular, Tina and Frank would just openly mock him to his face, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

Why was Rob such an ineffective little dork in the original story? Well it was probably because he was my favorite player. You see, coming off the fantastic season that was Marquesas, I was really high on my new favorite character, Rob. I thought he was awesome. Up to that point, I thought he was the funniest and most entertaining player that Survivor had ever seen.

But the problem was that EVERYBODY knew that.

See, if I had a favorite player back then, I would inevitably write about them in my Survivor-Central column. I would go on and on every week about how much I loved Tina, or how funny Rob was, etc. So if I had a favorite, inevitably they’d be scrutinized when I included them in one of my stories.

Literally, the minute I posted the cast list for Hawaii (in March of 2002) the first response I got from most people was “Well obviously Rob or Tina are gonna win, because they’re your favorites.” It was so well known that I loved Rob and Tina that I had this huge handicap working against me. Because not only could I NOT have Rob or Tina win, I had to sort of go out of my way to downgrade both of their characters, just to show there was no favoritism. I had to make them sort of ineffective players for most of the story, or else people would accuse me of stacking the game.

So anyway if you’re wondering why Rob seems like such a better player this time around, there’s a reason for that. The reason is that I don’t like Rob as much as I used to (I hated him in All-Stars), and I also don’t have so much scrutiny around me, where people will accuse me of “stacking the game.” This time around, Rob’s a bad-ass. This time, he’s a lot more powerful and ominous.

This time, if Tina dared to laugh at him, she’d be gone in ten minutes.

P.S. Of course, making Rob more powerful in the rewrite now opens me up to criticism of “Well now you’re just ripping off the real All-Stars.” But I don’t think that I am. I think that Rob’s control over this tribe, as well as his actions, have been very consistent from the very early days of this story. I don’t think I’ve really gone out of my way to drive the story in a certain direction at all, I think that this is just pretty much how Rob would have played it. And if that happens to be close to what happened in the real All-Stars, then so be it. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m cheating.

3. Tina and Colleen

All the stuff about Tina being seduced by the idea that “Colleen is still America’s Sweetheart” came from one of the biggest fans of this story, a guy over at Survivor Sucks named Colleenlover. A few episodes ago, he threw out the idea that Tina and Colleen HAVE to be together because it’s what the fans would expect. He said that they would be thinking in bigger terms than just the game because that’s what they do. They have to be seen as the good guys because that’s the image they’ve created.

So anyway, if you’re wondering why all that stuff is in the episode about “Tina would have to give Colleen a chance”, that’s why. Tina knows how bad it would look if she DOESN’T trust Colleen, and it’s sort of hindering her judgment. And I love it. It actually gives Tina a three-dimensional Achilles Heel that she wasn’t expecting.

4. Alicia needles people

One of the problems in writing a character like Alicia is that you have to try extra hard to give her a “hook.” After all, nearly every other player in the game has multi-faceted dimensions and emotions, but with Alicia if you aren’t careful, you will just end up writing her just like she was shown in Australia. If you get lazy, she’ll turn into a bitch.

Even though Alicia WAS shown as being pig-headed and having a temper in Australia, I’ve never thought that she was necessarily like that in real life. I mean, sure, she was probably like that some of the time. But there’s no way she could have been like that every day. If Alicia had been a short fuse waiting to blow each and every day of every episode, the Kuchas would have gotten rid of her. There’s no way a player that tightly wound could have ever survived.

So when I sat down to write Alicia, I had to sort of think outside the box. Why is it that people keep her around? What is the key factor to her personality that makes people like her?

And the conclusion I came to is that she has to be funny.

Even though I don’t personally know Alicia, and even though I’ve never seen this written in interviews, I sort of came to the conclusion that she has to have a wicked sense of humor. I mean how could she NOT have a wicked sense of humor. Her comrade-in-arms was Jeff Varner! There was no way she could NOT have a snarky, mean-spirited dark sense of humor and hang out with Varner. If she hadn’t, then Jeff would have torn her apart.

Once I came to that conclusion, once I figured out that Alicia was probably funny, it made it a lot easier to write her character. Because now I had a whole other side to her. Now she didn’t just have to be the raving bitch who you didn’t want to make mad. Now she could be the comic assassin. She could be the one who would needle you if she found an embarrassing flaw in your character. And that’s why I have so many scenes where she’s good-naturedly needling her teammates.

Remember all the scenes where the Kekos were making fun of Colby’s relationship with Tina? Well that was Alicia. Once she found out that Colby was embarrassed by the teasing, she was merciless. She never let up. And the same thing happened in this episode (ep7) with Kathy. The minute Alicia started in on the “Kathy has the hots for Rob!” jokes, it was over. Even though I didn’t spell it out, you can assume those jokes were going to continue for the rest of the game. Because Alicia gets a kick out of needling you. See below:

"Come on," Kathy rolled her eyes one last time. She laughed, but she was also blushing. And she thanked God almighty that Alicia hadn't noticed.

So anyway, if you’re looking of a good example of how I took a character from the show and tried to give them an extra dimension, Alicia is a perfect candidate. I desperately wanted to give her a side other than “rage and fury”, and I found one thanks to the relationship she had with Jeff Varner. Any friend of Varner’s would be a comic sadist, they would just have to be. That’s just how Jeff talks. So I just took that side, and added it to Alicia, and voila, now she’s a multi-dimensional character.

5. Gretchen and John - The Butterfly Effect

Remember way back at the start of the story, when I said that one of my top priorities was avoiding any sort of "Butterfly Effect?" Remember how I said I didn't want to change too many early events, for fear there would be a chain reaction down the road and it would mess up the story?

Well unfortunately that sort of happened to me in episode seven.

I got screwed by one of the changes I made to an earlier episode.

Remember the big scene a few episodes ago, where there was a fake twist and Colleen/Rob/John/Gretchen met up and had a little feast? Well in the original version of Hawaii John wasn't a part of that scene. Lex was there instead of John. But in the rewrite I thought it would be more fun to send John instead, since it could create some good strategic tension in his relationship with Colleen.

So anyway in the rewrite I made a snap decision to send John to that twist instead of Lex. And I liked it. But then when I came to episode seven, I realized I was going to pay for it.

The problem in episode seven is that Gretchen and John are supposed to meet up in the woods, and John is supposed to express his admiration for Gretchen because she's his favorite player ever. It was one of my favorite scenes in the original. I loved how John stepped out of being a player for a few minutes, and actually reverted to being a Survivor fanboy like the rest of us. I felt that it was a good way of giving his character another dimension.

The problem was that in the original episode seven, John is supposed to be meeting Gretchen for the first time. This is supposed to be the first time he has ever met her, he's overjoyed to be meeting his hero, so he unwittingly goes into fan geek mode and it's supposed to be funny.

But guess what?

Oops!

Since I added John to that fake twist in episode five, now this conversation no longer made any sense. Because with the new changes to the story, now John ISN'T meeting Gretchen for the first time. He met her at the twist a week before. They even had lunch together! And since this isn't their first meeting, now it screws up the scene.

When I first wrote the revised "John meets Gretchen" scene last week, I didn't even notice that it no longer made sense. A sharp-eyed reader named Harrison had to point it out to me. He said, "Um, you've got a fairly major error in that scene in the woods." I didn't know what he was talking about. At least not until he added, "Haven't Gretchen and John already met before?"

Ugh.

The Butterfly Effect finally caught up with me, and it killed one of my favorite scenes.

So anyway, what's the morale of this story? The morale is that you don't want to change any pre-merge scenes on the fly. You don't want to make any spontaneous changes without thinking them through. Because even though I was able to salvage the Gretchen/John scene (thanks to a few extra lines) I think it's less effective now than it was in the original story. In the original it was sort of a "wow!" moment (Gretchen meets the public!) and now it's a nice scene, but it's no longer special.

Oh well.

In any case, thanks Harrison for tipping me off. I never would have caught that mistake, and it could have been a disaster.

6. Kahelelani Beach / Kahelelani Shells

Kahelelani isn't a real beach, by the way. None of the beaches in this story are real. I didn't do the first bit of research into Ni'ihau landscape or geography. I just picked an island that nobody on Earth has ever been to. That way I was free to make up as much as I want, and you couldn't call bullshit.

So don't go looking for Kahelelani, cause you aint gonna find it.

But even though it's not the name of a beach, "kahelelani" IS a real type of shell. Apparently Ni'ihau has a lot of them, and they are very much sought out for making things like necklaces, etc. So if you ever wondered why Vecepia is walking on the beach looking for shells, now you know. What she's looking for are Ni'ihau's famous little kahelelani shells. I've never personally seen one, but I hear they are quite colorful.

Here's an example of a kahelelani necklace.

And here's a good summary of why they are prized.

According to the webpage above... "The Niihau shells are so extremely rare and beautiful, that they are the only shells in the world insurable as gem jewelry."

See? Vecepia is no dummy. She knows they are valuable. Don't believe me? Some kahelelani leis sell for $5,000!

7. Would Frank and Tina switch?

I had a hard time deciding if Frank and Tina would switch sides. What do you think?

On one hand, if they just throw themselves into a minority on Keko, they're idiots. Would Tina really be that stupid? But then again, if they just sit here on Ahi and wait to get picked off, they're idiots too. So which way do they go?

The only way I could decide what Tina and Frank would do was by laying out a piece of paper with all the pros and cons of this decision. What are the advantages to going with Keko? And what are the advantages of staying with Ahi? Since Tina is such a logical thinker, I felt that this was the way she would approach it. And in the end, I think I made the right call for her. I think she'd stay.

But I certainly wouldn't argue if you could prove I was wrong.

8. Rob brings in Alicia as Vecepia insurance

Aha, now this was an entirely new addition to the Hawaii rewrite. Never at any point did Rob even CONSIDER bring in a Keko in the original story. He didn't need to because he didn't have to. But in the rewrite I thought he'd be a little more... creative... about things. :)

Will Rob's pitch to Alicia work?

What exactly does he want her to do?

Does he want her to be a traitor, or just a spy?

And why did he pick Alicia?

If the next few episodes turn out like I expect them to turn out, his chat with Alicia will have major ramifications on the rest of the story.

It will also be the very first scene I write when I start the next episode.

P.S. Again, even though it's unintentional, once again I'm sort of opening myself to the dreaded criticism "You're just copying All-Stars!" But that's just the way the story is developing now. Alicia really IS the player Rob would want as an ally, and in this specific scenario that's exactly who he would make a play for. Kathy and Gretchen just wouldn't be options! So even though I'm veering awfully close to All-Stars here (remember, Rob had a side deal with Alicia back then, too) I don't think it's intentional.

Like the use of the water bucket immunity challenge in the merge episode, we'll just add it to the similarities between Hawaii and All-Stars.

9. The water bucket immunity challenge

Yes, this was the challenge I used back in the original Hawaii story in 2002. And yes that was two years before Survivor used it All-Stars in the exact same episode. So I didn't rip this off from All-Stars. They ripped it off from me. And Shii Ann is still not an All-Star. So there. :-P

10. Gretchen hates alliances

In the original story, one of the major subplots was if the Kekos could ever get Gretchen to join an alliance. And I'm being serious here. That was like 50% of the second half of the story. First Gretchen didn't want anything to do with alliances, then she decided to join one for the good of the tribe, and then she got sick of them and wanted to leave. It was one of the more prevalent storylines in the original Hawaii, and I'm sure any longtime viewer will be shocked that it's no longer here.

In the Hawaii rewrite, Gretchen has been in an alliance with Kathy and Alicia pretty much since the third episode. And I don't think that is going to change anytime soon. At least, not according to Gretchen.

Why did this change?

Well for starters I thought that Gretchen was a little childish in the original story. I mean, sure she was a good character and all, but would she STILL never join an alliance, even two years later? I thought that was sort of ridiculous. Yes she's an ethical person, but no, she's not six years old. She's not an idiot. So even though it will eliminate a huge chunk of the story, I ended up dropping this subplot altogether.

No, Gretchen doesn't like alliances. She never has. But she's going to stick with Keko because that is her team.

And whatever you want to call it, that's an alliance.

11. Rob threatens Vecepia

Man, I love this scene. It's completely new, I made it up right on the spot as I was writing, and now I think it's my favorite scene in the entire episode. Rob catches Vecepia sneaking around and he mentions he's caught her. And he does it in such a way that she no longer thinks he's a buffoon, now she knows he is serious.

What this little scene does is completely throw a wrench into what you think you know about Rob and Vecepia.

All along you've been thinking that Vee is gonna screw Rob, because she's a lot smarter. Right? Well have you considered the fact that maybe Kathy WAS right, and maybe Rob IS a lot better player, now that he's not in the minority?

I would be willing to bet that like 99% of people who have been reading Hawaii have been under the assumption that Vecepia is basically infallible and Rob can do nothing to stop her. After all, that's how the editing has been going. It's all been Vecepia=Smart, Rob=Dumb, and of course smart always wins in the end.

Well maybe that is going to happen in the Hawaii rewrite. Maybe it is. But it sure was fun throwing a little doubt into Vecepia's confidence now that she knows she got caught. And it sure was fun turning the tables on a character who, up to this point, has been the brains at the top. In my personal opinion, I don't think that most Survivor stories would have included a scene like this.

Will Vecepia still outwit Rob and steal his prize?

Who knows?

All I know is that smart usually wins in the end.

But "smart" is such a subjective term, and can mean many things. :)

12. You can't beat Tina in an endurance challenge!

There's an extra sentence I threw in at the end of the immunity challenge last night, and I like it so much that I had to point it out. This sentence wasn't in the working copy, so you might not have read it.

"Mike continued to try to push for a deal. But after about fifteen minutes, he realized it was essentially pointless. Tina was simply going to outlast him today, and there were no two ways around it. The woman was just too damn good at these endurance challenges, and too damn stubborn when she wanted to win. There was no way to beat this tiny little woman at simply standing in place."

I love that last sentence. You can't beat Tina at standing in place. For some reason, I think that's just the perfect description of Tina Wesson. She's tiny, she's stubborn, and if she wants to stand there, you aint gonna move her. That's just what she does.

I just wanted to point out this last-minute addition, because I was proud of it.

13. Mike’s downfall

Did you ever notice that I built up Mike as having a big epic comeback at the end of episode six, and then had him go down with nary a whimper in the very next episode? Sorry. That's just how Mario do. The minute I start building up a character as being important, that's usually a pretty good sign that they're about to get whacked. It's called making you have forced empathy for a character. And it's my specialty.

The way I look at it is... the last thing I'd ever want you to do is not have a reaction when someone leaves the game. I want every boot to hurt. I want every boot to be a memorable event. So I'm not above forcing you to like someone right before they leave. I did it with Ethan, I did it with Mike, and I'm sure I'll do it again.

Better get used to it :)

14. "Liaison"

At one point in the story I said that John "had greatly enjoyed his liaison with the Keko ambassador." Now, normally I would never use a word like liaison in a story. It's too snobby sounding. It's one of those words that sounds like you're just showing off your vocabulary, when you could have used a better-known word like "meeting" or "conversation" instead. And most of the time, I try to keep the vocabulary in my stories as grounded in basic English as is humanly possible.

Reason #350 why I could never be a professional writer: I refuse to use SAT words. I'm not writing for writers. I want my 7-year old daughter to be able to read these stories.

So anyway, up pops a word like "liaison" in one my stories, and it's a little jarring. That's not a word I would normally use!

Well guess what?

I didn't use it.

It's an homage.

That's an inside joke about Burton in Pearl Islands. That's the word that he (and Jeff) both misspelled. I just watched Pearl Islands again last week, Burton's misspelling was fresh in my mind, and I thought it was funny.

And somewhere, Darrah Johnson is laughing.

15. Blatant cliffhanger

Did you ever notice that I end some of my episodes on the most shameless and blatant cliffhangers imaginable? Well that's not a coincidence. I do that a lot.

Remember when I said that Hawaii was supposed to be read as a serial novel?

Remember when I said I didn't have any shame about trying to manipulate you?

As I see it, it's my job as a storyteller to leave you wanting. The minute one episode ends, I want you to start jonesing for the next one. And I want it to hurt. That's why I write so many short, choppy sentences like this. That's why I leave so many loose ends dangling at the end of an episode. That's why most episodes end with a cliffhanger, like "What will they do now??"

In my opinion, cliffhangers are by far the most shameless and exciting stories to write.

Because at the start of episode eight, we've got quite a surprise...

Back to All-Star Hawaii, Episode Seven (Welcome to Shark Beach)