All-Star Hawaii Author Notes - Episode 1 (Return of the King)
by Mario Lanza
Well here they are. The official commentary notes for All-Star Survivor: Hawaii. So sit back, relax, and
enjoy the ride. There's a lot of history behind this story that you'll probably find very interesting.
For starters, let me first mention that All-Star Hawaii was never supposed to be a quote-unquote "Survivor
fan fiction novel." Writing a novel was never in my plans when I first sat down to start brainstorming this.
I didn't want to write a story. Hell, who would read a story about Survivor in the first place? A fan fiction novel
about a reality TV show? Who would be dumb enough to sit down and write something like that?
That's right. It might surprise you to read this, but All-Star Hawaii was NOT a Survivor fanfic story at the beginning.
And it was never intended to be. I know that will surprise a lot of people, considering that Hawaii eventually
became the grandfather of the modern fan fiction genre, but I really hadn't intended that when I sat down to write
this. All-Star Survivor: Hawaii was never supposed to be a full-length story! It was never intended to be the Jackie
Robinson of Survivor fan fictions!
Why do I call Hawaii the Jackie Robinson of the Survivor fanfic? Well that's easy. It's because there were no Survivor
fanfics back in the summer of 2002. Nobody was writing stories about Survivor. Well, okay, maybe SOME people were.
I never personally heard of any Survivor "fanfics" before Hawaii, but it's possible some might have been
out there. But they would have been specific niche market projects, at best. Believe me, I used to read just about
every Survivor fan site out there during the first few years of the show, and I NEVER saw an original Survivor
fiction story anywhere. There just was no "Survivor fanfic" genre before All-Star Hawaii hit the internet
in the summer of 2002. Nearly every story that came later on (either directly or indirectly) can somehow be traced
back to this.
So anyway, that's the legacy of All-Star Survivor: Hawaii.
It wasn't intended to be a story in the first place, but somehow it turned into the Jackie Robinson of the Survivor
fan fiction genre. It was certainly never planned to be as ambitious as it ended up becoming. Hell, I didn't really
even expect it to be a big deal at all when I first sat down to plan it out. All I was hoping to do was kill some
time between seasons. I was just looking for some way to get a minor Survivor fix in the summer between Marquesas
and Thailand.
I had no idea that over 50,000 people would end up reading Hawaii.
I had no idea that nearly half of the Survivor alumni from the next five seasons would all be dying to be in a
story.
I had no idea that so many Survivors would not only contact me, but would actually give me "insider tips"
on how to make the stories much more realistic.
None of this was in my plans when I sat down to plan "All-Star Survivor: Hawaii."
It was the summer of 2002, and I was just bored.
And an exciting new Survivor fan fiction genre was (inadvertently) about to be born.
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December 2001
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PART I
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I was one of the biggest Survivor fans alive in 2001. I was completely, totally addicted to the show back then,
so I looked forward to a new episode every week with baited breath. And that's why it absolutely killed me when
a season ended and I had to wait a few months for a brand-new Survivor. See, I HATED the offseason between Survivors.
It killed me that I didn't get a new episode for like two months. As a person with a notoriously short attention
span, the fact that I actually had to wait eight weeks between Survivor episodes was one of the quickest ways to
drive me insane.
So anyway, as Survivor: Africa wound down in December of 2001, I realized I had to do something about it. I was
tired of sitting there and not having a "Survivor fix" during the offseason. Damnit, this show should
be on TV year-round! So when Africa ended, and I now had to wait two months until Survivor: Marquesas aired in
February, I decided that maybe I'd come up with a project to help fill the void.
Sometime around January of 2002, I thought it would be a fun idea to create a totally fictional game of Survivor.
I figured, wouldn't it be fun if I just created a "fake" season of the show, and wrote about it on the
internet as if it really happened? I mean, I was already a fairly competent columnist for a website called Survivor-Central.
I already had pretty good street cred if I wanted to write something and get people to read it. So I started to
mull this idea over in my head. What if I just started writing about a "fake" Survivor season that was
airing on TV? I wonder if people would actually be interested in columns about a season they hadn't actually watched?
As you can see, my original idea had nothing to do with writing an "All-Star Story." All I wanted to
do was write columns and recaps about a fictional season, and see if people would be actually willing to read about
it. It wasn't the most brilliant idea in the world, but hey, at least it was a Survivor fix during the offseason.
I figured that, if nothing else, it would be something different.
Also, keep in mind that, at the time, I was a fledgling young writer working for a fledgling young website (Survivor-Central).
There were much better known columnists out there than me. And there were also a lot bigger websites than Survivor-Central
(which was only about three months old at the time). So in the back of my head I figured, well if I do something
exciting for S-C in the offseason, it will be a good way to get publicity for the site at a time when all the other
websites are taking time off. I figured that if S-C was ever going to become a popular website, and if I was ever
going to become a well-known writer, I needed to give us some sort of a "gimmick" that no other sites
did.
And that, as much as anything, is why I decided to do a recap of a fictional Survivor story in between seasons.
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PART II
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So anyway, now I had the idea (a fictional Survivor season), and I also had the general timeframe (in between Marquesas
(season 4) and Survivor 5.) I would have loved to do it in between Africa and Marquesas, but since I only had about
a month I didn't think there was enough time. No, I decided to wait until after Marquesas, when I would have a
nice long four month stretch to put something together. And also, because the audience would be more starved to
read something about Survivor. I figured that I'd be the only show in town during the summer of 2002. There wouldn't
be the slightest bit of competition from any other website. And I figured that would help jack up my readership
if people really got into the project.
So I sat down, and I started planning. I started drawing out plans for my "fictional Survivor season",
as well as what was going to happen, who was going to win, etc.
And I quickly realized... damn... this is going to be a lot of work!
It wasn't so much that the writing was going to be hard. It was more along the lines that creating sixteen fully-realized
fictional characters was going to be hard. I had never done anything like that before. I mean, sure, I had written
about Survivor for a while, and I had written some comedy sketches and stuff for other sites. But I had never been
a serious writer. I had never actually tried to create realistic PEOPLE before. And I don't know if you've ever
tried before, but creating realistic people is HARD.
If I had only been creating three or four fictional characters, I probably would have tried it. But in a Survivor
story you needed sixteen completely formed, completely realistic fictional creations. And I just wasn't sure I
wanted to tackle something like that. Certainly not in the first fictional story I was ever going to write in my
life. I figured if I was going to jump into the world of "Survivor fiction", I wanted to start with something
a little less challenging.
Because of the difficulty factor involved, as well as the idea that readers might not give a shit about people
they don't know, I suddenly started to change my idea a little bit. All of a sudden, I started thinking, what if
I wrote about REAL Survivor players instead? What if instead of making up fictional characters, I just make up
a fictional story involving REAL players? After all, wouldn't that be just as interesting? Wouldn't it be just
as interesting a project, and only take about half of the work?
And of course, if you know anything about me, you will know that that is the logic that will inevitably sway me
in a certain direction. The project will be just as good as before, but will only take about half the time to put
together? Where do I sign up??
By the way, why did I think that using "real Survivor players" would be easier than using fictional characters?
Well, it's simple, really. When I say the name "Kyle McManus", what words immediately pop into your head?
None, right?
Of course nothing pops into your head. You've never heard of Kyle McManus. You have no idea who this guy is. You
don't know anything about Kyle McManus until I start telling you about him.
But if I say the name "Richard Hatch", I bet it's a little different.
So anyway, right from the start I figured out that writing about existing characters was a hell of a lot easier
than writing about fictional ones. If I wrote about people the Survivor fan base already knew, I could save myself
pages and pages and pages of exposition and complicated backstory that I'd have to write about otherwise. And that
meant that, as a writer, half my work was already done. If I wrote about characters you already knew as a Survivor
fan, well, I could just jump right into the story and wouldn't have to waste time on annoying things like "character
development." I could just jump right into a story about people like Tina Wesson, and Richard Hatch, and Colby
Donaldson, and the action could start right off the bat because the audience would already know who they were!
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PART III
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By this point, everything was in place for me to start my offseason project. I was going to recap a fictional Survivor
season starring real Survivor players. It wasn't what I had intended to do when I originally sat down to start
this project, but then again, it was fairly original. I'd certainly never seen anything like this on the internet
before. And keep in mind, I used to read a LOT of Survivor websites. There just wasn't a template out there for
anything like this to follow.
Inevitably, the template I ended up using was the book "Survivor", by Mark Burnett. If you were a Survivor
fan back in 2000 and 2001, you know the book I am talking about. It is Mark Burnett's day by day summary of the
first Survivor season, and how he watched it unfold from a production standpoint. Burnett's book isn't perfect
by any stretch of the imagination, but it is easily the most comprehensive description of what goes on behind the
scenes during a Survivor season. So of course that's the template I wanted to use. My story was going to be exactly
like Burnett's book, both in language, in style, in tone, in length, and in everything. The only difference was
that he was writing about a season that really happened. And mine would be about a season I was inventing out of
thin air.
I still wasn't considering my season to be an "All-Star" season yet, but of course that was the next
inevitable step. You can't very well write about Richard and Tina and Ethan playing Survivor together in a regular
season. I would have loved to do it, but it's too confusing to start writing about Survivor as if they all actually
played together. So of course the only thing I could do was to say mine was an "All-Star Season." The
only way Richard and the former Survivor greats could be in the same story is if there was somehow some sort of
"All-Star Survivor" season, and they all came back like Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams to get
a chance to play again.
So anyway, that's how "Mario's fictional Survivor season" became "All-Star Survivor: Hawaii."
The only reason it became All-Stars was pretty much because it had to be.
By the time I had worked out all these details in my head, Marquesas had already started to air on TV (in Feb.
2002). So now I pretty much had three months to get this story all planned out and get the first few "episodes"
down on paper.
Or so I thought.
You see, what I didn't realize at the time is that you CAN'T write a story involving characters who are currently
on Survivor every week. Here I was trying to write a story involving characters from Marquesas, as Marquesas was
airing, and it ended up being almost impossible to do. After all, how on earth do you know who the All-Stars will
be from Marquesas if you're only in the third episode of the season? Hell, in the third week of Marquesas, Hunter
was one of the biggest stars in the cast, Vecepia was a nobody, and Kathy was a disaster who had no rights being
in this game.
Since I had decided to write my All-Star story about characters from the first four seasons, I decided I had to
wait until Marquesas ended before I could figure out which players I wanted to use. After all, there would have
been nothing worse than writing a story about Hunter Ellis and Gabriel Cade in All-Stars, and then... whoops...
both of them get voted out before the merge.
So I ended up having to sit back and wait for a couple of weeks. Which was good. Because if I hadn't waited, I
never would have included Vecepia, Kathy, or John in All-Star Hawaii. All three of them didn't reveal themselves
as major characters until about the fifth or sixth episode of Marquesas.
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PART IV
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So Marquesas ended, and now it was time to put up or shut up. It was time to write my first fictional "All-Stars"
story, made up of players from the first four seasons of Survivor. Although even at this point I still wasn't calling
it a "story." I had no intention of writing a full-blown narrative with dialogue, exposition, foreshadowing,
and the whole works. I just wanted to write a bare bones "recap" of an All-Star season. I wanted to say,
here's what happened, here's how it went, and here's who won in the end.
Remember, the template for my project was Mark Burnett's book. I was going to write my recap in the exact same
style that he did. And that meant no dialogue, very little interaction, very few elaborate scenes, etc. I didn't
want my story to get any fancier than that. In fact, I pretty much wanted my All-Stars recap to be an homage to
his Borneo recap. Basically, I wanted my story and his to be almost interchangeable.
By the way, do you want to know WHY I decided to swipe Burnett's style, as opposed to writing a full-on, detailed
narrative, which obviously would have been a lot more interesting?
Well, for starters, Burnett's writing style was just easier. He never used any dialogue. And anybody who's ever
written a story will be able to tell you that dialogue is one of the hardest parts. In other words, if I wrote
a story without any first person interaction and the characters never talked (ie, everything would be described
by a godlike omniscient narrator), well it would be about 90% easier.
But the SECOND reason I swiped Burnett style, well, that was just a little more interesting.
Let me say right now that Mark Burnett's book was one of the best things that ever happened to the world of Survivor.
No, it wasn't a great book. But to this day it remains one of the only glimpses into the "true" nature
of Survivor we've ever had. Burnett's recap of the first season is pretty much the only time we've ever been able
to look behind the curtain, and see what REALLY happens on the island, and how it differs from what we see on TV.
And in my opinion, it's the only definitive Survivor book that's ever been written.
I absolutely loved Burnett's Survivor book when it first came out. I read it incessantly, because it just added
so much to the show. And of course, then I figured, hey this is awesome. Burnett is going to write a book after
every season! We'll get to watch a Survivor season on TV, then Burnett will write a book about what really went
down on the island, and it will be the perfect companion piece to read as we wait for the next season to come out.
Right from the start, I thought that a Burnett book was going to follow every season as part of the package.
Well, as you can guess, Burnett never wrote another book after that first season. Yes, he did write a quickie "pre
season field guide" for Australia, but it was nothing like the first one. He never did another book after
Borneo, and I was always heartbroken over it.
"Why don't do they do books anymore??" I'd always ask myself. "Don't they realize that these things
would sell ten million copies? Why on earth are they passing up the easiest way to make money in the world?? Everybody
who watches Survivor would read a book about what really happened? Is Burnett that lazy that he just doesn't think
it would be worth it?"
Well of course, if you're paying attention, you can probably figure out now why I stole Burnett's style. I did
it because I wanted to be the one to write recaps of Australia through Marquesas. I was positioning myself to one
day take over where Burnett left off. I wanted someone from CBS to discover my fictional "recap" on the
internet, I wanted them to say, "hey, this guy imitates Burnett pretty good," and I wanted them to offer
me money to write Burnett-style recaps of Australia through Marquesas. Basically, I wanted my All-Star recap to
somehow turn into a job as ghostwriter for Mark Burnett.
By the way, I've never mentioned that fact in any of my interviews before. I've never flat out said, "I wrote
Hawaii in this stupid style because I just wanted a job imitating Burnett." But since so many people over
the years have asked me why the start of Hawaii is so much different than the rest of my stories, I figured I'd
finally come out at this point and fess to the truth. The only reason I ever wrote any of my stories is because
I wanted someone important to stumble on them and want to pay me for it.
(P.S. To this day, there has still never been another behind-the-scenes, "this is what really happened"
book about Survivor. CBS and the CBS legal team keep way too short a leash on their alumni for that to ever happen,
at least so long as the show is still on the air. But I'm not an alumnus. They don't have any contracts hanging
over my head. And I've got the manuscript all typed up for Australia if you ever want it!)
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PART V
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It was May of 2002, and my "All-Star Survivor" project was about to begin.
And this is where I made a decision that down the road, I was later to regret.
The decision I made right at the last minute (and I mean literally days before episode 1 was set to premiere) was
that I wanted to make this a group project, not an individual project. At the very last possible minute, I decided
that I probably wasn't quite ready to tackle a project this big on my own, so I wanted four or five other writers
around to help me.
Of course this decision was partly made because I was just a big puss and didn't want to take all the blame if
the story sucked. Remember, nothing like this had ever been done on a major Survivor website. There was no guarantee
that All-Star Hawaii was going to be a hit. So yes, part of my decision was because I was being a pussy. But on
the other hand, there WERE a lot of good writers on the internet at the time. And I sort of got seduced by the
idea that if five hands shaped this story instead of one, it would probably be a lot more creative and fun to read.
So right away, I started sending emails to some of my favorite Survivor writers from other websites. I explained
to them what I was trying to do, why I was trying to do it, what the purpose of All-Star Hawaii was, etc. I told
them it would be an exciting project to work on during the offseason. And if we played our cards right, it would
probably turn out to be hit.
Luckily for me, the first four people I wrote to all replied and said that yes, they would definitely be interested.
And I was ecstatic. I'm not going to name all four of the people who joined the writing team (for reasons I'll
explain later) but suffice it to say that two of them came from Survivor-Central, one came from Reality News Online,
and the last one came from a site called Elite TV.
So now we had our writing team for All-Star Hawaii. And since, in my not so humble opinion, we were made up of
five of the best Survivor columnists on the internet, I thought we needed a fitting nickname. So I christened the
five of us "The All-Star Five." Since we were writing an All-Star story, I felt it was appropriate.
So the All-Star Five got together to start planning out the logistics of All-Star Hawaii, and that's when I quickly
figured out that "more writers" doesn't necessarily mean "a better story."
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PART VI
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Obviously, the first step the writing team needed to take was that we needed to come up with a cast. You can't
very well write an All-Star story without an All-Star cast, now can you?
Back at the very start of the project, I had set two rules for the writing team. I did this to avoid conflicts
down the road, and I said they couldn't take part if they didn't agree to them. Rule #1 was that if three out of
the five writers agreed on a certain storyline, the other two writers had to give in and play along. Sounds reasonable,
right? But rule #2 was the one that ended up causing a few more problems. Rule #2 of the All-Star writing team
was that we each got to pick one "freebie" player, who was going to be cast in All-Star Hawaii no matter
what. Even if none of the other writers wanted to use him, even if we all hated this specific player with a passion,
if one of the writers picked him as a "freebie", he was in the cast. I did this so, no matter what, all
five of the writers would get their favorite player as one of the characters.
Well my favorite player at the time was Tina Wesson. I picked Tina as my freebie and that meant she was in the
cast no matter what. But she would have been in the cast anyway (since all winners were included) so my freebie
was essentially a giveaway.
Writer #2 picked Colby Donaldson as his freebie. Fair enough. Colby would have been in anyway, so that was cool.
Writer #3 picked John Carroll as her freebie. Now, John was probably only a borderline character as it was. He
might have made it in the cast, but on the flip side he might have not. But I had always wanted to use him, so
I was happy he came up as a freebie. Now we had Tina, Colby, and John in the cast, and that was fine with me.
Writer #4 came up, and he picked Alicia Calaway as his freebie. I was very pleased with this pick. Even though
Alicia wasn't the best player in the world, she sure is fun to write about. So I was thrilled that Alicia came
up as a freebie, even if I knew the readers might not all think she was an All-Star. Oh well. Freebies made the
cast. That was just the rule.
And then we came to Writer #5.
You know, I don't want to name Writer #5's name because I'm going to end up saying a lot of bad things about her.
You'll understand why in a minute.
So anyway Writer #5 came up to the podium and she announced her freebie pick. And you can probably guess who she
picked. The name she gave us, as her favorite player in the world who was now required to be in the story, was
"Frank Garrison."
What?
Frank f*cking Garrison?
Never in a million years did I imagine that Frank would one day be a part of my All-Star story. Hell, never in
a million years did I ever think he'd be named as somebody's favorite player. Who on earth names "Frank"
as their favorite player from the first four seasons of the show? And don't get me wrong. I actually did like Frank
in Africa. But Frank Garrison from Samburu? As an All-Star??
Right off the bat I sent an email to Writer #5. I was flabbergasted. I said, "Um, Frank? From Africa? Are
you sure?"
The story behind the story here is that Writer #5 had just done an interview with Frank the day before for her
website. She spoke to Frank on the phone, she got to talk to his kids, and after a while she was really enamored
with the man. So that's why she picked Frank as her new favorite player in the world. Out of all the players from
Borneo to Marquesas, she thought Frank would be the best addition to our story. My friends and readers, I shit
you not.
So now we had our five freebie picks for the cast. Tina, Colby, John, Alicia... and Frank. The next step after
that was to fill in the rest of the cast, based on who we all thought was the most deserving. We decided that we
needed eight males and eight females (Survivor was always 16 players back then), and we also decided that all winners
had to be included. The "include all winners" policy was sort of controversial, too, since one or two
of our writers felt that winners would all be targeted right off the bat. But I just shrugged off those concerns
and said nah. I said, "People in real life wouldn't be that shallow. If they ever did a real All-Stars, the
winners would have just as much chance to win as anyone because all the players in All-Stars would be threats."
Oops. Guess I was wrong. Screw you, Jenna Lewis.
So anyway now we had half our cast. We had the five freebie picks (Tina, Colby, Alicia, John, and Frank), plus
the three other winners who hadn't been named as freebies (Richard, Ethan, and Vecepia). That was eight. And from
there we just picked the other eight players who we thought deserved to play.
Since we already had five males in the cast, we could only pick three more to fill out the cast. And we eventually
decided on Lex, Mike Skupin, and Boston Rob.
Lex we felt was a pretty obvious choice. There's no question he was one of the most memorable characters from the
first four seasons of Survivor. We all agreed on using Lex pretty much unanimously.
Mike Skupin we also felt was an obvious choice. After all, if they ever made a real All-Stars, they'd be idiots
not to include Mike. Who wouldn't want to watch the guy get a second chance after he fell in the fire? And again,
oops. We were wrong. CBS, how on earth could you screw that decision up??
For our last male in the cast, we came down to the fivesome of Boston Rob, Big Tom from Africa, Jeff Varner, Sean
Rector, or Rudy Boesch. All five were deserving, but we could only take one. Of course I would have loved to dump
Frank and take two of these guys instead, but that was sort of out of my hands.
Out of the five remaining choices, the one I least wanted to use was Rudy. I knew that the fans would probably
revolt if Rudy was left out of All-Star Hawaii (they did), but I also strongly felt that Rudy would be dead meat
and it would be too sad to watch this old man get his ass handed to him by much better players. Rudy occupied such
a pedestal in the Survivor hierarchy back then, and I didn't feel it was right to make him look like a chump in
our story. I felt we could best honor the man by leaving him out of the cast.
(Note: Hey, I actually predicted this one, didn't I? Rudy never should have come back and played.)
The two other players I really didn't want to use were Big Tom and Sean Rector. Now I loved both of them on their
respective seasons, but I also thought they'd be really hard to pull off in a fictional story. For one, Tom basically
speaks in gibberish, and is from a different part of the country I've never been to. I had no idea how to write
the guy since I didn't really understand where he was coming from most of the time. So Tom was out. And Sean was
out for basically the exact same reason. I grew up in pretty much the whitest place on the face of the earth (suburban
Seattle). I never even met a black person until I was about 20 years old. So I was incredibly uncomfortable trying
to write a guy like Sean, who's from Harlem and lives in South Central, and probably had as many white friends
growing up as I had black friends. I was just worried that if I tried to write Sean dialogue, it would sound ridiculous.
So I didn't want to use Sean in a story until I had a little more writing experience under my belt.
So that left Jeff Varner or Boston Rob as our final male All-Star.
In my mind, both of them were equally deserving for the spot. Neither one was the greatest player in the world,
but they were both villainous scoundrels who loved to talk trash, and would be really fun antagonists if we used
them in the story.
Most of the writers didn't really have a preference between Boston Rob or Jeff. For the most part, none of them
really cared. So I stepped in and lobbied for Boston Rob, and that's how he was chosen over Varner. Why did I pick
Boston Rob? Well basically because I liked him more. And he was younger. And also, since Marquesas had just finished
airing like a week before, I wanted to go with the more recent player. So Boston Rob joined the cast as our last
male All-Star. And of course the message boards would soon be screaming in anger once they realized that Rudy and
Varner hadn't been picked.
So anyway now we had eight males. Now we just needed to fill out of cast with eight females.
We actually had a little more flexibility with picking females than we did with the males. Because for starters,
we only had three freebies (Tina, Alicia, Vecepia) we had to work around. That left five open spaces for deserving
females we wanted to use. And of course a few of them were gimmes we didn't even have to talk about right off the
bat.
The first was Kathy. Kathy (at the time) was one of the most beloved female characters in Survivor history. She
had just come off an amazing run at the end of Marquesas, and nearly every Survivor fan in existence thought she
should have won over Vecepia, anyway. So Kathy was in the new cast in a heartbeat. Everybody was a Kathy fan back
in the day.
The second female we picked was Colleen Haskell. Obviously, if Kathy wasn't the most popular female player of all
time, it was definitely Colleen. So Colleen was in the cast without even thinking about it. America's Sweetheart
has to be in your All-Star story. There are just no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
The next two females we picked were Gretchen and Sue from Borneo. Sue was pretty much a no-brainer. We needed a
badass female chick to give the story some bite. And even though Gretchen sounds like an odd choice now (in 2007),
at the time she was a pretty obvious one. Anybody who's ever read Burnett's Survivor book knows how beloved Gretchen
was by the people around her. She was the first well-rounded "superstar" ever cast on the show. So Sue
and Gretchen were in for sure.
And that left one open spot in the cast.
For the last female in the cast, we eventually pared our finalist list down to six people. We basically had to
decide now between Kelly Wiglesworth, Elisabeth Filarski, Kelly Goldsmith, Teresa Cooper, Gina Crews, or Neleh
Dennis. One of those six females would be the last person cast in All-Star Hawaii.
Well right off the bat, I have to tell you that if there's ONE type of player I have a hard time writing, it's
a youngish female. Young women have always been the hardest characters for me to capture in print, so right off
the bat I started lobbying for Elisabeth and Neleh to NOT be in the cast. We already had a sweetheart in Colleen,
I said. So we ended up dumping Elisabeth and Neleh from the finalist list (although I later used both of them in
Alaska).
Of the four remaining candidates, the next two that got dumped were Gina and Kelly Goldsmith. We basically figured
that neither one of them were really an All-Star. Yes, Gina and Kelly were popular among internet fans, but Gina
didn't even make the merge. And Kelly barely made the jury. I didn't see any way we could justify taking Kelly
Goldsmith over someone much more successful, like Kelly Wiglesworth. So we dumped Gina and Kelly G., and that brought
our final selection in the cast down to two.
In the end, why did we choose Teresa over Kelly W.? Well to be truthful, I really don't know. It's been five years
and I've sort of forgotten. Looking back at the cast NOW, I think we probably should have chosen Kelly. After all,
she was a legitimate All-Star from the first season. But then again, Teresa WAS a very popular player back in 2002,
and was legitimately considered one of the best female players never to win. She also happened to be a contributor
to Survivor-Central (the site where this story would be hosted). I'm not saying that Teresa was cast JUST because
she worked for the site. But it's possible that played some part in the decision. I really don't remember for sure.
All I'm saying now that yes I love Teresa and yes she eventually became one of the biggest fans of my stories (as
well as a good personal friend too.) But looking back at it now, I think we should have chosen Kelly Wiglesworth.
So anyway, now we had our cast. Eight males (including Frank) and eight females. All that was left now was to divide
them up into tribes. And really, this was pretty easy. The easiest way to divide up All-Star tribes is to separate
all the obvious alliances and place them on separate teams. So you just separate pairs like Tina/Colby, Lex/Ethan,
Frank/Teresa, Richard/Sue, etc., and make sure they're all enemies now. This is what I called my "Civil War
Logic." The best way to get easy drama in a Survivor story is to take two former friends and now make them
enemies. There you go. Tina and Colby are now on opposite tribes. That means that even though the story hasn't
started yet, you already have instant drama and intrigue, just because of the way the teams have been cast. It's
Civil War logic. And it works every time. Try it out!
(Casting note: You'll notice that Amber Brkich was never even considered for our All-Star cast. In fact, she wasn't
even in our top twenty. Lamber? Lamber Brkich? An All-Star? Like hell! No way were we ever going to use her. Oh,
and guess what? She wasn't considered for Alaska either. Back in 2002, Amber Brkich was considered a fourth or
fifth string All-Star, at best. AT BEST! Casting Amber would have been like casting Zoe. Or casting Frank, come
to think of it. *grumble* )
(Casting note #2: For some reason, Jerri was never considered for Hawaii. I'm not sure why. She should have been.)
(Casting note #3: What is the most frequently asked question about Hawaii for the past five years? That's easy.
It's "Why did you cast Frank?" Well now you know the answer. It was out of my hands. Now stop asking.)
---------------
PART VII
---------------
So now the project was basically all ready to go. We had a cast. We had a location (Hawaii, which was chosen over
New Zealand because I felt New Zealand would require a lot more research.) And we had a writing team.
Now all we needed was a story.
Right off the bat, I suggested something to the writing team that I thought was very important. I said, no matter
what, I don't think we should influence the story to go the way that we want it. It would be waaaaay too easy to
just sit here and say, "Well we want Teresa to win, so let's write the story in that direction." I said
we shouldn't be able to direct the story in any particular direction. I said, let's just see where it goes, and
always take the next logical step in what should come next.
Deep down, what I was trying to do was prevent arguments among the team. I didn't want writers to start squaring
off and coming to blows if their favorite player was about to get voted out. I didn't want writers to "cheat"
and try to save their favorite player, just because it was their turn to write the episode. No matter what, I wanted
the story to have some integrity. And that meant that, no matter what, the writers had to play fair.
The second reason I wanted us to just "react" to the story, rather than try to manipulate it, was because
I didn't want to know what was going to happen. I hate writing stories if I already know how they are going to
end. I would much rather be surprised by the ending at the same time the reader is. So that was another impetus
behind my decision. When I said "We can't influence the story, we can only report it," a lot of that
was just so I wouldn't get bored.
In my mind, I felt the best way to keep us writers from cheating was if all the immunity winners were completely
random. I didn't want us to know who was going to win the immunity challenge each week. In my mind, I wanted us
to write each episode completely open-ended. I wanted to write each episode all the way up to the immunity challenge,
and then leave it in a cliffhanger, where the story could go either way depending on who won the challenge. I felt
that if we did this (write the first part of the episode before we even decide on immunity) the readers would be
completely left in the dark with where we were going. And they'd know we definitely weren't cheating, because there
would be no clues that Keko was going to Tribal Council, or Ahi was. The story could go either way, with multiple
possible resolutions, all the way up to the challenge.
So this is where I came up with my infamous "random coin flip" immunity winner. I instructed the writing
team that we would be flipping a coin for ALL immunity challenges in every episode. Everything was going to be
random, and nothing would be able to be manipulated. And no matter how the coin came up, that was where the story
was going, no questions asked.
A few of the writers grumbled a little at this policy (since they were essentially slaves to random chance now)
but I knew it would make things the most realistic. So long as the writers always obeyed the coin flip, there was
no way we could stack the story so our favorites could win. In my mind, it was the best policy for a Survivor story
you could possibly have.
(Coin flip note: By the way, a lot of you are probably thinking, "You come up with the challenge, and then
you flip a coin to see who wins it? That's dumb." And you're right. It is dumb. And not realistic in the slightest.
But that's not the way I did it. The way I did it was flip the coin FIRST. Once the coin was flipped, we now knew
who was going to win immunity. And at that point I'd just brainstorm and come up with a challenge that the winning
tribe COULD win. For example, say Ahi wins the coin flip, and Ahi is a much physically weaker tribe. Since they
have to win the challenge, I just design a "brains over brawn" challenge that probably WOULD favor them
in real life. In other words, I design the challenge around the coin flip winner, and not the other way around.
The coin flip comes first, and then we just adapt around that. And if we pull it off correctly in the story, you
can never tell.)
---------------
PART VIII
---------------
The first episode of an All-Star story is always the hardest one to write. Basically because you don't have an
actual storyline yet. All you have are sixteen characters who may or may not know each other, and a bunch of pre-existing
relationships that can either work for you, or get in the way of the story.
With the first episode of Hawaii, I knew this was going to be an issue. I knew that I wanted to jump right into
the action, but since I didn't have an actual storyline yet, it might be a problem.
My solution to this was to sit down and brainstorm all the "past storylines" that I could spotlight in
the first few pages of Hawaii. What were the relationships and storylines that would carry over the best from previous
seasons? What would readers want to read about and find the most interesting, even before we hit alliances and
started the action?
Well right off the bat I tried to think of the characters who were sort of abrasive. Which characters tended not
to get along with people? And who would they clash with almost immediately in All-Star Hawaii?
The first person I thought of as abrasive was Sue Hawk. Sue tends to get annoyed with people quite a bit. And hey,
there's super condescending Lex on her tribe! Right from the start, I knew that Sue would hate Lex with a passion.
I don't know why. I just did. I figured Sue would hate Lex just like Kelly G. had hated Lex. In fact I was so sure
of this that I was willing to base Ahi episode one around the two of them squaring off, and getting ready for war.
It just seemed so right to me that I knew I had to use it.
By the way, it always makes me sad that they didn't put Sue and Lex on the same tribe in real All-Stars. Do you
think they would have gotten along? I certainly don't. Sue hated Tom with a passion and Tom is like Lex to the
1/10th degree. Too bad we never got to see what would have happened.
From looking at the tribes, another relationship/issue I noticed right off the bat was with Boston Rob and Colleen.
They were pretty much the only two young people on the Ahi tribe. So right off the bat I knew they'd be hanging
out together. I paired Rob with Colleen from almost the very first draft of the episode. And I was amazed that
lots of early readers said it was unrealistic.
"Colleen and Rob would never pair up!" they'd yell at me. "He's too sleazy! And Rob would never
try to get a girlfriend the second time around too!"
Well guess what, he did. Well, tried to anyway. And I stuck by it. I defended the Rob and Colleen friendship from
the very first day of this story, and I felt so vindicated when I saw almost the EXACT same thing happen between
Rob and Amber on the real All-Stars. Remember that scene in All-Stars where Rob is building a house, and Amber
is watching him and gets all googly-eyed? Well my scene in Hawaii with Rob and Colleen lifting wood is almost word
for word the exact same scene. And I wrote mine two years BEFORE All-Stars. In other words, I'm glad I defended
it.
Looking over at the Keko camp, the first relationship that jumped out at me was that of Gretchen and Mike. Well
THAT can't be good, I thought. Mike talks down to everyone like he's their dad. And Gretchen has a feminist chip
on her shoulder a mile wide. There's no way those two could co-exist at the top of the pack. So that was the first
Keko relationship I wanted to spotlight. And then of course you factor in Alicia (who is a wonderful character
because she's seemingly pissed off at everybody) and you can have a lot of fun.
So anyway, just keep that in mind if you ever write a Survivor story. There's no way you can jump right into the
action and strategy because it just isn't there yet. The only way you can start a story like this is by thinking
WHO wouldn't get along, and why would they clash at the start of the game? Or who WOULD get along? And why?
Remember when I said it's much easier using pre-existing characters so you don't have to waste time with a lot
of exposition? Well now you see why. Nothing slows down a story more at the beginning than having to delve into
biographies.
-------------
PART IX
-------------
Since All-Star Hawaii was still essentially my project (most of it had been my idea), I volunteered to write the
first episode. I wanted to kick the story off with a bang, and I wanted to capture just the right tone in the first
episode, so the rest of the writers would understand what I was trying to do.
The first sentence of the story, "Richard Hatch just didn't want to be the first one voted out of the game"
is an obvious homage to the first sentence of Burnett's book. I'm guessing most of you haven't read Burnett's book
(since it is seven years old now), but his opening sentence was the almost-identical, "Richard Hatch was destined
to be the first person voted out of the game." I wanted my story to open almost word for word the same as
Burnett's book did. Remember, at the beginning, this whole project was essentially one big homage.
So I wrote episode one in the dialogue-less style of Burnett's Survivor book. It wasn't the most exciting episode
in the world (especially looking back now), but at the time it fit the style I was trying to pull off. Remember,
I really wasn't planning to make this a full-blown narrative. All it was supposed to be was a "recap"
of how All-Star Survivor probably would go down.
I wrote episode one all on my own, and (as per the rules) I left it completely open-ended all the way to the immunity
challenge. I wanted the reader to think that if Keko lost, Richard was going home. And if Ahi lost, well Lex was
probably going home. I didn't want to tip the story's hand either way. So I wrote the episode completely neutral
up to the immunity challenge, and then we came to the coin flip.
Now it was time to finally see which tribe was going to vote out the first player.
Well as you've probably figured out, Keko lost that first coin flip. And since we were always going by random chance,
that meant we had to go with it. Keko was going to Tribal Council. Lex, and the Ahis, were safe.
At this point we came to the first really big question in our story. We had to ask and debate ourselves, "Would
Richard really go first?"
I don't remember what everybody's opinion was on the writing team. I know it certainly wasn't unanimous. Some of
us thought Richard was dead meat (just because he was Richard), while some of us thought Richard was too good and
would be able to wiggle his way out of trouble.
I believe I was the one who came up with the eventual compromise. Because on one hand, I didn't think Richard was
THAT good. Even if he WAS Richard Hatch, he wasn't a god. There was no way he could wiggle his way out of a 7-1
vote. Nobody could do that. Not even Richard. But at the same time, I didn't agree that Richard was an automatic
gimme vote. Yes, he's still Richard, and yes, nobody wants him to win. But just because you don't want him to win
doesn't mean you automatically get rid of him first. As I kept saying to the writing team, "Keko has plenty
of time to dump him later. They don't NEED to do it right off the bat." I successfully argued that Richard
is really good around camp, and he's not really a slouch in the challenges either, especially if it somehow involves
water.
So now I'm mulling this over in my head. I start thinking, if Richard IS going to be spared by Keko, he can only
do it if he has an ally. There's no way he's spared unless somebody powerful steps in as his benefactor. He's just
not that good to be able to pull this off on his own. But who's going to want to step in and do this? Who would
actually be ballsy enough to put their own neck on the line and spare Richard, just because "we need him"?
Well obviously only one person on Keko fit that criteria. A-ha! It would be Gretchen!
Would Gretchen Cordy really step in and spare Richard at the first vote? I don't know. But her arguments DID make
a lot of logical sense. I thought she made a really good case. After all, Richard Hatch certainly can help a lot
more than someone like Ethan. Gretchen was dead on when she said that. Just because you don't like the guy doesn't
mean he has to go FIRST.
After I started writing the Gretchen/Kathy scenes, I realized that I really did buy Gretchen's argument. I really
DO think that Richard might have been spared in real life. After all, on day three you're still very much relying
on the environment just to get by. You haven't really established a system yet. And I think Gretchen would be spooked
(especially after her Pagong nightmare) by getting rid of a proven fisherman when the camp isn't even running at
full capacity. For her, voting out Richard seems like a great idea, at least up until the point where she actually
has to do it.
So I lobbied hard that Gretchen would step in and save him. I kept arguing to the team that Gretchen is practical,
and pig-headed, and a unilateral thinker. She does what's best for the tribe, and she doesn't really ask around
to see what other people think. Gretchen just does it because Gretchen knows best.
I thought my "save Richard" campaign was going to be a hard sell, but luckily most of the writing team
seemed to get behind it. Maybe it's because they just wanted Richard around for another episode or two. Who knows?
All I know is that we agreed that Gretchen would spare Richard in episode one. She'd probably anger a few people
in doing so, but we felt she's juuuust unilateral enough to pull off something like this and probably get away
with it.
So that meant Richard was out. Richard was not going to be our first Hawaiian boot choice. I felt that Gretchen
wouldn't protect him long, but she would protect him at the very start.
With Richard out of the picture, that left seven people who could be voted out. And right off the bat we eliminated
Colby, Mike or Ethan. Remember, in 2002, athletic males just weren't voted out first in Survivor. The first boot
was almost always a female! In fact the one time it hadn't been a female (Peter in Marquesas) was more because
Peter was creepy than anything else.
So in keeping with tradition ("this is just the way that Survivor works"), we decided the first Keko
boot had to be a female. No matter what, the tribe would target the oldest and the weakest female. It seems like
an archaic way to look at things now, but that's really how people thought of Survivor back in the summer of 2002.
The oldest and slowest woman gets voted out first.
Well obviously Alicia wasn't the oldest. So she was safe. Looking back at the story now, Alicia probably would
have been a likely target in real life. The tribe really didn't need her, so why bother? But when we wrote this
in 2002, Alicia was safe because she was young and strong.
Gretchen was obviously safe from the first vote too. After all, I'd gone on for 20 pages about how everybody loved
her and she was the den mother of Camp Keko. So there was no way she going first. No matter how much she pissed
off the tribe by protecting Richard, we all knew that Gretchen was safe.
So of course, once you do the math, you'll figure out that the only two candidates for the first vote were Teresa
and Kathy. Since we'd virtually eliminated every one else on Keko from consideration, it had to be one of the two
"older females."
And why did we end up picking Teresa over Kathy?
Well I'll tell you a pretty juicy secret.
We didn't.
-------------
PART X
-------------
God it pains me to say this. In fact this is the first time... ever... that I've ever admitted it.
We did NOT pick Teresa to be the first boot in All-Star Hawaii. No way. Every single instinct in my body said that
Kathy should be the first person to go. Teresa is just a much savvier player than Kathy. She's also a lot more
likeable. And in my mind, she would have done something to save herself. In my personal opinion, in real life,
Teresa would have gone to the powers that be (aka, Gretchen and Colby) and pleaded her case. And they would have
figured out that she's a hell of a lot more competent than Kathy and kept her around.
So that was my vote. When it came time to decide the Keko boot, I voted strongly and emphatically for Kathy. No
way did I ever think that T-Bird would be the first one to go.
Only four of the All-Star writers were present the day that we decided to boot Kathy in episode one. One of our
writers (Writer #4) wasn't there. I don't remember where he was, but I remember the four of us voted without him.
The vote ended up being 3 people for Kathy, 1 person for Teresa. And since majority ruled, that meant that Kathy
was the first boot in All-Star Hawaii.
So I started writing the end of episode one.
I wrote this elaborate subplot of how Teresa teamed up with Richard (who she sort of liked) and they helped get
Kathy out because Kathy got under peoples' nerves. Remember, Kathy really DID annoy people at the start of Marquesas.
So that wasn't that far-fetched a storyline. And I loved the Teresa-Richard pairing, because it gave T-Bird a sneakier
side than she'd really shown before.
So I started writing all this up.
And that's, of course, when the proverbial shit hit the fan.
It was about two days later, and the previously-absent Writer #4 came back from wherever he want. And the minute
he heard we were booting Kathy, he went ballistic.
I wish I could remember all of Writer #4's arguments, but suffice it to say he was FURIOUS. He was absolutely livid
that we would make such an important decision without him, and how dare we get rid of his favorite character without
giving him a chance to plead her case. He threatened to quit the project right there on the spot.
Well of course I was a little annoyed. Um, dude, didn't we have a 3-2 vote for Kathy? Doesn't majority rule on
this team?
No, he said.
Since he hadn't been here to defend Kathy's case, he felt the vote hadn't been legitimate. He felt we were penalizing
Kathy too much for her "early season crankiness" in Marquesas, and we were ignoring the fact that she
was the best player by the end of the season. He said there was no way Kathy would ever be a first boot, and if
we said so it was just because we somehow hated her.
You know, looking back, I wish I had fought for this more. But deep down it really didn't matter to me. Once I
realized that Writer #4 was going to throw a shitfit over this, I said, who cares? Kathy and Teresa are basically
interchangeable in the story. We can just swap Teresa's alliance with Richard out with Kathy, and we still have
a pretty cool subplot that will work down the road.
So if you're ever wondering why Teresa was the first boot in All-Star Hawaii, now you know.
And if you're ever wondering why there was no explanation in the original episode for why Teresa went, now you
know.
She left because Writer #4 held his breath until he turned blue just to save Kathy.
People always ask me why it took me four years to finally get around to rewriting All-Star Hawaii. Well now that
you read these notes you can probably see why. The reason it took me so long is because I had to decide if I wanted
to change episode one, and revert it back to Kathy (who I still think should have been first). Did I really want
to edit episode one and send Kathy home at the end instead of Teresa? Did I really want to open up that door?
On one hand, I think Kathy leaving would have been a much more satisfying ending to the episode. And I also think
it would have made a lot more sense.
But on the other hand, if I change the episode, if I really swap out the boot choice just to satisfy my own desires,
I risk opening the door for a LOT of changes down the road in future episodes. There's no way you can just swap
out a new boot in episode one, and ignore the butterfly effect that it's going to have on the story in later episodes.
There's no way you can change something that major, and not have it require some serious work.
In the end, after four years of soul-searching, researching, and estimating my time, I decided that it just wasn't
worth it to send Kathy home in episode one instead of Teresa. I would have loved to, but I eventually decided that
if I ever make a change to a boot choice, it's going to be towards the end of the story, not in episode one. There's
just way too much of a butterfly effect if you change things this early. And since I'm only rewriting an existing
story (not writing a new one), I wanted to keep the major changes to a minimum.
So I kept Teresa's boot in the episode, just like before.
Only this time, I gave her an injury.
That knee injury wasn't in the original episode, you know. That was just something I added in the rewrite, to make
it more plausible. Even though I know it's cheating as a writer, and I said I'd never give people injuries in any
of my stories, I figured if I blew the hell out of Teresa's knee, there would be a reason to boot her. No, it wasn't
the most noble thing I've ever done as a writer. But just keep in mind that Teresa WAS going home at the end of
episode one. No, it wasn't the ending I would have preferred. But it was the ending we decided on in 2002, and
I didn't think it was worth it to go back and change it.
I love Teresa, but this time around she's getting a crippling knee injury. This time she's getting a justification
for why Keko has to vote her out at the end of the episode.
As I've always said, sometimes when you step on a bug, you have to just SQUASH it.
--------------
PART XI
--------------
All-Star Hawaii, episode 1, debuted at Survivor-Central the second week of June, 2002.
It wasn't an immediate hit at first, but as I predicted, it was the only thing going on during the offseason between
Marquesas and Thailand. The Survivor fan community had four months off with nothing to do, so of course our little
story got a lot more attention than it would have gotten at any other time. But make no mistake about it. This
was NOT an immediate hit.
The only way All-Star Hawaii developed an audience at all is because I Went around to every website on the internet
and did my best to hype the shit out of it. One of my strengths as a Survivor writer has always been self-promotion.
I've always been pretty good at being able to go places and advertise my work. So I had fairly good success in
talking about "this really cool All-Star story that's being posted over at Survivor-Central!" Sometimes
I'd post under my own name. Sometimes I'd post under a pseudonym. But I did my best to ensure that every man, woman,
and child on the internet knew about All-Star Survivor: Hawaii, and what a cool new project it was destined to
be.
The best move I ever made, in terms of publicity, was when I went to the Survivor Sucks message board and opened
a discussion thread. I figured, hey there's nothing going on anywhere else. Why not open Hawaii to the Sucks community
and see if they want to talk to me about it? So I posted a discussion thread at Survivor Sucks and that did more
for the popularity of the story than anything else. Users like Colleenlover, and Energia del Sol, and other big
name, well-respected people, all dropped by to read Hawaii and tell me what they thought of it. And since I was
always available to answer questions and engage in discussion, I think they really respected me because of it.
I had a really good rapport going with the Sucks board back in 2002, and since I listened to all of their feedback,
it made the story a little bit interactive. One week Colleenlover would tell me that Colleen does so-and-so when
she talks, and the next week I'd incorporate it into the story. It really was a pretty cool experience for everyone
involved.
So anyway that was the history behind episode 1 of All-Star Hawaii. It wasn't a huge hit, but people were talking.
We still hadn't perfected the tone of the episodes, and the style certainly left a lot to be desired, but just
the idea of a fictional "All-Star" season got a lot of people interested in how it would turn out. The
story wouldn't really hit its stride until episode four or five, but for now it was better than nothing.
-----------------
EPILOGUE
-----------------
Okay, want to hear the most ridiculous part of the whole "We were stuck using Frank and didn't even want him!"
debacle? Wait until you hear this.
Remember the writer (Writer #5) who picked Frank as her freebie choice? Thus ensuring that we'd forever be ridiculed
for having a bad cast?
Well Writer #5 never wrote a single sentence of All-Star Hawaii.
Apparently she had some sort of nervous breakdown in the weeks leading up to the premiere episode. And no, it didn't
have anything to do with this project. Apparently Writer #5 was going through some personal crisis in her life
that we didn't know about. She was having some personal problems in her life, and one day decided to kill herself.
Of course none of the rest of us knew this. All we knew was that Writer #5 was flaky, and never replied to emails
when she was supposed to.
But then one day I get an email that says she was admitted for attempted suicide over the weekend, but is now safe
and healthy and back to work. And she's sorry but she has to drop out of All-Star Hawaii.
Well, okay. Fair enough.
Thanks for playing.
So anyway that's Writer #5's legacy in All-Star Survivor. She dumped Frank Garrison on us as a character we didn't
want. Then she dropped out of the project without writing a single sentence.
While, meanwhile, episode one has already been posted, and everybody is yelling at us because we picked Frank Garrison
over Rudy as an All-Star.
You just can't win in life sometimes, can you?
Back to All-Star Hawaii, Episode One (Return of
the King)