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And the comment about not remembering that X won immunity because it was so long ago might lie some of the problem that I'm having with the rewrite. Where it's been days and hours for the characters, it's been weeks and months for the writer (no fault, that's real life) -and it's a fresh approach from your vantage point starting with a new episode. (ie. Colleen is worthless and won't ever win a jury vote to being teflon and unbeatable in the final vote)

I know you're going to be surprised that I am admitting this, but you probably hit the nail right on the head with this comment. I think you are dead on. There is definitely some continuity loss between episode 1 and episode 13 of Hawaii. The episodes themselves (as a whole) are fine, but I don't think Part A of the story always necessarily flows into Part B. And I don't think it could have either. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) I took a very different strategy when writing this particular story.

Rather than sit down and write Hawaii all in one big chunk (like I did with every other story), I decided to pace myself and go slow this time. Instead of churning out an intense 3-month Survivor experience by following a strict timeline, I decided to just lay back and write scenes whenever the mood struck me instead. I decided that my timeline would be more necessity-driven, as opposed to deadline-driven. Part of this was because I didn't want to get burned out like I did with all my other stories, but the bigger reason was that I thought if I did it this new way, you would wind up with much deeper and more memorable characterizations.

In my new style of writing, if I knew I had to write a crucial scene between Vecepia and Tina, I wouldn't just sit down and write it because I had to have this episode done by a particular day. Instead, I would just sit back and brainstorm the scene for a while in my head. I would think, "What would be a really memorable way to write this scene? How could I present it in a way that you would remember 2 weeks from now? What little details could I include that nobody else would have thought to include?"

I would sit there, and I would wait as long as I had to until inspiration struck me. It could be one hour. It could be a month. I didn't care. I would purposefully put off writing crucial scenes until I had some sort of a revelation of how I wanted it to come off in my head. And then, and ONLY then, would I go back to the episode and actually write anything. I would purposefully go 3-4 weeks between writing a single sentence, just because I wasn't inspired to write anything. And that is a huge difference in the way I wrote this story, as opposed to all my other ones. Every other one of my stories was deadline driven. This one had a lot more inspiration behind it, but it also took a year and a half. So there's your tradeoff. I think you sacrifice timeliness for quality.

So yes, I love the way the new Hawaii came out. I love almost every single scene in almost every single episode.

But that being said, of course you also pointed out the biggest problem I ran into, and that is with continuity. One player's character and/or standing in the game doesn't always translate to a later episode. I wish I could deny it, but I can't. It happened. I couldn't stop it. And the reason that happened is twofold. A) Some of these later episodes were written like 9 months later than the earlier ones. How the hell can I remember what I wrote 9 months ago? That was a whole different world to me. I have a hard enough time even remembering what the boot order was. My attention in this story has always been in the here and the now. What happened 13 months ago in episode 2? Beats me.

Oh yeah, what's the second reason there is continuity loss between episodes? Well this one might surprise you, but I suppose I will fess up to it anyway...

B) I have never gone back and read a single episode of this story after it was finished. Seriously. Once I posted it, that was it. I have never gone back to look at any of them. It's a wonder I had any semblance of continuity at all. I'm sure there are some scenes I may have repeated almost word for word in multiple episodes. If I did do that (and I apologize), now you know why. :)

So anyway, in terms of lack of continuity, there you go. I think the episodes are outstanding from page 1 to page whatever. But if the characters sort of change and evolve abruptly between episodes, now you know why. Continuity was one of the variables I was willing to sacrifice on this one.

Colleen, of course, is a perfect example. She's a goat in episode 4, and then she's an unbeatable F2 opponent in episode 10. Oops. Maybe the players got loopy. 30 days with no nutrition can mess with your head. Although in my defense, she still would have destroyed Alicia. I still think the logic was sound there. Just because you're a goat against most people doesn't mean you're a goat against everyone.

And like I have said before, that whole incident (The downfall of Colleen) wasn't meant to throw her character away, it was more to build up Gretchen's. It was a way to build her up as a revenge win if she managed to win. Like I said in my notes at the time, that was Gretchen's Kill Bill moment. If she had come back to win, I would have built that up as being the catalyst. "You got me to vote off my Survivor daughter? Big mistake. I don't want to quit anymore. Watch what happens when I get mad."

As a Colleen fan, I know you don't like that logic, but as a writer that was always my intent. I wanted Gretchen to have a big revenge-driven storyline. You call that fanfictioning the story, I call it thinking ahead. I tried to think ahead a lot more with this story.

Although if Gretchen DIDN'T win, I was pretty sure the F2 would end up being Vecepia-John. Vecepia was in the final two against pretty much anyone. After my "The Defiant One" episode fell through, there was almost zero percent chance she would have been voted out.