Yuku free message boards

I'm so excited guatemala fanfic!

I've always wondered how long it takes you to write a single episode and how long it takes you to write an entire season. They're so good! :)

Hi tropical rain. It's hard to estimate because I usually end up writing parts of all different episodes at different times. I would also be interested in strictly keeping track of it to see how much time goes into each episode, but my general estimation is that it's AT LEAST 50 hours per episode, probably closer to 60 in most cases. Plus the time it takes for the graphics, which might be another 2 hours per week when the story is being posted.

So to be conservative and say 50 hours per episode x 15 (I'm counting the finale as 2 episodes since it's twice as long), that's a low estimate of 750 hours of actual writing time per season. Divide that by 24 and it's about 31 days. So if I did absolutely nothing for an entire month, I could probably get most of a season done in one month. Usually it takes me about 4 months to do everything because I'm obviously not writing 24/7. So yes, it does occupy a huge chunk of my time, but I'm glad that so many people enjoy the fanfics and all of the comments and feedback from everyone are wonderful! :)

---

Can you possible give out any themes that go along with the story? Or any new info at all?

Hello YemaGrl1988. There's a lot of things that I would love to talk about, but I still feel like it's a bit early to give away significant details. One thing I will say since you asked about this earlier on FGC is that I'm *considering* posting a preview on Christmas like how CBS previewed the first 3 minutes. It would probably be the first 3ish pages.

What else can I say? Like the real show, there's definitely aspects of "temptation" that play into my story but I handle it differently. So I have a different twist for Exile Island, which I had already come up with before seeing Gabon, I might add. Hmm... I've already said there's more strategizing than usual in the premiere and there's a power struggle before Tribal Council. There's also going to be a really huge standout character, or two, in the premiere which is different because usually I spread out airtime more evenly.

I guess I can reveal that there's one never before seen twist that is pretty major and will probably be fairly controversial due to its implications on the game. I won't talk anymore about that until the Press Conference though. It's just an overall good story, I think - much more consistent than Micronesia, which admittedly had its ups and downs.

Sorry, I know that's not much new stuff for right now, but there's still a while to go yet. I'm really glad that you're so excited for this though!

Happy Halloween everyone. :)

This would probably sound like a very stupid question, but would you ever publish your Vanuatu and Palau stories? I would love to see how different they were from the actual seasons. If not, then perhaps a simple boot list (and possibly some reasons) would make me happy, yet it is up to you.

Hi Mman9000. Not a stupid question at all. The answer is that I can't post the stories because they were never written out in full, or even developed in full. These seasons were just a very loose outline, meaning pretty much only a boot order and just a minimal amount of "story" attached to it because this was before I was truly serious about trying to write it into a full fanfic (even Guatemala, I didn't expect to finish in full). They were definitely not even close to the amount of planning that I do before a season now. I know I've talked a little about them before though, so I'm going to quote an earlier post:

BOOT ORDERS OF VANUATU AND PALAU STORIES

Honestly, I don't remember the full boot orders of either of these fanfics and I didn't plan out *a lot* of details for either of them. They were just very rough outlines, especially Vanuatu. I still have them around somewhere, but I don't know where they are right now to look.

For Vanuatu, I really don't remember too much for sure. I know Eliza and Brady were the Final Two. Scout, Dolly, John P., and Chad all lasted very long and were Final 5/6. Rory also lasted fairly long into the game - I remember he had an early alliance with Brook. Twila and Sarge were both the first out of their tribes - that would have been a very bad move on my part. John K. was an early boot. I know that Ami and Brook were both voted out right around the merge. Everybody else went somewhere in premerge or early merge. Sorry I can't be more specific than that right now. This is just going on memory.

For Palau, Ashlee and James were the two that were not picked for tribes. Ashlee was sick and James was annoying people. Katie was the first boot for being lazy, weak, and annoying people. Wanda was the second boot for being weak. This is where it starts to get a little sketchy, but I'm pretty sure Jonathan, Jenn, Coby, Caryn were among the next few to be booted in some order. People like Jeff, Jolanda, Tom all got booted circa the merge for being big physical threats. The Final Seven was Gregg/Ian, Angie, Kim, Stephenie, Bobby Jon, Willard, with them being voted out in that order (G/I are interchangeable). Anyone else that I forgot to mention left somewhere in between, probably in late pre-merge.

Willard was very manipulate and strategic like I think he could have been on the show and he ended up winning the respect of the other jurors for the game he played over Bobby Jon, who wasn't all that great strategically and had won a lot of challenges. Stephenie was definitely voted off as the biggest jury threat at F3, and I'm not really sure why I had Kim going at Final Four.

For this season, the tribes of Ulong and Koror were different too because obviously with Ashlee and James going, the pick'em would have had a different outcome. I know that Wanda and Jonathan were both on Ulong. One tribe did not completely dominate the game either.

I know I haven't mentioned it before, but I love your stories. Thanks to these, I'm actually beginning to get a hang on Edgic and the like.

Thank you very much! I'm glad to hear it! :)

How much do you have planned out in every episode? How much detail do you have to take to write an episode?

Well, I have a "season plan" that acts as the road map that lists all of the episodes, the days they cover, what the challenges are, what the reward is, who wins what, who's exiled, who's booted, and that's all in a concise 2 page chart and that's a very helpful guide.

As far as the episodes, what I do is I create the word document for every episode in advance and I lay out all the scenes with a brief description of what goes in each scene. This way I can write any part at any time and if I think of a good confessional for Episode 7 or whatever I can put it right in there. Or I can write a scene for Episode 5 before I write Episode 2, etc. I think this is the best way and it's worked well for me, and has helped me connect a lot of themes and storylines from episode to episode.

I'm not sure if that answered your question. Is that what you are looking for?

That answers my question perfectly, thank you!

I should also say that a lot of times things do get cut out of the episode or moved to another episode for length reasons, so having the episodes laid out the way I do doesn't mean they're 100% set in stone. But as I've said many times, the boot order and stuff is always fully predetermined and never changes during the season for obvious reasons (ie. Episode 1 or 2 story edits won't jive up with what happens at the end).

Thank you for your quick response. I might try my hand at Edgic this season. I'll probably be way off the first ten or eleven episodes, but I'll catch on.

You're welcome. I'm sure you would do fine at Edgic, if you choose to give it a try! :)

I have another question. How do you make the Voting History charts? I mean, I know you use Photoshop for them but, do you get the general table from Excel? How long does it take you to make the full chart?

A lot of people have asked me about this and I've yet to come up with a good answer for it. My voting histories are all made just from a bunch of colored rectangles and then I use the line tool to fill in all the black lines. I don't use Excel for anything related to the Voting charts at all - it's 100% done on Adobe. The best way to do it is to make one column exactly how you need it and then just copy it 15-19 times to fill out the rest of your chart and then fill in one extra space in every column with a "darker rectangle" to make up for the person who gets voted out. I'm sure that isn't a good explanation, but that's the best I can do right now.

It doesn't take me that long anymore to make them because I just reuse the same template now and change the colors on it, but if you're going to make a brand new chart, it'll probably take you about 3ish hours.

I hope that helps a bit but I don't think I explained it very clearly.

Looking forward to this!! If Marcus isn't the obvious winner then I'll probably love it.

Well, I think Tracy was pretty obvious last season, but if Marcus does win Gabon, I'd say he's even more obvious, so we'll see what this season has in store. But yes, ideally the winner won't be identifiable in the first 2 minutes.

Gabon's fanfic is going to be the first fanfic that I read from start to finish.
I tried reading China, but I spoiled myself the season (accidently) and so did for all of the others, so I didn't read them.
What I did find though, that what i've read was really interesting, and I look forward for your Gabon fanfic :)

Hi Ragebot! Good to hear that you will be reading! I'm trying to be really aware of potential spoilers, and I even started using Spoiler Tags at the end of Micronesia so that people didn't accidentally see the outcome. I'll also wait a few days again before I put up any updated images.

I'm glad you find the fanfics interesting and I look forward to having you reading this season. Have a great night! :)