User blog:Bwburke94/Brendan's Tips for Writing Survivor Fanons

This is a page detailing my tips for writing Survivor fanons.

Deciding on a Season Format
The first thing you need to do is decide on how your season will play out in regards to twists. Do not make the mistake of making your first season completely twist-less; it bores your readers and makes it harder to write twists into subsequent seasons.
 * 18 castaways is a good starting point, as 20 may be too much for a new writer to handle.

Day Layout - General Info
Survivor lasts 39 days, and it's important to write a day layout that takes all 39 days into account. The last day is, of course, the Final Tribal Council, which means the last member of the jury is always voted out on Day 38. This means the first 37 days are free to do whatever you want with. Still, there are a couple guidelines.

The combination of a reward challenge, immunity challenge, and Tribal Council, taking place over the course of one episode, is commonly known as a "cycle" -- I will use that term here. The traditional finale (two Tribal Councils followed by the Final Tribal Council, with a Redemption Island duel at the start of the episode if necessary) counts as one cycle.


 * Avoid four-day cycles whenever possible. In other words, no episode should last more than three full days.
 * The season finale is an exception, it can run from days 36-39 if you want it to. In that case, the two Tribal Councils should take place on days 37 and 38.
 * If an evacuation/quit occurred in the previous episode, it's fine to run a four-day cycle to make up for being ahead of schedule. A good example of this is Survivor: Nicaragua, as the NaOnka/Purple Kelly double quit put the producers three days ahead of schedule, resulting in four-day cycles to make up for it.
 * If your season has 20 (or more) castaways, it is recommended to run a double Tribal Council during a one- or two-day cycle, to emulate the format of real Survivor seasons.
 * Avoid having one-day and two-day cycle back-to-back. The obvious exception is when both cycles make up a single episode.
 * Avoid having back-to-back two day cycles, outside of days 3/5/7 and 34/36/38.

Day Layout - Deciding on a Layout
Let's suppose you want to write a season with 20 castaways, a final three, and a jury of seven.

The "classic layout" is a Tribal Council every three days, like this:

However, you can clearly see that this is sub-optimal, as you'd need to run three double eliminations to use this layout! Once CBS started running larger seasons, they needed to fix this problem, and Survivor: Guatemala brought with it the "modern format" that has been used with little variation in most subsequent seasons.

Note the "2" -- that indicates a Double Tribal Council. By eliminating a single day from the episode 3 cycle, you added two eliminations to a season! But you're still one elimination short, and you have no room for new episodes. You'll need to run a second double elimination.

A fan of modern Survivor would say "why don't you replace the episode 13 reward challenge with immunity?" There's one problem to this solution - your jury has only seven members, so the first juror wouldn't be voted out until Day 27! As the jury normally starts on Day 24, a different solution is in order to maintain the traditional jury start date.

Make the last pre-merge cycle another double elimination! Survivor: Cook Islands used this format because the "Day 31 immunity" twist had yet to been invented. While a double boot in the last pre-merge cycle falls afoul of Brendan's Rules of Twists, the modern layout's inconvenient double boot placement makes this unavoidable if you have a small jury.

To Switch or Not to Switch
Tribe switches can make your season much more interesting, if they're executed properly. Many writers have done switches specifically because they couldn't find another way to get their intended boot order to work without one. Plan your season as if it were a real season - find a place to do a switch that would be fair for game balance reasons.


 * The best points to switch are the final 16 or final 12, as those numbers are divisible by four leaving a possible even switch. Look at Survivor: Micronesia for a good example of a final 16 switch - the tribes entered the switch with equal numbers, allowing the switch to distribute the new tribes evenly.
 * Final 14 switches leave an odd number of castaways on each tribe, but it's an option for a switch in 18- or 20-castaway seasons. Never switch at 14 in a 16-castaway season, except if you want a "surprise" switch no one in the game would anticipate.
 * In the event the tribes enter the switch with one tribe having a numbers advantage, the switch should even things out. If Tribe A has eight members and Tribe B has six members, both post-switch tribes should have seven members.
 * If you're switching with an odd number of castaways remaining, don't leave a tribe with a 3-person advantage. Not only is it unbalanced, but it virtually guarantees an ulonging of the previous minority tribe.
 * Even "random" buff draws are usually rigged by gender and/or previous tribe. Ensure that at least two members of each old tribe join each new tribe, to make your season more realistic. While Survivor: All-Stars and Survivor: Cagayan each switched five members of a six-person tribe, you should not do this in your fanon.

The Merge
Try to place your merge at a reasonable point in the game. Day 19 or 20 (the halfway point) is the usual merge point, but you can move it a few days earlier or later if you need to.


 * There should be at least 6 pre-merge cycles, and at least 5 post-merge cycles.
 * Try to merge at the final 9-12, depending on how many castaways you have.
 * A final 8 merge can be used in a smaller season, but should be used sparingly because of the risk of an ulonging such a late merge entails. Obviously, since this is a fictional season, you can prevent the ulonging from happening, but the Survivor producers will never merge this late again after what happened in Survivor: Palau.
 * A final 13 merge is possible for a 22-castaway season, but seasons that large probably shouldn't be written.
 * Don't merge immediately after a double Tribal Council, as this means neither tribe would hold the tribal immunity idol at the merge. It just seems wrong to omit the "tribal immunity is no more" speech.

The Jury & Final Tribal Council
The jury should consist of seven to nine members.


 * Ideally, at least half the cast should reach the jury stage - the only season to start the jury "late" was Survivor: Palau, and in that season the opening twist effectively reduced the cast size by two.
 * However, no more than two-thirds of the cast should reach the jury stage. Having a jury of nine in a 16-person season gives a jury spot to someone who lasted 18 days and didn't make the merge.
 * Avoid a final two with an even-numbered jury. This could easily lead to a 4-4 (or 5-5) tie if CBS Survivor were to attempt this again - and Micronesia was one vote away from this happening.
 * Similarly, avoid the temptation to write a tied jury vote in a final three. Just make it 4-3-1 instead of 4-4-0.
 * Don't use a "surprise" day 38 double boot to force a final two. In CBS Survivor, there is no such thing as a fake Final Immunity Challenge.