Kill Gilligan! or Why Do Characters Do That?

From 1964 through 1967, Gilligan’s Island was produced and broadcast. I saw the show in syndication when I was a kid.

Virtually every one of the 98 episodes involved the castaways attempting to get rescued with Gilligan screwing it up somehow. The question wasn’t if he’d screw it up but how.

Now, the show was a comedy, a farce really. It was mindless entertainment. It was absurd. Taken for that, the storytelling was fine.

However, if you’re writing this story and not doing it as a comedy, what would the characters really do? At a minimum, they’d tie Gilligan to a palm tree until they were rescued. Perhaps one of them would kill Gilligan. Does that sound harsh? How many attempts would the sanest person see fail because of one man’s idiocy until he helped that man meet with an accident?

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The Power of Fear

Fear is a powerful, perhaps the most powerful, driver of people. It can push a person to perform impressive feats.

Think of what continues to drive a highly successful person. Is it fear? Is it the fear of winding up penniless? Is this why a billionaire continues to work, take risks, and make money?

When in the woods and a person see a bear, fear urges caution and retreat. The person will walk the other way, cautiously and quickly.

The person driven by these fears is harnessing them to a positive end.

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