Yesterday's Gone: Season Three (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (62 page)

We knew how we wanted Season Three to end, but had a ton of heavy lifting to neatly tie a bow around the third season. Our story was slightly scattered, and we had to start threading elements so we could pull them into something tight enough to be unforgettable.
 

 
We spent the first several episodes of this season drawing everything closer, conscious of how much story we wanted to deliver, how many questions we wanted to answer, and how important it was to give everyone a satisfying conclusion.
 

No Hurley Birds.
 

We were so focused on shooting the Hurley Birds from our story, that by the time we got to the final two episodes, their bodies were littered all over Black Island, and floating in the ocean around it.
 

This presented us with a brand new problem.
 

WHAT NEXT?

With so many of the original mysteries now resolved, stretching the series into a fourth season would seem ludicrous, an add-on, unnecessary; stealing time from our readers and ourselves, and delivering redundancy when we could be delivering a different story altogether. After all, Dave and I write and publish a new story each week — there’s no sense in delivering something that doesn’t serve our readers, and us, 100%.
 

As we neared the end of this season, we found ourselves with a phenomenal idea — a way we could finish our time in the world of
Yesterday’s Gone
while serving all masters.
 

We know exactly how we plan to end the
Yesterday’s Gone
saga. And while it’s great to have an end in mind, what matters most is how you travel. For us, it’s always been about the characters and the adventure of it all. And we weren’t ready to leave this world. But staying inside without a story to serve us is like staying a houseguest after you’ve been asked to leave.
 

We appreciate readers who gave us their time through the first three seasons, but wanted no one to ever feel like they had too many unanswered questions, so we’ve crafted a scenario that, we believe, does all things well.
 

But, in order to continue the series, it must do a few things moving forward.

It MUST be a different story. We don’t want to repeat ourselves. We believe we’ve come up with a great idea that keeps some of the characters you’ve come to know but allows you to see their worlds differently and to experience a new phase of the tale.

It MUST be easier for you to return to. Season Three by its nature was a complicated beast. We had a lot of dots to connect and mysteries to resolve. And the shifting timelines and alternate universe characters made things a bit confusing to wade through. You had to remember details from early on in the series. While we included Author’s Notes and new chapter headings which stated when something happened, (before or after) “the event” on October 15, it was still complex.

But we don’t want you to feel like you’ve gotta remember everything that happened before in order to return for Season Four. Yes, it will make the book more enjoyable, but we’re writing it in a way that’s friendly to newcomers and for those who don’t remember every detail of the story so far.

We want you to be able to jump right in, whether you read the whole series or are just starting it, and enjoy it.

So we’re making what comes next simpler through a more standard timeline, and without all the alternate versions of people running around. The story will still be epic, but it won’t require you to keep your own set of notes just to follow along.
 

The only problem, and it’s actually a good one to have, is that we can’t tell the rest of the tale in just one season.

So we’re taking
Yesterday’s Gone
to six seasons.

THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

In other words, if you only wanted to stick around to see what happened on October 15 and see the original mystery resolved, this season should leave you satisfied. If, however, you’re excited to return to the world of
Yesterday’s Gone
to see what happens next, you’re gonna love that even more.

We’re giving to our readers exactly what we would want for ourselves.
 

This is my proudest creative accomplishment of 2012 so far, and I’m already looking forward to Season 4 next summer.
 

In the meantime, if you enjoyed
Yesterday’s Gone
, please try one of our other series on for size. We’re just now getting started on revisiting the world of
Available Darkness
.
 
In August, we’ll be re-writing the first book as a proper season, using what we’ve learned in Yesterday’s Gone to tinker with the book without changing actual events that happened. We wanted to make the book better without punishing people who already read it. Then we’re going into Season Two of Available Darkness, which we’re excited to finally return to.

WhiteSpace
is our most tightly plotted series to date, a sci-fi paranoia laced character-driven story which some readers have said would be right at home on AMC.
ForNevermore
is a wonderfully dark fantasy, and the second season I’m looking most forward to seeing. And our anthology series,
Dark Crossings,
is a home-run for anyone who grew up loving
The Twilight Zone
, or sees the narrative beauty of the short story form.
 

Thank you so much for reading.
 

I look forward to a lifetime of writing for you.
 

Sean Platt

Follow me on Twitter:
@SeanPlatt

Contact David and I at
[email protected]

* * * *

AUTHOR’S NOTE:
 

ABOUT THE ENDING: David Wright
 

Stop here if you’ve not yet read the end of this episode, as this will contain spoilers.

Chapters 15, 16, and 17 weren’t originally in this Episode.

Sean and I had thought about writing these scenes, allowing the audience to catch up with those who’d made it back, but for some reason, we felt it might be better left a mystery. We figured if we ended the episode with a bunch of scenes, it might be a bit too much like those never-ending endings in
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
.

So we opted to just end the book with Luca’s chapter, where we suggested that the others had been brought back. That was followed by the epilogue.

And then something interesting happened.

We began to hear from readers who either didn’t like the ending or were confused by it. Or in some cases, both.

Long story short, most readers we spoke with thought that the only person to make it back to Earth was Luca, now transformed by the vial. While many readers said they liked the ending as it was,
we didn’t like
that the ending was so ambiguous.
 

If people are confused at the end of this season, we didn’t do our job.

Additionally, some readers felt that there wasn’t much closure to the first half of the series. It’s one thing to leave people hanging on a cliffhanger, which we love to do, but this was not that. We wanted to deliver satisfying endings to several storylines and failed to do so because we over-thought the ending and scrapped out original idea out of fear of dragging things out.

In other words…

We screwed up.

While I think we did a good job of delivering answers to most of the questions we’d put forth at the start of the series, we
didn’t
write a good ending.
 

So Sean and I got back to work, writing the original endings we’d talked about, and hired an editor last minute to proofread the nearly 2,500 words.

Unfortunately, I don’t know of a quick, easy way to ensure that you can download a new version of Episode 18. So we created a new REVISED Episode 18 (what you’re reading now). We’re making that episode FREE on Amazon for five days, so everyone will have a chance to download a new version at no cost. If we could make it free longer, we would. But we only get five days.
 

In uploading the new book, I believe we’ll have to take down the original book so as not to violate Amazon’s KDP Select terms. We don’t want to double dip with the same book twice. I believe that Amazon will keep the original sales page up, along with whatever reviews we received. I’m fine with that. I don’t want to whitewash our reviews, as they (and you who write them) help us see what we’re doing right and when we’ve gone wrong.

Additionally, we’ll have the new ending in the Season Three Compilation. And we’ll be putting the ending on our website at
http://collectiveinkwell.com/season-three-new-ending
where you can either read it there or download a separate .mobi file of just the ending. We’re also emailing everyone on our newsletter list to let our Goners know that the new ending is available and how to get it.

We’re so grateful to be in the age of digital publishing, where we can make this right within a few days — something we never could have done with print publishing.

So to everyone who hated the original ending or were confused by it, we apologize.
 
We spend hundreds of hours on each episode trying to tell the best story we can, and hate letting you down.

We hope you’ve found this revised edition, and that it delivers the ending we
should have
written the first time. You deserve the best ending we can give you.

And I think that in the end, this screwup may have even led to an even better, well, ending. We hope you love it as much as we do.

In closing, Thank you…

We’re grateful to those who let us know of the confusion and unsatisfying ending.
 

Thank you also to everyone who loved the episode as-is, and to all who have followed us on this adventure during the past year!

Thank you for reading,

David Wright

* * * *

Join
The Goners

Want sneak peeks at what’s next?
 

Want to take part in special Author’s Hangouts with us?

Become a Goner, and get our exclusive (and free) newsletter for fans of
Yesterday’s Gone,
and the dark fiction of Sean Platt and David Wright.

Join and get…

**SNEAK PEEKS OF UPCOMING STUFF

**LINKS TO OUR FREE PROMOTIONS

**THE OCCASIONAL FREE SHORT STORY (including one when you sign up)

**WEEKLY NEWSLETTERS FROM THE MOST HANDSOME WRITING DUO EVER!

(Okay, maybe not so much on the last one, unless you happen to find Ray Romano and Kevin James to be studly, in which case, this is your lucky day!)

JOIN TODAY!

http://collectiveinkwell.com/be-a-goner

* * * *

COMING SOON…

2012 is the year of the serial, and we’ve got some great stories coming your way — a new episode (or short story) every week all year long!

Here’s a look at what’s coming…

What Would Boricio Do?:
A Dark Crossings short story featuring Boricio Wolfe (before the events of Yesterday’s Gone).
 

Z 2134 (the post-zombie serial thriller):
One of our most common questions is when are we gonna write a zombie story. We’ve been wanting to for a while, but wanted to do it right. Z 2134 is that tale — think
The Hunger Games
meets
The Walking Dead
.

Available Darkness:
We’re revisiting our first novel,
Available Darkness
, and giving it a fresh coat of paint and making it a proper serial. If you’ve already read it, you won’t miss anything if you skip the revised edition (except a more tightly plotted, better told story). Following the first season, we’re going right into
Available Darkness: Season Two
.

WhiteSpace:
Coming this winter,
WhiteSpace: Season Two
.

ForNevermore:
Coming this winter (possibly early next year)
ForNevermore: Season Two
.

Dark Crossings:
More
Dark Crossings
stories and the second compilation of short stories with killer endings.

WANNA BE FIRST TO KNOW WHAT’S NEXT & GET AN UPDATE WHEN WE PUBLISH EACH WEEK? SIGN UP FOR OUR FREE NEWSLETTER AND BECOME A GONER TODAY!

http://collectiveinkwell.com/be-a-goner

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Sean Platt
is the co-author of the
Yesterday’s Gone, ForNevermore,
and
Available Darkness
series, in addition to the novels
Four Seasons
and the children’s book,
Penny to a Million
.