Yesterday's Gone: Season Six (52 page)

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Authors: Sean Platt,David Wright

Tags: #post-apocalyptic serial

BOOK: Yesterday's Gone: Season Six

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We also love a challenge, and wanted to do something insane with Boricio. Build him as the most despicable character in the series (or
any
series, judging from some reactions), then tear him down, turning him into this heroic, tragic figure. I think this really started to take shape with the

introduction of Other Boricio and Other Luca, which we explored in Season Three. When you realized how all of this Darkness was initially unleashed — as an act of desperation and love, really, it made the story something special to us.

One of our original plans was to almost reverse Boricio and Luca’s roles, turning Luca into the main bad guy of the series with The Darkness inside him. We’d also considered having Boricio kill himself in order to save the world.

Well, I thought about it. Sean never wanted to kill Boricio!

But as we were writing Season Five, Luca fought me during the draft stage. Turning him into the main bad guy felt forced and untrue to the character’s development. And it totally negated a lot of the stuff we’d set up with Will Bishop. So, he remained a force of good, which I think was the right choice.

We also thought of a better ending for Boricio.

No, he’s not dead. Instead, he continues on, but as an entirely different kind of monster than he started out as. In many ways, this is a fitting punishment for his prior sins —
make him care about people so much, then exile him to a life away from them, because of the monster inside him that he must be vigilant against.

We also wanted to give Mary a happy ending. She’s been through a lot of shit!
How many times did Paola die?
And we wanted her to be happy —
but it had to be believable. And she had to go through hell to get there. I think we succeeded there.

Brent is one of those characters that started off as a main character —
an everyman you could experience The Event through, but as we discovered the story, he became less important to the overall narrative. Plus, as some people (mostly Sean) said, Brent was kind of a wimp.

I don’t see Brent as a wimp at all. I think he’s a realistic portrayal of a regular guy when shit hits the fan. He’s scared of losing his son, and that fear causes him to think things through, rather than going off half-cocked like some Billy Bad Ass. But the thing about being overly cautious is that it begins to weigh on Brent. He feels a pressure to do more, to step up. When everyone he loves is suddenly thrust into danger, the stakes become even higher. I think he rises to the occasion, even if he’s not Ed Keenan.

We also thought it would be cool to bring back a few fan favorites for the finale —
Will, Charlie, and Callie. And their return had to come in a unique, believable way. That was one of the tougher sequences to get right. I hope we pulled it off. It felt great to have them back, even in only for a moment or two. Charlie’s prologue chapter begins exactly the same as his opening in the very first episode, just to bring things full circle —
and hint at the purgatory like existence he (and the others) were living inside of The Light (inside of Luca).

And perhaps most important this season was that we finally revealed the origin of The Darkness (and The Light), unfolding the last mystery of this story. I like the trajectory of The Darkness as a collective — even when it was divided against itself in Season Five, different beings wanting to achieve their ends in different ways. This season, The Darkness has not one, but two foes — our survivors of October 15, 2011, and the very aliens that created it in their likeness, touching on a bit of the Artificial Intelligence as self-realized life theme. In many ways, The Darkness is actually the hero of this story. All it wants to do is fulfill its potential. If you look at it in a very scientific evolutionary way, man (and The Light and the aliens) are standing in its way — refusing to allow progress.

It’s important to us that the
bad guys
have goals which make sense to them. It makes for both a complex, and believable, narrative. Bad guys are rarely
the bad guys
in their own life’s story. And The Darkness wasn’t bad, even if it had grown arrogant and allowed human emotions to warp it.

So, what did YOU think of this series finale?

Feel free to email us at
[email protected]
and let us know. Or leave a review wherever you bought the book (preferably
without
spoilers) and let the world know.

We’ve already heard from quite a few readers who don’t want the series to end. Thank you. That means a lot to us. But all series have a lifespan and we never want
Yesterday’s Gone
to overstay its welcome. We like that you have a special place in your heart for our story, world, and characters. The worst thing we could do is take that for granted.

While we don’t currently have plans for more
Yesterday’s Gone
, I know enough never to say never.

If the right story came into our heads, we could be tempted back. And Boricio will definitely continue to appear in our
Dark Crossings
short stories.
He’s already been in four, in case you’ve missed them.
We’ve had lots of people ask for a Boricio spinoff series, too, which is just all kinds of awesome to feel that kind of love for our character. We’ve tossed a few ideas around, but it would have to feel perfect for us to want to write it.

So, what’s next for Sean and I?

We’re still writing
WhiteSpace, Available Darkness
, and
ForNevermore
. If you’ve not read them yet, you’re missing some of our best work. Especially
WhiteSpace!
We also have some cool new stories —
standalone and series books —
we want to tell.

In other words, we’ll go
wherever the road takes us.

If you want to continue on this journey with us, just join our mailing list to make sure you’re always the first to know what’s next.

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

Thank you for reading,

David Wright (& Sean Platt)

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Sean Platt
is co-founder of the Collective Inkwell and Realm & Sands imprints, children’s author under the pen name “Guy Incognito,” speaker, and author, with breakout indie hits such as
Yesterday’s Gone, WhiteSpace
,
The Beam,
and
Unicorn Western
, as well as traditionally published titles such as
Z 2134
and
Monstrous
, published by 47North.

Sean is one-third of
The Self Publishing
and
The Worst Show Ever
with co-hosts Johnny B. Truant and David Wright. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, daughter, and son.

Follow Sean on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/seanplatt

* * * *

David W. Wright
is the co-author of the
Yesterday’s Gone, WhiteSpace, ForNevermore, Available Darkness, Z 2134,
and
Monstrous
series as well as the
Dark Crossings
collections of short stories and the standalone books
Crash
,
12
, and
Threshold
. He’s also a sometimes cartoonist.

He co-hosts
The Self Publishing Podcast
and
The Worst Show Ever (
formerly
Better Off Undead)
podcasts with author Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt.

David lives on the east coast with his wife, his 8-year old son, and the world’s most pooping-est cat.

He writes about Collective Inkwell stuff at:

http://CollectiveInkwell.com

He blogs about creativity, pop culture, and other stuff at:

http://DavidwWright.com

Connect with David at:

[email protected]

http://twitter.com/thedavidwwright

http://facebook.com/CollectiveInkwellPublishing

* * * *

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