Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone)

dead-end, we untangled it together. That made the final section of Season 2 take a little longer than we’d planned, but the payoff was explosive and totally worth it.  

    DAVE: I worry about that stuff a lot. There’s a lot of tiny details to keep track of, and it’s easy to overlook something as you’re writing. Before the season began, I started a chart and even a secret website to keep track of all the data so I’d better remember it.   But with the speed we’re writing, I don’t have time to keep track of every little thing. So far, I think we’ve done a pretty good job, save for a few minor continuity errors which I’m fixing as I find them.
    There’s also a concern when killing characters off, where I need to make sure I’m not killing an idea I had for later in the series which required that character. So far, we’ve avoided writing ourselves into anything too bad. Knock on wood.
    Not an easy thing to say given how the season ended.

    MATT: What do you hope your readers interpret from the messages interwoven into your characters and the story arcs overall?

    SEAN: I think everyone sees life through their own prism, and I’m happy as long as people are reading and enjoying what we create. I never sit down with an agenda. I write the characters as people, and have them react how I think they would react in that situation. I think the same is true for Dave. If someone wants to read something into what I’ve written, for good or bad, that’s there side of the prism and nothing more. I’m happy if a reader sees our work as an honest interpretation of life, even if the circumstances in the story are extraordinary.

    DAVID: My primary goal is to entertain, to create a world that you will want to spend time in. We’ve got a broad base of characters and ideas within the story, so there’s no overarching political, religious, or philosophical worldview we’re driving at.  
    I love that people have connected with the characters, though, and have found something deeper within the story to enjoy.  
    I’m attracted to writing about dark subject matters, and part of that is to better understand why people do what they do or how people respond to horrible situations. I’m fascinated by stories of redemption and corruption for much the same reason. Why do people go bad? Can bad people become good? Those are themes I tend to drift toward.
    And though it’s not intentional, I try to show a sense of hope in the world. However, I’m pretty sure that people who read our books will think I have a pretty twisted idea of hope.

    MATT: Do you feel the reader base is accurately understanding your narrative, characters and all? Or do you feel that there's something that they just aren’t “getting?”

    SEAN: I’ve not seen any evidence that the readers aren’t getting it. The reviews have been wildly encouraging. I’ve only seen one where I’d say the reader didn’t get it. If there was confusion, I imagine we’d see that reflected in reviews or in our Goner’s newsletter, but we’ve not seen it in either place.

    DAVID: Yeah, they get it. At first, I was worried that people might not care for serialized fiction, but that hasn’t been the case at all.  
    I get email every day from readers who get it and are enjoying the ride. I’m surprised how many readers have reached out to us. It’s easily the best part of our job, connecting with people. There’s still some people who prefer to read the full book all at once, but they still enjoy the roller-coaster type ups and downs in our story.

    MATT: So much has already been written in this saga. How do you keep it fresh at this stage?  

    SEAN: We’re not modeling Yesterday’s Gone after written work so much as televised work. The TV serial is an art form and vibe we’re trying to capture with Yesterday’s Gone , and the upcoming ForNevermore , and all our titles.  
    Treating it like a TV series allowed us to do some new things creatively, and I think that’s paid off in the reader experience.

    DAVID: We keep it fresh by following the road we started down and telling the story of these people. We respect the story and the characters. We started out wanting to do three seasons. Sean and I talked it over, though, and realized that we’d need at least four seasons to tell the story properly. I don’t see it going much longer than that, though. There’s too many other stories to write.
    That being said, if we had a great idea to return to this