Writing Time Travel

[Anders Ämting]

Well, I think that these responses kind of answer your original question.

Not quite - I never really worried about paradoxes and conservation of information. My concern was about the actual story structure, which is going to have to be non-linear because the characters will end up doing things that have already occured when the story starts, or witness events first that they themselves later instigate, or meet themselves from a later part of the plot. I'm wondering what the best way of planning that is, because I've never done something like this before.

 

[Jared]

Not quite - I never really worried about paradoxes and conservation of information. My concern was about the actual story structure, which is going to have to be non-linear because the characters will end up doing things that have already occured when the story starts, or witness events first that they themselves later instigate, or meet themselves from a later part of the plot. I'm wondering what the best way of planning that is, because I've never done something like this before.

I disagree, it will be linear from the point of view of your MC. It has to be linear by your rules, because the non-linearity that arises from the paradoxes and such that don't exist for you. (By linear I mean that the going into the past can not affect the time traveler's present as presented in the book...unless you're planning on changing things and trying to catch the reader up on everything that changed in the timeline and what the MC does now that they remember two histories. I would really recommend not doing that.)

Honestly, as a first step, I would just try plotting out the book from the narrative point-of-view like you would any other. Anything that the MC does back in time had to have occurred in the book already, so that's not an issue. (I don't know if you have them going forward in time.) When you reach a scene where the two versions of the MC actually talk face-to-face, leave the outline vague until you reach the older version's time hitting that, then go back and flesh it out.

I really do think that you best approach is to do it this way. If it fails, you learn something that will inform your adjustments. Then either you'll improve your plotting or have more focused questions to ask.

 

[Anders Ämting]

I disagree, it will be linear from the point of view of your MC. It has to be linear by your rules, because the non-linearity that arises from the paradoxes and such that don't exist for you. (By linear I mean that the going into the past can not affect the time traveler's present as presented in the book...unless you're planning on changing things and trying to catch the reader up on everything that changed in the timeline and what the MC does now that they remember two histories. I would really recommend not doing that.)

What I mean by "not linear" is that the MCs will witness or be affected by events that they themselves turn out to be part of.

Just to use a random example: Suppose Character A finds that his car is stolen in Chapter 1. So he has to walk to his destination, takes a shortcut, and ends up rescuing Character B from orcs, or something. Then, in chapter 10, Character B needs a car, so she goes back in time, steals Character A's car, goes forward in time, and is like: "Hey, I got you your car back!"

In order to do this, I have to know what is going to happen in chapter 10 when I start writing chapter 1. I have to write the entire story this way. That's what worries me, because I don't always get my best ideas right away, and every time someone travels backwards in time, I have to account for that earlier in the plot.

 

[Jared]

What I mean by "not linear" is that the MCs will witness or be affected by events that they themselves turn out to be part of.

Just to use a random example: Suppose Character A finds that his car is stolen in Chapter 1. So he has to walk to his destination, takes a shortcut, and ends up rescuing Character B from orcs, or something. Then, in chapter 10, Character B needs a car, so she goes back in time, steals Character A's car, goes forward in time, and is like: "Hey, I got you your car back!"

In order to do this, I have to know what is going to happen in chapter 10 when I start writing chapter 1. I have to write the entire story this way. That's what worries me, because I don't always get my best ideas right away, and every time someone travels backwards in time, I have to account for that earlier in the plot.

I know what you meant. What you're saying doesn't clash with the definitions that I used.

Let's get the disclaimer out of the way: If it's worrying you this much, you may not have the chops or writing muscle to pull it off right now. You may need write other stuff to train up to the level where you can do the heavy lifting this idea requires. There's no shame in that. Listen to or read interviews with authors and they'll say the same thing. I've heard Seanan McGuire and Brandon Sanderson both say is in the past couple of weeks.

Now, to the suggestion: iteration, focus on the only the MCs.

Pick out the main POV character. Plot out that thread coarsely from beginning to end.

Find where that thread loops back on itself or intersects other threads. Now plot out the other threads around that one.

Find conflicts, resolve and adjust plotting.

Iterate and add details.

Think of origami. You don't do all of the folds simultaneously and hope the shape falls into place. You do a large fold here and a large fold there. You do some smaller folds, then open it back up so that you can do larger folds that incorporate those smaller folds. As you get further along, your folds tend to get smaller and more detailed.


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Anyways, that's my suggestion. I've never written a time travel story, but if my iterative and recursive code/work translates over, this is what I do.

 

[Zero Angel]

I just remembered a story I consumed once that dealt with time travel in a "magick" way.

Anyway, there are like five versions of this story. Each version is a different path through the timeline.

The first started out in the "original" timeline sorta, but a character intervenes from the future.

The second time through the results of the intervention change the intervention, and we see another possibility of a way through.

And so on.

This kept up a couple of times, but each time was different enough and new enough and interesting enough and well executed enough that it was enthralling.

Can't remember the series but if I do I will post it.

 

[soulless]

I just remembered a story I consumed once that dealt with time travel in a "magick" way.

Anyway, there are like five versions of this story. Each version is a different path through the timeline.

The first started out in the "original" timeline sorta, but a character intervenes from the future.

The second time through the results of the intervention change the intervention, and we see another possibility of a way through.

And so on.

This kept up a couple of times, but each time was different enough and new enough and interesting enough and well executed enough that it was enthralling.

Can't remember the series but if I do I will post it.

I like the sound of this, hope you remember it.

 

[JCFarnham]

As for the causality questions, may I suggest it might help you to plot backwards, similar in a way to how one might plot a mystery.

Knowing where you have to go, or what you have to get out of a complex plot is useful. In your case especially, you need to master the art of foreshadowing to the extreme. A plotting backwards (finding your end point, then figuring out what needs to happen to get there) has helped me a lot in my foreshadowing efforts.

Something else you could do, is split the threads of your plot. Take a linear approach to one subplot, and the other, and other, and so on, then weave them together into your causal mess? I'm currently plotting this way, admittedly its not a time travel story, but it's helping to keep separate elements, well, separate.

You could do what a certain director does and write in chronological, then purposefully cut and paste depending on the view points?

If you're a visual person I strongly suggest you map this out. Big sheet of paper, different colours to represent different view point threads... That's how I would do it. If you don't currently outline, you need to for this kind of project. Time travel is fun. but remember to plot in a way that everything seems plausible. There is still probably only one version of history, it just so happens that your character are interacting with it out of order.

 

[Anders Ämting]

So, it occurs to me that I may be focusing too much on the heroes time travelling and not enough on the villains.

So, new question: Is there anything I really shouldn't let the villains be able to get away with when it comes to traveling through time?