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Last Saturday, I started laying out a plot for a time-travel story that hangs collectively and started describing the mechanics of the machine. I selected to deal with the time machine as a exhausting magic system whereas retaining time itself as a delicate magic system. The story premise is {that a} man is utilizing the machine to discover the previous. Sitting inside it, he’s surrounded by a small drive subject, so he can observe the previous (delicate magic) with out the chance of altering something (exhausting magic, which imposes guidelines). Thus he can not set off the disastrous butterfly impact.
Developing a narrative drawback
So, now that the machine and the character have been arrange, what is the story drawback? Perhaps this machine is experimental, and our character is testing it on himself in case there are glitches. Conscience prevents him from making an attempt it on anybody else first. But when he realizes it really works, he will get excited and tells his spouse.
So what’s the issue? Well, how about this: his spouse was a widow when he married her. She decides to return into the previous to observe her interactions along with her first husband. She does this a number of occasions and he or she doesn’t inform her second husband, the time machine inventor.
But as each of them proceed to make use of the machine, she slowly realizes that they’re starting to neglect issues. It’s refined at first, nevertheless it’s clear the machine is doing one thing to their minds. Still, she retains returning to the previous to see her first husband. She can’t assist herself as a result of she nonetheless loves him.
Then, someday, she provides in to temptation. She is aware of she shouldn’t step exterior the drive subject. She is aware of something might occur. But she nonetheless seems very similar to her youthful self, so she decides to take the chance. She steps into the unknown. She even crushes a butterfly on her technique to see him…
She meets and talks to her first husband, and through that dialog, she by accident says one thing that prompts him to vary his plans. As a outcome, he avoids the crash that was alleged to kill him.
And the drawback is…
When she comes again to the current, at first every part appears nice. The butterfly she killed didn’t have an effect on something in any respect. However, she does have a splitting headache, and he or she’s extra forgetful than ordinary. To make issues worse, after she leaves her second husband’s lab and returns to their dwelling, she sees her first husband sitting on the kitchen desk. They’re nonetheless married.
She returns to the lab. There she discovers that her second husband has a totally totally different dwelling. She finds him. He nonetheless remembers her and remains to be utilizing the machine. She tells him what occurred, however as she makes an attempt to recount what she mentioned to her first husband, she will’t keep in mind the phrases she used. It doesn’t matter anyway as a result of the second husband has already found out what she’s achieved and is livid along with her.
He decides to maintain utilizing the machine, hoping to neglect about her. He’s been conscious of the reminiscence situation related to it for some time. But what he didn’t know was that she too was utilizing the machine.
Story choices, choices!
Does the spouse let her second husband proceed utilizing the machine, although there’s no telling the harm it would do? Does she destroy the machine? Or does she return into the previous and undo what she did, even when it kills her first husband, and even when she will’t keep in mind what she’d mentioned? And what in regards to the model of her who violated the protection guidelines by leaving the machine to speak to her first husband? Will she consider her story? Or would that different model of her even care as a result of she doesn’t understand how a lot she loves her second husband? What if that different model desires to maintain current? And to make issues extra sophisticated, the harm she’s achieved to her thoughts is much extra intensive than she had realized, due to the alternate actuality she’s created. If she travels again once more, will she even keep in mind why she’s again there?
A selected change to the time journey story guidelines
So, that’s my time journey story. If it’s much like another person’s, I haven’t seen it. Last Saturday, I discussed that I used to be going to do one thing particular with the story guidelines. Now that the plot is constructed, let me clarify.
I’m utilizing the foundations to slim the main target of the plot, to not escalate the state of affairs. Escalation is the place the Terminator franchise went incorrect. The writers stored treating the foundations like new components within the story and enlarging their world till it grew to become contradictory. By utilizing the foundations to restrict the scope of the story, I can direct the reader’s consideration to solely the related components of the plot. The time machine guidelines preserve paradoxes from being the main target of the plot — with one particular and intentional exception. Technically, the primary husband’s return could possibly be thought of a paradox, nevertheless it’s meant to be a twist. It’s alleged to act as a intestine punch for the spouse who believes that crushing the butterfly didn’t do something.
How was this twist constructed?
The exhausting magic system represented by the point machine is supposed to ascertain a way of safety as a result of all of the variables are alleged to be accounted for. The delicate magic system of time is meant to characterize the specter of the unknown. Thus the spouse senses she is doing incorrect as a result of she is, metaphorically talking, leaving the path and touring deeper into the forest. She takes the chance, has an anxious second with the butterfly however thinks all is effectively —till she sees her first husband sitting on the kitchen desk. The butterfly, which could possibly be foreshadowing, serves to lull her right into a false sense of safety. But as soon as she’s again at her home, she realizes the reality: her sin has had a consequence.
From this level on, different guidelines serve to complicate her world and agitate her emotional state. I’m utilizing the machine to create a ticking clock across the reminiscence loss situation. That serves to elucidate why this time machine won’t ever attain the general public. That in flip creates extra anguish for the second husband and helps account for why he desires to neglect about his spouse and his life along with her.
One factor I make a degree of not doing is including exterior components to broaden the plot. Every rule forces the reader to deal with the character increasingly. One means to consider it’s that the foundations are a type of microscope; with extra element, the lens zooms in increasingly on the characters. Things grow to be extra centered, not much less.
Have I missed one thing? Probably. My solely protection is that I made this plot up on the fly, and I can’t stress sufficient how a lot I hate time journey as a narrative premise generally! Hopefully, any storytellers on the market who learn this sequence will discover my reflections helpful.
Here are the 5 earlier essays on my sequence on time journey in science fiction. They are additionally interlinked:
The pluses and the perils of time journey in science fiction. Time journey might be handled as a kind or exhausting or delicate “magic” however it is vital to not confuse the 2. Soft magic is imprecise and incidental; exhausting magic imposes guidelines on the story. Too usually in science fiction, these guidelines get damaged.
Time journey: How and why the Terminator sequence labored — then didn’t Part 2: Time journey works effectively sufficient as a delicate magic system however time-travel tales run into issues when it’s handled as a tough magic system. Terminator 3 crossed into exhausting magic territory when it added the idea of destiny to time journey, which signifies that particular guidelines started to matter.
Time Travel: The risk of escalation within the Terminator sequence. Part 3: The Terminator sequence writers by no means new whether or not there can be a sequel, and that had implications for a way they plotted time journey. Shrouding the story guidelines in thriller solely works with delicate magic techniques the place the story focus is on one thing apart from the system.
Now for some examples that work… Here in Part 4, we take a look at find out how to make time journey work as both delicate or exhausting magic. Time journey into the long run will not be as tough as journey into the previous as a result of altering the long run doesn’t create so many advanced story issues.
and
How to jot down a time journey story that retains making sense, Part 1. Here in Part 5 of the sequence, I provide an strategy that permits for time journey with out apparent large plot holes. To preserve the story underneath management, the time machine itself needs to be a tough system even when the idea of time is delicate and pliable.
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you’ll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://mindmatters.ai/2025/11/how-to-write-a-time-travel-story-that-keeps-making-sense-part-2/
and if you wish to take away this text from our web site please contact us
