Time Travel Book?

What do you mean by process? Just write the book the way you wish to.

Well, I haven't written one yet, but some weird old lady turned up on my doorstep the other day babbling something about annoying fans and cruddy movie deals and paradoxes-be-damned, then she tried to beat me to death with a book that looked like it had my name on the front...

In other words, I'm not sure what the point of this question is, as it seems rather vague. Are you asking how to write a time travel story, or if it's worth the effort to write them? If you have an idea for a story about time travel, then write it. Nobody else's experience is going to write it for you, nor will it predict whether or not it's good or if it sells. If you're having trouble with a specific issue regarding this kind of story, then ask about that specific issue for a better chance of getting help.

JMHO...

I'm actually messing with one, but not very far along in the "process".

But, if you want to write a time travel story, by all means read the granddaddy of them all, The Time Machine, by H.G. Wells. This is the novel that established modern "science fiction" as a genre. Wells himself contributed to the coining of that term, when he referred to his numerous early works as "scientific romances".

To see your replies to this thread, I'll check back here yesterday.

caw

I'm currently editing my time travel novel in the hope of finally knocking it into shape.

Process? I'm a pantser. I start with a character or two and write. I was 20k into this novel before I knew it was about time travel. Once I get to the end, I set it aside and leave it for a bit, then go back and read through to find all the flaws. Then I edit it a bit at a time.

As for how it'll turn out, who knows? I'm fond of it.

I haven't written a time travel story yet, but I've had one percolating in my head for the past few years.

I published one a long time ago but I haven't started writing it yet.

I have a vague notion three or four books down the line to write a comedy about time travel - exploring some of the paradoxes and loops that you could get yourself into.

In many of my fantasy settings magical time travel is often part of a high-level/skilled magic-user's arsenal. Now the stories may not focus primarily on time travel... But it does come up despite. However... My settings tend to be extremely high powered in general so time travel via spell is actually rather unimpressive when put next to other high-levèl magics in my worlds(such as... You know... Creating and/or destroying enter words/planes/realities...making matter from nothing ect...)

I think that when you write a time travel story you should first decide what kind of time travel you want. Do you want techological/scientific time travel or magic-based time travel? How will this time travel function in terms of mechanics? Will it have any inherent dangers? Will travelers be able to interact with the times they visit or will they only be present às invisible spectators, unable to effect the world around them? What, if any paradoxes are possible and how disasterous would they be?

All of these questions and the countless others time travel as a concept creates can provide all kinds of fodder for a good story.,

My time travel novel was just published and I approached it like any other story, but the genre does throw up some unique problems. I was faced with one paradox after another, but in the end I think (hope) I came up with a good solution to each of them.

My feeling was that people will accept time travel as a 'fact' in a novel, but they won't accept inconstancies.

How did it turn out? Well, it got published and sales are pretty good in the first week and a half, but I'd need to travel into the future to see what happens.

I wrote a short story once about a guy who found out the hard way that if you time travel a day into the future, you might not find the Earth in the same place you left it.

Echoing the confusion about the 'process', and exactly what you want from this thread though.

I keep detailed notes that I always have in a separate window as I write. It is very easy to have inconsistencies when writing time travel, and your readers will pick up on it.

For organization, I have a summary of the entire series which lists all the major plot points. I highlight important events and make sure to make changes bright red, so I can double check them later. I usually have this reduced at the bottom of my screen so I can refer to it as needed.

The individual books in the series each get a plot summary, but then are detailed down further. I break it down into chapters, but you could easily just divide it into sections or whatever you want. The idea is to have a short synopsis of what should happen in each chapter/scene. I do this to ensure that every detail I need is where I need it, and at a glance I can refer back to the plot summary to see the chronological flow of the entire book. (Which isn't always cut and dry with time travel, but I need some sort of constant!)

I also use the "view navigation" option with both documents, which makes it very easy to move back and forth and keep it all straight.

Yeah, I know it seems like a lot of plotting, especially for a former pantser. However, I have found that it is essential to have good organization when writing time travel, and even more important when writing a time travel series.

I linked to a screen shot of how I have it set up. This is an example of the workflow from one of my books in the series.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204236154891647&l=3dc77de070

I was going to write a time travel book, but then someone told me to forget about it and gave me a lottery number to play instead. Does anyone know how I can get in touch with JG Wentworth?

I've had two time travel novels published - The Plot to Save Socrates, and its sequel Unburning Alexandria - and the third novel in this Sierra Waters, trilogy, Chronica, is now available for pre-order. I've written about a dozen time-travel short stories, novelettes, and novellas, published mostly in Analog Magazine. The process of my writing is always the same - I come up with an idea, then make it up as I go along. I take pains to put my characters in almost impossible paradoxical situations, and then figure out a way to get them through it - or least, sometimes, survive. My strong sense, however, is that processes like this are very personal - they work for me, but may not work for anyone else. Best of luck with your writing.

I wrote a few script scenes on time travel for a university assignment, so I am fully qualified[SUP]TM[/SUP] to give this piece of advice, not just for writing time travel but anything:

Have fun.

Seriously though, it can get complicated very quickly, but it really can be fun. Don't rush it and maybe have someone to act as a sounding board if the time lines turn into timey wimey balls, but other than that it's just like writing anything else.

There's a lot of pseudo-science associated with time travel stories just like in movies they do many unrealistic things that are accepted as "real." People expect certain things and so those are given to them.

Bullets don't spark when the hit. There is no whoosh when a spaceship passes, nor is there a thrum of the engines. Tires don't screech on wet pavement, gravel or snow. Cranes don't collapse when too much weight is put on the cable (same goes for anchor winches). So on and so forth.

There is no "time line" with time travel. The paradox of time travel is always out there, waiting to bite you. But the biggest one that never gets addressed ... the planets move as does the solar system as does the galaxy. Where are you going to be, exactly, if you travel back or ahead even one minute?

With so much pseudo-science around time travel, I wouldn't worry too much about any of the big questions. Play with it and enjoy it. Remember this, though, time travel is the biggest deus ex machina ever invented, and always brings up the quetion, "If they can time travel, why don't they just ..." -- fill in the blank with an unexpected time travel solution to whatever problem you set up.

One of my novels involves time travel. I wrote the MC's experience of getting from one place time to another, and then I was through. It was a one-way trip.

Michael Steven said:

Bullets don't spark when the hit. There is no whoosh when a spaceship passes, nor is there a thrum of the engines. Tires don't screech on wet pavement, gravel or snow. Cranes don't collapse when too much weight is put on the cable (same goes for anchor winches). So on and so forth.

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And when Starsky and Hutch are hurrying to a crime scene, the car doesn't actually shift up through 23 gears.

I wrote one. I'll let you know how it goes six months after it comes out.

kuwisdelu said:

I published one a long time ago but I haven't started writing it yet.

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I bet that's a motivation killer.

kuwisdelu said:

I published one a long time ago but I haven't started writing it yet.

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justlukeyou said:

Hi,

Have you written a time travel book? If so what process did you follow, what happened and how did the book turnout?

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I have started several books, but then again my total list of WIP is insane. That said, I consider myself the sort of nut job that likes to just sit around and discuss the limitless possibilities of time travel, temporal etiquette, and its spin-off the Many Worlds Interpretation.

In role-playing games I have used time travel as an element more than once and I think the use of it there is very similar to its use in writing in general.

The main trick is to decide when each destination is, and what could go wrong in each era. Seriously, if you're not prepared for the worst, you won't be able to write the story as things go the way you want. The quickest way to get enthusiastic readers up in arms with a time travel story is to have one of your characters do something in the past (even something innocent) and the side effects of that incident are not explored. Any change can spiral out of control, depending on which rules of Temporal Theory you use.)

Example from a book I was working on:

My MC travelled from his post-apocalyptic time period to late 20th New York City. He was familiar with the period (long story) and new he could blend in easily. However, in the course of this, the MC bumped a total stranger on the street. The two of them got into a very brief shouting match about who was at fault. Not more than 5 minutes.

What ultimately came to light was that the guy the MC bumped was actually supposed to be one of the crazies that nearly destroyed the world in the near future, creating the post-apocalyptic society the MC had just left. Because of that 5 minute delay, this guy missed meeting one of his future fellow crazies and thus didn't get recruited into the plot. The guy they hired instead was a hundred times crazier and the already awful apocalypse was made worse, resulting in the utter destruction of the world.

Enter the paradox: If things end in the early 21st century then there is not post-apocalyptic society for the MC to be living in during the 35th century. So he can't go back in time...so he can't bump into the guy...so that guy is hired...so the world is still ravaged but not destroyed...so then there is a society afterwards...so the MC can be there...so he can go back to the 20th... See the idea? This creates the nasty word "paradox" and again depending on the temporal theory you want to use, reality simply unravels itself and creation ceases to exist.

Michael Steven said:

There's a lot of pseudo-science associated with time travel stories just like in movies they do many unrealistic things that are accepted as "real." People expect certain things and so those are given to them.

Bullets don't spark when the hit. There is no whoosh when a spaceship passes, nor is there a thrum of the engines. Tires don't screech on wet pavement, gravel or snow. Cranes don't collapse when too much weight is put on the cable (same goes for anchor winches). So on and so forth.

There is no "time line" with time travel. The paradox of time travel is always out there, waiting to bite you. But the biggest one that never gets addressed ... the planets move as does the solar system as does the galaxy. Where are you going to be, exactly, if you travel back or ahead even one minute?

With so much pseudo-science around time travel, I wouldn't worry too much about any of the big questions. Play with it and enjoy it. Remember this, though, time travel is the biggest deus ex machina ever invented, and always brings up the quetion, "If they can time travel, why don't they just ..." -- fill in the blank with an unexpected time travel solution to whatever problem you set up.

Click to expand...

You are right. Time travel stories are filled with psuedo-science and I must admit my wip, which deals with time travel, suffers from some of what you listed. But one thing I do different is that all of that becomes a moot point in my novel. After getting stuck in 18th century Earth during the Revolutionary War, my MCS at first discuss the various theories of time travel and what is possible and what is not. Can they alter history? What are the real consequences if they do? But, in the end, it does not matter. They are stuck where they are and their main objective is to fix their ship, which was damaged after a crash landing, and find the antagonist. They don't worry too much about changing history (other than helping to defeat the British) but even then they don't do in fear of changing time, but just because they are patriotic. They just have to survive the situation and get out of it. They do in fact change history in minor ways, but in truth, they probably did not affect the outcome of the war. They have such a small part in the war, anyway. The only thing they change is their immediate situation.

I think the way I chose is a good way to go. Maybe not. My MCS question the perplexities of time travel, but do not have time to ponder them. The time travel aspect is just a place they happen to be in, not a do or die situation.

I went into the future and retrieved my completed manuscript. This saved a lot of trouble and effort.

I'm working on one right now. The story follows Mankind's first interstellar ship on her maiden voyage. The ship gets pulled into an anomaly that randomly sends them back a million years. They pass through the anomaly, or a similar anomaly, three more times in the hopes of returning to their original time, but it sends them to three more random time periods.

So, in all, there are five different time frames (counting the characters' original time frame), each with its own story.

I've just written a first draft of one. It messed with my head so many times and at various points I just thought "screw it, I'm giving up, this won't make any sense." But in the end I (I think) worked out all the kinks and got it to a place where it should make sense.
My story is set in the future but I had random chapters in italics representing the past that was being "visited" by the future character.
Anything the character then affected was actually crucial to my plot, but he only changes little things that had small impacts on his present... if that makes sense.