Writing Time Travel The Right Way

Can it be done? I realize that a lot of people have negative opinions about time travel in fiction, and I wonder, is it truly that bad, or has it just been handled by so many bad writers that the concept of time travel has been tainted. Can it be used in a way that is not only not stupid and avoids plot holes and fridge logic, but in a way that enhances the story?

Currently, I'm trying to write a super hero series, and it's sort of a deconstruction/reconstruction of the super hero genre. It's about a family that discover some Applied Phlebotinum and they decide to use it to become superheroes. The family starts out with three members, Benny, the ten year old son that becomes the Big Guy thanks to his powers, the dad, Edward, who becomes the Wizard of the group, and the mom, Catherine, who is the Healer and the Team Mom. Along the way, they acquire a Team Pet, Wrecks, and adopt a daughter, Tommi, who becomes the Distaff Counterpart of Benny.

At some point, this family is visited by a stranger who bears an uncanny resemblance to Benny, although much older. They come to find out that this man actually is Benny from some point in the future. This man is reluctant to mention anything about the future to any of them and even refuses to sit in the same room as younger Benny. Not only that, but he acts incredibly weird whenever he sees Tommi, as if he's looking at a ghost.

The family agrees to help the future Benny return to his own time. Along the way, the family has some serious discussions about time travel, whether it's possible, and whether it's dangerous. The main consensus is that time travel works on a Stable Time Loop, since the future Benny keeps having De Ja Vu moments as if he's gone through all this before, because, basically, he has, but as the younger Benny. They all agree that since everything they were going through now has already occurred in the future Benny's perspective, than the time loop is indeed stable, and everything that they do has already occurred, and thus nobody has to be too cautious about messing up the time line.

However, future Benny lets it slip that the future isn't too fine and dandy. He reveals that Tommi from his present is dead, and not only that, but he killed her. He also reveals that before Tommi had died, she had betrayed her own family and had become a very powerful villain.

They eventually do get Future Benny back home, but now they have to deal with the consequences of the knowledge they have received. And now that they know what their future holds, they all have to ask themselves, can it be changed?

One question I have is, "Are the actions of the future Benny believable?" One problem I've had with a lot of time travel stories, particularly when they visit past or future versions of themselves, is wouldn't the future selves have memories of talking to their future selves when they were their young selves? Would this affect how they react to the younger self. Would it dictate what they say or wouldn't say? Would they say something only because the remember their older self saying it to them, even if it doesn't make sense? Would they keep knowledge from themselves, simply because they don't remember receiving that knowledge. I tried to solve this problem by saying that the future Benny's memory is a bit hazy, since he was only a kid when it happened to him the first time, and seriously, can you remember every conversation you had as a kid? I can barely remember every conversation I had yesterday. I also tried to have the future Benny try to be as cautious as possible when dealing with his younger self, since he can't remember exactly everything he's told himself, and doesn't want to miss anything up or deviate from what his future self did. He decides to do most of his interactions with the other members of the family, without young Benny hearing, since it'll be safer considering it wouldn't alter young Benny's perceptions of his older self that much, and it wouldn't alter how that Benny reacted in this situation when it's his turn.

Another question I have is, is this suspenseful? A big problem with time travel is that knowing what is going to happen will remove the surprise for when the event actually occurs? But if the events are revealed as vaguely, as possible, is it still suspenseful, especially if there's still a hope that the future can be changed?

Well before I say anything else, I just wanna say I'd read this cause I'm writing a story quite similiar :P Would love to read your story though.

That being said, I find it suspenseful, and I have to say you make it work pretty good. Your right, no one can remember every conversation they ever had, and even if they did commit something like that to memory (more than likely) you would only get the big picture. Now as how they react to their younger selves, well that depends completely on the character in my opinion.

Can it be used in a way that is not only not stupid and avoids plot holes and fridge logic

Short answer: No
Long answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

edited 27th Feb '11 6:19:16 PM by storyyeller

Of course time travel can be written without plot holes. There's just so many bad uses of it that it comes across as inherently messy. All you have to do is keep your rules consistent, and make sure that if you looked along the timeline that everything makes sense.

One thing: It doesn't quite make sense to me why he'd be secretive about the info if he already knows that it's eventually gonna come out.

edited 27th Feb '11 6:59:38 PM by RTaco

Sounds suspenseful and believable to me. "Big" things, like a visit from your future self, might get ingrained in your memory more than usual, but they can still be forgotten. Future Benny acting cautious is entirely plausible.

As for knowing what will happen, that's where things may or may not get iffy. You might know the ultimate result, but you don't know what happens along the way. For example, Benny might become more daring now that he knows he's going to live, but his future self left out the part where he mistimed a jump onto a train and had to wear a full body cast for several weeks. Future Benny could also be lying, to ensure everything happens right, or he might be misremembering things.

The biggest thing, though, is keeping everything consistent with itself. Since you said, "the general consensus", it means the characters might not know how time travel works; it might not be a stable time loop. If that's true, you need to keep what you know separate from what the characters think they know.

only if it is "look but don't touch" where you can only observe, but are unable to interact with anyone/anything.

Now as how they react to their younger selves, well that depends completely on the character in my opinion.

That brings up an interesting point I didn't really consider. I'm sure it would be quite a strange thing to get to see yourself again as a child. I'm sure that the future Benny would look at his past self and see a lot of flaws that he would eventually grow out of. He would, of course, have knowledge of difficulties this kid will eventually have, and I'm sure this future Benny would be very tempted to give the kid some advice on how to survive some things that are about to come. I'm sure he'd want to give him advice on how to impress that girl he'd eventually fall in love him, and to tell him that no matter what, under no circumstances, should he ever lie to his parents about that thing he did under the bleachers in high school.

One thing: It doesn't quite make sense to me why he'd be secretive about the info if he already knows that it's eventually gonna come out.

Originally, the idea was that future Benny revealed this future information to Tommi alone, thus young Benny would have no clue what information he's given out. But eventually, Tommi would tell her whole family what future Benny told her, thus young Benny would have knowledge of revealing that information. Of course, if I follow this course, future Benny would still feel uncomfortable revealing information around Benny, since he'll know that he doesn't give the information directly to him. Although, I think the main reason why I had him feel uncomfortable about sharing the information isn't because of fear of disturbing the time line, but because it's such a horrible truth to share. How can you look at your happy family from yesteryear and tell them that the whole family will be torn apart, and that he will be somewhat responsible? The fact that future Benny, himself, is directly responsible for future Tommi's death makes sharing the information much more difficult.

As for knowing what will happen, that's where things may or may not get iffy. You might know the ultimate result, but you don't know what happens along the way. For example, Benny might become more daring now that he knows he's going to live, but his future self left out the part where he mistimed a jump onto a train and had to wear a full body cast for several weeks. Future Benny could also be lying, to ensure everything happens right, or he might be misremembering things.

Those are some very good questions that I do plan on bringing up at some points. The fact is that the family has very little reason to believe anything that future Benny says, since they only side of the story they hear is his. For all they know, it was Benny that grows up to betray the family and killed Tommi out of jealousy. This idea would certainly cross Tommi's mind, and might even be the thing that causes her descent to darkness. The only reason they have to believe that this man they meet actually is Benny from the future is the resemblance, similarity in behavior, and the fact that he knows their family's lullaby. It's enough to convince them, but is it enough to convince the audience? Is it little enough to leave the possibility open that this guy may not be trustworthy?

The biggest thing, though, is keeping everything consistent with itself. Since you said, "the general consensus", it means the characters might not know how time travel works; it might not be a stable time loop. If that's true, you need to keep what you know separate from what the characters think they know.

That's really the whole idea behind time travel in this world, that nobody knows quite how it works. They can only guess. I will eventually introduce a scientist who believes he knows a thing or two about how time travel works, but even he is completely clueless. All the characters will have their own idea about what time travel is, and there will be evidence along the way that supports several different theories, and the series itself will appear to jump back and forth on its opinion on how time travel works, without really contradicting itself. The idea is to keep it as ambiguous as possible until the climax, and history is either changed or remains exactly as predicted.

Primer.

You're welcome.

Er, what's with the time travel hate? I find that there's the "easy" way to do things, which is the non-Stable Time Loop way, and then there's the "hard" way and by hard I mean that shit can get really complicated when you start thinking. Infinite loops was one such problem, and Primer, from what I infer from the summary, handled that very nicely.

only if it is "look but don't touch" where you can only observe, but are unable to interact with anyone/anything.

There's also You Already Changed the Past. This is how I think it would really work if it was possible. But changing it makes for more interesting stories, so my second favorite is the multiple universe version, but to be more proper, you should address the time traveler's alternate self who is native to the new timeline.

Yes, the way that's implied by the very sketchy physics that covers time travel is You Already Changed the Past. (Imagine there's a rubber sheet, and the sheet warps as things move around. The analogous version of the Grandfather Paradox is one point of the sheet moving in such a way that the sheet can't keep that point stationary without snapping or tearing.)

EDIT: Nevermind, that's a rubbish metaphor. If anyone actually wants an explanation, I'll get one when I'm more awake.

edited 28th Feb '11 2:41:24 PM by Yej

I always imagined time travel to realistically work like this:

Hop on your alcubierre drive based ship, go FTL to go back in time, and find yourself in a new universe almost identical to your past except for you because the old one either died spectacularly or split off due to the many-worlds theory. Then... do anything, go Screw Yourself, kill the alternate but identical to your own grandpa or whatever. It doesn't matter at all, because YOU are a future Alternate Universe invader, therefor you can change anything and it won't mean shit for you.

Of course, this is just speculation, but I think this is the most logical method of time travel. No weird Mind Screw stuff, no fading in and out of time, just this.

edited 28th Feb '11 2:31:07 PM by Ekuran

Well then that brings up the question: what happened to the old universe? Was it overwritten, or did you simply disappear from it?

You disappeared. You were never seen again after you turned on your engines.

edited 28th Feb '11 3:19:03 PM by TParadox

I'd consider time travel plots too hard to really write. Best I could do would be to relegate it to a backstory and use it to play around with Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory, but outside of that I'd never have anyone travel through time during an actual story, even if there is one character who still can. It would just be too easy to mess up.

edited 2nd Mar '11 3:29:16 AM by Tarsen

Thank you all for all the suggestions, advice, and recommendations. It's been really helpful. Now I have another question.

Eventually, Tommi does turn over to the dark side, just as future Benny predicted. However, she knows by choosing to become a villain, that her death will shortly follow. By this point, the family has figured that destiny had been written and that there is nothing they can do to avoid it. But just before the climactic battle where Tommi is fated to die, Tommi is visited by the strangest thing, the future version of herself. This figure is about 20 years older than Tommi, and claims to be her from the future. At first Tommi refuses to believe it, having accepted that her fate is written, but at last she is convinced that the figure she sees actually is herself, alive, in the future. Her future self refuses to reveal anything about what is to come, but tells her that her destiny is hers to choose and to not get too hung up on the logic of time travel.

Having seen this vision of her future, Tommi receives the inspiration she needs to figure out what to do. She continues to face Benny in a climactic battle, and cleverly fakes her own death, while simultaneously sending that Benny back in time, to the time where they originally met. After that point, she gives up villainy, changes her identity, and fights for good once again.

Now the question: Does this stretch credibility too much? Does having a future Tommi appear seem too much like a Deus ex Machina? Does having Tommi send Benny back in time to complete the loop feel too contrived, or a tad pointless? I'm struggling to come up with a point to this whole "time travel" plot, other than it just seems cool to mess around with it. But other than that, there seems to be no purpose for it, and in the end, it seems to have done more harm than good. Maybe the whole ordeal was just a very clever plan devised by the future, future Tommi to give herself an excuse to fake her death, develop a new identity, and thus remove herself from the shadows of her brother, who's always been the star of the team. But it seems a bit much.

Yes. It seems like Deus ex Machina, because future-what'shername comes out of nowhere. And if that's the ending, it's pretty anticlimax.

edited 3rd Mar '11 4:38:36 PM by Collen