...Help.

I think I got carried away with making a Mind Screw plot for one of my other novels, lost some crucial notes, and now I am impossibly confused by this utter mess after I have decided to return to it and make it a secondary material to New Dawn.

Lets see if I can actually write all this out.

The Hero is in fact a clone of himself from an alternate universe, created because the Nathan of Universe 1 has a star of fate that says he will become evil at a crucial point. So AU Nathan crossed universes by sacrificing his right eye, which had a huge magical power, replacing it with an Anti-Magic one (that's important). His dad followed him over due to some events that led to Universe 1 Elias turning bad, becoming Stephen Arkh. AU Elias adopted AU Nathan and had a son named Nathan, and then AU Nathan replaced Real Nathan with a clone of himself, aka The Hero. In this way, due to the cloning process used, Nathan is his own older brother, having the Symphony weapon from "birth" (though he did not know until it was activated) and an Anti-Magic eye he needed for his travels. It gets screwier from here on.

Because Real Nathan was adopted by the Real Seth Arkh and then became Seth Arkh when the real one sacrificed his identity to become Clone Nathan's Mentor, thus Seth Arkh is fifteen years younger than he should be, resulting in a later issue that caused a lot of the prior events. (10 vs 25.)

Nathan's mom was involved in a magical cloning lab, and ended up accidentally mixing some of her DNA with her alternate universe counterpart, making Nathan's love interest via dividing by zero to make her into an unrelated person in regards to relation to Mina Drant. This, however, led to the spontaneous birth of a Real Miria Altesia much earlier than the clone called Miria Altesia was created.

Perhaps more ickily, before she was related to him, Mina Drant and a time displaced AU Nathan had a relationship by accident, resulting in either a paradox or a child. Rather than let the universe suffer a critical failure at an indiscriminate point in the future due to this, he used magic to make an impossibly early birth of a healthy baby who would grow up to be Cana Drant.

However, this led into the Real Miria Altesia becoming Mina's mother. Thus, in a way, becoming her own grandmother.

Real Nathan ended up catapulted through time and dimensions, where he grew up in a way to become Mobius Blackmore, whose reign of terror in the alternate universe prompted his own son AU Nathan to go across universes to make a clone of himself in place of Real Nathan.

So my question is, how can I make any of this make sense? This is only the backstory, and I can't understand my own work.

edited 8th May '12 2:37:52 PM by NickTheSwing

Try making a bubble diagram or a flowchart. Might help.

I made a diagram. I think I'll take a picture of it and try to post it on here.

Apparently, there are two loops present due to abuse of time travel and cloning.

Well, three counting the Elias - Arkh thing.

edited 8th May '12 3:39:57 PM by NickTheSwing

I think you're doing well on Mind Screw if you need a flow-chart to explain the story...

I think I might possibly understand. A touch. Perhaps I'll read it again a few times.

If you're having trouble with the time-travel elements, perhaps some of the ideas on this page might help; it should describe a set of possible outcomes (as the author perceives) of time travel, complete with diagrams.

As to your specific case, I've read over it only once and am perhaps not at my best, so I'll refrain from comment for the moment, I think.

Thanks. I entered the project intending to make the story feature some symbolism and have just a bit more fast action.

We can see where that ended up. I think I got depressed at one point or another, and tried writing to funnel my depression out.

Reading through it another time...yep, still hurts my head.

Thanks. I think that is starting to help.

edited 8th May '12 7:40:14 PM by NickTheSwing

Is there any particular reason why all this is necessary? Never be afraid to remove troublesome elements from your works if they don't have a good reason for being there.

edited 8th May '12 7:45:07 PM by nrjxll

Simply because I want to have such a confusing element. Hurt my head it may, but I rather like this sort of story.