Writing about "Wayback" machines

Jerome Price

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One aspect of science fiction that has always intrigued me was time travel. There are a lot of books out there dealing with the subject however, most leave me cold, and don't get me started on TV and motion picture treatment of the subject. Currently I have two stories on Fiction Press dealing with the subject. In both cases, people from the present travel back to the old west. One uses the spacecraft of an alien who has crash landed on earth, the other uses a machine a physics professor has built.

With the alien craft the characters are able to travel to multiple locations, but the one the professor built only travels to one location but two time periods, this is the story I'm currently working on. Originally, the story's protagonist travels to 1876 Deadwood, builds a small town and stays. From time to time, he, along with others return to the present (2015) as well as returning to the past. In the story, the years pass, and when they return to the present for say a week or so when they return to the past, only two or three days have passed. Although the machine was originally set for 1876, it automatically adjusts for the passage of time so they are currently in 1878. A long time ago I read a story about a time machine (not the H.G. Wells story) that performed in the same manner. The story has always stuck with me and it has always seemed to me that's the way one of these machines should operate. I'd like to hear from others who have tackled this subject and read your thoughts.
 

veinglory

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What is it about the other time travel stories that you didn't like? Because they way you are achieving the time travel is pretty conventional here.
 

Jerome Price

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It isn't so much the stories I've read about it, but I have yet to see anything in the movies or TV that take it seriously. Ridiculous plots and improbable storylines is about all they are good for. Someone recommended that time travel series Netflix was running, I think I watched one episode before calling it quits. Same for "Outlander."
 

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It isn't so much the stories I've read about it, but I have yet to see anything in the movies or TV that take it seriously. Ridiculous plots and improbable storylines is about all they are good for. Someone recommended that time travel series Netflix was running, I think I watched one episode before calling it quits. Same for "Outlander."
What are the specific aspects of the time travel stories or shows that put you off?
 

veinglory

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You said most of the books on the subject left you cold. If you haven't read much actual time travel fiction I suggest you do so. Novels don't follow the same conventions as TV, especially episodic TV which has to keep raising the stakes. Most of them use a McGuffin to go back in time and either 1) stay there, 2) return a better person or after saving people/the world, 3) bounce back and forth on parallel time progressions as their life goes to hell, or 4) bounce around in time to pursue some larger goal. These are common tropes because they support traditional story telling. Outside of that things tends to get literary a la The Time Travelers Wife.

Other than not being a fan of Outlander which is more a portal fantasy romance than a time travel story (fight me) this is a pretty good list https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/34714.Best_Time_Travel_Novels_

Even for TV I think many do a decent job, Travellers for example stayed interesting for longer than most episodic TV and ended relatively strongly.
 

jjdebenedictis

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Can't say I'm wild about the idea of discussing how I tackled the subject with someone who sneers at how successful professionals have done it.
 

indianroads

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As a kid I loved HG Well's Time Machine - mostly because it had an underlying theme, which is what I still look for in a novel.

At one time, pretty much everything technological that we take for granted today was considered impossible. I think it's an interesting story line, what will make it or break it is execution. There are a lot of interesting ways it can go - changing the past that changes the MC's present (maybe he doesn't exist anymore). You could look at a dystopian future by projecting forward current trends. You can visit King Arthur's court.

Make it fun and interesting, and IMO you'll have a winner.
 

lizmonster

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It isn't so much the stories I've read about it, but I have yet to see anything in the movies or TV that take it seriously. Ridiculous plots and improbable storylines is about all they are good for. Someone recommended that time travel series Netflix was running, I think I watched one episode before calling it quits. Same for "Outlander."

Maybe it's not worth noting, but as a general rule you can get away with a lot more handwaving in television/film than you can in a book. Read some modern time travel stories before you condemn the genre entirely.
 

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It isn't so much the stories I've read about it, but I have yet to see anything in the movies or TV that take it seriously. Ridiculous plots and improbable storylines is about all they are good for. Someone recommended that time travel series Netflix was running, I think I watched one episode before calling it quits. Same for "Outlander."

Have you seen the movie Predestination with Ethan Hawke? It uses time travel in such a way that the distinction between cause and effect is meaningless, and it uses this in logically consistent and surprising ways. No paradoxes, no fading out of existence, just perfect tightly plotted logical loops. I don't know what you consider to be taking time travel seriously, and I don't know what you consider to be improbable, but this movie is something I highly recommend.
 

Curlz

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There are a lot of books out there dealing with the subject however, most leave me cold
Well, I don't think there's a reader out there who can indiscriminately read everything just because it's their genre and enjoy it. That's why we all have our favorite authors and favorite books. There are way too many books and they are all different, some better than others. Getting to find a book you enjoy can be a chore, so maybe work on that first, in order to minimise the negative experience of picking books you won't enjoy.
The mechanics of time travel can be any, since it's not a real thing. Hence the variety you see in time travel books. If you don't believe a certain mechanic can work, it doesn't automatically render it improbable. Because, hey, time travel itself is pretty improbable. The latest timetravel book I enjoyed was St.King's 11.22.63.
 

katphood

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I thought the Time Machine movie starring Guy Pierce was pretty good. The time travel aspects didn't overwhelm the story.
 

Azdaphel

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I haven't read much about time travel, but I have watch movies and series or played games were time travel is used. I will give my personal opinion, you may do whatever you want with it: avoid paradoxes. It is to easy to have one when you send characters time travelling.
 

litdawg

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What about the immutable past? Major historical events are overdetermined by so many factors that even a few lost horseshoes won't prevent a war, a migration, a techological breakthrough, a financial recession, etc. There's quite a bit that can happen in the past without so much as a ripple in the paradox pool. Kind of like my ability to remember what I did last week. I was sure I paid that bill, but maybe I didn't. Wouldn't be the first time!
 

indianroads

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I'm not writing anything along that line - BUT if I were, I'd consider NOT looking at time as a single line of events, but parallel universes, each spawned by different choices. In this sort of construct, it's possible for us each to have a "lucky" universe, where we were born into wealthy wonderful families, and every decision we made was optimal. Of course - there would also exist the "sucky" universe where everything has gone wrong for us.

I might call the story - Looking for Lucky - or something like that.