Time Travel & Shenanigans

[moon]

Have you ever tried writing a story that involves some form of time travel? If you have/would, did/would you try to plan it all out beforehand or make up new important plot points from seemingly unimportant earlier events? And do you think traveling back in time creates a "new universe" or that whatever action you took back then kind of always happened in the first place?

I've written one story where I planned it all out carefully and was keen on exactly where I revealed the twists. I've also written one story that started out with no twists at all but eventually turned out to be a huge knot of events depending on each other in strange orders. The first way probably works better, but you'll never surprise yourself, something I actually like to do once in a while when a story grows on its own, kind of. The second way has a great chance of turning out a big mess you can't crawl up from though.

I'm wondering how the rest of you feel about time travel and time problems in fiction, because I completely love time troubles when done well, but think it's difficult when you write about it yourself. Harry Potter 3 shows one form of timeline interpretation (whatever you changed when you traveled back in time was already changed the first time, you just didn't notice it), Homestuck utilizes another view (you can build stable time loops where things you change were always changed to begin with as long as you keep doing whatever you've seen one of your future selves do, but if you break the loop you create a "dead timeline"... also you can't travel forwards in time, only backwards). And there's fiction where you always create a new universe when you travel back in time... that's the most boring way imo but so far the one I've used in my fics, since I've found it difficult to weave in events as elegantly as, say, JK Rowling did.

Hm? :3

 

[Hatsune Mika]

I love time travel but the back in time new universe I take in because there is more than meets the eye. What if you went back and killed a butterfly. That butterfly was going to be eaten and the bird that ate it could land on some bad guys coat trying to be good and get a gov job. Then eventually he got it amd turns the government into another facism movement like Adolf Hitler. Its just the most in depth imo
But the whole looping, I have thought about that though. Like going back and doing anything, I say wouldn't it be done already? It just loops over and over due to muliuniverses. Like to explain I recommend watching through the wormhole with Morgan Freeman. It talks about very recent events in science including this. I just have to go cuz losing wifi.

 

[Nolafus]

I recommend watching through the wormhole with Morgan Freeman.

I just have to say, I love this show.

Anyway, I'm probably not the best to talk about time travel with since this is pretty much my opinion on it:

Spoiler:

A comic this nice requires credit!

The only time I've seem to like the time travel concept was when J. K. Rowling did it like Rika mentioned. It's just been done to death for me.

 

[moon]

Haven't you watched Doctor Who season 5 or 6 then? :3 While the earlier seasons didn't really utilize the fact that he had a blue box that could travel to any place at any time much, these more recent ones did. Few things can get me so thrilled and "aha!" as realizing some cool twist you didn't see coming, that occurred because of time travel. Kudos to the newer writers. I want to make twists like that in my writing, but it's tedious to keep track of if you twist things around too much, I imagine. That's my concern. (or, I might just be a lazy planner at this stage) And why I've chosen the more boring way of doing it currently - creating a new universe by traveling back and doing something differently. It's all very philosophical, innit?~

I'll totally watch that wormhole thing when I have time btw 8)

 

[Nolafus]

I've never seen Doctor Who, so I can't relate it back to time travel. :(

 

[moon]

Okay. It had stuff like two people meeting now and then in different directions in time; every time they met, the man knew more while the woman knew less about their relationship. The first time they met from the man's perspective was the last time the woman met him. Makes your heart squirm but is also sort of fascinating.

 

[Mana1]

Okay. It had stuff like two people meeting now and then in different directions in time; every time they met, the man knew more while the woman knew less about their relationship. The first time they met from the man's perspective was the last time the woman met him. Makes your heart squirm but is also sort of fascinating.

Doctor Who takes timetravel into wibbly-wobbly places :P tbh I feel they start to lose any sense of direction and do things just for the impact, rather than sense. I like logic! DX

I prefer writing (and reading) time-travel keeping a linear sense of time (IE, if they go back in time they cannot change anything, as that is what has already happened in their current past - does that even make sense? wafflewaffle). Going into the future offers lots of possibilities though.

I've only written time-travel once and it was to a future, deserted Earth :< was a long time ago though.

 

[moon]

Forwards and backwards in time are very different. Like the movie Time Machine, he went back to save someone but couldn't change a past that caused him to build the time machine to begin with. So key events had to stay. But he could travel forward without other weirdness than that Earth had changed greatly. Doesn't lead to strange time problems in the same complicated manner.

 

[Silversnk]

I follow Kotaro Uchikoshi's way. He explains it in his visual novel, "999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors."

This one doesn't involve time machines but Extrasensorial Perception, though. He says Espers are able to make their minds jump through timelines via Morphogenetic Field (An interesting theory developed by Sheldrake). He does not mess with the physical part.
Basically, he explains that infinite multiverses happen at the same time, and jumping back and forth in time doesn't always get you to the same timeline you we're in before. The jump always takes you to a branch, where some decisions can alter the future and create new possibilities that happen simultaneously in different timelines.

He uses the flow of a river with a split as an analogy for this and I find it very self-explanatory. In 999's sequel he mentions Schrödinger's Cat as another possible way to look at it. The cat is both dead and alive until you open the box, and espers are the only ones that can open it by doing jumps in time.

I am writing a fic that involves time jumps the way I mention it here. My characters do have a personal and egoist motive to do it though, not just fixing a giant mess.
Sorry for my english: not my native laguage haha