Multiple timelines advice please

[Bruin]

Hi all,

The story that I'm working on involves a series of events in the far future which (after a time travel event) cause a series of events to occur in the near future.

What I'm wondering is do any of you have any advice as to how best to work this? At the moment I'm interspersing the two so that when the characters in the near future find out what is really happening the far future story will have already been told - does this sound ok?

Previously I effectively had two seperate stories, the near future story taking place first then the far future story taking place afterwards as the truth was revealed to the near future characters.

I hope that this makes sense and is advice worthy - just post if you'd like me to clarify the muddiness!

[scalem X]

how about intertwining the two? If you want an example; read:
Timescape by Gregory BenfordHe solves the thing really well

[Glitch]

I think stories which involve a lot of time travelling tend to follow the chronological order as the main character sees it, but this assumes the main character is the one doing the time travelling.

Other stories start with the effect with the cause being in the future.

The one time travelling story I have in development follows the main character as he goes back in time in an attempt to alter an event, this effectively splits the story in two and some things that happen in the first half are explained when seen from the other side in the second half.

Although I don't actually use this idea. It's like a guy's car get's stolen, when he travels back in time he needs a car so takes his, so he's effectively stealing his own car.

I personally like time travelling stories and would be interested in hearing more about your idea.

Since you mention far future I assume that your characters can not interact with older/younger versions of each other, this can in effect give you two different characters to deal with as the younger and older versions could be very different. But then this is true with any story which follows a character over a long period not just time travelling ones.

[Bruin]

Thanks for the advice - I'll try to have a read of Timescape.

The main character is from the far future who follows a criminal back in time who has gone back to destroy the future. I have done a lot of work on back story as well as chracter and world development which I hope will give a well used idea a lease of life.

My problem with telling the story from the main characters chronological point of view is that the reader would know what has happened and what is at stake when what I'd really like is for the high stakes to only become apparent just before the end to both the reader and the near future characters.

[Spectrum]

Oh my gods, the horror. Time travel. Urgh.

Are you going to address the Grandmother Paradox in your story or just ignore it?

[scalem X]

Are you going to address the Grandmother Paradox in your story or just ignore it?

And there's me thinking it was the grandfather paradox, lol.
If you read Benford you'll have at least one sollution to it.

[lin robinson]

I remember this being dealt with in an ancient magazine column called "Through Space and Time With Ferdinand Feghoot IV"

(It's been forty-five years, I might have gotten the Roman numerals wrong..I have the same problem with SuperBowls.)

Anyway, the intrepid temporal explorer took off to the future, set to reappear the next day at a press conference.
He pops out of his Time Machine on schedule, with two blowsy, bawdy women hanging on his arms.
Questioned, he replies,
"Haven't you ever heard of the pair of doxies in time travel?"

[scalem X]

lol, Lin

[Bruin]

Originally Posted by scalem X

And there's me thinking it was the grandfather paradox, lol.
If you read Benford you'll have at least one sollution to it.

LOL - I'm not going anywhere either of them!

I've decided to work on the basis that the timeline is very resliant and only major changes will cause it to alter course otherwise it'll act like a river and flow where it would've done no matter what some little idiot threw into it.

My main issue is the impact that I want the revelation that the main character is actually from the far future and the neferious goings on are of far more import than the characters in the near future could ever have realised to have (apologies for the inordinate length of this sentence!).

I'm not sure why but I don't want the reader to be in on the secret as it were but the characters in the near future to be out off the loop .

[Spectrum]

Originally Posted by Bruin

LOL - I'm not going anywhere either of them!

I've decided to work on the basis that the timeline is very resliant and only major changes will cause it to alter course otherwise it'll act like a river and flow where it would've done no matter what some little idiot threw into it.

So if a guy goes back and kills his grandmother, he doesn't disappear? Or what?

[Glitch]

it sounds like you want to tell the story from the point of view of the characters in the near future

[Bruin]

Originally Posted by Glitch

it sounds like you want to tell the story from the point of view of the characters in the near future

This is what I actually do but there is also the storyline in the far future which culminates in the "bad guy" going back in time to alter the timeline and it was whether to write the far future segement first or just entwine the two which was causing me some concern. At this stage I've decided to go for the entwining idea so I'd best get writing and see how things develop.

Spectrum - I wish I knew mate. To me this would probably be classified as a major event but I figured that if the smallest actions (i.e. going into a room five minutes earlier than you should have done) impacted on the timeline and/or created an alternate timeline I'd end up suffering from neural meltdown.