Young Writers Society

And by 'novel' I mean both full-length story and super neat.

I'm kind of looking for opinions + critique on this idea I had, so, uh, yeah let's do this:

So, I'm kind of super into time travel??? Like, the theories about alternate timelines, particularly, are super cool. And like a lot of novels/movies that deal with different timelines usually make them intentionally confusing and hard to understand, and that's lame??? The only time-travel movie (that i can think of) that did a p good job of explaining how their timelines work was Looper.
So what I want to do is write a story with different timelines that's easy to understand (though it does get kind of complicated)
So, for simplicity's sake, we're only going to discuss the three main timelines in the story, and again for simplicity's sake, we'll call them AB, CD & EF.
And for now the MC is unnamed, so we're gonna call her Crapfalcon (or CF).

THE AB TIMELINE:

AB is set in the distant future, in a period a bit after a method of time travel was discovered. Initially, scientists had gone back in time to study ancient civilizations and dinosaurs and how our species evolved and all that good stuff, but eventually just like space travel (in this world people commonly take their vacation at the Gale crater), time travel got commercialized and turned into an industry. It was super expensive, though, and only rich people could get access to it. Eventually, this turned into a big ol' clusterfrick, and it got hard to regulate. All the leading scientists of the age warned that misuse of time travel could seriously frick up the past, and most governments put a ban on any time travel that wasn't strictly regulated, and it went back to a mostly science-based venture.
One country, however, didn't put a ban on it. We'll call this country the Untied Shoelaces of Idiots or USI for now. the USI was a relatively small country, but they were actually the ones who lead the whole time travel venture, and were the first country to manufacture a working time machine. So, this being like their only accomplishment ever, they were reluctant to let it go. They pretty much just said "fudge it" and practically gave time machines away, and declared time travel a basic human right.
This caused a lot of anxiety for other countries, but we'll get to that later, because this is where Crapfalcon comes in.

CF is a middle-aged woman who lives in the USI. She's not very successful, and she generally feels like she's made a lot of mistakes in her life, and blames her unsuccessfulness on said mistakes. So, when she gets her hands on a time machine, she make a plan to go back and fix all her mistakes. She goes back and warns her twenty-six-year-old-self not to marry her first husband (who would later cheat on her), and her eighteen-year-old-self to at least apply to college and stuff like that. After she covers what she considers all her major mistakes, though, she thinks of some somewhat-more-minor mistakes, and she goes back to correct those. Then she thinks of some really minor ones (e.g.; telling her fourteen-year-old-self to make sure she goes to the bathroom before she rides that roller coaster), and she gets so consumed by thinking of mistakes and embarassing moments and moments that could have gone better, that she's practically visiting her younger self on a daily basis. Thus creates, CD:

THE CD TIMELINE

The CD timeline covers the life of a younger Crapfalcon, one who is constantly visited by her older counterpart who gives her (at times seemingly useless) advice. When she was first visited by the lady, she was six, she was under the impression that she was her imaginary friend. As she got older, though, she figured out that it was really her from the future (because for one thing, the imaginary friend didn't go away).
CD Crapfalcon (or CD-CF), has thus far led a significantly 'better' life than AB-CF. She has better friends than AB-CF had at her age, she gets better grades and she just generally sleeps p well at night. One day, however, she is visited by AB-CF, but AB is drastically older than she usually is. Her age, of course, fluctuates some, but it's always a middle-aged woman. This time, she's very old, and seemingly on the brink of death. CD-CF doesn't recognize her at first, but AB convinces her who she is, and tells her that she made A Big Mistake. Before CD can question her about it, though, AB hastiliy tells her that she's going to fix it, and leaves immediately after that.
After this encounter, CD-CF starts getting visited less and less often by AB-CF (she would continue to get visited by her as she usually did, because AB didn't do anything in order), and by the time she's the same age AB-CF was when she started travelling, CD doesn't get visited at all. Thus ends the CD timeline, and brings us back to AB:

THE AB TIMELINE (CONT.)

Whilst AB-CF is travelling to her younger counterpart, the USI is facing war. A bunch of the other countries + their allies want them to stop being a bunch of dumbstupid idiots, and are threatening to attack. The USI, however, has a buttload of allies themselves, and don't feel like they'll be overpowered (which is a stupid thing to think tbh like they could they're located on the moon for one thing and all their allies are moon-allies so it's like Earth vs. moon it's really stupid, they'll lose no matter what, man. But, they do have the advantage of "time warriors," since the other countries are all scared of using time travel, so, it isn't an instant win at least.
So finally, the war starts. Big bloody time battles and junk, you know, all that good stuff with a few minor side-plots, but eventually the USI surrenders their time machines. There's still a lot of USI-ians travelling round the time-o-sphere, though, so they're responsible for rounding them all up. Most people didn't go too crazy with their travelling, and a lot of people actually went to the future rather than the past, but everyone who went to the past + fricked stuff up, were rounded up and had to serve a sentence for being such idiots (everyone who didn't frick stuff up just had to pay a fine). So, AB-CF eventually gets caught, and thrown in moon jail. She actually fricked up the past more than anyone, or so scientists say, and becomes the poster child of time-criminals and serve a fricking long sentence and doesn't get out till she's like ninety. When she does get out, time travel is available again, but strictly regulated + you can p much just go to the future unless you're a scientist or have scientists accompanying you. There is, however, a black market.

AB-CF gets hold of an illegal time machine, and travels back once more. This is where she runs into CD-CF and tells her she's going to fix her mistake, and then she travels to the place she went to right before she got caught, and helps her other AB-self evade capture. Thus creating, EF:

THE EF TIMELINE

EF is basically a timeline where CF doesn't get caught. She does this by stopping the Earth-Moon war before it can even happen, under AB-CF's advice, and via A Way I Haven't Figured Out Yet. It will probably involve bombs or mind-control or s/t super cool like that, I dunno.

So, this timeline doesn't really play that huge of a part, obviously, except for the whole stopping the war thing. After that, she just keeps advising herself in life, which brings us to the Wrap-Up:

THE WRAP-UP

In the EF timeline, Young-CF grows up completely under the advice of Older-CF, and when she gets close to the age that Older-CF was when she started travelling, Older-CF convinces her to go back and take up her place in advising herself. Younger-CF agrees, though reluctantly, and so starts a Big Ol' Loop. The CF's keep convincing themselves to go back and continue the work the previous CF's have done, because whenever they hit the Right Age, the Older-CF's promptly get sucked into a different timeline (or alternate dimension, whatever you want to call it), and if the Younger-CF's don't go back, they create an AB-similar timeline where their younger counterparts don't get advised anything, and since they all lived such cool lives, they want their younger selves to do it, too.
Thus, the EF timeline keeps re-creating itself.

As for the AB + CD timelines, and this is where it gets a bit complicated and you really have to embrace the timeline theory, so hold on to your butts:

In the CD timeline, of course, CF grows up and has a p cool life all around, but as you'll remember, her older counterpart gets captured (and i can't remember if i mentioned this, but after she creates the EF timeline she gets recaptured + executed), so when CD-CF gets to the Right Age, she doesn't go back to advise herself. She doesn't even have access to time travel, because at some point she moved to Mars and wasn't involved in the whole Earth-Moon war or the USI or anything. SO, CD-CF has a happy life and lives into old age and dies peacefully.

BUT, since she didn't go back to see her younger self, and didn't help her at all with her life, since that all only came about through time travel and not the Natural Order of Things, she inadvertently creates another timeline, where she grows up without any advice and makes a bunch of mistakes and becomes an unsuccessful middle-aged woman living in the USI. AKA, the AB timeline.
And then, of course, the AB timeline creates the CD timeline. And it just keeps going round and round and round.

So, in conclusion, the EF timeline keeps recreating itself, and the AB & CD timelines create each-other. and. it. just. keeps. happening. over. and. over. again.

The end.

Whoo, that took some brainpower to get through. Time travel is definitely one for tying your thoughts in knots.

Basic first thoughts? Sounds awesome! Please write it, so I can read it properly rather than in story-outline form.]

I like that you've thought about the wider implications of the existence of time travel - commercialisation, effects on the past, inevitable regulation... these are all things that often get sidelined for the flashy "hey we can go back and have cool adventures" plotlines. I'm definitely interested in something that explores those aspects of the thing a bit more. I also think that your main character could turn out incredibly interesting - from this outline, she's definitely exhibiting that very human characteristic of hindsight, and who doesn't get the "what if I never did that stupid thing?" thoughts? Written well, you've got the makings of a very relatable character there.

In no particular order, then, places where I think problems might crop up:

-- "After this encounter, CD-CF starts getting visited less and less often by AB-CF" - paired with the sentence just after, this doesn't make a great deal of sense. Assuming AB-CF did nothing in order, she will still have visited her younger self a lot of times in the period that is after-this-moment for CD-CF. I'm tying knots in my brain to think about it, but a decline in visits doesn't seem to make sense, unless AB-CF feels that all her mistakes were made when she was much younger.

-- I think you will have to be quite careful with balancing the power in the war against the USI! There's definitely potential for "wait, but they could go back in time and--" here, so caution required!

-- The big one: your Way You Haven't Figured Out Yet. This is, predictably, your biggest weak spot in this outline. I hope you figure out something plausible and also cool, though!

-- The Wrap Up is definitely where things start getting mind-twisting! I think you will have to be careful here, to make sure that you don't lump a whole load of time theory on your readers, and instead give them a way to understand the looping and recreation of the narrative without exploding their heads.

All in all, though, it sounds very interesting, and when you get around to writing it, I would definitely like to read! Good luck to you!

Cadi x

Thanks, Cadi! Especially thanks for pointing that stuff out, having holes poked in my stories is usually the best way I can work it out into a workable storyline, ahaah

-- For your first point I have actually thought this one through before, and admittedly probably should have elaborated on it a bit (I wrote this all in a bit of a rush.)
When AB-CF starts going back, she does go to a fix her major mistakes of course, and these are completely spread out + not in order. The same as she keeps thinking of things, but as she goes on and on she sometimes can't remember any specific events that changed her life for the worse, so at times she tends to just go back and watch herself for a while, until something happens that she wants to change. She does this in a mostly linear, organized way. When she sits down and thinks about things, as well, she sort of thinks "Well, what went bad when I was twelve," or thirteen or fourteen, and this tends to add another layer of organization to it. So it's definitely not in order, but it is vaguely chronological.
And when you add that to the fact that she got caught while she was in the middle of going back, she mostly got a chance to visit herself on a mostly daily basis when CD-CF was younger (and when AB gets out, she goes back to the last point in time she had visited CD (which is going to be kind of a funny scene because CD does see a lady being pulled away out of the corner of her eye, but didn't pick her out as AB, and then ten minutes later AB reappears as an old lady)).
So, since she went back and watched herself in a mostly chronological order, she then doesn't get a chance to do that as CD ages, which makes the visits drop a bit at first, and then when she's a bit older she only gets visited for whatever AB could remember.

So it doesn't drop at a constant rate, but overall it doesn't happen quite as often as it was.

(Hopefully that makes sense, ahaha)

-- Yes, thank you! I've only just started working out the details of the war, and that is definitely something to think about. One of the ways I was thinking the USI would be hindered would be because a lot of their soldiers are off frolicking through time, and it'd be a bit of a problem rounding them all up.

-- This I've given a bit more thought to the past couple of days, and I'm thinking it's probably going to involve EF-CF spending a lot of time bribing politicians and possibly assassinating people, which should be fun.

-- Ah, yes! The Wrap-Up isn't going to be a literal section of the story (and the timelines aren't going to be presented exactly like they are here, mostly it's going to be focusing on AB, then CD, then EF, but there are going to be little 'windows' spread throughout the parts, so the other timelines aren't forgotten throughout it.), and the way I'm going to try to set this all up is to explain things in little increments throughout the story, and sort of lead readers to come to these conclusions (that EF recreates itself, and AB and CD create each-other (and really AB+CD create EF, as well, so everytime they re-create eachother, another EF is created that keeps recreating itself...if that makes sense, ahaha), which hopefully is the conclusion they'll come to, or at least something like it. Kind of like character development, I guess, you kind of reveal characters as you go, and by the end you know what kind of person the character is (though some peoples interpretations can differ a bit from others). So, in a way, I guess I'm gonna try and treat the theories like a whole 'nother character...if...that makes sense.

Thanks, again!

You're welcome! The clarification on the dropping off visit rate does make sense, don't worry - and sounds quite sensible overall. I like the idea of CD-CF seeing her AB self snatched away but not noticing - that could totally wind up as one of those cool things that readers pick up on, especially on later read-throughs. I do enjoy noticing new things on a reread that slot into the plot. And your thoughts on the war/making it not happen sound good, and the wrap-up sounds a bit less worrying as a 'character' development than an outright section, so I'd say it all sounds pretty cool to me!

Ooh time traveling *.*
You prooobably don't know it, but I'm pretty much crazy about anything considering the movement, manipulation, sound, colour, birth, you-name-what.. Of time. So it makes me happy to see someone giving a lot of thoughts to the time traveling concept and is writing a novel about it

I love the idea too (I even use it, but I don't have machines and this isn't about me anyway)..

I see Cadi's already covered the things that came to my mind, but I really wanted to stop by and drop a comment, as, you know.. Time traveling.
(Do ignore the awkwardness.)

I was wondering, will you be writing the plots in this order, or will you mix them, or something third...?
I'd be happy if you'd keep us posted, and if you finished this.. I'm really curious about it as, like you said, it's not often done all that good

Have you read The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma? You might like it ^^

Thank, Aria!

I was wondering, will you be writing the plots in this order, or will you mix them, or something third...?

I'll probably be splitting it into four or more parts (the first focusing on AB, the second CD, the third AB again and then the fourth EF (though these each might be split into further parts, so maybe it's more like four acts)), but throughought these acts there's going to be chapters here and there about the other timelines. For instance, during the first act, there's probably not going to be too many of these, and mostly it'll just be previews of the CD timeline, and then during the second act there'll be a few more chapters about the other ones, mostly AB. They're not just going to be random peeps into the other timelines, though, like I said in my other comment, I'm trying to set it all up so the readers will come to the final conclusion (the Wrap-Up) on their own, and I think if they're thinking about the other timelines while they're reading it, it'll be easier for them to associate what's going on in one with the other ones.
There also might be chapters here and there about various other time travelers, just as little side-plots because Idek I like doing that in my stories. But if I do that, I'm going to try and relate it to what's going on in the story at the moment (e.g.; during the third act there could be a chapter about a time-traveling soldier who's called back to the past unexpectedly to fight in the Earth-Moon War.) If by the end this makes the story too confusing, though, I'll probably cut them all out and put them in a little anthology or s/t.

Also,

I'd be happy if you'd keep us posted, and if you finished this.. I'm really curious about it as, like you said, it's not often done all that good ;)

I will try to! Though I'm probably not going to start actually writing it until at least way later this year (I'm considering using it as my 2013 nano, or 2014 since i did already have a different idea i was planning for this year), since this year I'm editing a different novel, and it'll give me time to plan everything out.

Again, thank you!