Time travelers, listen up!

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This is the geekiest of all geeky things, but before you write your next time travel fic, check out this post on Rules for Time Travelers. :)

Comments

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

Hee. *bookmarks* Most time travel plots have to take advantage of the parallel universe "loophole" to get around some of those. Though it might be interesting to concoct something that doesn't and still follows all the rules. *ponders*

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My favorite stories are the ones that don't need the parallel universe loophole. :) I think the key is to sort of take Rule #6 to heart - if something happened, it happened. Including time travel. Meaning if you manage to travel back in time, it's because you already appeared at that time and place, so whatever happens while you're there is happening because it already happened, even if you didn't realize it the first time around.

Fic rec: liz_marcs' Living History. (I also recommend the prequel Whispers, but as I recall, it's not necessary to read it first.) Links are here.

[gabrielleabelle.livejournal.com]

In those cases, though, you have to find some canon event and work some time travelers into it. Which is a bit more complicated than the standard "travel back and meet your past self" time travel fics.

Thanks for the rec! I don't believe I've read that one. Bookmarked!

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This is true... which is why I have yet to write it, lol.

Or you could take the tactic used in the fic I recced, and just set the whole thing in the future (post-Chosen), so you don't have to worry about fitting it into canon. :)

[dawnofme.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed reading that. I'm currently writing a time travel fic. I have the character waking up with his mind and consciousness in his body from almost thirty years in the past.

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Hmmm... that's an entirely different kind of time travel. The sci-fi definition (as used in the article) seems to presume actual physical travel - so if you went back in time during your lifetime, there'd be two of you - present you and future you. Yours is more of a Freaky Friday thing... except with yourself. I'm not sure there are rules for that, lol.

[servus-a-manu.livejournal.com]

Schrodinger's cat says, "They aren't so much 'rules' as 'guidelines'!" Or was that Captain Barbosa? :D

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Well, I'd say it could be both, but at some point, it must resolve into one or the other.

(Sidebar: One of my friends totally made a Schrodinger's cat joke in RL today. I have awesome friends.)