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The fantasy genre is replete with stories that explore a number of themes such as industry and nature. It can be hard choosing among them since there’s so many that are easy to work with and for the audience to understand. Traveling through time is another matter. It can be complicated which is why when you’re pondering whether to include time travel in your story, you might need to mull it over for a while.
Time travel is a powerful theme, one with far ranging implications that you might not conceive of. There is a lot to take into consideration as you contemplate about having it in your story. For this reason, it would be prudent to think about how it’ll impact the plot as you brainstorm ideas for themes to explore.
There are a multitude of reasons why you might want to feature time travel in your story. One of them is you have a desire to tell a story that spans different eras of the same world but you’re not quite sure how to connect the two. This is where the power of journeying through time comes in, giving you the chance to eagerly delve into it with gusto.
Just as there are reasons for bringing it in your plot, there are disadvantages of having time travel as one of your themes. One prominent reason is that you’re not just focusing on one world, you’re dealing with multiple versions of the same world which can make it feel overwhelming at times since there’s a lot to take into account. You don’t want to inadvertently mix something up which will require more work to fix down the road.
In the final analysis, only you can make the decision as to have time travel in your story. The question you ought to ask yourself is: will it help it? The last thing you want to do is create something that is marred by how you incorporate time travel in the plot that alienates your viewers, thereby reducing their enjoyment of your story.
This is article number six in the series examining the nuances of time travel. For more, check out our blog page where there’s a scintilla of articles!
There are a myriad of reasons why creators use the themes that appear in their stories. Some have an affinity for a particular one whereas others are interested in exploring them for the first time and want to see how they impact both the worlds and the characters they’ve built. The same holds true for that of time travel.
One key reason why you’d like to bring time travel in your story is you want to dive into a different period that is connected to the one in the present day. You want to show your audience how they’re connected and traveling through time is one way to bridge the two. It’s also a great opportunity to show them what makes the new iteration different than the one they’ve grown accustomed to.
Taking a look at different themes is another reason for featuring this concept in the plot. The new version of your world is a blank canvas, so to speak, where you can incorporate themes and ideas that you felt weren’t a match in the present-day world but you still wanted to include them. Using them helps distinguish it from the present while also making them memorable.
The third driving factor for having time travel in your story is you’ve created a plot that instead of leaving it in just one era, it feels like it can cross different periods. An example could be a recurring villain that rises every now and then but nobody knows how to vanquish him. You could feature how people in different times strove to constrain the villain while searching for clues on how to defeat him for good. This is a superb way to tell a story that spans ages and connect people from different times to each other.
Though there are a plethora of fantastic reasons why you want to have time travel as one of the themes your story explores, there are equally as many reasons it can be disadvantageous to bring it into it. Some of them can wind up being major and can potentially hamper your viewers’ overall enjoyment of the plot. Taking your time to think whether to feature it or not is always a good idea!
One disadvantage of using time travel in your story is you need to create the mechanism that makes it possible for your character to move between times and present it in a way that remains true to the spirit of the story. This is imperative because if your audience even senses that it just doesn’t gel with the vibe of the world and your characters, they will have a hard time getting into it. In other words, if they think it doesn’t fit in the world, they will not like it and that will hurt your story.
The second driving factor is that you are reusing the same world though you are showing it in multiple eras. Using an exact copy is a no-no since your viewers will wonder what the point of going through time was if the protagonist wound up in another world that was the exact same as the one he left which is why creators go to great lengths to use things and ideas to separate the two. This is where things get tricky since there are a lot of details you need to keep in mind so that you don’t accidentally put them in the wrong era which will lead to more cleanup later on.
The third con of incorporating time travel in your story is that you are essentially running and managing parallel plot-lines. You have to constantly juggle what’s going on in the present with the other characters who are still in the present with what the protagonist is up to in the other time period. In some cases, some plot-lines from the earlier time period will influence those in the later era either directly or not. It can be hard to keep track of.
Finally, it’s difficult to wind down the main character’s traveling through time in a way that satisfies the plot. At some point, the protagonist’s arc in the different version of the world will come to an end and he will return to his own time. If only time travel was so neat. What he doesn’t realize is that his actions in that other era will have effects he never foresaw that the plot will have no choice but to address if it is to proceed further.
So you’ve decided that you want time travel in yours story. That is, you want the protagonist to go to a different era. Before you proceed further, there is one question you ought to ask yourself: will having it help your story?
At first glance, it might seem like a simple question but it isn’t that cut-and-dry. Sure, there are many themes that can be difficult to work with but moving through time is in a league of its own. For starters, this theme alone can take the plot to new heights but it also contains the power to completely derail it.
While time travel is a popular trope in the fantasy genre, you notice that it doesn’t appear in every work within the genre. There are some creators who prefer to keep it out of their stories, choosing instead to work with themes that are more digestible for people to understand like nature since they are things and ideas that we can identify with. You can’t really say that about time travel since it does its own thing.
There are a bevy of elements that go into crafting a story that works well and doesn’t try to do too much. Smart creators go with themes and ideas they are comfortable with that don’t run the risk of alienating their audience. Time travel is a fantastic theme to use but that doesn’t necessarily mean it can work in all stories. There are circumstances where it’s perfectly acceptable to bring it in just as there are others where it would be wise to omit it completely.
Having time travel in your story can work only if you’ve gone to great lengths to minimize how it can negatively affect it. Things such as limiting how often it can be used or who can use it help make time travel a rare event that can only be used in specific circumstances. You can designate a specific object that can only be used by a person of a certain caliber to prevent abuse or someone accidentally using it. These little things go a long way in using it in a way that enhances the plot and not diminish it!
Journeying through time is a fantastic way to explore a different iteration of a world. However, it is one of the most powerful themes that appear within fantasy. That means, in order to use time travel in your story successfully, it requires a great deal of planning to ensure that it doesn’t overwhelm the plot or make it run amok.
The earliest stages of the story-making process is where you think of themes and ideas you’re interested in including in it, time travel being among them. This where you think of why you want to feature this particular theme in yours. Perhaps there is a special theme you want to dive into but it doesn’t fit in with the aesthetic of the world you’re building? Traveling through time can help you there since you can explore that theme to its fullest extent in another version of your world.
Though there are compelling reasons for having time travel in your story, it comes with disadvantages that you ought to keep in mind. For instance, you’re not just focusing on just one story in one time; you’re juggling different plot lines featuring different characters in different times. It can be hard to keep track of, especially if you have a large cast of characters!
Stories should be fun to make since you’re exercising your creativity and time travel should be the same. It should help make yours better and before you go running to put it in, take some time to decide whether you should have it in yours. This theme can be unwieldy at times so it’s best to mull it over before making the final decision.
Having time travel in your story can make for an exciting adventure for your audience but only if it’s handled with the right finesse. Focusing on managing it effectively and not let it run roughshod over your story goes a long way in keeping your viewers invested to see what happens!
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Sunfire
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