What chapter timestamp to use in fantasy time travel novel?
(By 'chapter timestamp' I mean the text at the beginning of a chapter indicating when it is taking place).
Here is a basic summary of the story so you understand what I'm working with:
A man named Andy has a lot of problems in his life that he attributes to a traumatic event from his childhood. He decides to go back in time to prevent this event from happening.
Andy succeeds in changing his past and the world is reset. As a result, there is now an alternate version of Andy, called Ryan, whose life progresses without the traumatic event. The rest of the novel follows Ryan's adventures as he eventually learns about Andy and Andy's reasons for changing the past. He also deals with some unintended consequences of Andy's time travel.
Some notes:
Andy and Ryan have different first names (there is a logical reason for this which is explained in the story)
Ryan is the 'main character' of the book, not Andy (although there is a fair amount of focus on Andy as well)
Here is the basic structure of the book:
Prologue: we learn about Andy and his reasons for wanting to change his past. At the end of the prologue, Andy decides that time travel is the only solution.
Rest of the novel: We follow Ryan's adventures and eventually learn about his link to Andy. By the end of the novel, we learn that Andy successfully traveled through time and changed the past.
My main problem is what chapter timestamp to use for Chapter 1 (in relation to the prologue).
I am currently using '24 years later' because this is the amount of time that has passed since Andy's reset. But technically, because there's time travel involved, both the prologue and first chapter take place in the same year.
I definitely need some kind of timestamp because both the prologue and first chapter take place in the same city, and there are significant changes between the 2 versions of this city because of Andy's time travel. So without a timestamp, things would be very confusing.
Appreciate any ideas!
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/40814. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
I agree with Chris Sunami; ditch the prologue.
If Andy is in the past and prevents some disaster, and the world is reset with him in it, I imagine he still retains all his memories of the prior world, and lives through the new world. But I think Andy is severely disconnected, watching this world unfold, and would have a strong natural urge to watch himself (as Ryan) grow up, perhaps even insert himself into Ryan's life in some way. Become a teacher or coach, or boss.
Andy also has the problem of identity. Presumably he could travel into the past with fake IDs and old cash or old gold coins to sell. But his fingerprints, irises, and DNA are all the same as Ryan's; and the resemblance would be strong.
Nevertheless, without telling us Andy and Ryan are the same person, you can have these two interact throughout the book from the POV of Ryan (because he doesn't know who Andy is), and have him unravel the mystery of who Andy is.
Ryan might have suspicions at some points, might get some DNA from Andy and think perhaps he (Ryan) is a clone of Andy, or before that think Andy is a relative due to their resemblance (and Andy's secrecy), etc. And then, Ryan gets interested in physics, and the potential of time-travel is being discussed by the heavyweights ...
I wouldn't give away the mystery up front. It is more fun to know *something's fishy and get clues along the way but not figure it out until the end.
It is much LESS fun to know what the POV doesn't know, and get frustrated with him being dumb and not figuring it out for the length of a book. That's just too long, and there is no twist for the reader. The story ends like they knew it would from the prologue.
But if you are in the same boat (information-wise) as Ryan throughout, you think his guesses about Andy are reasonable, or clever. Not dumb. the reader only thinks wrong guesses are dumb when they know the answer.
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