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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/40814
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

(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!

Original score: 6