Time travel in your story can be a thrilling adventure, but with it comes great responsibility. In the first blog post of this exciting series, we looked at ideas to create your own time travel device.
Next, let’s explore how the smallest actions in the past can cause monumental changes in the future.
Understanding the Butterfly Effect:
Imagine you traveled back to the past and accidentally knocked over a beehive. Seems harmless, right? But here comes the butterfly effect – the tiniest action, like disturbing a beehive, can create huge changes in the future!
‘But how?’, you ask. Here’s an example.
VAIJAYANTHI GOPAL
Vaijayanthi is a Cambridge- certified Teacher of English, with an insatiable love for fantasy novels. As an unapologetic Potterhead, she draws inspiration from J.K. Rowling’s magical world. Through Common Room, Vaijayanthi hopes to guide young students on an enchanting journey of creative writing, and empower them to craft their own extraordinary tales.
Imagine that in your story, your time-traveling hero saves a baby animal from danger in the past, but when they return to the present, they find out that the animal they saved accidentally disrupted the ecosystem. They unknowingly introduced a new species, which caused a domino effect that threatens to wipe out native plants and animals on Earth.
Exploring Difficult Decisions in Time Travel:
Your characters might face tough choices in their time-traveling adventures. Should they fix mistakes from the past or let history unfold naturally? These decisions can change lives and shape the course of history.
For example, in the story “The Time-Traveling Twins” by Diane Stanley, the twin siblings, Emma and Josh, discover a magical time-traveling portal in their attic. During their adventures in the past, they encounter their great-great-grandfather as a young boy.
They accidentally reveal a hidden treasure’s location to him, unaware that this discovery will alter their family’s history and affect their present-day family fortune. The twins must decide whether to find a way to reverse their actions or embrace the changes they’ve accidentally set in motion.
So, if you do wish to include time travel in your story, how do you prepare for these? Here are a few easy steps:
- Think beyond the immediate outcome of your characters’ actions in the past. Plan for how even the smallest changes might create ripple effects in the future.
- If your characters make mistakes with unforeseen consequences, use these moments as valuable learning experiences for them. Show how they take responsibility for their actions and work to rectify the damage caused.
- While planning your story’s plot, remember to take note of any difficult decisions your characters might have to face, and prepare for them beforehand.
It’s your turn now..
Let’s take Emma and Josh’s example. If they were your characters, what would you have them choose – Will you make them try to undo the revelation and restore the original timeline, or will you have them embrace the changes? Comment below.
