# Going back in time. (1 Viewer)



## Waste. (Sep 5, 2010)

How many ways other than a time machine can you think of to go back in time?

I just had a shortish story idea where the main focus is an every day grief stricken guy going back in time to try and stop the death of his girlfriend, but he fails. I was just wondering if any one could think up a way of him getting back there other than a time machine. 

I want it to be simplistic and semi believable, you know, so my readers wouldn't just throw aside the story like what the hell, too far.


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## Olly Buckle (Sep 5, 2010)

Do you remember "Life on Mars" ? The tv series. He was thrown back while he was unconscious following an accident. Nothing about time travelling is believable. If your readers suspend their disbelief it will be because of the way you write it, not because the mechanism is believable, so go for something you can enjoy writing.
The accident thing is quite an old one, Mark Twain used it in "A Conneticut Yankee in the Court of King Arthur". Some really intense experience might do it, a combination of medication and strange food, or the magic of an exotic shaman. Look at "Blythe Spirit", the shaman is farcical nonsense, transfering a soul from a person, to a bucket of water, to a horse, but written funnily and amusingly enough you go along with it.

I don't know the character but I have been thinking for some time about a nerd who has a huge row of plugs feeding transformers to charge his phone, run his computer and wireless internet connection, etc. The leads are all tangled up and have different currents running through them and by chance they configure to ...  I have not got further than that so if the idea is any use feel free.


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## garza (Sep 5, 2010)

There was the movie a few years back called 'Groundhog Day' that had an obnoxious tv reporter (I've known a few) live the same day over and over until he had a proper attitude adjustment. There was no explanation given and none needed - he just woke up the same morning and lived the same day over and over until he got it right.


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## Waste. (Sep 5, 2010)

The idea I had was that he chose to go back to the day she died and try and save her, then he fails to do so because of the whole, you can't change what has happened thing. 

Would it be believable for him to find an ancient ritual method of doing so?


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## caelum (Sep 5, 2010)

Like some kind of tribal thing? A rite with dancing, singing, etc.? Might be pushing it, but could work. Maybe there can even be a scientific explanation in there, like the plants they boil for the rite grew on top of a meteor that passed through a black hole.


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## Waste. (Sep 5, 2010)

I was thinking more like drawing a symbol on the floor, bit of blood offering perhaps making a deal with satan. 
He's been researching it for ages which is why he hasn't gotten over her death. 
I have like everything figured out other than this one little thing. Might do some research into rituals.


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## JosephB (Sep 5, 2010)

If you want to go back to the 80's, you could just go to my parent's kitchen.


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## Ricky Jalapeno (Sep 13, 2010)

Hahahahah nice one joseph.

If it's a deal with Satan then since Satan is not to be trusted. He should be forced to watch his girlfriend die over and over....it seems like a punishment Satan would give...just saying. I'm not a devil worshipper or anything haha


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## TheFuhrer02 (Sep 14, 2010)

garza said:


> There was the movie a few years back called 'Groundhog Day' that had an obnoxious tv reporter (I've known a few) live the same day over and over until he had a proper attitude adjustment. There was no explanation given and none needed - he just woke up the same morning and lived the same day over and over until he got it right.


 
Ah, yes. That's the movie with Bill Murray, right? I liked that movie.

Speaking of the movie, why not just have your character wake up in a different time? Probably a traumatic event before he dozed to sleep?


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## Edgewise (Sep 14, 2010)

For _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court _Mark Twain simply had the protagonist hit his head really, really hard.  Not the best way to go back in time, but it worked.


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## Baron (Sep 14, 2010)

In the 1970s British tv series "Catweazel" the MC was transported forward in time by jumping in a lake.  Brings to mind quite a few people I'd like to give this instruction to on being transported in time.


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## RoundEye (Sep 14, 2010)

Maybe he could find some kind of wormhole hidden in his closet. Explaining how it brings him back to the time needed may be a little tricky.


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## ronnycarson (Sep 15, 2010)

The character can slip into a coma or have a lucid dream.  That's all I can think of at the moment.


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 15, 2010)

A puzzle box when solved, in The Hellbound Heart (Hellraiser) opens a portal to the realm of the Cenobites. Maybe some other ancient box or board game (like Jumanji) can transport the user somewhere. Try and think it up yourself though, that's what makes us writers. . .right?


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## TheFuhrer02 (Sep 15, 2010)

ronnycarson said:


> The character can slip into a coma or have a lucid dream.  That's all I can think of at the moment.


 
This could work.


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 15, 2010)

It's been done though. In Life on Mars he's hit by a car and wakes up in 1973, but he's really in a coma. A dream could work, but it would only last for a day max. Maybe every time the character goes to sleep, they go back in time.


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 15, 2010)

They realize it's temporary and start getting sleeping tablets, so they can sleep through the day as well. . .but then the doctor thinks they are just addicted and stops prescribing them. Then they start knocking themselves out to become unconscious, in increasingly worse ways, until one time they go too far and end up totally stuck. Maybe.


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## caelum (Sep 15, 2010)

What about this!  You take a spaceship, kay, and you take it, and you fly around the Earth in it again and again and again, using the planets's gravity well to propel you faster and faster.  And you just keep speeding up and speeding up, keep going around the earth again and again, until eventually—_all of a sudden_—you're going _faster than the speed of light_. Backwards in time, essentially. And then you just stop when you're as far back as you want. I think I'm on to something here. Got a really good feeling about this one.




Spoiler



(note, I am plagiarizing Superman)


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 15, 2010)

Lol, I superman!

I think you can only go into the future that way, not the past. (That's actually a fact I think, can't remember where I read it though.)

Someone is considered the only man to have gone through time, about a second into the future or something.


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## caelum (Sep 15, 2010)

lol, yeah, my spoiler thing isn't working for me but what I said in it was I was ripping off superman.

Really, that doesn't work?  I read something like, as you go faster time slows down until you reach the maximum possible speed of matter, which is the speed of light, the speed limit of the universe.  And when something does go the speed of light, time essentially freezes relative to the time-frame of matter going at normal speeds.

The example I remember is, if two people the same age were alive, one on earth, and one on a high-velocity spaceship, after ten years the one on earth would be significantly older because time was slower for the fast guy.


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 15, 2010)

Yeah I think you're right Caelum. I've mixed two things together.

YouTube - Time Travel: Einstein's big idea (Theory of Relativity)

I watched that, and then read something about a man who went into the future by about a second. Silly Bruno.

That's why you don't leave school kids 

But in the video, he says the guy would be travelling 100 years into the future. I still don't think you can go back in time the same way.


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## caelum (Sep 15, 2010)

You're totally right about going into the future.  But it's a funny way of doing it, because you slow down while the rest of the universe speeds up (or stays the same, I should say). It looks like going backwards, sadly, is impossible.  The most we can do is freeze time, and again, all that does is speed the rest up.

The only other way to change time that I know of is gravity. The same thing that happens when you speed up happens when you fall into a black hole, time slows down and down and down until you reach the event horizon, where all time freezes.  An instant experienced there would span the lifetime of the universe.  That kind of stuff really freaks me out.  Makes me wonder. :-k


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## Leyline (Sep 15, 2010)

Possession. The MC astrally projects into the body of another character, taking it over completely for long periods. For added timey-wimey-ness you could have the MC actually remembering this weird guy snooping around during the past time frame. For even more time-bendin' fun, you could have the possessed dudes mind possessing the MC in his relative future, running around getting into trouble. Or, to keep it simple, yet puzzling, you could tell it from both time-frames, the MC in the past experiencing scary blackouts during the days leading up to his girlfriends death, with the big twist being that the MC from the future is possessing the MC in the past, and the even bigger twist that his girlfriend wasn't killed, her mind was projected into the future -- into the MC's body, who nobly sacrifices his mind to save the woman he loves. Who's now a guy. Or something.

Hell, you get the picture. Maybe.


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 15, 2010)

I love the stuff like, you can see the back of your own head in a black hole. That really scared me haha. The most confusing thing I could ever experience is seeing the back of my own head with my own eyes, without a mirror.

There was something about spaghetti, but I've forgotten it. Science is just amazing.

I wish I could ask highly religious people how all this stuff happens 

Jesus did it. . .Yep, Jesus. (Only joking people!)


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## caelum (Sep 15, 2010)

haha, Leyline, your idea reminds me of a conversation I had with ash somers where I was trying to convince her I was herself from the future.  She wouldn't believe me, though.  And there haven't been any for a while, Bruno, but we get some pretty heated religious debates up in here.  There used to always be one a-rumblin somewhere.  Always a volatile subject.


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 15, 2010)

Yeah, don't worry I wont cause any. Those are arguments _nobody_ wins.

Anyway, maybe you can create a character who can touch objects and go back in time to the point the last person touched it. Completely mental and illogical but, that doesn't stop us writers


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## caelum (Sep 15, 2010)

I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to give advice.  By all means, start a religious debate if you want.  They're awesome. One thing I've kinda learned, though, is, they're subjects that are very near and dear to people, so it's easy to step on toes.  But there I go preaching again. #-o


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## Lamperoux (Sep 15, 2010)

Waste. said:


> The idea I had was that he chose to go back to the day she died and try and save her, then he fails to do so because of the whole, you can't change what has happened thing.
> 
> Would it be believable for him to find an ancient ritual method of doing so?


 
you could always try paradox. The second he tried, everything was reversed and he was back in the present. Scientifically, the basis is that nature will try to maintain a balance by not letting things people change the past. Such as, if i went five minutes back into the past, walking into this room, i would be in an endless paradox of walking into the room. You can bend it a bit, and make it that when he tries to save her, he sent back to the present. I know it doesn't follow the rule exactly, as you shouldn't be able to go back in time at all. But if your literature is good, then no one really cares.


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## Ricky Jalapeno (Sep 15, 2010)

This is fiction. It doesn't have to be that realistic. Take the Indian in the Cupboard as an example, a cupboard that brings toys to life?!?


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## Patrick (Sep 20, 2010)

Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes worked because it was a search for the significanse of why they were in the past and they had no idea how they got there. If my memory is correct, it was all about them dying and going through the "waypoint" where Gene Hunt is eternally "Gov" for troubled police officers, although I didn't watch all of Ashes to Ashes. You can make it ambiguous. You don't have to get too deeply into the machanism of how he got there. Focus on the why and develope your story around that.


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## The Backward OX (Sep 20, 2010)

caelum said:


> You're totally right about going into the future. But it's a funny way of doing it, because you slow down while the rest of the universe speeds up (or stays the same, I should say). It looks like going backwards, sadly, is impossible. The most we can do is freeze time, and again, all that does is speed the rest up.
> 
> The only other way to change time that I know of is gravity. The same thing that happens when you speed up happens when you fall into a black hole, time slows down and down and down until you reach the event horizon, where all time freezes. An instant experienced there would span the lifetime of the universe. That kind of stuff really freaks me out. Makes me wonder. :-k


 
All you need do for time travel is move to Australia. Just consider this: as I write, it is 1:08 p.m. Tuesday 21st. You guys in Britain or the US, your time is anywhere between 4:08 a.m. Tuesday and 7:08 p.m. Monday. This means I am in your future, you are in my past.


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## caelum (Sep 20, 2010)

If you're from the future. . .







is this you?


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## Patrick (Sep 21, 2010)

Bruno Spatola said:


> I love the stuff like, you can see the back of your own head in a black hole. That really scared me haha. The most confusing thing I could ever experience is seeing the back of my own head with my own eyes, without a mirror.
> 
> There was something about spaghetti, but I've forgotten it. Science is just amazing.
> 
> ...



While I see you claim to be joking, this is actually an objection I've come across before and fairly frequently, too. So while I am not attempting to initiate a debate with you on this subject, I feel the point really needs to be addressed....

I don't understand how the fact the Universe obeys certain natural laws/principles (however you want to define these theoretical understandings), that science explains has anything to do, ultimately, with how they got there or whether Jesus causes a pair of elementary particles to spin in certain directions.

It's akin to having a machine. The machine is understandable according to certain rules/mathematical expressions but because the machine has these macro and micro qualities doesn't mean the machine made itself or required no intelligence to create. The Universe works a certain way. Relativity explains (up to now) what happens to the very large and quantum theory (up to now) the very small. I am not trying to initiate a debate but it's fallacious to think of this as an either or thing. You don't have to reject physical expanations for things to believe in Jesus. If it's a question of saying science is superior to religion or philosophy then you'd of course be venturing into philosophy with that very statement because you can't break out the beakers and what not to prove that statement.

If some Christians, or any other group, don't think clearly enough to distinguish between these things then I really don't know what to say. This is why taking the time to work thinks out with clear thinking is important for anybody who starts to ask these questions. From my perspective, Christianity is one of the few belief systems that actually grounds such rational thought in a solid reality. So Christianity, and I say Christianity because you used Christ as your example, really doesn't have anything to reconcile here and certainly not to resist, fear or deny. 

Newton (my favourite scientific mind), didn't seem to do too badly in his Principia.


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 21, 2010)

I watched a documentary called Religulous, and there were religious people who claimed, at some point, we walked alongside dinosaurs. I was referring to the oddballs who totally deny science and bend the rules to make it fit in with the bible and their beliefs. 

I assume the reason you felt the need to reply to me, is because you are a believer and I offended you in some way. If that's the case I'm sorry, but I was clearly joking. This isn't in any way vicious, you make some valid points, but they weren't on my mind. I was being silly, on purpose.


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## Patrick (Sep 21, 2010)

Bruno Spatola said:


> I watched a documentary called Religulous



So did I. It was terrible.



> I assume the reason you felt the need to reply to me, is because you are a believer and I offended you in some way. If that's the case I'm sorry, but I was clearly joking. This isn't in any way vicious, you make some valid points, but they weren't on my mind.



Yes and no. I am not offended; you don't have to be offended to take part in a discussion.



> I was being silly, on purpose.



Good.


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## Bruno Spatola (Sep 21, 2010)

Maybe the character just gets sucked through a wormhole. It could have been created from a sneeze if you're going down the ridiculous route, but you don't have to be ultra-specific. As someone said before, if the writing is good, its believability doesn't get questioned very much.

In the book _Weaveworld_, there's a whole different world under a carpet in someones house. Ridiculous, but the characters and descriptions are so good, I didn't care. The little details usually work themselves out but, be careful. It's easy to fall into cliches with time-travel, so come at it from a different angle. 

I'm curious to see what you write, good luck.


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