Time Travel

[only_more_so]

Well I don't want to risk killing it by talking too much about it, but I am kinda stuck. the story idea started out one way (was trying my hand at horror), then it shifted to something else (less horrific, more slightly creepy), and now it's more just plain weirdness than horrific or creepy.

The characters begin in the present (they're traveling), and take turnoff, when they realize the town they're in looks like a throwback to a few decades before - the way people are dressed, too many old cars in too good of shape, etc. And then more weirdness ensues.

The relationship dynamic between the two main characters is another place I'm stuck between two ideas, but I won't moan about that, here, although it would affect the nature of their future experiences in that strange place.

What if it wasn't explicitly clear about the time travel? what if it was just unexplained weirdness?

Okay, I'll stop now.

Were they driving a Delorean?

I'm with the "it doesn't need to be explained" crowd. Actually, the blurb makes it sound more like a Twilight Zone kind of thing. Did they really travel to the past, or did a city from the past get sent to the future? The traveller's took a wrong turn... into the Twilight Zone.

 

[Liar]

If you decide to let your characters slip through a gap so they end up in a past time, do you think it's necessary to explain how it happened?

Think of it from your protagonist's point of view. What would they know? Would they understand a scientific explanation? Can you explain it as part of the story? To shove in a bit of technobabble (or magic-babble) to explain things, is not how life happens anyway.

I've read some great sci-fi where advanced technology was explained with narration like this: "I'm not an engineer, so don't ask me how that works. All I know is that I press a button and the whole thing levitates. It has something to do with 'moire radiation', whatever the hell that means. I never paid attention in science class."

That told me that it was commonplace and accepted science, without going into why and how. Worked like a charm to suspend my disbelief.

 

[hmmnmm]

submitted a rough version of the opener, choosing N/N just because of the questionable category, but told them to put it wherever it seemed most appropriate. Might shed some light on where it goes.

Thanks again for all the input.

 

[fifty5]

"Slip through a gap" sounds like fantasy to me. I say no. I'm of the opinion of late that not everything needs to be explained to death.

Besides, it seems like you don't even know yourself, so how can you explain it?

To my mind, that's spot on - at least partly. It doesn't matter as much whether you put it into the story as whether you, as author, know whether it's science or magic (from which the genre depends).

As long as you, the author, know which it is, then the content of the story can follow self consistently. Actually, it is possible to equate the two (see Heinlein's Glory Road). In any of those three cases (science, magic, magic=science), you, as author, need to know which is the case. If you don't, your story will almost certainly have inexplicable holes.