Time Travel Movies are undeniably my favorite genre of movie – ranging from obvious one’s like the iconic BACK TO THE FUTURE franchise to the eerie soft time travel mainstream movie, “The Lake House” (ranked “Rotten” by Rotten Tomatoes because regular people didn’t understand it or accept the premise, and in Wikipedia is defined as a “romantic drama”, probably to keep the genre safe!)
While I’d love to review them all, I’m going to focus on three, all of them multiple episodes but part of a seamless whole. I’ll start with the one-sentence-blurbs from the Internet Media Database:
BACK TO THE FUTURE – “The trilogy is about a teenager named Marty McFly who is able to travel in time. This is due to the invention of an automobile time machine made by scientist Dr. Emmett L. Brown. Living in 1985, Marty McFly travels to future 2015 and also to past 1955 and 1885. During these times he has several adventures in his home town Hill Valley in California.” (Simple English Wikipedia) Well THAT plays down what happened! My synopsis? Marty (more-or-less accidentally) and using Doc’s time machine, screws up the timeline by creating successful parents, then wrecks it again making nuclear waste and Mafia rule in his home town of Hill Valley, CA the norm. He’s unintentionally murdered his dad, and got Doc put into an insane asylum. Trying to fix THAT, Doc himself then screws up a timeline and Marty helps Doc find a wife and ends up almost back where he started from, though his gf now knows about time travel as well, but it doesn’t matter because the time machine’s scrap. (The body count in these movies is unexpectedly large: three Libyans (I); his dad, future 2 kids, and any number of other people who have died as Biff established BiffCo…(II); Doc, Mad Dog Tannen (III – who will obviously hang), but Doc doesn’t die and the formerly dead Clara Clayton is now alive…so 3 + 3 + 1 = 7.
Also, Marty never meets the “new him” who was shaped by the events he and Doc changed. He’s still the old Marty who remembers Biff bullying his dad and (possibly) raping – which is implied but never stated – that lead up to his trips into the future of 2015 and the past 1885. Who is Marty in the altered timeline?
STAR TREK: The Next Generation deals with the personality-changing results of this kind of time meddling in “Tapestry”. Jean Luc Picard, legendary and archetypical captain of the USS Enterprises both D and E finds himself a lieutenant of average skill, average personality, and most notably, an individual who was never interested in taking a single risk, always playing it safe when Q gives Picard a chance to change one event he regretted. He ends up unraveling the tapestry of his life.
STAR TREK: Voyager, “Year of Hell”, a “alien” scientist, fiddling with a machine that can alter the timeline in order to make the empire he lives in even greater than it is – imagine Hari Seldon in Asimov’s Empire able to instantly alter time so that he can achieve his goal of an eternally stable, galaxy-spanning Empire! He inadvertently erases his beloved wife and spends two centuries making carefully calculated changes to get her back – to no avail. Voyager’s sacrificial plunge into the ship as a last resort resets the original timeline, returning his wife.
I looked at the effect of altering a timeline we actually seem to be approaching in STAR TREK: Deep Space Nine’s episode, “Past Tense” in which the poor and indigent in San Francisco are herded into Sanctuary Districts that leads to the Bell Riots – https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2019/02/possibly-irritating-essays.html.
So, my question however, is, “Why do these stories touch something deep in you?” or more simply, “Why do they touch something deep in ME?”
First, I realized that these are different from Alternate History. MAN IN THE HIGH TOWER looks at “What would the world be like if Hitler had won?” In a recent issue of ANALOG Science Fiction and Fact, “Bonehunter” posits a present where the dinosaurs hadn’t gone extinct. AVENGERS End Game seeks to rescue half the lifeforms in the Universe from oblivion. These are stories that deal with huge issues and vast populations, and while there might be repercussions for individuals, the focus is on All Time. I love these stories, too, but they aren’t my favorites.
In a Time Alteration story like Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman’s “Kate and Leopold”, the grand sweep of history is beside the point.
The point is making individual characters happy.
During the landmark, paradigm changing Eleventh Series of the long-running BBC series, Dr. Who, The Doctor and her Companions find themselves in 1955 Montgomery, Alabama. In a (slightly) judgmental episode, filmed in Cape Town, South Africa, the English save American History by keeping the time-traveling mass-murder, Krasko from keep Rosa Parks from sparking the Civil Rights movement that continues today. While it seems like it’s an attempt at an Alternate History story, it’s far more a Time Alteration story – Krasko is a racist and wants “his side” to win. He identified Rosa Parks’ influence as a critical event.
In the Disney animated film, “Meet the Robinsons”, Lewis The Orphan wants to find his real family and rejoin them. Inventing a time machine, his sole focus is to change time to give him a family. The villain in the story, The Man With The Bowler Hat is just as intent on changing history, though in his case, it was a self-inflicted wound. While the future DOES change when The Man With The Bowler Hat – who has been a pawn of the evil artificial intelligence robot, Doris – steal a time machine, the intent of the story is to make Lewis happy…clearly a Time Alteration story.
So, coming back to my question, “Why do I like these?”
The answer on reflection, is simple, there are events in my past that I’d like to change. For example, I was a pretty sickly little kid, so when I was seven, my parents agreed with the doctor and I had a tonsillectomy. In 1964, this was a pretty standard operation, “In the United States, the number of tonsillectomies has actually declined significantly and progressively since the 1970s. The frequency with which tonsillectomy is performed varies from region to region. 30 years ago (1978), approximately 90% of tonsillectomies in children were done for recurrent infection; now it is about 20% for infection and 80% for obstructive sleep problems (OSA)…Extensive data shows the negative effects of OSA in children on behavior, school performance, and bed-wetting. Improvement for such behaviors following tonsillectomy is very well documented. Tonsillectomy for recurrent tonsillitis is effective at significantly reducing the number and severity of sore throats in children who are severely affected. There is also anecdotal evidence that some children’s quality of life is transformed by the surgery. This may be caused by a combination of factors that include the tendency of the frequency of recurrent sore throats to resolve over time and the elimination of a source of infection and of obstructive symptoms.”
So, in my experience, once my tonsils were removed, I started eating. Constantly. I became blimp. BUT WHY? I remember being “abandoned” in the hospital overnight by my parents. I had no idea WHY. Then someone came in, shoved something up my butt, and then I woke up with a horribly sore throat, and spent the next several days eating ice cream and drinking 7 Up. The rest, as they say, is history. I have struggled with my weight since then. What if I had gone back, cured my “tonsillitis” with a current-day drug? Would I still struggle with my weight? Would I have my self-confidence? Would I be a published science fiction writer? I don’t know. But, I’d like to have seen the results.
Also, being able to change other events in my childhood and teenage years WOULD have made me a different person. A better person? No idea. So, the idea of playing with Time Alteration is fascinating; I’m even exploring my own feelings regarding my inability to “change people” in a series of stories I’m working on.
I know it’s not going to happen, but at least I have some idea why I like these things!
Resource: My other Favorite Time Alteration stories: “Men In Black III”, “Arrival”, STAR TREK: The Voyage Home, STAR TREK: The Original Series “City on the Edge of Forever”, STAR TREK: Enterprise “Carbon Creek”, TIME TUNNEL, and finally QUANTUM LEAP (1989-1993 version).
Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration (quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind. These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat, irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if anything comes of them? Regarding Fantasy, this insight was startling: “I see the fantasy genre as an ever-shifting metaphor for life in this world, an innocuous medium that allows the author to examine difficult, even controversial, subjects with impunity. Honor, religion, politics, nobility, integrity, greed—we’ve an endless list of ideals to be dissected and explored. And maybe learned from.” – Melissa McPhail.
F Trope: Appeal to a pastoral ideal: Much genre fantasy, of all genres, appeals to the pastoral ideal, one reason for the pseudo-medieval settings. Even urban fantasies will quite often depict cities as blots on the landscape, whose denizens /are blinded to what really matters by material ephemera. There are some fantasies, however, which either deliberately take the opposite stance or present a more balanced worldview.
Current Event: “The Minnesota Renaissance Festival is a Renaissance fair, an interactive outdoor event which focuses on recreating the look and feel of a fictional 16th Century ‘England-like’ fantasy kingdom.”
Svenja Johannson puttered around the edge of the Minnesota Renaissance Festival. She crossed her arms over her chest, tossed her platinum blonde hair and said, “I was hoping for a bit more authenticity.
Matias Gallagher, strawberry blonde hair curled like a swim cap over his head, shook his head and said, “Then you should have tried out for ‘Castle Life’.”
She snorted – a sound worthy of a horse, Matias thought – “That’s just as fake.”
He scowled at her and said, “Just because you Germans have all kinds of castles...”
“Not ‘all kinds of castles’ – Wartburg Castle. That is the only castle.”
He shook his head and said, “Speaking of Martin Luther, what makes you think you’d even like the real Renaissance?”
“Are you kidding? My ancestors lived then, there was no pollution, no noise, and definitely no people!”
“What’s wrong with people?” Matias asked as a pair of teenaged boys in basketball shorts, wearing high-topped basketball shoes and suggestive slogans, walked past them using an F-bomb every other word. They looked at him and Svenja. One flipped Matias the bird, the other asked Svenja if she wanted to engage in a sexual act. After Svenja fired a crude rejoinder back at him and Matias leaned back and folded his arms across his chest, flashing both his six-pack and expanding his pecs, the other boy waved him away. The two of them faded into the mob of 21st Century Minnesotans stuffing their faces the way they did at the State Fair and pretending they were in the 16th Century, Svenja glared at Matias.
Matias sighed, “Point.” He paused and said, “Let’s just enjoy the RenFest for what it is.”
Svenja scowled as a parade of knights in armor entered the Festival grounds, the earth trembling under the pounding hooves. The steel plate, gold trim, and silver filigree flashed in the brilliant afternoon light. There was a coolness in the air, a tiny bite of autumn hinting at the winter not far away. There seemed to be hundreds of knights prancing by. “There are so many...” she said.
“What?” Matias shouted. “I can’t hear you!”
“There are so many knights! Where did they come from?” The sun abruptly dipped behind a cloud. There was a flash of light and clap of thunder, yet when Matias pressed his hands over his ears, it seemed that only he and Svenja did so. Others around them seemed oblivious to the darkness and cold. “What’s happening, Matias?” she shouted.
“I don’t know...”
An instant later, the sun came out again. Matias blinked in surprise and Svenja stepped closer to him, grabbing his arm, long fingernails digging into his muscle. The first thing he noticed was the stench of open sewer and the legless man on sitting on the ground in front of them...
Names: ♀ German, Swedish ; ♂ Norwegian, Irish Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/98/71/e5/9871e52bbc09c525af21b8f6471eab15.jpg
In this feature, I’ll be looking at “advice” for writing short stories – not from me, but from other short story writers. In speculative fiction, “short” has very carefully delineated categories: “The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies word lengths for each category of its Nebula award categories by word count; Novel 40,000 words or over; Novella 17,500 to 39,999 words; Novelette 7,500 to 17,499 words; Short story under 7,500 words.”
I’m going to use advice from people who, in addition to writing novels, have also spent plenty of time “interning” with short stories. While most of them are speculative fiction writers, I’ll also be looking at plain, old, effective short story writers. The advice will be in the form of one or several quotes off of which I’ll jump and connect it with my own writing experience. While I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off of it...neither do most of the professional writers...someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write. When I started this blog, that was NOT true, so I may have reached a point where my own advice is reasonably good. We shall see as I work to increase my writing output and sales! As always, your comments are welcome!
Without further ado, writing observations by Kate DiCamillo – with a few from myself…
I’ve actually shared an event with Kate DiCamillo. Not JUST me, of course – some three thousand kids and another twenty-something writers and I attended an annual event called the Young Authors Conference in St Paul, MN.
When I had lunch with her later, she’d only published BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE, which I read and also read to my own kids. My daughter still remembers the book. While WINN DIXIE did win three awards: the Josette Frank Award (2000), a Newbery Honor award (2000), the Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award (2002), she was still at the beginning of her career.
I wanted to dig into her advice on writing – and then look at how I might apply it to my own writing.
“When I was a junior in college, I took an expository writing course taught by a graduate student named Trey Greer. On the first day of class, he assigned a five hundred-word essay: describe something, anything. At the time, I was convinced that I was a real writer, an undiscovered Eudora Welty or William Faulkner. Understand, I had absolutely no interest in writing. I wanted to be a Writer; and so I put off the work of the essay until the last possible moment. The night before it was due, I went grocery shopping. And sitting outside the Winn-Dixie, perched on top of a hundred-pound bag of Purina dog chow, was a woman with a tambourine.”
While I haven’t quite managed to master this skill, I HAVE sold a few stories that have a foundation in reality. CICADA Magazine, a magazine aimed at young adults, was once part of the fabled stable of CRICKET Magazine Group. It folded several years ago – but before that time, published a short story of mine, “Dear Hunter”…
That story came about because my college roommate’s father actually DID shoot a young person who had gone for a horseback ride – during the weekend of the Deer Hunting Opener. That weekend is a HUGE deal for the people in the north of our borderland state. The accident involved a young woman, and while she didn’t die, she neve contacted my roommate’s dad… Something I’d learned from (among others) Kate DiCamillo was that you can’t take a real incident and just transcribe it into a story.
On another website, Kate DiCamillo was interviewed. She gave a longer answer, but I’d like to condense it and add some of my own insight.
Write. “This step may seem obvious, but is in fact one of the most overlooked.” I guess I never experienced this. After I finished reading John Christopher’s THE WHITE MOUNTAIN trilogy, I started writing my own story. Unimaginative 7th grader that I was, I titled the story, “The White Vines”. It was two or three pages of penciled, old-fashioned hand-written story. I thought it was FABULOUS. It wasn’t…but it was, in fact, where my writing career was born.
Rewrite. “You can’t sit down and expect something golden and beautiful and wise to spring forth from your fingers the first time you write” Kate says. Even your favorite author had to sit and redo passage after passage of your favorite book.” This was a lesson I didn’t learn until I was well into my writing. I cringe when I re-read stories I wrote even a few MONTHS ago! I ask myself how I could have possibly written such a loose-limbed conversation that circled back on itself more than it drove the story ahead. Another thing I’ve discovered is that when I write “in the heat of the story”, I imagine that I’ve written something SO obvious…but I didn’t.
“Read. Just as you can’t become a world-famous chef without eating, you cannot write without also loving to read.” You’d be stunned to hear how many of the students who come to a Writing To Get Published class I taught for 27 years (in a summer program for gifted students) respond to the question, “How much do you read?” answer, “Like maybe a book a month.” I’ll ask, “A whole book? Like a fiction book?” Several will say, “Nah, I read websites on my phone.” If you’re going to write journalistic reporting – you should be doing it for the school or your local paper. If I’m going to write science fiction, I should be READING rather than watching STAR WARS and writing from that…
“Look. Be able to look at the world around you, to “open your heart to what you see”. How can you create your own world of magic without first being able to see it? Live in the world, and it will live in you.” Truth? I would LOVE to live in the worlds of my imagination! The problem is that there are no aliens on Earth for me to hang out with! So, I have to READ. Extensively. Sometimes even stuff I wouldn’t CHOOSE to read, but NEED to read. That’s how I discovered Bruce Bethke, (the man who invented the word Cyberpunk”. We’re friends now and I’ve learned a lot from him. He went on to write books and short stories and now publishes books and short stories. I STILL have to look!
“Listen. Kate is a big fan of eavesdropping. You never know when an interesting conversation will pop up, one that will just stick in your brain and needle its way around until it finds its way down on to the page.” Listening is how I got the idea for my short-short piece, “Warning! Warning!” in ANALOG Science Fiction & Fact; though, the voice I listened to was my own. I was rolling my trash bin down to the curb for pickup and had the top open. Inside the cover was a warning telling me that if I didn’t close the cover…well, CERTAIN DISASTER would occur. Shaking my head, I extended that into the future where literally EVERYTHING would be carrying a warning…even the air we breathe.
“Believe in yourself. This may just be the hardest out of all six. ‘There is one reason that writing is so wonderful and terrifying,’ Kate says, ‘you have to find your own way.’ There is no right or wrong way to tell a story, just your own way. So, make sure you hold fast to your vision and stay true to yourself. Kate graduated with a degree in English in 1987. She worked lots of jobs including Circus World, Walt Disney World, a campground, and a greenhouse. She said that during this time that she thought she was a talented writer so she ‘sat around for the next seven or eight years’ writing short stories. While published, no one ‘discovered her’. Finally she moved to Minneapolis in 1994. That winter, she came up with the idea for BECAUSE OF WINN DIXIE. She gave her draft to a Candlewick sales agent who gave it to an editor…who promptly left the company on maternity leave, and it was lost in a pile of other manuscripts. It was rediscovered when the employee's office was cleaned out. She was offered a contract AND AFTER A REWRITE! the book was published in 2000.”
