Talking About Time Travel Usage in Fiction

Photo by Jordan Benton

In The Portal of Time of the Branchview Saga, time travel features heavily. This trope has always been a crowd favorite. We explore why and how time travel works in stories.

Time has always been a fascination of people everywhere around the world. What is it? How does it work? Can we control it? So, it stands to reason that we like to incorporate into our stories, if we can (at least, those of us who write stories). A recent example I encountered was reading The Portal of Time book of the Branchview Saga, where time travel is central to the plot and was actually an inciting incident if I recall correctly. Regardless, this is just one example of how time travel can be found in any number of stories. While people think of time travel as strictly a science fiction trope (blame H.G. Wells for that), it is actually a very varied and versatile trope–it can be used in the genres of comedy, romance, slice of life, and more.

How is Time Travel Used in Fiction?

Primarily with fiction, time travel is a plot driver, a vehicle by which authors can try to explore other possibilities in their story and depict typically “what-if” scenarios. This helps in establishing an entertaining and thought-provoking premise. Here are three scenarios in which time travel is commonly used across fiction:

Visiting Important Past Events. The world in some stories is quite extensively established: with interesting histories and timelines. The backstories of some characters are equally promising and interesting. Yet, the events of both are typically only mentioned or drawn upon–perhaps they are portrayed in flashbacks–but one thing is for certain: it is a creative faux pas to expand upon them without harming or detracting from the main plotline. 

One way writers can explore backstories and flavor text is by using time travel. If this little tidbit of in-universe history is very interesting, time travel is the only legitimate way that your roster of characters can meaningfully and properly engage with them. Of course, simply finding a way for your characters to go back in time is too much a contrived sequence, and so deliberate steps must be made to ensure that their travel to the past is something that needs to be done and is integral to the plot (a la Avengers: Endgame).

Portraying Various Time Periods. While the time period you may have chosen for your story might be cool and awesome, it is safe to say that there are others that are equally as wonderful or better than the one you finally settled on. This is where time travel comes in: by introducing an element of time travel, showcasing these other time periods becomes much more palatable and compelling for the audience. 

This also has the added benefit of making the built-in history of your world clearer and more established. What were once just throw-away lines of exposition becomes more concrete and engaging (although this might take away from the mystery and speculation of things, so do things at your own risk!)

Exploring What-If Scenarios. Something that is gaining traction (especially after Marvel’s What-If series) is the idea of alternate possibilities. You see when working out a plot and key moments in your story, there is only so much you can do. You might have wanted this one thing to happen, but it would skew your story too much, and you only have too little time to follow that thread. 

By using time travel not only as a tool for your protagonists but also as a tool for your antagonists, you can revisit important and key events and look at them from another angle. You can also expand this further and potentially recreate the timeline and background history of your world.

What-If scenarios are brilliant ways to create variations of your story without having to necessarily destroy the main or first one.

Why Is Time Travel Popular Anyway?

For authors of a more esoteric bend, time travel is a way to explore the nature of time (Is it linear? Cyclical? Permanent? Malleable?) and the reality of choosing (Are the cosmos based on determinism? Libertarian free will? Or perhaps, compatibilism?). 

Time travel, especially in alternate history fandoms, is a great way of expounding upon “For want of a nail” events (which are moments in history where the outcome can be more or less pegged upon a single factor).

For readers themselves, time travel presents a suite of tropes that just makes for compelling and entertaining stories.