Why We Hate Time Travel

Time travel. Everyone hates it, but it remains one of the most-explored ideas in speculative fiction. Why do we hate it? Why are we continually subjected to it? Can it be saved from the realms of the implausible and the mind screw?

To begin an attempt at answering these questions, we should first be reminded of Sturgeon's Revelation, courtesy of our friends at TV Tropes. Sturgeon's Revelation states that 90% of everything is crud. When someone ponders, "Why are there so many sucky romantic comedies?" the answer is: "Because 90% of everything sucks big time." But this only begins to explain the public's hatred for time travel stories.

For answers we might look to the best examples, the 10% of time travel stories that don't completely bite. They're hard to find. In fact, I would posit that an even smaller percentage of works execute time travel well. In my mind, this involves jumping two major hurdles:

1. Time travel elements must not alienate your audience.

2. Time travel must be woven into the narrative in such a way that it is inextricable from the emotional journey of the characters.

Clearing the first hurdle allows your story to be enjoyed by its audience. In order to use time travel to its full potential, you must leap the second hurdle as well.

In a Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons, Homer travels back in time and accidentally changes something. When he returns to the future, everything is different. He keeps jumping between past and present in an extended gag of making mistakes in the past and discovering a vastly different present. The episode succeeds in not pissing off the audience because the time travel serves the joke. However, time travel in this instance is purely a comedic device and not truly a part of the story. In fact, there is no story here. It's merely a montage based around different variations on a fill-in-the-blank joke. It's entertaining, but we're looking for something better.

The first story arc of the Young Avengers comic books involves the villain Kang the Conqueror. The Avengers have defeated Kang before, but because he's a time traveler he's allowed to return as many times as the writers desire with no further explanation than "time travel". It is revealed that one of the Young Avengers is actually a younger version of Kang who has come from the future to stop himself from God I can't even finish this plot summary it sucks so bad. The time travel is certainly a part of our characters' emotional journeys, but the number of graphs and charts and 3D models I would need to draw to begin to understand what is happening give this work a big thumbs down.

So what is an example of the best kind of time travel story? I'm surprised to hear myself say this, but Back to the Future. The time travel is simple enough to understand and fully integrated in the story of Marty McFly becoming entangled in the early stages of his parents' high school romance.

Here's a better one: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. The mechanism of Henry's spontaneous time travel is mentally acceptable because it follows specific rules (everything only happens one way; nothing can be changed; Henry's body travels in time, but no objects, clothes, or food in his stomach, etc. etc.). Time travel is intricately woven into the plot - Claire's life is linear and Henry's time line jumps around. Better still, time travel has a huge effect on the character's emotional stories, the most obvious example being the strain it puts on Henry and Claire's marriage.

Seriously, read The Time Traveler's Wife. (Seeing the movie is not the same thing.)

So why are we continually subjected to time travel fiction? I think it's because it holds so much possibility. There's no better way for us as human beings to take a look at where we've been and where we're going. Time travel stories have the power to be transcendent - as long as they don't get seriously fucked up along the way.

Unsolved Mysteries

If you are interested in story, I encourage you to visit TV Tropes. It's a fascinating site to get lost in for hours and hours, and covers so much more than just television. I try to use terminology from this website in everyday speech. I'm hoping these terms will cross over into our cultural vocabulary. Terms like: Butt Monkey.

The Butt Monkey, as defined by TV Tropes, is the character that is always the butt of the joke - jokes made by other characters, or jokes played on the Butt Monkey by the writers. This is your Meg Griffin from Family Guy, your Sweet Dee from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and your Mason from Dead Like Me. I'd like to talk about one of my favorite Butt Monkeys - Jerry from Parks and Recreation.


The writers at Parks and Rec have gotten a lot of comedy mileage out of beating up on Jerry. His coworkers all hate and ridicule him. What makes it so funny is that there is no reason why. When the gang from It's Always Sunny rag on Sweet Dee, we understand it. Because she's an obnoxious bitch. But Jerry is set up as just a nice, normal, happy guy. He's not really offensive in any way.

Or at least that's how it used to be, until they pulled on the dangling thread and the mystery of Jerry was unraveled. You may have seen the episode I'm referring to. The writers decided it was time to do a Jerry episode, an episode that was all about Jerry making a fool of himself. The Jerry ridicule gets so bad that his coworkers decide not to make fun of him anymore. By the end of the episode they are back to their old ways and the status quo is restored. Or is it?

There are several problems with this admittedly very funny episode. First of all, the episode turns Jerry into a complete buffoon. In the past, Jerry has embarrassed himself, but usually in ordinary ways, like when he accidentally says "murinal" instead of "mural". The joke is that the other characters are unnecessarily cruel to Jerry. In this episode, Jerry becomes such a clown that it's now obvious why the others make fun of him.

Another thing that was so great about Jerry as Butt Monkey was that it was never acknowledged. It appeared that everyone in the office had independently decided to mock and loathe Jerry. This episode made it seem like a joke they all shared, especially when they all decide to start being nice to Jerry.

But the biggest crime of this episode is over-exposure. There's never more than one or two Jerry jokes in an episode. They're like a little treat sprinkled here and there. After a full episode of dumping on Jerry, the joke feels played out.

It's always trouble when an episodic work solves one of it's essential mysteries. It's like when Fran and Mr. Sheffield got together on The Nanny. It's like when we found out Wolverine's origin story in the X-Men comics. Sometimes you need to just leave it alone.

Thank God we didn't see Wilson's whole face until the series finale of Home Improvement.

Grammar Naziism

Just a little post for a little thought. This exchange is adapted from the script for my smash-hit play, Eternity in the Hearts of Men:

GRAY
It was a donation.

DOROTHY
From who?

Did that make you cringe a little? Yeah, me too. It should be "From whom?", huh? Every time I read that line or hear it spoken aloud I feel a little twinge of shame. So why not fix it? (I'm sure you're one step ahead of me already.)

Because I'm not writing a science paper or a newspaper article or a medical brochure. I'm not writing prose or a poem. I'm writing a character. Some characters speak perfect English and some do not.

It sounds wrong, but I know that if Dorothy said "whom" it would sound even wronger.

This Post Contains SEXY SPOILERS for 'Friends', 'Who's the Boss?', 'Wings', and the 'Harry Potter' Book Series

When Friends started airing on NBC, it became a real game-changer for episodic television. On Friends, you had six attractive young people who could be paired up romantically any way you wanted, with the exception of Ross and Monica who were brother and sister. The show gave us Ross/Rachel and Chandler/Monica of course, but also played with Joey/Rachel, Phoebe/Joey, Phoebe/Ross, Joey/Monica, etc. etc.

This sounds like an obvious technique because it is so common now, but earlier shows didn't have this dynamic. On Who's the Boss?, the only two characters that could get together were Tony and Angela. On Wings in the original cast there was really only Joe, Helen, and Brian. You would never see Antonio hooking up with Fay or Roy seducing Helen. Shows were not created with such loose premises.

Now let's talk about how this idea can bleed into other types of stories, outside of the small screen.

This technique can easily be applied to other forms of episodic storytelling. Any story that continues for a very long time is perfect for this sort of dynamic. Look at the Harry Potter books. There were countless relationships spawned during the seven volumes that could not have been predicted early on, but rang true nonetheless. For four books, readers wondered if Hermione loved Harry or Ron. In Chamber of Secrets, no one could have guessed that Harry would end up with Ginny Weasley. There was Fleur and Bill who hadn't even appeared on the page together before they started dating. Also Hermione/Viktor, Harry/Cho, Ron/Lavender...

Superhero comic books have been applying this technique forever. Superheroes are always smokin' hot, making it easy to pair them off in countless ways.

Here's a novel idea, though. Or maybe not, but I just thought of it. Use this approach in your short format stories, too. Your plays and novels and short stories and screenplays. I don't mean that you should actually cram all these hook-ups and break-ups into a short story. But your story will be operating on multiple levels if your reader thinks it could happen.

Phoebe could make out with Joey. Harry could fall in love with Hermione. Your protagonist could fall for their best friend, or their best friend's boyfriend, or their boyfriend's best friend.

When you have a variety of sexy, single characters thrown together - that's the kind of work that makes people write fan fiction. And who doesn't want that?

6-way orgy? It could have happened...

Ways in Which You Have Misjudged Keira Knightley

Writing for film, especially features, is not as similar to writing for the stage as you might suspect. What makes them so different is that film tells a story by cutting from shot to shot, but a stage play is told through continuous action.

You know what is like writing a film? Writing a comic book! A comic book jumps from panel to panel in the same way film jumps from shot to shot.

In this post, I'll be elaborating on ideas expressed in Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, and pointing out how these ideas apply to film. You should get this book, by the way. It's a valuable reference for any kind of visual storyteller.

In the book, McCloud outlines the 7 ways an image can relate to accompanying text. In a comic book, this means the words written on the page. In film, it could refer to words written on the screen, but generally we're talking about spoken dialogue or narration.

1. Word Specific

You'll see a lot of this on television. The story is essentially being told through the text, with little being added by the image. Think about when you're folding laundry in front of the TV. King of Queens is on. You're not really looking at Leah Remini and Kevin James, and you don't need to. You can understand the story and the jokes without having to look up from all your new pink clothes courtesy of that one red sock that snuck in with your whites. The pictures are just along for the ride.

2. Picture Specific

The opposite. The pictures are what it's about; any language is extraneous. Like when you're watching The Lion King and that wildebeest stampede is coming after Simba and SPOILER ALERT Scar kills Mufasa. Simba is screaming, "Dad!" and Scar is like, "Long live the king!", but you better have your eyes glued to the screen or you're not gonna know what's happening.

3. Duo-Specific

What you see and what you hear are essentially the same thing. I would recommend avoiding this kind of thing in film because it feels redundant. Remember my post about Party Down? Duo-specific is pretty much the opposite of what I was praising there. Duo-specific is spelling it out for the audience. Like in a basketball movie where the clock is running out and at the last second they sink a basket to win the game. And we see the scoreboard change to reflect the basket. And we see the fans jump up and cheer. And someone says, "WE WON!!" and you're like, "Yeah, I got that." This also applies to a voice-over that is describing exactly what is happening on screen.

4. Additive

The words amplify the image, or vice versa. In Season 6 (SPOILER ALERT) of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (it was only a matter of time before Joss Whedon found his way into this blog), Willow gets sad about stuff and becomes a powerful, angry, bad witch. The dialogue is enough to tell the story, but is amplified by the image of her hair and eyes turning black and her face turning pale and veiny. The image adds something to the words. I don't have an example of words amplifying an image. So sue me. Maybe you can think of one. Like homework.

5. Parallel

The text doesn't have any apparent correlation with the visual. Both are telling their own story. Did you see the film version of Pride and Prejudice with Keira Knightley? It's so good. Anyone who doesn't think so is probably just jealous. And anyone who says they don't like Keira Knightley without having seen this film holds an uninformed opinion. Anyway, there's a scene where we hear a voice-over of Mr. Darcy's letter to Elizabeth. The voice-over tells a story of Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley and Mr. Wickham. This is paired with images of Mr. Darcy riding away on horseback and Elizabeth looking sad and stuff. Both words and pictures are giving us necessary information, but the information doesn't overlap in any way.

6. Montage

I don't really get the name McCloud gives this one, but that's okay. It refers to text that is part of the image. A car drives down a highway and passes a sign: "Welcome to Swampville! Population: 700." The sign is part of the picture. They work as one to tell us that our heroes have just rolled into a hick-town stereotype.

7. Interdependent

The more you can use this one, the better. It means you are using text and images to their full potential. In this relationship, the two work together to convey a message that neither could get across on their own. There's a lot of good examples of this in animation. Here's one. In an episode of Futurama, Bender is looking at a page saying, "Oh yeah, you're a bad girl." We see that the picture on the page is a complex diagram of a circuit. The words tell us that Bender is looking at porn; the image shows us that porn for a robot is not the same as human porn.

Think about how you use all of these relationships when writing for film (or comics, or picture books, or whatever). It will help you ensure that you are telling a visual story and not writing a radio drama. It also gives you the chance to play director a little.