The Woes of Writing Science Fiction, Especially Time Travel

Writing is a great way to escape from reality. Transporting yourself from your world into the extraordinary is electric. But it really becomes an ambitious task when you are writing about time travel. Not only is it difficult to write, but it has been written about so frequently that it is cliche, making it even more difficult to write in a fresh and exciting way.

To add onto the woes of time travel, writing is about research. As a senior in college, I'm used to writing papers and researching with intentions of packing the best information into the 10-15 pages required. However, research about time travel means you have to read about quantum and theoretical physics, possibly the two most dense and difficult subjects for anyone to understand(how many quantum physicists do you know? Its a difficult field to get into).

When writing film, or any story, if you want to have a world that is both convincing, intriguing and entertaining, you want to stick with the principles you invent for your world. Developing these principles is a major component for story structurists and writers. If you make time travel impossible past a certain age(say 60 year olds get fried in the process), stick with it. On a deeper level, if you have a character in a world where classism is present and he is a member of a lower class, you cant treat him like a king. The idea is staying consistent in order to keep your audience interested. Before you say "what about films that keep you guessing the whole time?" (i.e. Momento, Basic), these movies have a set of principles they follow. Think about it, Leonard can't create new memories. That is the guiding principle for the movie. With that said, if you write, no matter the subject, stick with your guiding principles.

This rule has been killing me while writing recently. Science fiction is so hard to write! Your world has to be unique, almost bulletproof when it comes to the rules, and consistent. The fact is time travel is breaking natural laws. Making my world I've felt like I'm making an entirely new theory about the science. I know, its a lot to credit myself for, but that is the thing isn't it. Writing science fiction almost places you at the brink of being an actual scientist. Honestly, when you think about it, how much technology has been inspired from science fiction? Last week I read an article about NASA's plans to send a manned mission to Mars...on a one way trip. Sounds an awful lot like Danny Boyle's "Sunshine" to me. How about cloning, androids, what about mind reading technology? Yes it is real! watch this: http://bit.ly/aZtRDB.

When it comes down to it the science of writing about science is an enormous task. Fanboys love to be pleased but hate it when you treat them like idiots. Writing to escape into another time or reality altogether can be exhilarating, but it isn't easy. If you can find yourself pleasing an audience with your strange new worlds, I commend you. Hey, maybe one day you're film's poster will be next to Star Wars in some nerds room. Here's hoping!