time travel story prompts

Not Your Usual Time Travel Story Ideas (2024)

Looking for unusual time travel story ideas and writing prompts? You’ve come to the right place!

Read on for ideas like a world where time flows differently in different regions, a person with an ability to travel in their dreams, and more!

Jump to Section

S tory ideas

Picture prompts

The time travel trope.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means that I may receive a commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase using these links.

Related posts: Tragic Love Story Ideas (2023) The Most Enticing Forbidden Love Story Ideas (Updated in 2023) 40+ Sad Backstory Ideas for Your Character (2023) 17+ Enticing Soulmate Story Ideas (2023)

Time Travel Story Ideas & Writing Prompts

Time travel has long been a captivating concept in storytelling, transporting us to narratives of endless possibilities. Now, let’s explore some unique and unconventional story ideas!

Please note that the genders in these prompts and story ideas are just placeholders and do not mean to enforce any hurtful stereotypes nor offend anyone.

Story ideas

From unexpected time travelers to unconventional methods of traversing through time, embark on a thrilling, time-bending adventure with these exciting ideas.

Lost Time A group of explorers stumbles upon an alien-made, time-traveling elevator that can transport them to different moments within their own lifetime, at the cost of reduced longevity.
Reversed A scientist makes a mistake in their time travel machine, which sends them spiraling into an alternate reality where time operates in reverse.
Past and Future Memories In a post apocalyptic world, a person finds that they can jump into the past as well as potential future memories of others. Then, they navigate through different people’s experiences in the hope of finding a way to undo the effect of the apocalypse.
Time is Money In a world where time flows differently in different regions, a society formed where time travelers exist and time itself can be a commodity. (Originally appeared in my post The Most Mesmerizing Fantasy World Ideas (2023) )
Chronicler of Lost History A person wakes up every day in a different time period, with no control over when or where they’ll end up next. As they try to find out why, they realize that their purpose is to witness and document crucial moments in history that have been erased from collective memory.
Time-Traveling Detective In a time when time travel is possible, a time-traveling detective agency specializes in solving crimes and incidents that occur across different points in time.
Network of Selves There’s a new invention that allows people to split their consciousness into multiple timelines, creating a network of parallel selves.
Tour Across Time Time travel is a regulated industry, and a tour guide accidentally takes a group of tourists to a time period that never existed, causing a ripple effect that alters the course of history.
Time-Traveling Companion There’s a peculiar type of animals that have the innate ability to traverse time. Once they form a unique bond with a human, the bond will allow that human to time travel along with said animal.

The Time Capsule After unearthing a long-forgotten time capsule, a tight-knit group of friends is transported back to their younger selves. (A similar concept appeared in my post Beyond the Mundane: Captivating Slice of Life Story Ideas (2023) )
The Time Thief A physicist accidentally creates a device that allows them to move between parallel universes. They exploit this power to commit crimes across dimensions, staying one step ahead of authorities.
The Reversed Time Traveler A time traveler’s machine malfunctions, causing them to experience life in reverse. Frustrated by their reversed existence, they seek to disrupt the flow of time itself.
Cheering Through Time An alien with the ability to explore different time periods gets stranded on earth and befriends a cheerleader. But as the two jump between time periods, they unwittingly start a chain of event that might spell catastrophe for both of their home planets.
Happy Days Specific emotional triggers can create a quantum leap, launching individuals through time to a moment in the past or future when a similar emotional event occurred.

Here are some time travel picture prompts, because a picture speaks a thousand words! What kind of time travel prompt or story jumps out at you when looking at the picture prompts below?

The concept of time travel has fascinated storytellers for generations, offering endless possibilities and narrative intrigue, allowing writers to explore the complexities of cause and effect, challenge the boundaries of linear time, and delve into the profound impact of altering the past or glimpsing into the future.

In time travel stories, protagonists often find themselves in paradoxes and moral dilemmas as they attempt to correct past mistakes, change the course of history, or prevent catastrophic events where the smallest alteration can have far-reaching repercussions.

Time travel narratives also provide a fertile ground for exploring themes of identity, self-discovery, and the relentless march of time, prompting characters and readers alike to ponder the nature of free will and the fragility of existence.

If you need more story ideas and prompts, please browse our Story Ideas & Writing Prompts category!

Have any question or feedback? Feel free to contact me here . Until next time!

Crime Thriller Story Ideas That Captivate Us (Updated in 2024)

Tragic Love Story Ideas We’re Rooting For (Updated in 2024)

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)

30 Time Travel Writing Prompts

Ever feel stuck in the present moment?

Wishing you could grab a pizza with Cleopatra, mastermind a plan with Machiavelli, or explore a future city filled with gadgets we can’t even imagine ?

Hold onto your hats because we’re about to blow the doors off time travel stories!

Forget boring timelines, paradoxes are your new BFFs. These prompts will have you rewriting reality, jumping through history , and making the rules of time as bendy as a pretzel.

Let’s check them out.

Time Travel Writing Prompts and Story Ideas

Winds of the Lost Era: A gust of wind has the unique ability to transport anyone it touches to a different time for just one hour. When a young woman gets caught in this wind, she finds herself in the midst of a pivotal historical event. She has exactly sixty minutes to observe, interact , or possibly change history. What event does she witness? And what choices does she make?
The Last Sunset Before Eternity: The world’s leading scientists discover that there’s only one sunset left before the earth stops rotating, plunging half the world into perpetual day and the other half into eternal night . They’ve also created a one-time-use machine that can send one person back in time to prevent this. Who is chosen? And what historical point do they go back to to make things right?
Messages Across Time: A young woman discovers she can send messages to her younger self through dreams . Each message can only be a short sentence, but it’s enough to give her past self clues or warnings about the future. However, every change she makes creates ripples in her present, and sometimes, the outcomes are not what she expects. What message does she send first? And what unforeseen consequences emerge?
The Day the Clocks Stopped: Time everywhere freezes, except for one city. Its inhabitants live through days, months , and years while the rest of the world remains static. As they advance technologically and culturally at a rapid rate, they prepare for the day time might resume for everyone. How do they plan to reintroduce their city to the world, which is now centuries behind?
Chrono-Tourists: A company starts offering ‘Time Travel Tourism’. You can’t change major events, but you can witness them. A young couple decides to go on their honeymoon to witness a peaceful, beautiful moment from the past. But when they arrive, they realize it’s the eve of a significant, unrecorded disaster . How do they reconcile their experience with the joy they were expecting?
The Museum of Moments: In the future, there are no traditional museums. Instead, there’s a museum where people can experience any moment from the past in full sensory detail. A teenager decides to relive the ‘most peaceful day on Earth’, only to realize that peace is often a matter of perspective. What does he truly witness on this so-called peaceful day?
Time’s Locket: A locket passed down through generations in a family doesn’t just contain pictures ; it allows the wearer to briefly live in the moments the pictures were taken. A young girl decides to experience a day in her great- grandmother ’s life , hoping to understand her better. However, she discovers a family secret that has been hidden for decades, changing her understanding of her lineage.
Letters in the Sands of Time: In a small coastal town, messages mysteriously appear at sunrise on the beach , always addressed to someone present there. These are letters from their future selves. A man, skeptical at first, starts reading a letter addressed to him and discovers details of a choice he’ll soon have to make. What decision looms in his future, and how does this knowledge affect him?
The Two Lifetimes of Ms. Daniels: On her 30th birthday , Ms. Daniels wakes up to find herself back in her 10- year -old body but with all her memories intact. She lives her life again, making different choices based on her memories, until she reaches 30 again. And then, she’s back in her original timeline. How do her dual experiences shape her perspective? Which life felt more real to her?
Echoes of the Time Vortex: A cavern hidden in the mountains is said to echo not sounds from the present, but conversations from the past and whispers of the future. When a grieving mother enters the cave, she hears the voice of her departed child from a future that never happened. What message does she receive, and how does it change her healing process?
The Train at Midnight: There’s a legend of a train that passes through a town at midnight. Those who board it are taken to any point in time they desire, but they can only observe and feel emotions —they can’t interact. A woman boards to revisit a day she considers her life’s biggest mistake. What day does she return to , and what closure does she seek?
Chronicles of the Hourglass City: In a city shaped like an hourglass, the top half lives in the past and the bottom half in the future. A bridge connects the two, and citizens are allowed a single journey across it. A young woman from the future decides to cross into the past. What or who is she seeking, and what challenges await her in this duality?
Diary from Tomorrow: A man finds a diary on his doorstep, and to his astonishment, it’s filled with detailed entries from the next year of his life. Each day he reads about tomorrow, and each time he’s faced with the moral dilemma of acting on or ignoring the knowledge. What major revelation does the diary hold, and does he dare to change its course?
The Timestream Weaver: In an old attic, a loom is found that doesn’t weave fabric but moments in time. When operated, it can merge moments from different times into one. A curious teenager weaves together a day from her childhood and one from her elder years. What harmonies or conflicts emerge from this singular day?
Guardians of the Temporal Oasis: Deep in the desert lies an oasis where every drop of water lets you relive a moment from your past. But, you can’t choose the moment—it chooses you. A traveler, seeking refuge, drinks from the oasis and is thrust into a forgotten memory. What long-buried moment resurfaces, and how does it change his path forward?
The Timeless Town Square: A secluded town has a central square where time doesn’t flow linearly. Every day at dawn, the square chooses a random day from the past or future to reflect. Townspeople can enter to relive memories or see snippets of what’s to come. One day, the entire town gathers as the square displays a date significant to all. What date is shown , and how does it bind the community ?
Candles of Yesteryears: A boutique sells candles, each corresponding to a year in history. When lit, the room transforms, enveloping the person in the ambiance of that year. An elderly woman buys a candle corresponding to a year she wants to forget. As it burns, what secret memory unfolds, and what catharsis does it bring?
Threads of Time: In a mystical land, there are multiple threaded structures that showcase the entire timeline of the universe . When touched, a person can feel the emotions of any moment stitched into it. A young prince touches a seemingly insignificant thread and is overwhelmed by its intensity. What hidden moment did he discover, and how does it reshape his understanding of history?
The Mirror of Moments Past: A mirror in an antique store doesn’t show the present but a past version of whoever stands before it. A woman sees herself as a child, interacting with someone she doesn’t remember from her childhood. Who is this mysterious figure , and why have her memories of them been erased?
Temporal Tunes of the Old Gramophone: An old gramophone has the power to play not just songs but also ambient sounds from specific moments in time. A listener can immerse themselves in the atmosphere of that moment. A man hears the background noise of a place and time he never visited but finds strangely familiar. Where does this sound take him , and what lost connection does he rediscover?
The Garden of Future Blooms: In a secret garden, flowers bloom showing visions of potential futures. One rare flower is said to bloom only once every century, showing a vision crucial for humanity. As it blossoms, many gather to witness its vision. What future does the flower reveal , and how do those who see it react?
Clockwork of Cosmic Consequences: A clockmaker designs a timepiece that can turn back time, but for every minute turned back, it fast-forwards another person’s timeline by a year. The creator, desperate to rectify a personal mistake, uses it, but at what cost? Whose life gets fast-forwarded , and how does this unintended consequence play out?
Whispers of the Time-Touched Tree : A tree in a forest is said to be touched by time. Those who sleep under it dream of a moment from their past, but from the perspective of someone else who was there. A soldier, burdened by guilt, sleeps under the tree, hoping to understand a decision he made in battle. Whose eyes does he see through , and how does this new perspective aid his quest for forgiveness?
Shadows of the Sundial: In an abandoned village, there’s a sundial said to cast shadows not of the current time but of times gone by. When a researcher places her hand where the shadow falls, she’s momentarily transported to the moment the shadow represents. She inadvertently touches a shadow that takes her to a day the village wishes to forget. What dark secret is unveiled, and how does she reconcile with the truth?
Temporal Café: A café opens downtown where each table is set in a different era. Patrons can’t interact with the past or future directly but can witness and hear conversations. A detective sits at a table set in the future, trying to solve a case that’s stumped him. What revelation about the case does he overhear, and how does it change the course of his investigation?
The Time-Torn Map: An explorer discovers a map that doesn’t just lead to places but to times. Marking a location and date transports the holder to the specified moment. The explorer chooses a date and place where a famous artifact went missing. What happens when he arrives , and how does this journey reshape historical narratives?
Waves of the Temporal Beach: There’s a beach where each wave that crashes ashore comes from a different era. Collecting items brought by the waves can provide glimpses into various moments in time. A historian finds an item linked to her family’s past. What story does the item tell , and how does it redefine her family’s legacy ?
Melodies from the Time-Touched Violin: A violin is found that, when played, doesn’t produce sound but images from the past or future. A musician plays a tune, and a series of events unfold before her, hinting at a future personal dilemma. What decision does she foresee , and how does she prepare for it?
Stairs of the Epoch Tower: An ancient tower’s stairs are said to ascend through time. With each floor representing a different era, climbers can observe, but not interfere. A writer ascends, seeking inspiration , but finds himself on a floor mirroring a future event of his own life. What event does he witness , and how does it inspire his next work ?
The Time Capsule’s Promise: A school ’s time capsule is unearthed not by students from the present but by visitors from the future. They leave behind a message for the current generation about an impending global challenge. What warning do they give , and how does the world rally in response?

Founder and Chief Content Curator @ Digital Phrases

I'm a writer, words are my superpower, and storytelling is my kryptonite.

10 Ideas for a Time Travel Story

Here are 10 quick ideas for a time travel story, including everything from colonies in the distant past and future, to time traveling Jews, Jesus, and jealous husbands.

If one of these ideas inspires you to create a time travel story of your own, let us know and we’ll share it with out community!

1. Future War

A future dictator invades the past. He sends giant war machines into 19th Century London, Paris and Washington, and he demands that all world leaders surrender to him. It’s up to a team of time traveling heroes to stop him.

2. As Time Goes By

A scientist discovers that he can slow down time in a localized area. He can use this to visit the future (and stop off anywhere along the way), but he can never go back. At first, he uses the device to prolong his own life, spending a day inside the time-bubble as a month passes outside. Later, curiosity compels him to travel into the distant future in search of new wonders and a fresh start.

Our protagonist finds a future world full of wonders, and he begins to build a new life for himself. But when things start to go wrong, he finds himself traveling forward yet again. Eventually, the urge to travel forward becomes irresistible as he searches for perfection. Is he really searching for something, or just running from his own past?

As our traveler comes to the end of his life he realizes that, while he has seen more than most people, he hasn’t really lived at all. He’s spent his whole life running.

3. Doing Time

Using a time machine, a penal colony is established in Earths distant future – a future in which humanity is extinct and the sun is approaching the end of its natural life-cycle. When the end finally comes, do the guards evacuate the prisoners or leave them to their fate?

4. The Man You Used To Be

After his wife leaves him, a scientist travels back in time to be with her again. He’s determined to get it right the second time around, and thinks he knows what to do to keep her happy. But when he travels into the past he comes across an obstacle he hadn’t counted on – the past version of himself.

SEE ALSO: Travelling in time but NOT space

Desperate to be with his wife again, he plots to do the unthinkable – he plans to murder his past self and take his place.

There are two obvious ways in which this story could end, each equally as ironic. 1) He kills his former self and is happily reunited with his wife, but after spending one perfect day together the time paradox begins to kick in and he vanishes into oblivion. 2) He kills his former self, but his wife recognizes that he is not the man he used to be. Because of what he’s been through and what he’s done, he’s changed, and his wife can see it in his eyes. She leaves him again.

5. Future Tense

Fearing the extinction of humanity is on the horizon, a large group of humans travel into Earths distant future to avoid the catastrophe. They arrive in a time in which the Earth has recovered from the disaster, and in which all traces of human civilization have disappeared. Many animal species have evolved beyond recognition. In this new wilderness, they attempt to build a home.

Knowing that the end of human civilization is near, people are desperate to travel to the future colony. With a limited number of places available, people fight for the last remaining passes. Eventually, the future colony finds itself with too many mouths to feed.

6. Past Participants

With the destruction of Earth imminent, humanity begins colonizing the distant past. The colonization effort slowly begins to interfere with the timeline. Each group of colonists that arrives from the future has experienced a different version of history, with increasingly interesting results.

One group of time travel colonists is from a fascist timeline in which the Nazis won the Second World War, and they try to take over the colony. Another group reports having found the remains of the colony during a future archaeological dig, indicating that the colonization effort will eventually fail.

7. Populating Zion

A team of scientists rescue Jews from Nazi extermination camps by transporting them forward in time just before the moment of their deaths. Nazis are confounded when they open the doors to gas chambers and find that their victims have mysteriously vanished. In the future, thousands of rescued Jews struggle to understand what has happened to them, and they begin to hail the lead scientist as their Messiah.

8. Time Me Up, Time Me Down

After inventing a time machine, a scientist travels into his own future where he meets his beautiful future wife. Back in his own time, he meets his future wife for the first time (for her at least), but she isn’t interested in him. He tries his hardest to impress her but fails. How can this be when they are meant to be together?

Determined to win her heart, he travels back to their first meeting over and over again, trying something different each time. He even visits her past in an attempt to learn more about her, but nothing works. Becoming increasingly obsessed, he eventually resorts to kidnapping her. He takes her forward in time to show her their future life, but his actions have drastically changed the timeline.

9. Final Interview

A time travel agency sends a man to interview famous historic figures just hours before they die. The interviews are not only important to historians, they have also become a form of popular entertainment. After interviewing countless historic figures over a long and distinguished career, our protagonist has become something of a celebrity himself. One day, a younger man arrives at his home insisting that he be allowed to interview the protagonist. The protagonist realizes that the younger man is his future replacement, and that he himself is soon to die.

(Thanks to Jorgen Lundman for this idea, the full version of which can be read here )

10. Jesus vs The Time Police

The technology needed for time travel exists, but it has been outlawed by most of the world’s governments. A special police unit or federal agency uses specialist equipment to track down illegal time travelers and prevent them from damaging the timeline.

Some of the time travelers are attempting to alter their own past for personal gain, others are rich tourists seeking a thrilling but illegal encounter with the past. One day, however, they track down a time traveler who has managed to evade them for several years. He has been living in the past for all this time, and he claims to have become an important historical figure. Doing a little research, they determine his claims to be true. The time traveler has had a profound effect on the timeline, and undoing his actions might have profoundly negative consequences. He has written himself into history – a history that the time-police have always accepted to be true.

The illegal time traveler might be a famous general, monarch, or president. He might even be a religious figure, such as Jesus (as such, he may not have had an entirely positive effect on history, but a profound one nonetheless). If the illegal time-traveler is Jesus, might his ascension to heaven actually be his forced return to his own time, staged by the time-police?The time-police are faced with a dilemma – set the timeline straight and undo his actions without knowing what the result might be, or allow him to continue living in the past.

This article was written by Mark Ball . With thanks to Jorgen Lundman.

Use our Random Story Idea Generator for inspiration for more stories.

Holiday Savings

cui:common.components.upgradeModal.offerHeader_undefined

Past, present, paradox: writing about time travel, crafting a believable time travel story requires careful consideration of the logic at play. let's crack the temporal code on traveling through time in fiction.

Graphic depicting time in three-dimensional space.

Time travel in fiction can open your story to infinite possibilities. Ever wondered what it would be like if somebody taught the Romans how to make a nuclear bomb? Do you need to retcon an event in your story? Time travel!

It may seem simple for your time-traveling characters to hop in Tony’s Terrific Temporal Transport and whiz through time, but there are many hurdles to overcome when writing about time travel.

Chief among these is dealing with time travel paradoxes, so let’s look at those, discuss how you can write convincing time travel stories, and explore how some popular stories handle it.

The Problem With Time Travel

Consider an ordinary day in your life. It follows a sequence of events where one thing leads to another. This is called causality , the concept that everything that happens results from events that happened before it. The problem with time travel in fiction, especially travel to the past, is that it often breaks the rules of causality.

$Triumphant swan with fractal rippling effect.$

This can lead to time travel paradoxes and unforeseen results , including:

Continuity paradoxes: The act of time travel renders itself impossible.
Closed causal loop paradoxes: Traveling to the past creates a condition where an idea, object, or person has no identifiable origin and exists in a closed loop in time that repeats infinitely.
The butterfly effect: Even the smallest action can have massive consequences.

With all that in mind, let’s embark on a journey through time and explore these further!

Grandfather Paradox

This thought experiment posits the idea of somebody traveling back in time and killing their grandfather before their parents were born. Because the grandfather never has children, the time traveler—his grandchild—cannot exist.

However, if the time traveler never existed, they couldn’t kill their grandfather, so he would go on to have children and grandchildren. One of those grandchildren is the time traveler, though, who might go back in time and kill their grandfather. If that seems confusing, it’s okay—it’s supposed to be.

The bottom line is that if somebody travels to the past and changes something that prevents them from ever traveling to the past, they have broken the timeline's continuity.

Polchinski’s Paradox

American theoretical physicist Joseph Polchinski removed human intervention from the time travel equation.

Imagine a billiard ball travels into a wormhole, tunnels through time in a closed loop, and emerges from the same wormhole just in time to knock its past self away.

Doing so prevents it from ever entering the wormhole and traveling through time, to begin with. However, if it does not travel back in time, it cannot emerge to knock itself out of the way, giving it a clear path to travel back in time.

Bootstrap Paradox

The Bootstrap Paradox is the first closed causal loop paradox we will explore. This presents a situation where an object, idea, or person traveling to the past creates the conditions for their existence, leading to it having no identifiable origin in the timeline.

Imagine sending the schematics for your time machine to your past self, from which you create a time machine. Where did the knowledge of how to create the time machine begin?

Predestination Paradox

The most nihilistic of paradoxes explores the idea that nothing we do matters, no matter what. Events are predetermined to still occur regardless of when and where you travel in time.

Suppose you time travel to the past to talk Alexander the Great out of invading Persia, but he hadn’t even considered this until you mentioned it. By traveling to the past to prevent Alexander’s conquest, you caused it.

Butterfly Effec t

Less of a paradox and more an exploration of unintended consequences, the butterfly effect explores the idea that any action can have sweeping repercussions, no matter how small.

In the 1960s, meteorologist Edward Lorenz discovered that adding tiny changes to computer-based meteorological models resulted in unpredictable changes far from the origin point. In traveling back in time, we don’t know what effect even minor changes might have on the timeline.

How to Write Convincing Time Travel Stories

Time travel can be pretty complex at the best of times, but that doesn't mean writing about it has to be a challenge. Here are a few practical tips to craft narratives that crack the temporal code.

Miniature woman looks amazed at life-sized pocket watch.

Ask Yourself, "Why Time Travel?"

If your story has time travel, to begin with, it likely plays a pretty significant role in the narrative. Define the purpose that time travel has in your story by asking yourself questions like:

How and why is time travel possible in your setting?
What does it mean for your story and your characters?
What are your characters meant to use time travel for?
Is the actual practice of time travel different from its intent?

If you can't be clear about time travel's purpose in your story, how can you convincingly write about it? To get crafty with time, you first need to master its relevant mechanics.

Keep a Record of Everything

You're asking your reader to potentially make several mental leaps when time travel is involved in a story, so it's imperative to have all of your details sorted. Do the work of planning out dates and events ahead of time by creating a time map for yourself—like a mindmap, but for a timeline.

You'll be able to keep a birds-eye view of the narrative at all times, be more strategic about moving the order of events around, and ensure that you never miss a detail. You may even want to have multiple versions—a strictly linear timeline and a more loosely structured time map where you draw connections between events and in the order they appear in the narrative.

In Campfire, you can do both with the Timeline Module —create as many Timelines as you want by using the Page feature in the element. You can also connect your Timeline(s) to a custom calendar from the Calendar Module for extra fun with time wonkiness in your world.

If a new idea pops up while writing, don't stress! You'll have your handy time map already laid out so you can easily see if a new scene or chapter makes sense, as well as where it will best fit into the narrative.

Never Forget Causality

I mentioned this concept earlier in the article, but it should be reiterated: The most important rule of time travel is that every action results in a consequence. Remember cause and effect : an action is taken (your character time travels to the past), and causes an effect, the consequence (the timeline is forever changed).

"Consequence" doesn't have to be a negative thing, either, even though the word has that connotation. The resulting consequence of a given action could be a positive effect, too.

Regardless, seek to maintain causality so you don't confuse your readers (or yourself, for that matter). Establishing clear rules for how time travel works in your setting and sticking to them will help you keep your time logic consistent and avoid running into narrative dead ends or plot holes.

Tips & Tricks For the Time-Traveling Author

Now that we’ve examined several obstacles you can encounter when writing about time travel, let’s see how you can either avoid them or exploit them. That’s right! Even time travel paradoxes present opportunities for superb storytelling.

Man in surreal scene with wooden sign post pointing in three directions: past, present, and future.

Focus on the Future

Fortunately, all the named paradoxes here involve the past, so the easy way to avoid them is to not go there! Thanks to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, you don’t even have to invent a clever way to travel instead to the future.

An aspect of Einstein's theory is time dilation , in which the faster an object moves through space, the slower it moves through time. With this, you need only zip around at near the speed of light for a few weeks or months, and when you come back to Earth, years or centuries will have gone by.

Create a Multiverse

A popular trope in science fiction today, and a theory gaining popularity among theoretical quantum physicists, is the multiverse concept. According to multiverse theory, whenever an event occurs, every possible outcome of the event happens simultaneously, splitting the universe into parallels that each contain differing outcomes.

Since all these realities exist, perhaps changing the past is simply a way for time travelers to travel between realities, shifting their perspective to a timeline where things occurred differently than in their original reality.

Get Creative With Consequences

Instead of avoiding paradoxes, maybe you want them to occur. Leading to some fascinating stories, this can be approached in a variety of ways. Perhaps you want to examine the unintended consequences of the butterfly effect, create a time-traveling police force that enforces the laws of time travel, or simply break time itself and revel in the chaos that ensues.

Just be sure to remember the action-consequence rule and keep your timeline handy for easy reference—especially if you're toying around with multiple timelines!

Best Time Travel Stories

What follows are what I think are some of the best time travel stories. As you will see, the first two fall victim to time travel paradoxes, while the other two do a great job of exploring various elements we’ve discussed.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The corporation Cyberdyne Systems has remnants of the Terminator from the first movie, which they use to create an artificial intelligence system called Skynet. Skynet then actually creates the terminators and sends one back in time. Thus, it gives humanity the technology to create itself in a classic example of a bootstrap paradox.

Back to the Future

In this film, Marty McFly travels to the past and inadvertently interrupts the event where his parents first meet. This causes a chain of events where Marty’s parents never get married and have children, threatening to erase Marty and his siblings from the timeline.

Some argue that the McFly offspring ceasing to exist is a great exploration of the consequences of time travel. However, they would never have been at risk had Marty not been in the past to impede their parents’ romance. And if he ceases to exist, he’ll never go back and get in the way, thus creating a grandfather paradox.

War of the Twins

In this second volume of the Dragonlance Legends trilogy by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the mage Raistlin Majere travels into the past, kills a wizard named Fistandantilus in a battle for power, and assumes his identity. Throughout the book, Raistlin unwittingly follows the historical fate of Fistandantilus, in a wonderful exploration of the predestination paradox.

It’s hard to talk about time travel in fiction these days without mentioning Loki. The show explores two suggestions from my list above: the multiverse and policing the timeline. In this series, varying outcomes of events lead to branching timelines, creating a multiverse of possibilities. However, an agency called the Time Variance Authority exists to prevent this from happening, and they set out to eliminate any branches separate from what they consider the Sacred Timeline.

Bon Voyage!

I hope this exploration of time travel leaves you prepared to tackle these obstacles and opportunities that naturally present themselves when playing around with time.

Just knowing about the complexities of time travel and the paradoxes it can bring about is the best way to avoid trouble and create innovative storytelling moments. So, dust off your DeLorean, polish your paradox-proof plot, and get ready to write your adventure through the ages!

Learn more about making a timeline with Campfire in the dedicated Timeline Module tutorial . And be sure to check out the other plotting and planning articles and videos here on Learn, for advice on how to plan your very own time travel adventures!

DraftSparks ✨

158+ ‘Time travel’ Writing Prompts

Time Travel Dilemma

You invent a time machine but it only makes one round trip. Where and when would you go and why?

Time Travel Destination

If you could time-travel to any era in history, which would it be and why?

The Time Travel Calendar

Imagine you have a calendar that can time travel to any date. What dates will you choose and why?

Adventures of the Time Traveling Carolers

Create an adventure story where a group of Christmas carolers accidentally time travel while caroling.

Christmas Journey Through Time

Detail an imaginary Christmas journey through different historical periods.

Transcendent Tyranny

Write about a villain who aims to harness time travel, potentially altering history to favor their reign.

Time-Travelling Bloodlust

In a world where time travel is possible, a vampire is chasing victims through different eras.

Time Travel Tales

Create a story about a time machine that allows you to travel anywhere in history.

Time Travel Daylight

Imagine waking up on the day of daylight saving time change and finding out you’ve traveled to a different era.

Historical Time Traveller

If you could go back in time to any historical epoch during your 7th grade history lessons, which would it be and why?

Time Travel Tourist

Imagine you can time travel to any historical event or period. Write about where you would go and what you would do.

A Way Back Into Time

Imagine your character has the ability to travel back in time to a period and place, where and when will that be and why.

Treaded Eternity

Design a story where deceased souls must time travel to atone for their sins in life before they can pass on.

Dystopian Restoration

A superhero born in a dystopian future uses their time travel abilities to prevent their world from descending into chaos.

Accentuate the Positive

Write about a time-traveller who uses his power to spread positivity by preventing negative events from happening in the past.

Grandfather Paradox

Write a story in which a time traveler meets his own grandfather back in time and their actions directly impact the present.

Dinosaur Days

Your protagonist has the ability to time travel back to the prehistoric era.

Your protagonist is part of a special task force that goes back in time to prevent crimes that have yet to happen.

Epochal Time Travel

Describe a chase scene across different periods of history as both the protagonist and antagonist can time travel.

Historic Time Travel

Write about a time-travel journey to a significant event in history.

Sands of Time

Imagine a beach bonfire that has the mystical power to show the past or future. Write a story revolving around a character who discovers this power.

Ghost Words

Construct an epistolary short story where letters from the past mysteriously appear in the present.

Journey Through Time

Imagine navigating various epochs of human history with the aid of a time machine.

Time Travel by Virtual Reality

Imagine using a virtual reality headset that can transport you to any moment in history. Which period would you choose to go to and why?

Puppeteer of the Past

Create a scenario where time travel allows individuals to alter historical events for personal gain.

The Inevitable Horizon

Imagine a future where time travel is possible and document an adventurous expedition a group of explorers undertake to witness the end of the world.

Borrowed Time

A character has found an artifact that allows them to time travel, but each trip shortens their life.

Journey to the Tomorrow

Write a suspenseful story of a time-travelling detective who prevents future crimes.

Chase through Time

Create a suspenseful cat-and-mouse chase between a relentless detective and a criminal with the ability to time travel.

Time Travel Summer Disaster

Write a funny tale of a time traveler who miscalculates and ends up in the middle of the hottest day of the year.

Time-Traveling Diary

Write a story about a diary that allows you to time travel whenever you write in it.

Caverns of Time

Write a story about a group of adventurers who find a mysterious cave that leads them back in time.

Time-Traveling Train

You’re the conductor of a steam-powered locomotive that can travel through time.

Time Turbine

Imagine a steampunk mechanism that could transport its operator through time.

The Timekeeper’s Paradox

Spin a tale about a master clockmaker who invents a time-traveling pocket watch, but everything goes awfully wrong.

Time Travel Agents

Time-traveling teens who work as secret agents to preserve the past.

Rewrite History

Choose a historical event and reimagine it with a speculative element, such as alien intervention or time travel.

Time-Travel Tourism

Imagine a future where time-traveling is just as ordinary as going on holidays.

Time Terror

Picture a teenager who finds a time machine, but every jump into the future reveals something terrifying.

Across The Time Continuum

Your story’s setting isn’t in a physical place, but across different periods of time.

The Paradox Experiment

Write about a scientist who makes a breakthrough in time travel, but creates a paradox that alters reality in unexpected ways.

Time Traveling Santa

In a world where time travel exists, Santa Claus uses this technology to deliver presents. How does he manage it?

Love Transcending Time

Write a romance story where one of the characters can time travel.

Time Travel Target

Imagine a detective with the ability to time travel who must solve the murder of their future self.

Lost in Time

Write a narrative about someone who has discovered a time machine, which only travels forward.

Sleeping Beauty and Time Travel

Sleeping Beauty wakes up not 100 years later from her own time, but in the 21st century after a scientific experiment goes wrong.

Jingle All The Way Back to Past

You are sent back in time to the filming of a classic Christmas movie. What happens, and how does it change the movie?

The ‘What If’ Scenario

Imagine if you were able to travel in time for a day. Where would you go and what would you do?

Time Travel

If you could time travel only once, would you go to the past or the future? Write about your decision and what you hope to see or do.

Back In Time Travel

If you could travel back in time, what era would you go to and why?

Time Machine Adventure

Write a story where you have the ability to time travel.

Imagine you have a time machine, describe where you would go and what you would do using new vocabulary words.

The Space-Time Anomaly

You encounter a space-time anomaly that sends you back in time upon contact. Describe the adventures you experience in the universe’s past.

Love Through the Ages

Compose a poem that traverses time, detailing a love that has lasted throughout centuries.

Images in Time

Write a poem that captures a specific moment from your past.

The Time Machine

Compose a poem about time travel, describing the era you’d love to visit most.

If you could time travel to the future, what age or era would you choose to visit, and why?

Time Machine Mix-up

In their first-ever time travel, a novice time traveller misinterprets the controls and ends up at a dinosaur-themed amusement park.

A Paradox In Time

Describe the dilemma of a time-traveler who accidentally altered the course of history.

Time-Travelling Phantom

Write about engaging in a mission with a time-travelling ghost.

Time Machine Journey

Write a story about finding a time machine and deciding to travel to a period in history.

Space-Time Slip

You accidentally find a device that transports you to different timelines. Write about your time-travel adventure.

Time Travel Mishap

Accidentally, you have landed in the wrong era due to a time machine error. Write about the wonky adventures you’d have.

The Time-Travelling Diplomat

Write a series of dispatches from a modern-day diplomat who has accidentally time-traveled back to ancient Rome.

Time Travel Tourism

You run a time-travel tourism company in the future, write about an average day in your life.

Time Travel Tour

Choose a historical period and pretend you are a tour guide for time travellers. Write a journal entry about it.

Chrono Travel Device

Write about a superhero who exploits a cutting-edge time-travel device.

Adventures with an Ancestor

Pen down the exciting adventures you could see yourself having if you traveled back in time to meet an adventurous ancestor.

Each person chooses an era, and together, write a story where characters time travel between these selected periods.

Artistic Time Travel

Choose a historical painting or sculpture. Write a fictional story about what was happening when the artwork was created.

Travel Through Time

Imagine you have a time machine. Describe a journey to a past or future era, detailing the sights, sounds, and experiences.

Musical Time Travel

Choose a period in history and create a song that would be a hit during that time.

Time-Travelling Adventures

What if you could time travel? Where would you go and what would you do?

The Tenses Time Travel

Write two short stories of the same event, one using past tense and the other using present tense.

Nightmare of the Time Traveler

Your protagonist can time travel, but every time they do, they see horrifying premonitions.

From Fiction to Fact: A Science Perspective

Choose a piece of science fiction technology or concept and discuss the feasibility in reality.

Time-Traveling to the Past

If you could time travel, describe a day in the life of your parents (or grandparents) when they were your age.

Unexpected Superpowers

Imagine waking up one day with a superpower of your choice, what would it be and how would you use it?

Journey to a Different Era

If you could travel to any time period, when would it be and why?

Fourth of July Through Time

Imagine you have the ability to time travel and attend any Fourth of July celebration in the history of America. Describe your experience.

Time Travelling Adventure

Imagine you have a time machine, write a comic strip about the different eras you visit.

The Time Travel Watch

Imagine if you invented a watch that could teleport you to any time period. Which period would you choose and why?

School Time Machine

If you had a time machine and could travel to any time in the school day, where would you go and why?

Maccabean Time Travel

Marry past and present by writing a time-travel story that involves characters from the original Hanukkah story arriving in the present day.

Tales Across Timelines

If could have a conversation with your future 25-year-old self, what would you ask or discuss?

Secret Door in the Basement

Your character discovers a hidden door in his basement which leads to a world he never knew existed.

Time Travel Love

Write a narrative involving one character traveling across time to find their destined love.

Time Travelling Musician

If you were a musician whose music could transport anyone to any time period, what songs would you play and why?

Time Travel Adventure

If you could travel back or forward in time, where would you go and what could you do?

Craft a narrative as if you’ve just arrived at an ancient version of today’s modern cities. How is it different? How is it similar? How do you feel about it?

Comic Time Travel Hypothesis

Compose a tale about a scientific experiment gone hilariously wrong, leading to an unintentional time travel mishap.

Hero’s Timeless Quest

Design a story where the hero embarks on a quest that transcends time.

Chronological Conundrum

Travel forward in time to uncover a secret that could save humanity.

A Timeless Easter

Craft a time-travelling adventure that throws the protagonist back to the first Easter.

Imagine traveling back in time, only to realize you are being haunted by a vengeful ghost that insists you amend a mistake from the past.

Time-bending Love

A lover returns in a time where their partner has aged, but they haven’t.

Time-Traveler Chronicles

Imagine if an elder in your community had the ability to time travel — detail their journey.

The Time Machine Invention

You have invented a time machine. Write about where you would go, what you would do, and who you would meet.

The Time Travel Letter

You find a letter written by you in the future. What does it say?

Write a story imagining you’ve traveled back in time to an important historical event.

Fiction Writing , Writing Prompts and Exercises

Time travel writing prompts, by lisa • may 3, 2019 • 0 comments.

What if you could travel back in time and live your life over again starting from the point you went back to? Would you do it?

To sweeten the deal, what if you retained the memories of everything that you had lived through and experienced in the future? Now you could avoid all the stupid mistakes you had made. Everything would turn out better, right? But would it?

Every decision we make, whether good or bad, sets into motion things that will happen. Each decision we make, the bad ones as well as the good ones, helps to form us into who we are.

The following quote is from Towards Zero , one of my favorite books by Agatha Christie: When you read the account of a murder – or, say, a fiction story based on murder – you usually begin with the murder itself. That’s all wrong. The murder begins a long time beforehand. A murder is the culmination of a lot of different circumstances, all converging at a given moment at a given point. People are brought into it from different parts of the globe and for unforeseen reasons. […] The murder itself is the end of the story. It’s Zero Hour.

That quote pertains to murder, but the same can be said for just about any other circumstance in our life. If we had the ability to go back in time to relive parts of our life over, it would change the future and maybe not for the better.

Writing Prompts:

Look at your own life and choose a decision you made in the past that you would like to change. Now pretend that you’re able to go back in time while retaining all of your present memories and change that decision.

How is your future affected? Since you remember what your life was like before you changed a decision you made in the past, you can see how different it is now. You can see the ripples that were put into motion by that one changed decision.

What is different?

Is your family life the same? Is it worse? Or is it better?

Do you have the same parents? How has you changing the one decision affected them? Do any of the family members you once had no longer exist? Are there new ones?

If you were married, are you still married to the same individual? Do you have the same children?

What about your job? Do you have the same job or do you have a better job?

Do you have the same circle of friends? Do any of the friends you had no longer exist?

Has your financial situation changed?

I’m sure there are many more ways you can think of that your life would have been changed by that one changed decision. Make notes on all of these things and write a story.

Book Reviews

A Ghostly Clue – a Review

Fatal Blooms – a Review

Brother’s Keeper – a Review

Murder at the Lighthouse – a Review

Kimberly Van Ginkel

Author and avid reader. I love sharing interesting research and promoting other authors.

9 Rules for Writing Time Travel

I’m a sucker for time travel stories. I’ll read any book or short story, watch any movie or TV show, if it has a time travel element. I can’t get enough.

As a connoisseur of the art form – and as a novelist myself – I’ve developed these story-building tips for writing time travel

1. Give us the Shock & Awe

Writers are always told to start each story in media res , so it’s tempting to skip over the typical set-up scenes. With a time travel story, however, it’s best to introduce us to the characters before learn that time manipulation is possible. Why? Because if we watch them travel for the first time, we get to experience it with them.

Sure, we’ve seen hundred variations of this already, where the character who knows time travel doesn’t exist gradually comes to accept that it is real. It may be hard to find a fresh take. On the other hand, mastering the 4th dimension is a mind-blowing concept, so it ought to take a while to process.

The original draft of Groundhog’s Day opened with Phil Connors already trapped in his loop of repeating days. Had they filmed that version, we’d have been robbed of all the great build-up scenes where the tiny details of Phil’s day start to build, hinting at him that something is very, very wrong.

We’d have skipped past the catalyst of the story and the audience would be struggling to keep up.

Picture Marty McFly walking through 1955’s Hill Valley for the first time in Back to the Future . He has already been told that Doc invented time travel. The writers might have had him immediately accept that fact and jump straight toward some decisive action to change his predicament. Instead, they allowed him a little time for confusion, a period of denial, which also gave us time to look around with him and spot the changes in the town. With every new person or building he sees, we feel his sense of awe growing, taking in the enormity of where he is and what has happened to him. These few moments immerse us in the world with him.

It’s worth mentioning that in Palm Springs , Nyles has been repeating this day for years, but this works because we, the audience, get to watch the other main character, Sarah, enter the time loop for the first time.

This is the magic of a time travel story. Think of it as your “Dorothy opens the door to Oz” moment. Don’t rush it. This is often the most captivating scene of any time travel story.

2. Pick Your Method

Every time travel story has to have something that functions as the device, portal, or catalyst to time travel.

In H.G. Well’s The Time Machine , it was a literal machine that the hero climbed into, and that set the standard for decades of time travel stories. Poul Anderson’s Time Patrol stories employ hover-motorcycles that can jump through time. Doc Brown used a Delorean. Time Travelling with a Hamster (a very funny middle-grade book) uses a metal washtub wired to an old Mac computer.

Just like the wardrobe leading to Narnia, portals are a specific location that allows you to pass between times. In Stephen King’s 11.22.63 the portal is simply a staircase that they refer to as “the rabbit hole.” Star Trek TNG often utilizes worm holes for its time jumps.

Sometimes there is nothing mechanical involved, nothing that would give our characters any control of their destination. Any number of stories involve a character getting a concussion or struck on the head and waking up in another time. In The Time-Traveller’s Wife , Henry has a chromosome disorder that randomly catapults him through time; before each occurrence, he can feel the sensation of an impending jump.

3. Anything goes, as long as you explain it.

The important thing is to show the audience what your method looks like so that we know what to watch for during the story. Even if the character doesn’t know what caused it, if we witnessed him falling asleep and waking up in a different time, we have a framework for the story. We don’t know how the person will get home, but we realize something similar will have to happen to return them to their own time.

No matter what means you use to allow your characters to time travel, the important thing is to show the audience how it happened – at least, as much as your characters know – then give us the rules that govern it .

Doc Brown explains how to set the target date, load the plutonium, and get the car going 88 mph to trigger the time jump. When we see Marty doing exactly those steps a few minutes later, we know before he does that he’s about to travel to 1955. It also sets up the rules for bringing him back home.

In The Edge of Tomorrow , we learn that it’s the blood of the “Alphas” that allows the hero to loop through time. Therefore, if he gets a blood transfusion he will lose the ability. Until then, every time he dies the day resets. All of this is explained to him in the first act of the story, and is repeated again so the audience knows the rules and the way to end it.

It’s OK to keep the explanation brief, and even to leave out critical information, if that’s what your plot requires. But when you skip the explanation altogether, you’ll leave your audience wondering. You don’t want them to be distracted throughout the story, looking for clues that you haven’t dropped, as they try to understand how the hero is going to get back home.

4. Create Your Own Rules

Can the characters change the past? If so, can they make changes to their own future? How does the cause/effect work? There are a million permutations to this, and the most wondrous thing about his genre is that since time travel doesn’t really exist, your logic can never be wrong . How freeing is that?

The only thing your audience will expect is that you stay consistent with whatever version of time travel you set up initially.

Some of the most common time travel tropes are:

“I know what I’m doing.” – the time-traveller knows both the original time line and the new version because he is immune to the effects of the change – see Jodi Taylor’s Chonicles of St. Mary’s series.
“I used to know what was going on.” – as soon as the hero interacts with the time line, he is changing the past, including his own memories – see Looper , Quantum Leap (Sam and Al’s memories of events differ after a major change, as Sam is remembering only the original time line. For example: Watergate.)
“There is no cause and effect.” – anything the traveller does are events that always existed. The past changes him as he changes the past, so there are no alternate time lines. – See The Time-Traveller’s Wife .
“Nothing is able to change.” – the time-traveller is forbidden from making changes (not just a rule, but a law of physics) so they are viewing the past only. Alternately, they can make only minor changes that have no lasting effects. – See To Say Nothing of the Dog .
“I’m only looking” – our heroes cannot move through time, but they can send technology that allows them to see the future or past – See Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus .
“Time corrects itself.” – attempts at major changes are thwarted as the universe finds its own ways of staying on track. – See Night Watch (Sam’s mentor is killed when he visits the past and he is forced to take the man’s place, thereby making himself a major influence in his own young life.)
“Everything changes.” – any large-scale disruptions in the time stream will completely disrupt everything “downstream” from that event. See Anderson’s Time Patrol series (These time cops base their operations a million years B.C. so that if anything upsets the time stream, their patrol can still exist to fix it.)

Know which type of story you are writing and stay true to the cause/effect rules you have created.

If your character goes back in time, confident that the past cannot be changed, then kills his own grandfather and blinks himself out of existence, both you and the audience are now in quite a pickle. This character who no longer exists was never there to kill the grandpa. Oops. You’ve introduced a paradox that is going to hurt everyone’s brain unless you have an amazing trick up your sleeve to get us out of it.

Paradoxes suck for everyone. Give your readers an expected structure and then stick to it so that we’re not left arguing with the screen that, “that makes no sense!”

5. Or Give Yourself an “Out” to Break the Rules

Because it’s difficult to write time travel without flirting with paradoxes, some writers give themselves a work-around — a way of breaking their own rules in a way that feels as though it’s still consistent.

You can cheat.

Avengers: Endgame is a brilliant movie. It’s so good, in fact, that it gets a pass on blatantly breaking its own rules about time travel constraints. The Hulk gives a short lecture explaining why they can’t change the past, they then go on to twist time in ways that make no sense against the structure of time travel in this movie (remember the scene where AntMan is turned into a baby, then an old man, then himself again in what appears to be seconds for him?). But all these discrepancies get glossed over by explaining that the Quantum Realm is mysterious. Ah, Quantum Realm, the magical spackle for filling in plot holes.

You can play dumb.

Ever notice how the main character in these stories is rarely ever the brilliant scientist who developed time travel? Not only is it easier to relate to an everyman character, it saves us all from having to understand the science. You can have your extremely smart person introduce it and explain the rules, then let your hero accept it on faith without thoroughly understanding it.

I love this method because it gives you, the author, the freedom to include as much or as little science as you want to. Gloss over as much as you want to and have the scientist say, “Just push this button” and you can forge ahead with your plot. It’s enough for the audience to know that someone in this world understands it all.

You can yell “Hey, look over there!”

One of my favorite “nevermind my rules” moments is from Grand Tour: A Disaster in Time . Our hero, Ben, has jumped through time to break himself out of prison. The viewer immediately has to wonder how the universe will reconcile this, as Ben has now changed his past and there are suddenly two of him living in town. The writer must have felt trapped in a corner as well, because he threw in this beautiful bit of dialogue:

Original Ben: “How can we both be in the same place at the same time?”

Time-Travelling Ben: “(Forget) the physics, Ben! By the time you figure out whether it’s possible or not, we’re gonna be dead. Twice!”

Easy as that! The paradox doesn’t really matter because we’re now diving back into the action.

Which brings me to:

6. Keep the Clock Ticking

When you have time at your command, why panic, right? Why rush anything?

Because stories need tension. And a great way to add tension is to give your hero a ticking clock. As the wise Rufus once said (in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure ), “No matter what you do, no matter where you go … the clock in San Dimas is always running.” They had only 24 hours to get to their history exam, despite being able to hop through time.

A less silly example is King’s 11.22.63 , where his time portal leads him to the year 1958. In order to prevent the JFK assassination, Jake must spend 5 years in the past. Because of that time commitment, the idea of doing it more than once becomes nearly impossible. Thus, in the countdown to November 22nd, his time is as short as everyone else’s. The time portal can’t help him anymore. And the tension is every bit as high as if he had never discovered time travel.

7. Flip the Script to Make it Difficult

We are rooting for people, not gods of time. It’s cool that they have this wonderful ability, but your story is more gripping if something happens to make them unable to use it. We want them to be able to suffer setbacks, something they can’t easily undo.

Perhaps there is something inherent in your rules of time travel that will constrain the hero. In the Time Patrol stories, one unbreakable rule is that a traveller can never visit the same time twice. So if they make a mistake, they can’t return to that same time to undo it. In About Time , Tim can travel at will to any day within his own lifetime. Just as he’s getting used to this ability, he discovers that changing anything that happened before his children were born will cause them not to exist.

Sudden reversals are even better. In Time Bandits , our heroes have a map of every time portal in world history … so, of course, they lose the map!

8. Choose a Global Background, Then Make it Personal

Give in to the temptation to choose huge moments in world history. Why not? That’s the lure of time travel — the great question of “Where would you visit if you could go anywhere at any time?”

The birth of Christ? The signing of the Declaration of Independence? Woodstock? Pompeii? The assassination of Lincoln? The birth of Rock & Roll?

The history books are open to you. Pick something awesome.

But here’s the thing – as cool as all of those are, the best time travel books are the ones that focus on people . The bigger your background event, the more important it is to show it through the eyes of the people living there.

Connie Willis set The Doomsday Book in the middle of the Black Plague. Instead of showing the cities, she sent her hero to live with a small family out in the safety (uh-oh) of the country. She also created a 2-book series, Blackout and All Clear , set during the blitzkreig of London. Her plucky historians mix with civilians and military personnel, forging relationships that make us care about the fate of those individuals.

King’s 11.22.63 is ostensibly about the JFK assassination, but the characters our hero meets along the way are so wonderful that, to be honest, I wanted the hero to give up on trying to save Kennedy and settle into his fake life in the ’60s.

Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series stretches from the Jacobite Uprising in Scotland through the American Revolution. We see wonderful scenery, experience famous events, and encounter great figures from history. But no one reads those books just for the historical details. The heart of that story is the romance of Claire and Jamie.

Remember that time-travel is a means of telling your story, not the entire story itself. Make your characters matter .

9. Be Unique

Time travel has been the source of some of the most creative sci-fi works ever made. Keep twisting it to create your own rules and your own wonderful stories.

Remember that it does not have to be linear time travel. Though most of the stories I’ve mentioned involve a person being displaced from his own time, there are other permutations to explore.

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe involved a bubble existing outside of space-time so that elite diners could watch the death of the universe while enjoying cocktails.

Groundhog’s Day introduced such a charming notion of 24-hour time loops that it created a whole sub-genre, including the comedic horror film Happy Death Day .

And The Girl, The Gold Watch, and Everything allows its main character to stretch time, living an entire hour in the space between seconds. This gives him the superpower of incredible speed, as viewed by other people. Since we’re living in the time gaps with him, it makes for an intriguing notion of time travel.

One last thought … if you are looking for inspiration for a new type of time travel story, I recommend the book Einstein’s Dreams , a quick read with beautiful vignettes that illustrate different time theories.

45 Time Travel Writing Prompts

Time travel has fascinated people for centuries. It’s one of those things that makes us stop and think, “What if…?” Below, you’ll find a list of time-travel-themed writing prompts to get your students thinking about the possibilities of time travel.

Using This Guide

You could use this guide in your classroom when you read a book about time travel. Here are a few ways to use these prompts:

Assign these along with required reading in your ELA class.
Challenge students to use one prompt a night every week for an entire school week.
Keep these handy for students who finish work early.

The Prompts

If you could go back in time and meet any musician, who would it be? Why?
Write a story about someone using time travel to cheat on a test.
Write a poem about time traveling.
Write a story where the main character travels back in time to warn their younger self about something.
If you could go back in time and meet any actor or actress, who would it be? Why?
What is a historical event that you would like to time travel to? Describe what you would see.
What is your favorite movie about time traveling? What do you like about it?
What is your favorite book about time traveling? What do you like about it?
Write a story about a librarian who time travels via books.
If you could go back in time and meet any prominent woman from history, who would it be? Why?
Write a time travel story that involves a dog and its owner.
Write a story where the main character travels back to the same morning every single day.
If you could travel back in time to a certain summer memory, what would it be? Describe your day.
Write a time travel story about superpowers.
If you could travel back in time to any period of history, which would you choose? Why?
Write a time trial story about video games.
If you could go back in time and stop any major historical event, which would you choose? How would you stop it?
Write a time travel story about school.
Write a time travel story about your favorite season.
Write a time travel story about a person who is nervous.
Do you think time travel really exists? Explain your answer.
Explain the pros and cons of time travel.
If you could travel into the future, what do you think it would be like?
If you could go back in time and try any food, what would you eat? Why?
If you could go back in time and protect one endangered animal, which would you choose? Why?
Write a story where the main character goes back in time to meet a relative or ancestor they never got to meet.
Write a time travel story that takes place in a big city.
Write a time travel story that takes place in the countryside.
Can you think of a moment when you should have stood up for someone and didn’t? If you could, would you go back and change it?
If you went back in time, would you purposely try to find your younger self?
If you went ahead in time, would you purposely try to find your older self?
Write about your favorite cartoon that features time travel.
Do you think the time travel aspect of the Harry Potter series makes sense? Why or why not?
Which time travel trope do you think is overused? Why?
If you could travel back in time to see any band or musician live, who would you choose? Why?
Write a time travel story featuring superheroes.
Write a time travel story about your favorite holiday.
If you could travel back in time to meet any artist in history, who would it be? Why?
Why do you think society is so intrigued by the thought of time travel? Explain.
Write a story about someone who only thinks they’ve time traveled, but they actually haven’t.
Write a time travel story about science.
If you could go back in time and witness any important event in history, which would you choose? Why?
Write a time travel story that takes place 200 years from now.
Write a time travel story that takes place 200 years ago.
Write a time travel story that takes place during the year one of your parents were born.

Looking For More?

Whether you’re looking for writing guides, substitute teacher forms, or something in between, you’ve come to the right place. Our site is home to a number of educational resources to use in the classroom and at home.

Features for Creative Writers
Features for Work
Features for Higher Education
Features for Teachers
Features for Non-Native Speakers
Learn Blog Grammar Guide Community Events FAQ
Grammar Guide

Sci-Fi Story Ideas and Writing Prompts

Hannah Yang

Are you excited to write a science fiction story but unsure what to write about? Using a writing prompt is a great way to get started.

We’ve created writing prompts in eight popular science fiction subgenres: aliens, biopunk, dystopia, high-tech, robots, science fantasy, space opera, and time travel.

You can start with the categories that you’re most excited about, or read through all of them to see if anything unexpected tickles your imagination.

This article has 80+ science fiction story ideas that you can use for your next novel, screenplay, or short story. Happy writing!

Alien Story Ideas

Biopunk story ideas, dystopia story ideas, high-tech story ideas, robot story ideas, science fantasy story ideas, space opera story ideas, time travel story ideas, tips for using sci-fi story ideas.

The alien subgenre is a classic in science fiction literature. Different writers have envisioned countless scenarios for what might happen if we discovered other life in the universe.

You run a hotel on Earth where various alien species come to stay on vacation
A child finds out her pet has been an alien all along
Alien students come to study on Earth for a foreign exchange program
An alien race comes to planet Earth to help solve global warming
Humans invade a peaceful alien planet to steal their secrets
Aliens speak a language you have to learn how to decipher
Aliens can mind control the human race, except for a certain demographic of people
Aliens have taken over the Earth, and a family must try to survive against all odds
A human falls in love with an alien and they have a child together
Alien parasites can infiltrate the human body and make people commit crimes
Aliens take over Earth’s prison systems so they can use human criminals as slaves
Scientists dig up alien technology that has been buried in glacial ice for centuries, revealing secrets nobody expected

Biopunk is a subgenre that grapples with the implications of biotechnology. What happens when humans learn how to engineer and augment their own bodies?

People steal organs to sell them on the black market
You can raise a genetically identical version of yourself to give you spare organs
A scientist recreates her dead family out of grief
A technology company hides your memories behind a paywall, so you have to pay to access them
A young woman and her twin sister agree to be genetically modified in two different ways
You meet someone who looks exactly like you, and find out you’re actually a clone they created
Every family is only allowed to have one child, and terrible things happen if you break that rule
Parents are forced to genetically optimize their babies, and those who refuse are forced to work menial labor
Thieves steal genetic skill sets, such as math skills and gymnastics skills, from the rich
Evil scientists create a terrible pandemic and unleash it onto enemy countries

If you like critiquing the state of our society or political system, dystopian world building is a great way to do it. This subgenre lets you interrogate the dark side of government control and the erasure of individual autonomy.

The government, which controls all media, lies about an important historical event to try to erase history
Nobody is allowed to go beyond the wall that surrounds the city, and nobody remembers why
The government mandates a hive mind so they can see everyone’s thoughts
Everyone has a ranking to show their status as a citizen, forcing them into class tiers
You work for a rebel organization trying to take down the global dictatorship
The government sets up high-tech surveillance programs that watch everyone 24/7, but only you know how to get around the cameras
The government decides who you marry and have children with, but you fell in love with someone else
Nobody is allowed to eat the old foods, but you inherited a recipe book from your grandmother
The government outlaws a new invention that some people desperately need
Citizens are forced to participate in brutal competitions
The government creates a strange new technology for punishing dissidents
A mechanized police force prevents crime, but also commits atrocities

Many science fiction stories imagine new types of futuristic technology that might change the way we interact with the world, from virtual realities to extreme social media. If you like inventing new things, this sub-genre could be an exciting one to try.

Someone creates an app that lets people buy, sell, and trade emotions
Social media gets pushed to the extreme
A dating app becomes sentient and starts forcing its users to date the people it chooses
Humans figure out how to upload their minds into computers, effectively achieving immortality
Everyone begins spending most of their lives in a virtual reality
Humans are allowed to choose their own VR afterlives
People can selectively remove some of their memories
Babies get created and raised in artificial wombs, raising ethical questions
Laws try to ban an invention that lets you change people’s memories
A technology can heal any affliction…with a cost
An inventor tries to patent his invention, only to find that big corporations who want to use his invention are out to kill him
Someone invents a technology that lets you swap bodies with someone else

Robots and artificial intelligence are another classic science fiction subgenre. What happens when people create machines that are smarter than we are?

A woman creates a robot boyfriend, but feels guilty when it starts having an existential crisis
A young boy and his best friend discover that their babysitter is a robot
A loophole in the programming of an AI robot causes it to go rogue
All jobs are taken over by AIs, and humans must find meaning in other pursuits
Human military officers have designed a robot to serve as a super weapon, but the robot doesn’t want to kill anyone
The planet has been split into territories ruled by humans and territories ruled by machines
A lawyer fights for civil rights for androids
Years after the robots overthrew human civilization, a small group of humans survive
Robots learn to fall in love, either with humans or with each other
A robot seeks revenge against the people who killed the family it protected
The androids don’t know they’re androids, because they’re told they’re humans
The narrator is a sentient house that takes care of a family
A child gets raised by robots and learns robotic mannerisms

Science fantasy lives at the intersection of science fiction and fantasy. Who says stories based in science can’t have a little magic too?

A war breaks out between scientists with incredible technologies and the witches and wizards who have been hiding on Earth for centuries
Spaceships are controlled by people who have magic powers that allow faster-than-light space travel
Scientists figure out how to create mythical animals in laboratories, such as dragons, unicorns, and pixies
After a spaceship landed on a distant planet, the natives of that planet have formed a new religion which worships space travelers as gods
An inventor creates the technology to bring children’s dreams to life, including their nightmares
A scientist creates a fortune teller that can create magical prophecies
Using modern technologies, scientists discover the lost city of Atlantis and the ancient magic it holds
Time travelers go back to ancient Greece and meet mythical beasts such as the hydra
An experimental government program combines humans with other animals, creating creatures like mermaids and angels

Space opera stories are adventures set in outer space, full of action, drama, and romance. There are a lot of different directions you can take these stories.

Five people wake up on a deserted space station with no memory of how they got there
Earth competes in an interplanetary art contest against multiple alien races
Someone stows away on a spacecraft to run away from home and gets discovered by the crew members after they’ve landed on a distant planet
A war breaks out on a generation ship, causing the last survivors to reach their destination without any of the skills or resources they were supposed to have
Intergalactic bounty hunters look for fugitives on faraway planets
A space pirate lands in your backyard and tries to recruit you
A galactic empire tries to colonize your peaceful planet, so you team up with other species to fight back
Single people try looking for romance at an interplanetary club
Navigators use special powers to plot courses through the stars
Write a retelling of your favorite fairy tale…in space!

Time travel is an exciting element of science fiction! If you’re a history buff, you might send your characters back to big events in the past. If you like logic puzzles, you might want to figure out a tricky series of actions in time.

Humans learn how to communicate with their past and present selves
Time travel journalists go back in time to document historical events with modern technology
You travel a hundred years into the past and accidentally kill your own ancestors
A secret society of time travelers patrols different time periods to protect the way history unfolded
A high school student creates a time machine for a science fair
In a small town, someone is born with the special ability to visit the same town in the past, present, and future
A woman befriends her childhood self to try to change her own past
Someone uses time travel to commit untraceable crimes
A time traveler meets an immortal vampire and becomes best friends with them
Knowing that the human population is about to be wiped out, the last survivors on Earth travel back in time as refugees

Remember that a prompt is just a starting point. You still need to decide how you’re going to put your own unique twist on the story.

Most of these science fiction ideas have been used many times before, but that doesn’t mean your story can’t be original and unique.

For example, E.T. and Lilo and Stitch are two movies that could conceivably have originated from the same prompt—“a kid discovers an alien and keeps it as a pet”—but they’re very different movies.

The same prompts can lead to very different stories

Here are some tips for how to use these prompts to create exciting and original stories.

Tip #1: Combine Multiple Ideas

You can consider combining a prompt with an idea for a character or setting, or even with a second prompt.

For example, maybe you want to take an alien prompt and a time traveler prompt and include both in the same story by making the aliens turn out to be humans from the future. When you let two ideas collide, new and exciting possibilities can arise.

Tip #2: Write What You Know

“Write what you know” is a great adage that applies even to science fiction. That’s how you create an original, authentic story that resonates with readers.

If you’re an insurance salesperson, perhaps you can write about an alien who sells insurance to other planets. If you’re a high schooler, perhaps you can write about a high school student discovering time travel.

Using your real life as a starting point for a story can imbue it with your own perspective and voice.

Tip #3: Don’t Forget the Basics

An interesting premise is important, but there are other skills you need in order to flesh out your writing. Craft elements like character development and world building are still crucial for creating a good story.

Tip #4: Write with a Friend

Writing doesn’t have to be a solitary activity! It can be fun to write the same prompt with a friend and then trade stories. Chances are, you’ll be surprised by the different ways you and your friend can use the same idea.

If you’re excited to try some of these prompts and meet other sci-fi writers, don’t forget to register for our free Science Fiction Writers’ Week .

Happy writing!

Write like a bestselling author

Love writing? ProWritingAid will help you improve the style, strength, and clarity of your stories.

Hannah Yang is a speculative fiction writer who writes about all things strange and surreal. Her work has appeared in Analog Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, The Dark, and elsewhere, and two of her stories have been finalists for the Locus Award. Her favorite hobbies include watercolor painting, playing guitar, and rock climbing. You can follow her work on hannahyang.com, or subscribe to her newsletter for publication updates.

Get started with ProWritingAid

Drop us a line or let's stay in touch via :

Translators
Graphic Designers

Please enter the email address you used for your account. Your sign in information will be sent to your email address after it has been verified.

How to Write a Time Travel Story Without Paradoxes

The concept of time travel has long been a popular theme in fiction and film. Traveling back in time to alter the course of history is an alluring idea that has enthralled not just fiction writers but scientists as well. Yet, if you've ever seen or read a time travel story, you're aware that time travel is a tricky concept to grasp. It might be challenging to stay faithful to your worldbuilding concepts while simultaneously incorporating suitable temporal paradoxes.

For this reason, we will explore different paradoxes and go through various tips to help you write a time travel story without the risk of paradoxes.

Where does the idea of time travel come from?

Traveling across time is a shared universal dream. But where did the fascination with time travel begin, and why does the concept appeal to so many people? The lure of time travel has deeper origins. Appearing in some of our oldest stories , it is woven into the very fabric of our language and imagines a world without constraints of time and space. Its roots may be traced back to ancient tales of time travel found in numerous civilizations throughout the world, giving the notion its distinct characteristics derived from different cultures.

We come across time travel stories in ancient cultures throughout the world , although we cannot claim to know where the concept originally came from and who pioneered it. However, we can observe that the genre rose to prominence in the nineteenth century. From this time period comes Charles Dickens' classic novella A Christmas Carol , in which Ebenezer Scrooge travels both ahead and backwards in time. Around the same period, H.G. Wells popularized time travel in literature with his timeless novel The Time Machine , which featured the concept of a "time machine," which featured a vehicle that could travel purposefully and selectively in time. Inspired by this emblematic icon, many beloved time-travel stories published after this have incorporated some form of the time machine. Such is the famous TARDIS in the long-running BBC classic series Doctor Who , a blue box that can transcend time and space. Doctor who interestingly explores time travel paradoxes, with time paradoxes taking a center stage for many of its episodes.

Time travel paradoxes

There are many logical contradictions when it comes to time travel. Here are some of the major paradoxes:

Bootstrap paradox

The Bootstrap Paradox is a theoretical paradox of time travel that arises when an object transported back in time becomes locked within an unending cause-effect loop. This occurs as the travel in time takes place as a response to a specific event.

Consistency paradox

Consistency Paradoxes , such as the Grandfather Paradox , or the Hitler paradox , a type of timeline mismatch that arises from the prospect of changing the past. These paradoxes change history in such a way that time travel into the past, which caused such action in the first place, is no longer possible. To simply illustrate the paradox, in the film The Time Machine , a protagonist builds a time machine to travel back in time in order to save his fiancé from death. Her rescue, on the other hand, would lead to a future in which the machine never existed since her death was the direct motivation for its creation. But then, how is it you can go back and save your fiancé if her death hasn't given you the push to create the time machine? It results in a paradox. The timeline is no longer self-consistent.

Butterfly effect

The Butterfly Effect is based on Chaos Theory , which states that seemingly minor changes may have massive cascade responses over extended periods of time and that even minor changes can fundamentally reshape history. The name "Butterfly Effect" originates from Ray Bradbury's short tale " A Sound of Thunder ," in which a character in prehistoric times walks on a butterfly, causing massive changes in the future.

How to avoid these paradoxes

The self-healing hypothesis.

Writers seeking to escape the paradoxes of time travel have devised a variety of inventive methods for presenting a more consistent picture of reality. The self-healing hypothesis is one of the most basic solutions to any time travel paradox, implying that no matter what is changed in the timeline, the principles of quantum physics will self-correct to prevent a contradiction from arising and sustain the existing flow .

Because events would adapt themselves, a paradox would not occur. So, changing the past will trigger another alternative chain reaction that will keep the present unaltered. This effectively states that the likelihood of a paradox arising in any given circumstance is zero. The self-healing hypothesis simply indicates that no matter what a traveler has done in the past, the end outcome is the same in terms of global conditions. This does not rule out the possibility of changing the past, but it does eliminate the prospect of minor changes having the power to generate massive ones. Most crucially, as an author, you are not obligated to describe the particular events that repair time. It is enough to affirm that they take place and ensure that your event sequences and their conclusion are consistent.

Time traveling monitor

Another way to avoid temporal paradox would be creating the time traveling monitor that would follow the timeline protection hypothesis , which posits that any attempt to create a paradox would fail to owe to a probability distortion. The monitor would adjust the probability in order to avert any damaging events occurring, which would also give you free rein to come up with creative scenarios. Nonetheless, to prevent an impossible event from taking place, the universe must favor an improbable event occurring.

Balancing the timeline

The paradoxes themselves are intertwined and they can as well occur simultaneously. No one knows if a real-life paradox would result in a large-scale timeline alteration, or if the closed-loop is kind of automatically self-correcting since everything works out equally in the end. Going back to the Consistency Paradox, yet another approach to avoid it is to acknowledge, regretfully, that you can't and shouldn't attempt to change the past. That is unless you can rule out any chance of a bad domino effect as a result of your activities. In this manner, you can attempt to alter the past while keeping the chronology intact. This means following up the time-change event with another change that balances out the activities and ensures that the outcome remains the same despite the intervention.

The notion of a time loop is one of the most prevalent strategies to get away with time travel in science fiction. You may travel through time here, but any changes you make are predetermined. For example, suppose you were pushed out of the way of a car one day. You return to your timeline from the future and realize that that person was in reality you.

Paradoxes are avoided with this method of time travel, but everything is predetermined. If you wish to prevent a tragic incident from occurring in your past, there's nothing you can do since even if you could, it would still happen in the time loop. Whatever you did, the key events would just re-calibrate around you. This could be the solution for the Grandfather Paradox — that would mean that the event propelling you back in time would happen regardless of your actions, providing your younger self with the incentive to go back and stop it. To put it another way, a time traveler could make adjustments, but the original conclusion would still occur — perhaps not exactly as it did in the initial timeline, but near enough.

Parallel universe

There is also another possibility: creating a parallel universe . The future or past you visit might become a parallel reality. Consider it as a huge fortress where you may construct or demolish as many castles as you like, but it has no bearing on your primal stronghold. When you travel back in time, the future is gone, it never happened, and the universe will evolve anew, even if you do nothing to influence it. It does not affect the future you experienced, but it does affect the future of the reset world. That can entail creating a scenario in which the protagonists travel to the past and discover themselves in a parallel world or multiverse, with no change to their original chronology.

Countless science fiction stories have examined the conundrum of what would happen if you could travel back in time and do something that would jeopardize the future. Please note that you are free to make your own rules for it. This is your work of fiction. The universe will be as you will design it in your story. If the paradoxes do not exist in your story, then you may make up your own rules around it. You can as well bypass the rules your worldbuilding has established if you have a valid cause for doing so and if this is what your writing demands.

4 Effective Book Marketing Methods

How to Write Believable Technobabble

Book Writing Advice
All Blog Posts
Writing Advice
Academic Writing Advice
Admissions Writing Advice
Short Story Advice
Employment Writing Advice
Business Writing Advice
Web Content Advice
Article Writing Advice
Magazine Writing Advice
Grammar Advice
Dialect Advice
Editing Advice
Freelance Advice
Legal Writing Advice
Poetry Advice
Graphic Design Advice
Logo Design Advice
Translation Advice
Blog Reviews
Short Story Award Winners
Scholarship Winners

Professional book editing services you can trust

10 Time Travel Science Fiction Ideas

Posted on 22 Aug, 2018

Future Invisible Inhabitants

A scientist creates a time machine and travels into the future where he finds a world that looks far more advanced than ours (which it should… it’s the future). However, despite everything looking clean, organized and new, he can’t find anyone. But they are there. He just can’t see them because they’ve discovered how to remain invisible. And the reasons they feel the need to be invisible are terrifying.

Time Travel Cures

A man from the future uses a time machine to offer sick rich people a trip into the future where their illnesses can be cured. But his motivations are different than they appear. And while most of them are cured of their illnesses, they’ve brought something from the future back with them.

Forbidden Future Technology

A man from the future secretly sells future technology to wealthy individuals. But some of it is technology that we’re not quite ready for.

Missing Time Travelers

To save his children a mad scientist sends them into the future. Now 20 years later he’s ready to greet them in the place and time that he sent them. Except they don’t arrive.

Time Travel Plagiarism

A famous and wealthy author in the year 2120 has run out of ideas. He’s hit writer’s block hard. So he buys a two way ticket to travel thirty years into the future where he stays for a month taking notes on recent best sellers from that time in order to plagiarizer them.

Time Traveling Android God

The year is 2018 but vastly different than the world we know. This alternative present was started when a high level A.I. android traveled from the future to the year 1200 and presented himself as a God. Being an immortal android he successfully controls the world, leading to a vastly different world than the one we know. But some know of this legend, and the time travel he used to travel to the past has now been discovered in present time.

Outlawed Time Travel

The year is 2005 and time travel has been outlawed. This 2005 is much different than the one we’re familiar with. After the year 2090 life on earth changed in every year dating to the dawn of man and extending to the end of times. Time travel created an infinite and ever changing wave of new time dimensions, each with their own unique creations, issues, and outcomes. The future became the past, and old influences of the past changed futures. Now the man who made that time travel possible thinks he’s created a way to travel not only through time, but also through the infinite dimensions his initial creation has already created.

Time Travel Diplomat

In the year 2121 and Tom Waterfeld is a time travel diplomat. Using a specific set of time travel rules Tom travels through time and attempt to prevent disasters created by bad politics. And he must do so without further damaging the future he’s trying to improve.

Virtual Time Travel

The year is 2200 and while time travel is not yet possible, Carter Snapperson has discovered that it is possible to at least see the past and he’s created a virtual reality device to do just that. However after “traveling” back in time virtually to several key historical events, Carter realizes that much of the past is far different that what we have recorded in the history books.

The Time Travel Experience Executive

In the year 2145 Jonathan Cowell has a dream job. For a large fee Jonathan creates “experiences” in which the worlds wealthiest time travel tourists can hire him to opportunities for them to meet their idols of the past. It’s harder than it sounds. Some of these idols are hard people to get in front of. And one new tourist has given him a particularly challenging assignment.

Let us know what you think about our ideas! Comment below to give us your opinion, add onto an existing idea, or submit one of your own!

5 Science Fiction Ideas in ten minutes.

The Time Traveling Box

25 sci-fi writing prompts.

9 Horror Story Ideas

Can I use Forbidden Technology? I’m really drawn into that one!

Sorry, I’m just replying. But you definitely can use it!

Virtual time travel is a good idea since it deals with the idea of a parallel or a different universe that ours or one that has been somewhat altered by journeys and changes through time. Time travel plagiarism is an interesting concept since I enjoy writing and have an affinity to famous works and short stories and what some of these may works will be in the future. My idea: A group of aliens has been on earth several weeks and they are trying to learn about the earth in the present year while it is the year 2170 on … Read more »

I have a story line of an android detective following the trail of a crazed scientist bent on destroying the world. The scientist has created a time machine with which he sends an anti matter bomb thousands of years into the past. The detective is able to jump into the time stream and follow to where the bomb ends up. The detective is able to neutralize the bomb, but is now stuck in the past. Luckily the detectives android battery has enough power to essentially live to the time this all started. Now he faces the dilemma of should he … Read more »

50 Climate Change Science Fiction Story Ideas

30 popular science fiction themes, 200 science fiction themes to kick off 2024, 30 memory manipulation science fiction story ideas, 10 interviews or speeches from the best science fiction authors of the past 30 years, help support this blog.

If you've enjoyed this blog or used it as a resource in your own creative writing, please feel free to help support the continued efforts of this blog by making a small donation.

You can make a donation by visiting my buymeacoffee.com page. Click Here to donate.

Sciencefictionideas.com is a blog I created as a place to brainstorm and share science fiction ideas, as well as a place to share things I learn in my efforts to become a published author.

I love connecting with fellow writers, so feel free to drop me an email with any feedback, questions, or just to introduce yourself! MORE ABOUT ME

JOIN OUR NEW FACEBOOK GROUP!

Request our Free PDF Guide to Developing Sci-fi Ideas

Most liked ideas/stories.

The Time Stopper (860)
20 Sci-Fi Story Ideas (519)
The Tiny Aliens and the Forest (369)
The Android Planet (329)
10 Time Travel Science Fiction Ideas (270)
25 Science Fiction Short Story Ideas (256)
A Time Travel Story - Part Four (252)
The end of earth. (243)
4 Space Travel Writing Prompts (231)
Friday Fright Night - 6 Horror Story Writing Ideas (230)
35 Alien Story Ideas (172)
9 Horror Story Ideas (171)
6 Alien Story Ideas (164)
A Time Travel Story - Part Two (163)
10 Science Fiction Writing Ideas (151)

Sci Fi Ideas Newsletter

Your Email (required)

Aliens (16)
Androids (8)
Apocalyptic (8)
Artificial Inteligence (7)
Dystopian (1)
End of Earth (3)
Eternal Life (1)
Fantasy Writing Prompts (1)
Fountain of Youth (1)
Frozen Planet (2)
Future Inventions (9)
Future Story Ideas (13)
Gift Ideas (15)
Invisibility (1)
Life on Mars (3)
Mad Scientist (2)
Nanotechnology (5)
Posters (6)
Reviews (3)
Sci Fi Civilizations (16)
Science Fiction Book Ideas (53)
Science Fiction News (2)
Science Fiction Themes (13)
Science Fiction Weapons (1)
Short Story Ideas (6)
Space Racing (1)
Space Travel (11)
Spaceships (5)
Steampunk Stories (1)
Story Ideas (60)
Teleportation (1)
Time Travel Story Ideas (12)
Uncategorized (45)
Virtual Reality (5)
Writing Prompts (23)
Writing Tips (4)
Zombies (1)
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
February 2021
February 2020
January 2020
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
August 2018
August 2016
September 2015

Stay up to date with our latest posts featuring new science fiction ideas as well as many other sci-fi related topics.

Summaries, Analysis & Lists

Time Travel Short Stories: Examples Online

The short stories on this page all contain some form of time travel, including time loops. Some of them contain time machines or other technologies that makes the trip possible; in other stories the jump in time doesn’t have an obvious explanation. They don’t all involve obvious trips to the past or future. Sometimes, the story simply contains an element that is out of place in time. See also:

Short Stories About Time Travel

“caveat time traveler” by gregory benford.

The narrator spots the man from the past immediately. The visitor identifies himself. He’s surprised to find he’s not the first visitor from the past. He wants to take something back to prove he made it.

“Caveat Time Travel” can be read in the preview of The Mammoth Book of Time Travel SF.

“Absolutely Inflexible” by Robert Silverberg

A time traveler in a spacesuit sits in Mahler’s office. He’s informed that he’ll be sent to the Moon, where all visitors from the past have to go. The man tries to get out of it, but Mahler explains why no exceptions are possible.

“Absolutely Inflexible” can be read in the preview of Time and Time Again : Sixteen Trips in Time.

“Yesterday Was Monday” by Theodore Sturgeon

When Harry Wright wakes up on Wednesday morning he realizes that yesterday was Monday. Somehow there is a gap. He notices that his environment doesn’t quite seem complete.

“Yesterday Was Monday” can be read in the preview of The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century.

“Death Ship” by Richard Matheson

The crew of a spaceship is collecting samples from various planets to determine their suitability for human habitation. While nearing a new planet, Mason spots a metallic flash. The crew speculates that it might be a ship. Captain Ross orders a landing to check it out.

“Death Ship” can be read in the preview of The Time Traveler’s Almanac.

“The Third Level” by Jack Finney

The narrator has been to the third level of Grand Central Station, even though everyone else believes there are only two. He’s just an ordinary guy and doesn’t know why he discovered this unknown level. He relates how it happened.

“The Third Level” can be read in the preview of About Time: 12 Short Stories.

“A Touch of Petulance” by Ray Bradbury

Jonathan Hughes met his fate in the form of an old man while he rode the train home from work. He noticed the old man’s newspaper looked more modern than his own. There was a story on the front page about a murdered woman—his wife. His mind raced.

This story can be read in the preview of Killer, Come Back To Me: The Crime Stories of Ray Bradbury.

“Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving

Rip Van Winkle is lazy at home but helpful to, and well-liked by, his neighbors. He’s out in the mountains one day to get away from things. With night approaching, he starts for home but meets up with a group of men. He has something to drink and goes to sleep, which changes everything.

This story can be read in the preview of The Big Book of Classic Fantasy .

“Twilight” by John W. Campbell

Jim picks up a hitch-hiker, Ares, who says he’s a scientist from the year 3059. He says he traveled millions of years into the future, but came back to the wrong year. Life in 3059 is trouble free, with machines taking care of everything. Future Earth is in trouble, with all life extinct, except for humans and plants.

This is the second story in the preview of The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Vol 1 . (49% into preview)

“The Man Who Walked Home” by James Tiptree, Jr.

An accident at the Bonneville Particle Acceleration Facility decimated the Earth’s population and severely damaged the biosphere and surface. Decades later, a huge flat creature emerges from the crater at the explosion site and promptly disappeared. There are other sightings in the years that follow.

This story can be read in the preview of the anthology Timegates . (18% into preview)

“An Assassin in Time” by S. A. Asthana

Navy Seal Jessica Kravitz recovers from the effects of the time jump. She’s done it before, but there are always side-effects. She’s on a highly classified, very important, and expensive mission. Previous jumps have familiarized her with the grounds. This time, she should be able to reach her target.

This story can be read in the preview of AT THE EDGES: Short Science Fiction, Thriller and Horror Stories . (17% in)

“The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang

Fuwaad, a fabric merchant, appears before the Caliph to recount a remarkable story. While looking for a gift, he entered a large shop with a new owner. It had a marvelous assortment of offerings, all made by the owner or under his direction. Fuwaad is led into the back where he’s shown a small hoop that manipulates time. He also has a larger gateway that people can walk through. The owner tells Fuwaad the stories of a few who did just that.

This story is on the longer side but doesn’t feel like it. Most of “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” can be read in the Amazon preview of Exhalation: Stories .

“Time Locker” by Harry Kuttner

Gallegher is a scientist—drunken, erratic and brilliant. He invents things but pays them little attention after. His acquaintance Vanning, an unscrupulous lawyer, has made use of some of these inventions, including a neuro-gun that he rents out. During a visit he sees a locker that is bigger inside than out. Fascinated with the item’s possibilities, he offers to purchase it.

Some of “Time Locker” can be read in the preview of The Best Time Travel Stories of the 20th Century.

Time Travel Short Stories, Cont’d

“All You Zombies” by Robert A. Heinlein

A young man explains to a bartender that he was born a girl. He (she) gave birth to a child and there were complications. The doctors noticed he (she) was a hermaphrodite and performed an emergency sex-change operation.

A lot of this story can be read in the preview of “ All You Zombies—”: Five Classic Stories .

“The Hundred-Light-Year Diary” by Greg Egan

The narrator meets his future wife, Alison, for lunch exactly when he knew he would. His diary told him. Everyone alive is allotted a hundred words a day to send back to themselves.

Most of this story can be read in the preview of Axiomatic . (Select Kindle first then Preview, 57% in)

“The Dead Past” by Isaac Asimov

Arnold Potterley, a Professor of Ancient History, wants to use the chronoscope—the ability to view a scene from the past—for his research on Carthage. The government maintains strict control over its use, and his request is denied. Frustrated, Potterley embarks on a plan to get around this restriction, which is professionally risky.

Some of this story can be read in the preview of The Complete Stories, Vol 1 . (6% in)

“Signal Moon” by Kate Quinn

Working with the Royal Naval Service, Lily Baines intercepts radio communications to enemy vessels for decoding. One night, everything changes when she picks up an impossible message—a plea for help from another time.

Preview of “Signal Moon”

“Journey to the Seed” by Alejo Carpentier

An old man wanders around a demolition site, muttering a string of incomprehensible phrases. The roof has been removed and, by evening, most of the house is down. When the site is deserted, the old man waves his walking stick over a pile of discarded tiles. They fly back and cover the floor. The house continues to rebuild. Inside, Don Marcial lies on his deathbed.

“A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury

In the future, a company offers guided hunting safaris into the past to kill dinosaurs. Extreme care is taken to ensure nothing happens that could alter the present.

Read “A Sound of Thunder” (PDF Pg. 3)

“That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French” by Stephen King

Carol and Bill, married twenty-five years, are on their second honeymoon, driving to their destination. Carol experiences déjà vu; voices and images keep coming to her mind. Their drive comes to an end and she finds herself at an earlier point in their trip.

“The Clock That Went Backward” by Edward Page Mitchell

The narrator recounts the discovery surrounding a clock left to his cousin Harry by his Aunt Gertrude. As young boys they witnessed a strange event. Late one night Aunt Gertrude wound the clock, put her face to the dial, and then kissed and caressed it. The hands were moving backward. She fell to the floor when it stopped.

Read “The Clock That Went Backward”

“Soldier (Soldier from Tomorrow)” by Harlan Ellison

Qarlo, a soldier, is fighting in the Great War VII. He doesn’t expect to be able to go back. The odds are against it. Qarlo anticipates the Regimenter’s order and gets warped off the battlefield. He’s not sure where he is but his instincts kick in.

“The Men Who Murdered Mohammed” by Alfred Bester

Henry Hassel comes home to find his wife in the arms of another man. He could get his revenge immediately but he has a more intellectual plan. He gets a revolver and builds a time machine. He goes into the past.

“Cosmic Corkscrew” by Michael A. Burstein

The narrator is sent back to 1938 to make a copy of a rejected story by an unnamed writer. Unknown to Dr. Scheihagen, the narrator adjusts his arrival to three days earlier. He wants to make contact with the writer.

“Time’s Arrow” by Arthur C. Clarke

Barton and Davis, geologists, are assisting Professor Fowler with an excavation. The professor receives an invitation to visit a nearby research facility. Barton and Davis are curious to know what goes on there. The professor says he will fill them in, but after his visit he says he’s been asked not to talk about it. Henderson, from the research facility, returns the visit. Something he says starts the geologists speculating about a device that could see into the past.

“The Final Days” by David Langford

Harman and Ferris, presidential candidates, are participating in a televised debate. Ferris is struggling to connect with the audience while Harman relishes the attention. The technician signals Harman that there are fourteen watchers. His confidence increases.

Read “The Final Days”

“Hwang’s Billion Brilliant Daughters” by Alice Sola Kim

When Hwang is in a time he likes he tries to stay awake. Hwang jumps ahead in time when he sleeps. It could only be a few days; it could be years.

Read “Hwang’s Billion Brilliant Daughters”

“Fish Night” by Joe R. Lansdale

Two traveling salesmen, a father and son, get broke down on a desert road. They sit by the car and talk about how hard it is to make a living. The father tells his son about an unusual experience he had on the same road years ago.

Read “Fish Night”

“The Fox and the Forest” by Ray Bradbury

William and Susan Travis have gone to Mexico in 1938. They’re enjoying a local celebration. William assures Susan that they’re safe—they have traveler’s checks to last a lifetime, and he’s confident they won’t be found. Susan notices a conspicuous man in a café looking at them. She thinks he could be a Searcher, but William says he’s nobody.

“A Statue for Father” by Isaac Asimov

The narrator tells the story of his father, a theoretical physicist who researched time travel. He’s celebrated now, but it was a difficult climb. When time travel research fell out of favor, the dean forced him out. He continued the research independently with his son. Eventually, they succeed in holding a window open long enough for the son to reach in. He brings back some dinosaur eggs.

“The Pendulum” by Ray Bradbury

Layeville has been swinging in a massive glass pendulum for a long time. The people call him The Prisoner of Time. It’s his punishment for his crime. He had constructed a time machine and invited thirty of the world’s preeminent scientists to attend the unveiling.

Read The Pendulum

“Who’s Cribbing?” by Jack Lewis

A writer has his manuscript returned by a publisher. The story he submitted was published years before—he obviously plagiarized it. They warn him against doing this again. The writer has never heard of the author who first wrote the story and claims it’s an original work.

“Who’s Cribbing” is in Time Machines: The Best Time Travel Stories Ever Written.

I’ll keep adding short stories about time travel and time machines as I find more.

10 Great Time Travel Stories: Part I

April 6, 2016.

Time travel has intrigued people for as long as, well, time. There are no hard and fast rules, but for over a hundred years writers have given us their take on how it works. Time travel allows us to imagine what it would be like to experience other worlds and consider what we would do if we could influence history or see the future.

We’ve picked out ten great ten time travel books take us through our own time – from Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court published in 1889 to Audrey Niffenegger’s Time Traveler’s Wife published in 2003.

Here are the first five on our list; stay tuned next week for five more time warping classics!

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Mark Twain (1889)

social satire, humor

Twain’s special gift for satire makes this story hilarious, fantastical and to the point. His comparative study and social commentary exposes his dissatisfaction of the romantic ideal of King Arthur’s world and faith in the scientific and social progress of his own time.

Twain starts by sending Hank Morgan, a self-reliant New Englander and engineer, back in time to King Arthur’s Court. Things go bad quickly and he is sentenced to death by Merlin. When Hank uses his knowledge of the nineteenth-century to save himself, he convinces the people, the King, and himself , that he is a magician greater than Merlin. He begins to transform King Arthur’s world where he transforms into the Boss.

Book eBook Audiobook

Time Machine, H.G. Wells (1895)

science fiction, fantasy, Darwinism, socialism

A forerunner of the science fiction genre, this classic novel popularized the concept of time travel and introduced the term “time machine”. Written in 1895, it is couched in a Darwinian and Socialist parable about a time traveler who is sent into the year 802,701. The traveler finds himself in a society of two races, the Eloi, peaceful dwellers who live above ground and the Morlocks, ape-like creatures who live below ground. It is a cautionary tale taking on the themes of evolution, capitalism, and social class division.

A Sound of Thunder, Ray Bradbury (1952)

science fiction, fantasy

Time travel, safari hunting and the opportunity to take down a Tyrannosaurus Rex. That’s what Time Safari offers its customers when it sends them sixty million years into the past. But there are strict rules and real dangers to anyone who breaks them. All travelers must stay on the designated Path provided by Time Safari. Anyone stepping off of it could create a ripple in time that could alter the future, the concept known as the “butterfly effect”. Bradbury asks us to consider our actions and how they effect the world. (In The Stories of Ray Bradbury and A Sound of Thunder and other Stories .)

Book Audiobook

The End of Eternity, Isaac Asimov (1955)

science fiction, romance

Considered his best by many, this short fiction novel places time travel outside of linear reality. The non-linear world, Eternity, is a location outside of time and place where an elite few, the Eternals, monitor and alter time’s cause and effect relationships. Andrew Harlan is an Eternal. On one of his assignments, he falls in love with a woman who lives in linear time only to find out she will not exist after the next change. He risks everything to bring her to Eternity with him, but his actions create a paradox that threatens the existence of Eternity. To fix the problem, he is given his next assignment. He must kill the woman he loves.

The Door into Summer, Robert A. Heinlein (1957)

This short fiction book is one of Heinlein’s lighter novels and uses time travel in a limited way. It begins in 1970. Dan Davis is the successful inventor of a household robot, an automated “cleaning lady” called Hired Girl . With the help of his fiancée, Belle and their friend Miles, his new company is thriving beyond his wildest dreams. But Belle and Miles betray him, steal his patents, and trick him into spending thirty years in suspended animation. They thought that was the end of Dan.

What they didn’t expect was that time travel exists in the year 2000. When Dan wakes up from thirty years of sleep, he is able to go back to 1970 where he recovers his research and then returns to the year 2000 with his reputation, invention and fiancée.

About the Author

IVY BRUNELLE is a Reference Librarian at PPL. She accidentally became a sci-fi geek in college. But if you asked her about it, she’d deny the whole thing, then silently slip through a portal of ancient standing stones.

Creative Travel Journal Prompts

E levate your travel memories with our curated Travel Journal prompts. Capture the essence of your adventures and enrich your storytelling.

Capture Your Epic RV Odyssey

Embarking on full-time RVing and outdoor adventures is a journey filled with unforgettable moments and breathtaking experiences.

As travelers traverse new landscapes and immerse themselves in different cultures, the desire to capture these cherished memories becomes paramount.

Enter the art of travel journaling.

Why Keep a Travel Journal

It gets the creative juices flowing and is a gateway to preserving the essence of each adventure through the power of words filling blank pages with your travel experience.

In the realm of full-time RVing and outdoor exploration, every journal entry in the travel diary serves as a companion, a confidant, and a storyteller.

It encapsulates your road trip with places visited and the emotions felt, lessons learned, and soul-stirring encounters that shape the traveler’s narrative.

A treasure trove of personal reflections, new experiences, and a testament to a life lived fully on the road.

To aid in this creative endeavor, journal prompts become invaluable tools, igniting the spark of inspiration and guiding the pen to capture the essence of the journey.

These travel journal writing prompts serve as catalysts for introspection, encouraging travelers to delve deeper into their experiences, unravel the layers of each moment, and craft vivid narratives that resonate with their hearts.

About Travel Journal Prompts

In this post, we delve into the world of travel journal prompts tailored specifically for those embracing the nomadic lifestyle of full-time RVing and outdoor escapades.

From prompts that evoke nostalgia for a quaint campfire under the starlit sky to those that inspire wanderlust for uncharted territories.

Each suggestion aims to enrich the travel journaling experience and empower subscribers to document their adventures creatively and passionately.

Let’s embark on this literary voyage together, where every word penned in your trip journal is a testament to a well-traveled life.

Benefits of Keeping a Travel Journal

Travel journaling is a great way to put your thoughts on paper.

It offers a myriad of benefits that enrich your full-time RVing and outdoor adventures and new places.

Travel Journal with Pockets for Keepsakes.

Grab the blogging foundations freebie now.

Let’s delve into how your travel journal can positively impact your travel experiences.

Emotional Benefits

Embarking on travel journeys can evoke a whirlwind of emotions.

By jotting down important information about your thoughts and feelings in a travel journal , you can effectively process these emotions.

Whether it’s the exhilaration of exploring new landscapes, a travel destination, or the challenges faced along the way, journaling serves as a therapeutic outlet.

It helps in relieving stress by allowing you to unload your concerns onto paper, creating a sense of emotional release.

Moreover, keeping a gratitude journal during your travels can cultivate a mindset of appreciation for the present moment, enhancing your overall well-being.

Mental Clarity and Reflection

Journal prompts play a vital role in fostering mental clarity and self-reflection while on the road.

By engaging with thought-provoking prompts in your travel journal, you stimulate mindfulness and introspection.

Reflecting on your experiences enables you to gain deeper insights into your journey, facilitating personal growth and self-discovery.

It serves as a meditative practice and travel companion that allows you to slow down and ponder the significance of each moment, creating a profound connection with your surroundings.

Practical Uses

Beyond its emotional and mental benefits, a travel journal serves as a practical tool during your adventures.

It can function as a logbook of past travels where you document travel details, memorable encounters, and daily activities.

By organizing key information in your journal, such as itineraries , maps, and recommendations, you create a valuable reference guide for future trips.

It can also be the start of a blog to generate income while on the road.

Utilizing categories, bullet points, and lists can help you effectively structure your travel story and access information.

It ensures that your travel bullet journal remains a useful resource for all your travel endeavors.

Tips for a Mindful Travel Journal

Travel journaling is a fantastic way to document your adventures and create lasting memories.

Here are some practical tips to help you maximize your travel journaling experience:

Create a Routine

Establishing a journaling routine that aligns with your travel schedule is key to consistent journal entries.

Whether it’s jotting down notes in the morning with a cup of coffee or reflecting on the day’s events before bed, find a time that works best for you.

Consistency will help you capture daily experiences and emotions more effectively.

Use Visual Elements

Enhance your travel journal by incorporating visual elements such as sketches, a photo book, ticket stubs, and maps.

Adding visuals to your written entries not only adds a personal touch but also provides context and enhances the overall storytelling experience.

Visual elements can bring your adventures to life on the pages of your journal.

Experiment with Different Travel Journal Ideas

Keep your journal entries diverse and engaging by experimenting with various types of prompts.

Mix storytelling prompts that capture the narrative of your experiences with reflective questions that encourage introspection.

Trying different prompts can help you stay inspired and gain new perspectives on your travels.

Let your creativity flow and make your journal a reflection of your unique journey.

By following these tips, you can make the most of your travel journaling experience.

You create a meaningful keepsake of your full-time RVing and outdoor adventures.

Start your first travel journal with your first trip.

Embrace the journey of journaling and enjoy capturing the essence of your travel stories in a way that is personal and authentic.

Embrace the Journey

Reflecting on the places we’ve visited, the people we’ve met, and the feelings we’ve experienced adds depth and meaning to our travel narratives.

Each prompt serves as a gateway to unlocking the essence of your adventures, guiding you to delve deeper into the essence of your journey.

They also serve the purpose of ideas for starting a travel blog.

Not sure how to start a blog? My affiliate link to the FREE Blogging Foundations course will help you get started.

Enhancing Self-Expression

Travel journal prompts ignite your creativity and encourage self-expression.

They prompt us to articulate your thoughts, aspirations, and observations in a way that resonates with your unique voice.

By engaging with these prompts, you cultivate a reflective practice that refines your storytelling skills and unveils new perspectives.

Start Your Adventure

Now that you are equipped with a myriad of prompts to fuel your travel journaling endeavors, it’s time to embark on your storytelling odyssey.

Let your journal be a canvas where you paint vivid memories. Weave captivating tales, and preserve the magic of your travels.

Embrace each prompt as an invitation to dive into the heart of your journeys, capturing the essence of every moment on the road.

Embrace the Power of Prompts

As you set out to explore new horizons and traverse unfamiliar landscapes.

Remember the power of creative travel journal prompts in enhancing your journaling experience.

These travel writing prompts are not mere words on paper. They are gateways to reliving your adventures, sparking your imagination, and preserving the essence of your travels.

Let them guide you on a voyage of self-discovery and storytelling prowess as you craft your unique travel journal.

Capture Unforgettable Moments with Travel Journal Ideas

Through the art of journaling and the guidance of prompts, you have the opportunity to encapsulate the essence of your travel experiences.

Each entry is a snapshot of your journey, a testament to your adventures, and a reminder of the beauty that surrounds you.

So, pick up your pen, let your words flow.

Savor every moment as you document the tapestry of memories that define your life on the road.

Embarking on a journey filled with adventures and discoveries is a remarkable experience worth documenting.

As we’ve explored an array of travel journal prompts tailored for full-time RVing and outdoor escapades, it’s evident that keeping a journal enriches our travels in profound ways.

It is also one way to create income with RV remote work.

The most important thing to remember is to capture details, emotions, and memories through writing.

We create a treasure trove of experiences that can be cherished for years to come and are worth reading.

My Final Thoughts on Travel Journal Prompts

After returning from my recent trip, I realized the importance of a thorough packing list with a list of little things I would need for our next vacation.

Stepping out of my comfort zone for the first time, I made sure to note down even the little details of a particular place that enhanced my experience.

Equipped with the best travel journal, I documented every adventure, making it easier to reminisce and plan for next time.

The first thing I did upon arrival was to jot down a to-do list.

It ensured I wouldn’t miss out on any local food , trail maps, or business cards in my first journal.

It was a great idea to have a soft cover journal.

I felt it was easy to carry and write in during the day.

One of the worst things about traveling can be the extra cost. But with careful planning and hard work, I managed to minimize expenses.

Throughout my period away, I made sure to stay off social media.

Focusing instead on creating amazing travel memories and immersing myself in new cultures.

One of my favorite things to do at the end of the day was to sit down with my travel logs and glue stick.

I would piece together a travel scrapbook filled with creative entry pages and prompt ideas.

The hardest part about returning home was realizing that the adventure had come to an end.

But with the post office nearby. I knew I could send off my creative ways to share the experience with friends and a family member or two.

My piece of advice for anyone embarking on their first solo trip is to embrace the little moments.

Find inspiration in the new people and cultures you encounter along the way.

Traveling isn’t just about ticking items off a bucket list.

It’s about experiencing the world in a fun and meaningful way.

And with my best friend by my side or in my thoughts, every journey is filled with much fun and endless possibilities for new adventures.

Join our Facebook Community for tips, tricks, and trips.

Follow us on Pinterest and PIN this post for later!

The post Creative Travel Journal Prompts appeared first on Life in The RV .

Elevate your travel memories with our curated Travel Journal prompts. Capture the essence of your adventures and enrich your storytelling.

IMAGES

writing prompt, story ideas, home school, creative writing, writing
42 Time Travel Prompts ideas
Time Travel Writing Prompts
42 Time Travel Prompts ideas
Time Traveling Eyes
Time Travel Writing Prompt by Big and Bright

VIDEO

A Time Travel Story 圖書館演出0222
Time Travel Story in hindi
Time travel story
'Time traveler' shares chilling prophesies on our future
Unlocking the Secrets of Time Travel: What Physics Tells Us
Time Travel

COMMENTS

43 Terrific Time Travel Prompts » JournalBuddies.com
Next, check out our time travel story starter ideas to write about. 18 Story Starter/Plot Twist Time Travel Prompts. Imagine a world where historians are appalled to learn that history has been changed, and you're one of the only people who knows how things used to be. Write about trying to navigate this new world and keep your knowledge hidden.
Not Your Usual Time Travel Story Ideas (2024)
In a world where time flows differently in different regions, a society formed where time travelers exist and time itself can be a commodity. (Originally appeared in my post The Most Mesmerizing Fantasy World Ideas (2023)) Chronicler of Lost History. A person wakes up every day in a different time period, with no control over when or where they ...
150 Time Travel Writing Prompts
In this article, we embark on a journey through 150 time travel writing prompts, each a gateway to a unique story waiting to be told. These prompts are designed to inspire writers, storytellers, and dreamers alike to craft their own adventures across the fabric of time. From mysterious artifacts that hold the key to jumping through the ages, to ...
30 Time Travel Writing Prompts
Time Travel Writing Prompts and Story Ideas. Winds of the Lost Era: A gust of wind has the unique ability to transport anyone it touches to a different time for just one hour. When a young woman gets caught in this wind, she finds herself in the midst of a pivotal historical event. She has exactly sixty minutes to observe, interact, or possibly ...
Plot Twist Story Prompts: Time Travel
For today's prompt, have your characters travel through time. They can jump into the future, travel to the past, or attempt to do both. Time travel has long been an interesting plot twist device, but it comes with quite a few risks—both for your characters and for your story. (6 Things to Ask Yourself About Your Time-Travel Story.) Jumping ...
10 Ideas for a Time Travel Story
Here are 10 quick ideas for a time travel story, including everything from colonies in the distant past and future, to time traveling Jews, Jesus, and jealous husbands. If one of these ideas inspires you to create a time travel story of your own, let us know and we'll share it with out community! 1. Future War.
Several Time Travel Story Ideas
Here are 7 sci-fi ideas…. A man travels to the past solely in order to create a duplicate of himself. But the duplicate has an evil side and forces the man to swap places, taking his life in the future. An entire family time leaps to one hundred years into the future, only to find earth has been evacuated. A man travels back in time in order ...
How to Write a Time Travel Story (Convincingly)
Events are predetermined to still occur regardless of when and where you travel in time. Suppose you time travel to the past to talk Alexander the Great out of invading Persia, but he hadn't even considered this until you mentioned it. By traveling to the past to prevent Alexander's conquest, you caused it.
158+ 'Time travel' Writing Prompts
Historic Time Travel. Write a story imagining you've traveled back in time to an important historical event. Writing prompts and journaling prompts exploring Time travel and related concepts - Explore over 50k writing prompts on DraftSparks.
Time Travel Writing Prompts
If we had the ability to go back in time to relive parts of our life over, it would change the future and maybe not for the better. time-travel dome, Wikimedia. Writing Prompts: Look at your own life and choose a decision you made in the past that you would like to change. Now pretend that you're able to go back in time while retaining all of ...
How To Write A Short Story About Time Travel (with prompts)
Time travel is one of the most well-loved ideas for writing compelling Sci-Fi short stories. But how to write a short story using time travel as a key component can be a challenge - even for veteran writers in the Sci-Fi fiction sphere. In this blog post we will cover things to consider and avoid when using this trope in your creative writing.
10 Time Travel Story Ideas with a Mystery
10 Time Travel Story Ideas with a Mystery. The Missing Artifact: In the year 3023, a renowned historian discovers an ancient relic rumored to possess time-traveling capabilities. Desperate to uncover its secrets, they embark on a journey through different eras, tracing the artifact's origins. However, each leap through time reveals cryptic ...
9 Rules for Writing Time Travel
As a connoisseur of the art form - and as a novelist myself - I've developed these story-building tips for writing time travel. 1. Give us the Shock & Awe. Writers are always told to start each story in media res, so it's tempting to skip over the typical set-up scenes. With a time travel story, however, it's best to introduce us to ...
Time Travel Story Ideas Archives
20 Quick Science Fiction Ideas Combining Popular Sci-Fi Themes. Zombie on Mars A new virus has struck on Mars, turning a colony's inhabitants into zombies. One last habitat has managed to remain locked down while the rest of the planet is devoured. Time Travel Alien Invasion A time traveler travels to the future into the middle of an alien ...
45 Time Travel Writing Prompts
Below, you'll find a list of time-travel-themed writing prompts to get your students thinking about the possibilities of time travel. Using This Guide. You could use this guide in your classroom when you read a book about time travel. Here are a few ways to use these prompts: ... Write a time travel story that takes place 200 years from now.
Sci-Fi Story Ideas and Writing Prompts
Using a writing prompt is a great way to get started. We've created writing prompts in eight popular science fiction subgenres: aliens, biopunk, dystopia, high-tech, robots, science fantasy, space opera, and time travel. You can start with the categories that you're most excited about, or read through all of them to see if anything ...
5 Tips on Writing Time Travel That Works
After reading multiple time travel stories, I noticed that it often took 50 to 100 pages to engage the reader in character and conflict and set up the time travel. Following this example allowed me to keep Elizabeth's growth front and center rather than letting time travel take over the whole story. 5. Keeping the focus on the character arc.
How to Write a Time Travel Story Without Paradoxes
The concept of time travel has long been a popular theme in fiction and film. Traveling back in time to alter the course of history is an alluring idea that has enthralled not just fiction writers but scientists as well. Yet, if you've ever seen or read a time travel story, you're aware that time travel is a tricky concept to grasp. It might be challenging to stay faithful to your ...
3 Tips for Writing Time-Travel Stories
The time-travel technology has limitations, which creates conflict for the characters. Since the author spells out these limits, readers know the characters must work within that set of rules. 2 ...
How to Write Time-Travel Historical Fiction
4. Avoid "As you know, Bob" conversations with characters from the historical time period. Put yourself in their shoes, with their current knowledge of the time period of which they are a part. You don't go around saying things like, "Barack Obama, President of the United States from 2009 to 2016.".
10 Time Travel Science Fiction Ideas
After the year 2090 life on earth changed in every year dating to the dawn of man and extending to the end of times. Time travel created an infinite and ever changing wave of new time dimensions, each with their own unique creations, issues, and outcomes. The future became the past, and old influences of the past changed futures.
Time Travel Short Stories: Examples Online
Jim picks up a hitch-hiker, Ares, who says he's a scientist from the year 3059. He says he traveled millions of years into the future, but came back to the wrong year. Life in 3059 is trouble free, with machines taking care of everything. Future Earth is in trouble, with all life extinct, except for humans and plants.
10 Great Time Travel Stories: Part I
The Door into Summer, Robert A. Heinlein (1957) science fiction, fantasy. This short fiction book is one of Heinlein's lighter novels and uses time travel in a limited way. It begins in 1970. Dan Davis is the successful inventor of a household robot, an automated "cleaning lady" called Hired Girl.
Creative Travel Journal Prompts
Creative Travel Journal Prompts. Story by Life In The RV. • 22h • 8 min read. Elevate your travel memories with our curated Travel Journal prompts. Capture the essence of your adventures and ...

Not Your Usual Time Travel Story Ideas (2024)

Picture prompts

Time Travel Story Ideas & Writing Prompts

Story ideas

Related Posts

Crime Thriller Story Ideas That Captivate Us (Updated in 2024)

Tragic Love Story Ideas We’re Rooting For (Updated in 2024)

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)

30 Time Travel Writing Prompts

Time Travel Writing Prompts and Story Ideas

10 Ideas for a Time Travel Story

1. Future War

2. As Time Goes By

3. Doing Time

4. The Man You Used To Be

5. Future Tense

6. Past Participants

7. Populating Zion

8. Time Me Up, Time Me Down

9. Final Interview

10. Jesus vs The Time Police

Holiday Savings

cui:common.components.upgradeModal.offerHeader_undefined

Table of Contents

The Problem With Time Travel

Grandfather Paradox

Polchinski’s Paradox

Bootstrap Paradox

Predestination Paradox

Butterfly Effec t

How to Write Convincing Time Travel Stories

Ask Yourself, "Why Time Travel?"

Keep a Record of Everything

Never Forget Causality

Tips & Tricks For the Time-Traveling Author

Focus on the Future

Create a Multiverse

Get Creative With Consequences

Best Time Travel Stories

Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Back to the Future

War of the Twins

Bon Voyage!

158+ ‘Time travel’ Writing Prompts

Time Travel Dilemma

Time Travel Destination

The Time Travel Calendar

Adventures of the Time Traveling Carolers

Christmas Journey Through Time

Transcendent Tyranny

Time-Travelling Bloodlust

Time Travel Tales

Time Travel Daylight

Historical Time Traveller

Time Travel Tourist

A Way Back Into Time

Treaded Eternity

Dystopian Restoration

Accentuate the Positive

Grandfather Paradox

Dinosaur Days

Epochal Time Travel

Historic Time Travel

Sands of Time

Ghost Words

Journey Through Time

Time Travel by Virtual Reality

Puppeteer of the Past

The Inevitable Horizon

Borrowed Time

Journey to the Tomorrow

Chase through Time

Time Travel Summer Disaster

Time-Traveling Diary

Caverns of Time

Time-Traveling Train

Time Turbine

The Timekeeper’s Paradox

Time Travel Agents

Rewrite History