time travel story generator

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.

AI Personalized Time-Travel Adventure Story Generator

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Craft Your Own Epic: Writecream’s AI-Powered Time-Travel Adventure Story Generator

Introducing WriteCream’s Adventure Story Generator, a groundbreaking tool designed to ignite imaginations and transport readers on thrilling journeys through time with unparalleled ease. With just a single click, users can now embark on personalized time-travel adventures crafted uniquely for them. This innovative platform seamlessly combines creativity and technology, allowing storytellers to effortlessly create captivating narratives that transcend the boundaries of space and time. Whether exploring ancient civilizations or distant futures, WriteCream’s intuitive interface and dynamic algorithms ensure an immersive and unforgettable storytelling experience. Say goodbye to writer’s block and hello to a world of endless exploration and discovery, all at the click of a button with WriteCream’s Adventure Story Generator.

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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.

Table of Contents

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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• S tory ideas

Picture prompts

The time travel trope.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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!

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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.

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Several Time Travel Story Ideas

• Posted on 14 Feb, 2020
• Leave a comment

I’ve been working on my novel a lot lately, which is a time travel mystery/thriller. I’m currently about 200 pages in, and I’m satisfied that I’ve avoided a lot of sci-fi tropes so far. It’s a complicated sci-fi subject with a lot of moving parts.

If I’m being honest, the 7 ideas below are insanely weak. I’ll revisit this post sometime later this week. But if you’d like some better ideas, I’ve got a better list here:  10 time travel 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 to murder someone who ruined his life, knowing he’ll have a great alibi.
• A man finds a time machine that a time traveler has hidden in the shed behind his house. He inadvertently damages it and the time traveler shows back up to the broken machine.
• A time traveler travels back in time in order to leave a hard drive with the richest man on earth, full of technological designs and secrets he knows the man has the resources to develop, much earlier than they were originally developed.
• A time traveler from far into the future (a few million years) shows up in present-day New York City. He’s surprisingly alien in appearance and has powers that we could have after a million years of evolution.
• A scientist invents the first time machine and immediately shows up to warn himself not to use it.

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!

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🎨 Creative   💀 Necro   101+ Plot Ideas Involving Time Travel (1 Viewer)

• Thread starter Tinkerbell
• Start date Oct 28, 2011
• Tags 101 idea plot plot ideas time travel

Active member

• Oct 28, 2011

This is the thread for plot ideas relating in some way to time travel.  

1. Go back in time, and try to prevent the rise of the Nazi Party. Spend the next couple of decades in mole-smack mode, as 10 new problems seem to pop up as soon as one is solved...  

2. Stop a plot to go back in time and kill the inventor of time travel. Get him killed anyway and watch the pretty lights as a paradox tries to rip the universe apart.  

Validated User

3. Godwin's Law of Time Travel "It is a well none fact of temporal mechanics that as the amount of time in which a traveler spends in the past increases, the probability that something they did causes the Nazis to win WWII approaches 1. What is not as widely known is that that's because the natural state of time is a history in which the Nazis did win. You are a member of a secret organization dedicated to maintaining the alternate past in which the Allies won WWII, against the natural tendency of time to revert to the original state."  

"I whack the priest!"

Get Nikola Tesla to keep dating and marry J.P. Morgan's daughter.  

Full of Bile and Vitriol

4. An Elvis impersonator goes back to meet the young Presley, only to find he is a strait-laced God-fearing young man who doesn't like that Devil's music and improper pelvic motions. Can the man from the future save rock'n'roll, or at least hide the body before giving a rather longer performance as the King than he is used to? 5. PC invents radio for tachyon messages from the future, and receives a test message from his future self. Gosh! PC then meets soul mate and falls in love. PC then finds the world is going to end, but can fix if if they send message back to earlier self... but that will mean no love interest? Angst. 6. Modern day cop chases modern-day serial killer into time machine, emerging into the fog-shrouded streets of Victorian Whitechapel. Hilarity ensues. May also be played with (black and/or female) officers chasing white male villain in mid-19th century Richmond, Virginia. 7. Anything involving the PCs' parents when they were young, hip, and had regular sex at wild parties, causing permanent mental scarring to the characters.  

Game Guru-Thread Shepherd

You need to assist Time Travellers from Atlantis (who jumped forward) to a time where the was a small appocolypse, when they want to recolonize. They knew their time was up in the past, but they sent themselves into the future when the future needed help. Oh and their recolonization won't screw up future history too badly, infact it will improve things Your group is stuck as the small appocolypse occured because of time meddling (it went from "footnote" bad to really bad). You should fix that. Do you condemm the "current now" people to allow the Greatest Culture that Earth ever generated before the 28th century to live again?  

Part Time Dilettante

The more often time travelers travel to a particular time and place, the more resistant the spacetime continuum gets to new travelers arriving. Some timeframes, such as the lifetimes of Jesus/Mohammad/Buddha, the Kennedy Assassination, the Tunguska event and of course anything having to do with Hitler, are now inaccessible or nearly so . .  

Will GM For Food

The hidden kingdom of Agharti, said to appear for but one day every seven years somewhere in the remote Himalayan mountains is actually a *time ship* making a long journey through the human-occupied era.  

This isn't my idea, but I played in an awesome AD&D game at gen con years ago. The game was run on 3 tables with 3 separate groups of players. Each group had the same PCs at different levels during their career. The adventure revolved around some time golems (I believe) that the middle level group stirred up (they were about 7th level). As their combat progressed, players would be transported in time, and have to swap placed. So basically the PC from the future was transported to the low level game. This happened a lot. It was kind of chaotic and the plot is lost on me now (was about 13 years ago +/-) but it was super fun. I always wanted to institute something like that in my game where the PCs find a time travel thing that springs them into the future, where they have reputations, different careers, relationships and even powers their lower level PCs didn't have. I think you could tie in a current antagonist who pesters the PCs Not sure if this helps, but it was a VERY memorable game and I think there is something there to inspire someone...  

Users who are viewing this thread

• Knaight 5 minutes ago

5 Unique Tips To Write A Time Travel Story

Writing time travel fiction.

What about time travel keeps us coming back to it in our stories? Some of the earliest time travel stories we know are hundreds of years old. Despite all our technological advancements, we continue to write stories about it and a time travel story. One or more characters either deliberately or accidentally gained the ability to travel into the past or future. Within such a story, they may be able to travel at will, or there are limits on how and when they will travel.

There are three main types of time travel stories that you’ll see today. The first type is preserving the status quo. The second is changing the status quo. The third type is time travel tourism. Preserving the status quo means that the hero needs to ensure that a particular action either does or does not occur. The next one, changing the status quo, is where specific past or present actions must be changed to prevent an undesirable outcome.

First and foremost, time travel gives you the power of what if something had happened differently or hadn’t happened. You can attempt to answer these questions by telling a time travel story. It completely contradicts our world, where we can’t change the past or see the future. We can’t press a reset button and try again. I’m fully supportive of people who want to tell these time travel stories as long as it serves their message. So, stay with me if you want to learn more.

How to write a time travel story?

Time travel stories allow the heroes to fix everything in the present with little to no consequences. It leads to lazy stories resolved with a time machine where everything returns to normal. Every decision we make in the real world has lasting consequences and cannot be undone. Despite this, it’s still important to push for change and improvement.

We’re going to talk about writing stories about time travel. These can be tricky because there are so many things to consider, and all-time paradoxes will drive you nuts. But I want to give you 5 tips that’ll simplify the process and help you decide whether you want to write a story about time travel and how you should execute such a story. Let’s travel!

1. Ask yourself

If you are writing about time travel, you need to ask yourself the question Why? Why are you writing about time travel? Often you don’t necessarily need to incorporate time travel elements into your story instead of writing a story about someone going to the past. Maybe you want to write about historical fiction.

Maybe you want to write a story that’s set back there, and you don’t need anybody from the present day in that setting. Or if you’re writing about somebody going to the future, you’re better off writing a story about a future society or the apocalypse.

Often, writers don’t want to write about time travel so much as they want to write about different periods or different futures. So keep that in mind. If you ever are in the situation where you think you have a good idea for a time travel story, ask yourself:

• Is the time travel necessary?
• What are the characters going to learn from the story?
• Why are they going back or forward in time?
• What is the purpose of all this?

2. Make decisions and device matter

Timeline is one of my favorite time travel novels for various reasons. At the story’s beginning, a team of archaeologists describes a significant battle. Once the time travel story starts unfolding, the macro details of the battle remain largely unchanged. However, the characters were able to use their future knowledge to nudge the past ever so slightly to make the story worth reading. That’s how to write an incredible time travel story, even when the details were already written in stone.

Also, the time travel vehicle or device matters. One major discrepancy between the book (Timeline) and the movie is that the book gave intention to the date and location that was being traveled to in the past.

On the other hand, in the movie, the scientists accidentally open up a wormhole to a random point in history. Then they recruited archaeologists who happened to be studying the castle that was nearby where the wormhole opened. It made the time travel mechanic of the story largely an accident in which the archaeologists happened to arrive shortly before the pivotal battle they were researching.

If the characters can go to any time or place, there should be a reason why they end up at a specific point, even if it isn’t known to the characters at that time. ‘Doctor Who’ does a wonderful job with this, where the TARDIS, the mechanism that they travel through time and space, is sentient and sends the doctor into harm’s way on an episodic basis.

3. Set a goal and give lessons

Characters who make time jumps there they’re going to learn some lessons. Maybe they go to the past and learn to appreciate the future more. Or they go to the future and learn to change themselves before the world becomes a worse place. When you start writing a time travel story. So, set an individual goal to achieve and give some lessons or experience while the characters are on their mission.

Readers don’t like stories where characters know what will happen to them. There was a critically acclaimed space opera, which I never enjoyed for various reasons, but the primary one was that the character knew their future.

All sense of drama about the character surviving was removed when the tension was automatically diffused for every trial. In the early part of the Harry Potter series, I understand why the characters couldn’t use time travel as they might mistake it for the work of an evil wizard. That makes sense. However, once they learned about time travel, they should have used it to their advantage.

4. Establish time travel rules

Another essential thing to remember is to establish the rules of time travel in your story. Who is capable of time travel? How many people can use time travel? Is there a specific device you need, or is there a magic spell? What are the consequences of using time travel? What if they get stuck in time? Can they get stuck in time?

All those different questions need to be asked and answered by the writer before you get into the storytelling. If you don’t understand the rules of time travel in your story, your readers will see through it. They’re going to see it as a fake story they’re not going to get into. You want to sell the idea, and you need to stick to the rules if you do that.

If something happened to a time traveler in the past, then it would have already happened. So when they return to the present and go home and go to sleep, there shouldn’t be a shift in time around them after a given, unspecified, inconsistent amount of time has passed. The biggest thing I’ll say about time travel rules is that they need to remain consistent.

There are plenty of time travel stories that selectively apply. Whatever their self-contained rules are set, the plot can continue and then ignore them whenever it doesn’t affect the plot. Failing to think about the what fully or why of time travel or applying it unravels these stories.

5. Focus on the primary trope

How seriously do you want to take time travel in your story? It’s fine if you want to write a story about time travel and its fun and lighthearted trope. Also, it doesn’t get into the nitty-gritty of how it works. For instance, the story Groundhog Day is about Bill Murray reliving the same day over and over again until he finally becomes a better person. They never explain how time travel works in that story or why it exists. But nobody complains about that because it’s a great story.

However, if you are writing a much more serious and scientific story, you will want to do your research and get your details correct because those types of audiences will be much more critical of you. It’ll take them right out of the story if you get anything wrong.

Types Of Time Travel Stories (Tropes/Prompts)

Once you establish your story rules, you must decide what type of time travel story you will write. There are hundreds of time travel tropes, but none are more important than the message of your story. It’s important to consider setting limits on time travel or what it costs the hero. What could potentially stop you from being able to time travel? Maintain these limits throughout your stories.

Finding the balance between complete freedom and structure in your story is a good idea. Your story may be better served with a degree of logic added. So, it’s essential to consider the sociological implications of time travel in your world and how they affect your characters and the world you’ve built. Here are 4 types of time travel stories/tropes you can use in your story.

• Travel to the past.
• Travel to the future.
• Present is invaded.
• Time travel gimmicks.

Travel to past

The most common one is the story where someone from the present goes back in time to the past. If you are writing this type of story, you’re writing a historical fiction story with a sci-fi twist because you include that time travel.

To write a great historical fiction story, you must research the period you’re writing about. You need to be very knowledgeable about it. What was the technology and the world in general? What kind of expectations did they have for the future? What were the social customs? If you are writing a story about the past, you should find a way to get your readers invested in that time period. One of the best ways to do it is to get the details right and get a good feel for this story world.

Try to present life as it was so your readers could truly appreciate it. One major thing to be aware of when writing stories about characters who go to the past is the butterfly effect. If you have a time traveler who goes to the past, every change they make to this world will have consequences for the future.

If you do have people going into the past, remember that if they kill someone or prevent someone from being killed, that will have consequences in the future. So keep that in mind.

Travel to future

The next type of time travel story is one where characters go from the present into the future, and they may go into the future for various reasons. Maybe they go from the inferno of it because they invented the time machine that can take them into the future. Or, they might have to go to the future to stop some future evil from occurring.

Typically, those stories can get a little foolish because you have to ask yourself some questions. If they must go into the future to stop evil from happening, why don’t they take precautions now? Or why don’t they wait for the future to come to them?

So if you are looking at this type of story, ask yourself: Is it necessary for future time travel to happen? Aside from time travel stories, your main characters go into the past or future.

Present is invaded

Your characters stay in the present, and another character, usually a villain, comes to the present, either from the future or the past, and starts causing problems. The best example of this is Terminator one, an eighties movie that takes place during the eighties. But the main conflict arises because a machine comes from the future to kill Sarah Connor in the present. There isn’t much worldbuilding early on, and we can instantly empathize with Sarah Connor. It’s another technique you can keep in your arsenal.

If you are thinking about time travel stories, be aware that you do have to do the proper worldbuilding for the future or the past, even if you’re bringing one or two characters into that present.

Time travel gimmick

The fourth and final type of time travel story is one where there is a time travel gimmick involved. For instance, in the movie Groundhog Day, the gimmick is that Bill Murray’s character repeats the same day repeatedly until he becomes a better person.

Another example would be the video game, The Legend of Zelda Majora’s Mask. It is about a fantasy world about to be destroyed in three days when the moon crashes into Earth. However, the main character can play the ocarina to go back in time three days and repeat the process until he can finally solve the problem.

We can tell stories based on a world that exists in a hypothetical parallel universe to our own, one that could technically exist. It adds a degree of commitment missing from most time travel stories. Every decision your characters make last within the world that they’re in. Even if they leave that world, the decisions are still there. Also, some people need to live with the consequences of those actions.

When writing a story, sharing your work with a group of people you trust for feedback is essential. It can be beneficial for others to read your work because they can give you ideas for improvement that you had never even considered. So, I encourage you to create a group of people you trust where you can share your stories and ultimately be creative.

What is your all-time favorite time travel story? Let me know in the comments section below.

Learn more from books:

17 Time Travel Romance Books

10 Post Apocalyptic Romance

10 Medieval Romance Novels

15 Historical Romance Books

More writing tips:

10 Tips To Write Male Characters

10 Tips To Write A Woman Character

10 Tips For Naming Characters In A Book

Table of Contents

Pauline Jackson

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Random Plot Generator: AI-Powered Plot Ideas

Finding yourself stuck in a creative rut can be a common frustration. You sit down, ready to write, but the ideas just don’t flow. It’s a moment of doubt that hits every writer, making the task of crafting a compelling story seem insurmountable. You’re not alone in feeling this way.

Yet, what if the key to overcoming this challenge lies in the world around you? Simple conversations, daily experiences, and even the news could be fertile ground for your next story. Looking at these elements with a fresh perspective can spark those elusive ideas you’ve been searching for.

This guide is here to walk you through a series of creative strategies for finding plot ideas. With practical tips and a fresh outlook, you’re about to discover how to tap into everyday inspiration to fuel your storytelling journey.

Table of Contents

What is a Plot?

At its core, a plot is the series of events that shapes your story, propelling characters through conflicts and resolutions. It’s the backbone of your narrative, driving the actions of your characters forward. Think of it as the framework upon which you hang the fabric of your story. This structure typically unfolds through exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. It’s not just a sequence of events, but a carefully crafted journey that keeps your audience hooked from beginning to end.

A well-developed plot can make your imagination run wild, turning simple ideas for stories into compelling narratives that captivate readers or viewers. It’s your starting point, the seed from which your story grows, and it requires nurturing. To captivate your audience, your plot must have twists, turns, and emotional arcs that pull them in and don’t let go until the very end.

Why is the Plot of a Story Important?

Understanding a story’s plot is crucial because it’s the engine that propels the narrative, keeping you hooked from start to finish. When you’re striving to write a story, realizing why the plot of a story is important can be a game-changer. It’s not just about having great story ideas ; it’s about how those ideas drive the story forward, creating suspense, tension, and ultimately, a satisfying resolution.

A well-crafted plot acts as a backbone, structuring your story and guiding the characters’ actions and development. This framework isn’t just for keeping readers engaged; it’s a source of inspiration that allows you to explore themes, conflicts, and resolutions deeply. The beauty of understanding plot importance lies in its power to make your story memorable and thought-provoking, leaving a lasting impact on your readers.

How to get Plot Ideas?

When you’re on the hunt for plot ideas, it’s essential to tap into various resources. You can start by using an AI-powered random plot generator or exploring the six elements of fiction for a creative spark. Also, don’t underestimate the power of modifying existing ideas and engaging with writing prompts to uncover unique stories waiting to be told.

Using an AI Powered Random Plot Generator

You’re probably wondering how an AI-powered random plot generator can kickstart your writing process. It’s simple: by inputting your preferences or letting it surprise you, you’ll receive unique story ideas that can break you out of any creative rut. Learning to use this tool effectively means you can explore an endless array of narrative possibilities, making it easier to find that perfect plot idea.

How does the Random Plot Generator work?

At the heart of every story lies the kernel of an idea, waiting to sprout into a full-fledged narrative. This is where the magic of the Random Plot Generator comes into play, transforming the initial spark into a weaving of tales that capture the imagination. Here’s a glimpse into the inner workings of this creative companion:

• Understanding the Prompt: The journey begins with your input—a word, a phrase, or perhaps a fleeting thought. This seed is meticulously analyzed by the AI, setting the stage for a narrative adventure. It’s akin to whispering secrets into the ears of a muse, waiting to see what wonders will be whispered back.
• Generating Ideas: With the prompt as its guide, the AI embarks on an exploratory quest through the vast landscapes of genres, themes, and unexpected plot twists . This phase is the crucible of creativity, where the randomness of the generator ensures a tapestry of outcomes as diverse as the stars in the night sky. Each idea is a path not yet taken, a story not yet told.
• Crafting the Storyline: From the chaos of creativity, a structured plot emerges. Characters are born, settings are envisioned, and conflicts are crafted with care. These elements are the building blocks of your story, laid out by the AI to spark curiosity and fuel imagination. The aim is to provide a solid starting point—a canvas ripe for the brushstrokes of your unique voice and vision.
• Inspiring Writers: The true power of the Random Plot Generator lies not just in the stories it creates, but in the doors it opens for writers. It’s a source of inspiration, a nudge towards the blank page, offering a way to break free from the chains of writer’s block. Whether you seek a quick prompt to kickstart your writing session, a complex narrative to unravel, or simply a new direction to explore, the generator is your ally in the creative process, encouraging you to venture beyond the familiar and into the realm of endless possibilities.

Benefits of using a Random Plot Generator

Using a random plot generator offers a multitude of benefits across various stages of the writing process, from initial brainstorming to breaking through creative blocks. Here’s a concise overview of the advantages:

Incorporating a Random Plot Generator into your writing process not only enriches your narrative possibilities but also strengthens your storytelling craft, making each writing session an exciting voyage into the unknown.

How to use the Random Plot Generator

Diving into the world of storytelling with a Random Plot Generator is like setting sail on a sea of stories; with just a few clicks, you’re on your way to discovering untold treasures. Here’s a simple guide to navigate these waters:

Select a Genre: Your first step is to choose the terrain of your narrative adventure. Whether you’re in the mood for a heart-throbbing romance, a mind-bending science fiction tale, or a mystery that keeps the reader guessing, selecting a genre sets the course of your journey. This choice tells the generator what kind of world you’re looking to explore.

Write Any Elements/Details to Consider (Optional): This step is your chance to sprinkle your own magic into the mix. Have a character in mind or a specific setting you’re enamored with? Perhaps there’s a twist you’ve been dying to write about. Adding these elements is optional but can guide the generator to tailor plots that resonate more closely with your vision.

Click on Generate: With the genre set and your preferences noted, all that’s left is to bring the story to life. Click the generate button and watch as the generator weaves together the threads of your input to present you with a plot idea. It’s a moment of alchemy, where the ingredients you’ve provided are transformed into a narrative gold.

The beauty of using a Random Plot Generator lies in its simplicity and the boundless creativity it unlocks. Whether you’re looking to jumpstart a new project, find your way out of a writing rut, or simply play with ideas, the generator is a tool that offers endless possibilities, ready to inspire your next masterpiece.

Combining Elements of Fiction

Dive into the six elements of fiction—plot, characters, setting, point of view, theme, and style—to kickstart your journey toward crafting compelling story ideas.

Let the swirl of history, the depth of personal experiences, and the boundless realms of science fiction fuel your creativity. Combine these with the unpredictability of a random plot generator, and you’re on your way to weaving stories that resonate, reflect, and captivate.

Desired Stories

One can ignite their storytelling journey by tapping into the rich veins of personal experiences, historical events, and the playfulness of language to generate captivating plot ideas. When you’re stuck, a random plot generator can be a great source to find a story that resonates. Every writer needs a starting point, and these tools offer an array of scenarios to kickstart your creativity. Don’t hesitate to start writing, even if the idea seems incomplete. Exploring what-if scenarios or delving into the ‘why’ behind a historical event can open up new realms of possibilities. Remember, the stories you’re most passionate about telling are often the ones that find a deep connection with your audience. Let your curiosity guide you, and you’ll discover the stories you desire to tell.

Existing Ideas Modification

Reimagining existing stories with a unique twist can unlock a treasure trove of plot ideas for your next writing project. By utilizing a random plot generator or engaging in existing ideas modification, you can breathe new life into old narratives. Here’s how:

• Imagine your favorite children’s book from the perspective of a different character.
• Twist a classic tale with a modern setting, á la Stephen King.
• Merge two unrelated stories into one, creating unexpected connections.
• Employ a random plot generator for a fresh take on familiar themes.
• Flip the genre of a well-known story, transforming tragedy into comedy or vice versa.

These approaches not only refresh old tales but also connect deeply with your audience, evoking laughter, tears, or thrilling suspense.

Writing Prompts

Utilizing writing prompts can instantly spark your creativity, leading to innovative and compelling plot ideas for your next writing endeavor. Whether you’re aiming to pen a book, a short story, or a novel, turning to writing prompts can break through any writer’s block you’re facing. You must write, and sometimes, all it takes is a nudge in the right direction. Consider using a random plot generator or drawing inspiration from the table below to kickstart your imagination.

Wordplay Inspiration

Exploring the whimsical world of wordplay, such as puns and alliterations, can ignite your creativity and lead to captivating plot ideas. Don’t lose sight of the power simple words wield when strung together in new, unexpected ways. Consider how a random plot generator might toss “coffee shop” and “time travel” together, sparking a story only you can tell.

• Imagine a coffee shop where every sip takes you to another era.
• Envision puns leading to magical mishaps in a world ruled by wordplay.
• Picture alliterations as secret codes to hidden realms.
• Dream up characters whose fates are tied to onomatopoeias.
• Craft tales where homophones create chaos and comedy.

Let wordplay inspiration be your guide, opening doors to stories untold.

Embracing Boredom

While wordplay can unlock a treasure trove of ideas, don’t underestimate the power of boredom in sparking your next great plot. Embracing boredom isn’t about doing nothing; it’s about letting your mind wander freely without distractions. Imagine you’re staring at the ceiling, and suddenly, a random plot generator in your brain kicks into gear. Let’s say you’ve always wanted to write about a heist, but you couldn’t nail the specifics. During a moment of boredom, it clicks: a heist during a city-wide blackout. The quiet moments you’d typically avoid become the golden hours where your creativity flourishes. Boredom, it turns out, could make the perfect backdrop for your plot to unfold.

Real-Life Stories

Have you ever considered that your own life experiences could be the goldmine for your next great plot idea? Instead of relying on a random plot generator, look into the adventures and misadventures you’ve had, especially if they’re as vibrant as the streets of New York. Your unique stories could fuel a narrative that resonates deeply with readers. Here’s why real-life experiences are invaluable:

• They add authenticity that’s hard to replicate.
• Emotions felt during these moments are raw and relatable.
• Life’s unpredictability provides twists better than fiction.
• Reflecting on personal growth can inspire others.
• They connect you to your audience on a human level.

Your life’s narrative is a treasure trove of great plots waiting to unfold.

Community Collaboration

After reflecting on the rich tapestry of your own life experiences for plot ideas, consider the untapped potential of collaborating with a writing community to further expand and refine those concepts. Engaging with fellow writers allows you to bounce ideas off one another, providing a rich soil for your creativity to flourish. You’ll gain new perspectives, feedback, and perhaps even co-create stories that are more compelling and diverse. Here’s how community collaboration can ignite your plot development process:

Leverage these collaborative techniques to transform your initial spark into a blazing fire of creativity and originality.

News and Media

Often, turning to news and media outlets can provide you with a wealth of real-world events that inspire compelling plot ideas. These stories, ranging from the heartwarming to the heart-wrenching, can fuel your creativity and push you to explore themes you might not have considered otherwise. Here’s how news and media can evoke an emotional response and spark ideas:

• Witnessing the resilience of communities facing natural disasters.
• Learning about unsung heroes who change lives quietly.
• Observing the dramatic shifts in political landscapes.
• Delving into the complexities of human relationships highlighted in feature stories.
• Exploring the ethical dilemmas presented in investigative journalism pieces.

Each of these elements can serve as a foundation for a story that resonates deeply with readers, drawing on the rich tapestry of the world around us.

Creative Exercises

To regularly spark your creativity, consider engaging in various creative exercises designed to generate fresh and compelling plot ideas. Dive into the six elements of fiction—plot, characters, setting, point of view, theme, and style—as your starting blocks. Twist existing stories, drawing from literature or real life, to craft narratives that stand out. Play with words and their dual meanings to unlock original storylines. Your personal experiences, the challenges you’ve faced, and your passions can all fuel your writing. Don’t overlook the value of travel in broadening your narrative horizons. Finally, join a writing community. Collaboration and feedback from fellow writers can help refine your ideas and push your creativity further.

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SoYouWantTo/WriteATimeTravelStory

So You Want To / Write a Time-Travel Story

Edit locked, necessary tropes.

• So You Want To Write a Science Fiction Story - Time-Travel stories are often a Sub-Genre of Science Fiction (and for that reason, this guide, may also be useful to you), but if you are not inclined towards science or physics, and what draws you to this type of story is the kinds of strange adventures you can explore, perhaps you may want to look into some Fantasy, Science Fantasy or even Urban Fantasy concepts, after all, magic can cause users to time-travel in some stories. But, if you’re playing with Soft Sci-Fi, or Science Fantasy, a lot of what I have to say here is much more loosely applicable, as Soft Sci-Fi often plays hard and fast with scientific concepts and research. However, if you are more interested in something with a semblance of scientific fortitude, then it’s good to look at some of the fundamentals of writing Science-Fiction before specifically looking into the time-travel aspect of such stories.
• Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness - Writing always has some challenge, but I am not referring to hard/easy difficulty, so much as just how much science you want in your fiction. If you want to explore more scientific concepts, of causality, paradox & relativity, and you’re interested in the mechanics of divergent time-streams and other pseudo-scientific principles, then you’re likely hoping to explore Hard Sci-Fi. However, if you’re not as interested in the science and physics as much as the story and the adventure, the unusual time-periods - dinosaurs and robots - then you’re probably wanting to write something that is Soft Sci-Fi, which means you needn’t stress too hard about figuring out the science-fiction theory - heck, this may not be science-fiction at all! You can have a Fantasy or Science Fantasy story, using magic to travel through time.
• Pros: One of the benefits of this is that it often means that the person is displaced literally just in time - especially if the portal travels to “itself” - the person steps through the portal, and steps out of the same portal in the same place, but a different time period (although this is not necessary ). This is useful not only for travellers to get their bearings, but it means that the Portal cannot be stolen (although, it is possible that it may be taken over ). For dramatic purposes, having the portal stay still can add to the tension, because it means that in order to deal with any problems happening in any particular time-period, your traveller must physically remove themselves from the location of the portal in order to go anywhere, which can add tension if they ever want to use the portal to change the period they reside in, or even simply to get back home. Another benefit is that this type of time travel may be “naturally occurring”, which means it doesn’t require a device to work at all - fantastic if you don’t want your main character to be a scientist of some sort. It may be a wormhole, or even simply a “time slip” in a room, a crack in a rock, or an empowered patch of wheat in a field somewhere, removing any need for a time machine inventor, if you wish.
• Cons: The detriments of these portals, is that they can often have limited control. For instance, with a naturally-occurring time portal, whilst, you may travel through the portal, or back, it means you can only visit two pre-determined time-periods - when you were, and when you end up. Even if the portal is in the control of some “portal device”, it may mean that a traveller is unable to travel to any time before such a portal was invented, as otherwise there will be no portal device on the other side to step through to, meaning it either will not work , or any attempts will cause... dysfunction . Which brings up another issue, can the time portal be opened or closed? Even if the portal doesn’t require a device to “contain” it, this can still mean that if a portal closes after a traveller steps through, they may be stuck in whatever time they just stepped into, with no way back - or , they may even be left at the mercy of those controlling the portal back home to re-open the doorway and allow them back, which may add a ticking-clock element to a time-travel story if they must locate the returning portal at a certain time ; or even a certain place , creating a road trip plot where they must get to the new location of the return portal, in order to get back home.
• Pros: The benefits of a time vehicle are that the vehicle itself is often a Cool Ride , and it can not only be very viscerally exciting for your audience, but it can also lead to many merchandising opportunities on your part (if you’re into that kind of thing). The design of a time vehicle can even be thematically, aesthetically or narratively relevant to your story, like the iconically British phonebox visage of the TARDIS from the BBC’s Doctor Who , or Emmett Brown’s cheap, modified DeLorean, from Back to the Future with its iconic gull-wing doors and many plot-relevant operating issues, or even the classic look of the time-travelling sled from H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine , which is “technically” a vehicle, but cannot be physically moved under its own power. As well, the fact that time vehicles move means that they have an advantage for the user, as they will have transport and perhaps even some protection within their vehicle. Of course, if the machine is a space-ship, then that opens up several more possibilities for potential stories , exploring Space Opera tropes and aliens; but this is true of many forms the vehicle may take, be it a time-travelling tank , a time-travelling racecar or even, dare I suggest, a time-travelling Giant Mecha ? This often also includes the benefit that the time traveller usually has more control over their vehicle, and may be free to choose the place and time they wish to travel to, opening up a whole timeline of possibilities for their adventures (although, again, there’s no guarantee).
• Cons: However, the time vehicle is not without flaws. Namely time vehicles are notoriously difficult to operate, as time travel is often a highly-precise ; energy-intensive ; resource-heavy or even violent operation, which can lead to dysfunction , malfunction or tragedy if the time traveller isn’t fully versed in the safe operation of the vehicle. This also means that a time vehicle is prone to breaking, meaning that a traveller may be forced to fix the vehicle before they can Get Back to the Future . Also, if your vehicle is too uniquely designed, it may be conspicuous and attract a lot of attention in certain time periods - even if it’s not unique, if a device is taken to a time before that vehicle was invented (such as, taking an aeroplane to medieval times), you may not only confuse and scare the locals but possibly even cause a temporal paradox on sight , and travelling to the future in a machine which is outdated may be ''just'' as conspicuous . Another issue is that if the time machine is a single device which travels with you, then the traveller is at the most risk in the event that their vehicle is commandeered by someone with ill intent , as they will have lost their only means of returning to their domestic time-period .
• Pros: This obviously has the benefit that it requires less preparation on the part of the user, they not only do not need to drive a vehicle, but they don’t even have to take a single step, they simply need to activate the ability. It also means that their travel can be more inconspicuous, so long as they travel to a place and time where persons like them existed (although they may have to change their clothing so as to fit in ), and don’t do so in the middle of a crowded street. This form of time-travel is also the least susceptible to theft, especially if the ability is natural/biological making theft highly improbable (but not impossible). Also, whilst time travel can be just as difficult no matter the device used, as the time jumper often requires either innate ability or a compact device, the time travel mechanics are usually much simpler or safer to operate, in order to allow for a single person to travel unprotected, and/or for the mechanism itself to be so compact. This also means that they often have a low energy cost and/or resource drain, requiring low - or no - maintenance.
• Cons: There are, of course, some downsides. Firstly, the fact that the traveller is so exposed means that there are some places which will be much harder, if not impossible to journey to, such as into a warzone, or anywhere with radiation or extreme heat, cold or weather, any place without an immediate ground to stand upon & anywhere lacking atmosphere; and the very instant that the traveller materializes/appears in their chosen time, they are vulnerable to any present dangers. Also, if this is a natural/innate ability, then precision is generally much harder to achieve, meaning that a person may only be able to jump forward or backward several dozen, hundred or thousand years at a time (or, in some cases, they may only be able to make small jumps forward or back a few minutes or hours, depending on the scope of the story). But, even if precision is possible, there’s still the issue that this kind of travel often limits the travelling capacity to ‘one’, meaning that if the traveller makes any friends ( or lovers ) along the way, or they wish to save someone from their fate/destiny , they probably won’t be able to simply stow them away on their return journey, and thus all problems faced in any time-period must be solved in the present moment (relatively speaking). Also, on the rare but nonetheless possible occasion that such a device does break, it may take some incredibly precise skills and technical efforts to repair, if it’s not entirely impossible to repair at all - especially if this is some innate or biological ability, as depending on its mechanism it may require surgical expertise, physiotherapy, biochemistry or, in some cases, mental or psychiatric care in order to be “repaired”. Also, this form moreso than the others is the most prone to giving the time-traveller no control at all as to when a time jump is initiated, or in which time period they will arrive .
• Mental Time Travel : This is when a person cannot travel physically, and can only take their memories/thoughts with them , and often requires them to possess the body of someone who does physically exist in that time. This may mean that a traveller is confined to their own lifetime, only able to possess the mind of their past or future self; but this sometimes allows the traveller to invade the mind and body of a contemporary of the time they travel to, à la Quantum Leap .
• The Slow Path : when someone either simply waits for the future to come, or occasionally is placed/imprisoned in stasis or in a time-dilation field for a long period of time, getting to the future that way. This is often the most scientifically accurate form of time-travel, but it limits travel to a one-way trip.
• Love Transcends Spacetime : This is more common in Soft Sci-Fi, and may result in The Power of Love allowing a time-displaced couple to reunite. It takes many forms, as it is more a magical concept, so I won’t go into explicit detail, except to say that unless you’re writing a Romance, this is a weird choice...
• Adventures in the Bible : Someone travels to the past, to experience or re-enact a well-known story from history (often a biblical one, hence the trope name, but not necessarily).
• Back to the Early Installment : The characters in an established story use time-travel to return to a previous point in that story, such as an earlier chapter, episode, instalment or series.
• Christmas Every Day : A story where Christmas (or another holiday/special occasion) repeats every day - often used to teach some kind of moral about that day’s importance, but not necessarily.
• Conqueror from the Future : A conqueror from the future goes back in time to start his conquest in the past.
• Future Self Reveal : Someone is revealed to be the future version of someone else.
• Get Back to the Future : Someone gets stuck in the past and has to find their way back.
• Godwin's Law of Time Travel : Someone tries to change the past, and ends up creating an alternate history where the Nazis won - this is worryingly easy to do in fiction.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop : Someone - or a group of people - gets stuck repeating the same day.
• Ominous Message from the Future : Someone from the future send a message back in time, warning that something bad is going to happen.
• Precrime Arrest : Someone is arrested for a crime they haven't even committed yet.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong : Using time travel to undo bad events/consequences from history.
• Terminator Twosome : Two people go back in time, one to change history and one to stop them.
• Time Police : People who either outlaw time travel or enforce laws related to time travel.
• Time-Travel Romance : Falling in love with someone from another time.
• Trapped in the Past : Someone ends up in the past without knowing how to come back.
• You Will Be Beethoven : Someone travels to a significant historical event, whereby the historical figure at the centre of that event dies (or never existed) and realizes that in order for the timeline to remain intact, they will have to "be" that person.

Levels of Time-Line Mutability

• Pros : This is light on temporal mechanics, since it requires a perfectly stable time-loop, and deviation from the set path is inherently impossible. It also appears to be the most scientifically consistent form of time-travel, as (in part due to the Anthropic Principle), we’ve only ever experienced time happening one way, so it makes sense that there is only one timeline. It can also be satisfying for the viewer to see, out of order, how exactly you tie up every loose thread of your story to stabilize the timeloop (assuming you DO tie up all the loose threads ).
• Cons : Writing a story that sidesteps paradoxes doesn’t always satisfy reader curiosity. Sure, you avoided the Grandfather Paradox when the grandson’s assassination attempt failed, but that doesn’t actually address the paradox, so it can leave some readers wondering about what might have happened , instead of paying attention to the plot. Similarly, the fact that time is unchangeable brings up issues of why the main characters bothered to travel through time in the first place... you can’t exactly Set Right What Once Went Wrong if the timeline is fixed and unchanging. This often results in plots where ignorance or naivete is the driving force behind most time-travel, which can turn your story into an Idiot Plot . Also, the fixed timeline may evoke the creeping realization that we have no willpower, freedom of choice or hope of escaping our inevitable destiny , which can really bum some viewers out.
• The Rubber Timeline - In this case, there is one time-line and you cannot change the past, because if you try, the timeline will adjust to correct itself. The name says it all, as much as you try to push against it, it just pushes back. This can take two forms, the rubber ball and the rubber band . To explain them, let’s look at the example of the Grandfather Paradox .
• Pros : This resolves the issue of the Butterfly of Doom , whereby any action taken in the past could have catastrophic consequences, since any minor missteps in the past will be resolved by the time you get back home. Also, this kind of change appears to be giving Time itself a will and perhaps even a personality (perhaps playful, perhaps vindictive), as time itself is acting against your changes to fix it, which can help with the tone of your story. It’s also suitable for Soft Sci-Fi or Fantasy stories, especially if you don’t want to deal with Alternate History .
• Cons : Just as with the Fixed Timeline, this may bring up daunting questions regarding free will, meaning & hope in a universe with an unchanging future. Also, depending on how characters act in the past, you may need to explain why killing George Washington didn’t change history as we know it , or why we don’t see time bounce back against changes happening in the present. For these reasons, many writers are forced to combine a Rubber Timeline with some other form of timeline, implying that time can change, but only if you do something significant, which is not a point in favour of this kind of timeline, you have to alter its mutability just to make it work.
• Pros : This has all the pros of the fixed timeline that you have stable time loops and avoid paradoxes without the con of predestination paradoxes or loss of free will and choice, since the characters still have agency to choose. But if they make the wrong choice, it might destroy time/life/reality as we know it. Another advantage is that the way the timeline breaks may be interesting to explore. There have even been stories/chapters/episodes which start with time being broken, so as to explore what a world is like with broken time, and challenge the heroes to fix it (or endure its inevitable destruction). This can also set a tense atmosphere for your story, since it means characters won’t travel back in time unless it is worth the extreme risk .
• Cons : If the destruction of time is too catastrophic, or you reuse the threat of its destruction too many times , then it can lend your characters some Plot Armour , as the audience realizes there’s still so many pages, or so much run-time, left, so obviously the universe has to continue for at least that much longer (although you could be all avant-garde, and end your story by leaving the last half blank after a time-wipe). And if you want your characters to break the fragile timeline during the course of your story, you’ll need to find some way of breaking time that suits your story and doesn’t feel like something you’re making up just so you can get to the next chapter already .
• The Branching Timeline - In this case, there is one time-line, and you can change the past, but doing so creates a second timeline. This resolves paradoxes by simply saying that any paradoxical events happened in the other timeline. This resolves some issues, but there’s two main ways to have a branching timeline perform, either with the original branches are pruned and left crooked , or the branches split .
• Pros : This kind of timeline resolves the paradoxes by giving you more timeline to work with, and it can create the classic Set Right What Once Went Wrong scenario, as well as give you the chance to explore alternate histories without having to rewrite your story’s canon (unless you want to). Also, if you use the split timeline version, it can create some fascinating stories as well as narrative structures, switching between, especially if you have the two timelines interact somehow - it’s even been used in non-science fiction stories . And if you create several split time-lines, you might even create a Multiverse !
• Cons : If you create several split time-lines, you might even create a Multiverse . Alternate History can be confusing at the best of times, but Alternate Continuity is almost impossible to wrangle, even with several writers at the helm, and some readers find it overwhelming. But even without a multiverse, the split timeline creates the issue that you still can’t actually change the timeline, since any attempt leaves the timeline as it was, and creates a new, different timeline. Which reality is actually real ? And you might need to consider, if a villain changes history, and you go back and stop them, are you actually “repairing history” or simply “creating a third timeline branch in which you won”, effectively leaving behind two branches of reality where you failed .
• Pros : It means the audience can more easily relate to the characters as they feel contemporary, no matter when you start reading. It also helps to set the tone for a less-realistic story or cartoon, especially for a Long Running Series
• Cons : It makes literally no sense if you try to understand how the timeline works , and it punishes long-time fans for bothering to remember older publications of your story. Unless you want to attempt to make sense of it all... Also, some attempts to appeal to modern audiences can fall flat .
• Pros : This allows for a much more fun, free and adventurous story, as you don’t need to worry too much about timeline consistency - you can use the rules which suit the chapter or episode of your story as you see fit, to make it work. It can fit well into a Soft Sci-Fi or Fantasy story very well, and it can be used for comedy. It also means that if two of the timeline concepts appeal to you, but you can’t decide, you can easily use them both. A timeline may be fixed, until some catastrophic cosmic event causes it to branch apart. Perhaps a timeline is rubbery and self-healing, but if you stretch it too far it branches off into several timelines. Or perhaps the timeline is brittle, but when you accidentally break it, you realize it’s actually been fixed all along and completely unchanging. Or, a timeline could be a branching timeline, but as you split it too far, it weakens reality and becomes brittle. There’s much more freedom to play with concepts, if you don’t want to follow strict rules.
• Cons : Some readers like Rules. It doesn’t matter if your science device can cause you to create matter out of thin air, or uses perpetual motion machines, oe even magic, some readers are willing to suspend suspension of disbelief so long as the unrealistic effects remain consistent . Similarly, this does work best with a more light-hearted tone. That’s not to say you can’t have darker or more serious stories with a Wibbly-Wobbly Timeball, but if there’s more freedom to affect the flow of time, it might be harder to explain why you can’t go back and stop your mother’s death, whilst you can go back and punch Hitler in the face. But, if you do start trying to explain how this stuff “works”, it can easily degrade into Continuity Porn if you go too far, turning a concept designed to sidestep all this overthinking, and turn it into an exercise in excessive over-rethinking.

Paradox Events

What is a causal paradox.

To clap your hands : The Cause is swiftly colliding your hands together, the Effect is a loud “smack” sound.

To kick a ball : The Cause is your foot colliding with the ball at speed, the Effect is the ball moving.

This is not only necessary for understanding consequence, but also physics. Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that “For every Action there is an Equal and Opposite Reaction”. Clapping your hands with force results in a soundwave (W) with force equivalent to the clapping force’s kinetic energy (Wk) through the potential energy (Wp) of the medium, in this case air (W = Wp + Wk); Kicking a ball with force 𝑦 results in the ball moving at a speed of (mass x acceleration) equivalent to that force (F=ma). So, Cause not only leads to Effect, it should also equal Effect, at least in the context of “work”. I’m not a physicist (and don’t worry, I’m going to stop with the sciencey/mathsy jargon now), but what matters is that you can’t get something for nothing , as it has to balance out somehow. And more importantly, perhaps just as importantly, an Effect can itself be the Cause of another Effect in a Causal Chain. Line up dominoes and tip the first. This causes the first to collide with the next, with the effect of it tipping over; which causes it to collide with the next, with the effect of tipping that one over; causing it to collide with another, again and again until the last piece falls over in the line. These are the fundamentals of causality. Causal Paradoxes break this rule, by having Effect precede Cause; Effects without Causes or, in some cases, disruption of these fundamental Causal Chains. So, what kind of Paradoxes can result?

Consistency Paradox (or, “Grandfather Paradox”)

This one is the most well-known, but it’s also the most common (and easiest to understand). The example given is always the grandfather. If you go back in time and kill your grandfather before either of your parents are born, then due to the disruption of your ancestry, you can’t be born, and therefore don’t exist. Which begs the question, if you don’t exist... how can you kill your grandfather (what caused that effect)? Now, with apologies to all the nice grandfathers out there, the purpose of this avocide isn’t out of malice, but a thought experiment. But any equivalent action that prevents the Cause after the Effect would be a “grandfather paradox”. If you went back in time, and killed your grand mother , same paradox; if you went back in time and stole the phlebotinum needed to build the time machine, same paradox; if you went back in time and (somehow) sterilized your grandfather, same paradox; if you went back in time and tripped yourself before you stepped into the time machine, same paradox, & even if you went back in time and caused World War III, resulting in the destruction of your native country, meaning that nobody could have been born there, including you… also same paradox. This is the most common paradox as it’s the easiest to fall into by mistake, since if you go back in time “for a reason”, then by resolving the problem you are also removing the need to go back in time in the first place, creating this paradox once again. Consider a common one - Kill Hitler - Adolf Hitler is one of History’s most infamous tyrants and genocidal maniacs, and that has inspired a lot of people to say, if they had a time machine, they would go and kill Hitler. But, if you go back in time and Kill Hitler as a baby… then Hitler doesn’t exist, doesn’t create that history, meaning that by travelling in time, you remove the desire to travel back in time in the first place.

Ontological Paradox (or, “Bootstrap Paradox”)

• You go to your garage, and discover a time machine there
• You go back in time (Adventure Ensues…).
• You arrive back at your house, five minutes before you left.
• Since you had so much fun, you park the time machine in your garage for you to find.
• You go to your garage, and discover Time Machine blueprints there
• You build the time machine from metal, wiring and Phlebotinum from the local store
• You go back in time (Adventure Ensues…)
• Since you had so much fun, you copy the instructions to build a time machine in a notebook that says “Time Machine blueprints” in your garage for you to find.

It’s a perfect time loop... but that’s the problem. Who invented the time machine? Sure, all the matter is accounted for, but where did the idea come from? Remember, you can’t get something for nothing, so how can you learn something (especially something as complex as time-machine construction), without it ever being discovered? This kind of paradox is also known as a Causal Loop, since it has no definitive starting cause in the loop of recurrent events, implying that “the loop caused itself”. Causal Loops apply to any effect without a definitive cause, not just ideas for inventing time machines. A lot of works of fiction use this as a joke, where some famous quote, lesson, song, joke or concept gets explained to the “creator” by the time traveller. But, if the time traveller learnt it because it was passed down through culture over time by the creator, and the creator learned it because the time-traveller told them… who learnt it first?

• Fermi Paradox : The discrepancy between the high potential for the existence of aliens, compared with the rarity of evidence for aliens. Often expressed simply as "if aliens exist, why haven't we found any yet?". Whilst Enrico Fermi initially used this to refer to the possibility of alien life, the same paradox holds true for time travel. Namely, "if time travel where possible, where are all the time travel tourists?"
• Imaginary Time : This is a mathematical representation of time in special relativity, which posits the existence of a temporal dimension which runs perpendicular to time, as we experience it, effectively creating two-dimensional time (note: this goes deep down the quantum mechanics rabbithole, so it may be a bit advanced if you're not an advanced physics student).
• Novikov Self-Consistency Principle : This is a principle which asserts that temporal paradoxes are impossible. It was proposed by Russian physicist Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov. In all honesty, whilst he wrote a book about the subject of "closed timelike curves", this principle was little more than his opinion, but it sounds good for technobabble.
• Ontological : Regarding one's being, or existence. As existence is often referred to as temporal, time travel has the potential for bringing up ontological dilemmas.
• Retrocausality : Relating to a cause which comes after its effect.
• San Dimas Time : An arbitrary, or artificial, sense of urgency during a time travel story, despite the fact that the ability to time travel would render any deadline ineffective (may be justifiable, depending on the temporal mechanics of a story).
• Everywhen - To exist throughout all time, (the temporal equivalent of "everywhere").
• Nowhen - To not exist in time, at all (the temporal equivalent of "nowhere").
• Precedent - An instance of something, or someone, from an earlier time; past version; antecedent; precursor.
• Subsequent - An instance of something, or someone, from an earlier time; future version; consequent; resultant.
• Somewhen - At some unknown or unspecific time (the temporal equivalent of "somewhere").
• Whenabouts - The time someone, or something, is generally occupying (the temporal equivalent of "whereabouts").

Alternative Title(s): Time Travel Tales

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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. 

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.

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Amazing Story Generator

All good stories start with a spark of an idea. The Amazing Story Generator triggers random, playful, and profound associations that will help launch your next great story. Simply flip the pages to combine three different story elements and create intriguing plotlines. It's the perfect inspiration for your next novel, short story, screenplay, or other creative endeavor.

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Book Title Generator 📚

Looking for the perfect book title? Our brilliant Book Title Generator has over 1,000 creative ideas to spark your imagination. From fun and quirky to mysterious and poetic, this handy tool makes coming up with a catchy title for your masterpiece easy. Keep reading for loads of title inspiration!

• Book Title Generator

Sometimes the inspiration you need is in a book title. If you’re struggling to come up with a solid story idea , then this book title generator is for you! With over 1,000 unique book title ideas, you’re sure to find the inspiration you need for your next story. Feel free to edit and re-adjust these book titles to suit your own story.

Keep on reading this post for tips on creating your own book title and our free book title generator printable. You might also like our daily book title challenge , where you are given a new book title each day to write about.

Other Book Title Generators

Download our app, online book title generator, tips for creating a good book title, create your own book title, random book titles ideas, how do i come up with a title for my book, can you publish a book with no title, can i use any title for my book.

View over 10,000 book title ideas offline, with our brand new Ideas Wizard App . Everything from romance, fantasy and even sci-fi book title ideas. Available now on the Google Play Store:

Just a reminder, our book title generator has been created to give you ideas for potential stories to write. You may need to adjust these titles so that they suit your story. If you’re looking for more book title ideas, please see our free story title generator which is built inside our story creator with thousands of book title ideas to discover:

For more book title ideas, check out our festive Christmas book title generator – The perfect inspiration for your Christmas stories. And if you’re writing a fantasy novel, then you should check out this fantasy book title generator for some magical book title ideas.

What makes a good book title? A good book title summarises your story without giving too much away. It is enticing, exciting and mysterious. Here are some tips for creating an awesome book title for your story:

• Think about the genre: If you’re writing a horror book , then you’ll need a scary or dark book title to suit your story. If you’re writing a children’s story , make sure you think about words that your target readers will understand. Keep your genre in mind when coming up with book titles. And keep your audience in mind! 
• Make a list of descriptive words: What is your story about? Who is the main character? What objects are used throughout? Where is your story set? These are all things you might want to think about when making a list of words that describe your story. This list will come in handy when writing your own book title.
• Leave the book title until the end: It is easier to come up with a good book title when your story is written. The more familiar you are with your story, the easier it is to summarise it in a few words. 
• Review your book title: If you have written your book title before writing the story, then reviewing it at the end is important. You might want to double-check if your book title is still relevant and if it can be further improved. A common theme we’ve seen with writers is that they normally start with a nice, romantic tale, which slowly turns dark and twisted. In which case, the title they gave at the beginning may no longer be relevant after their story is written.
• Don’t overcomplicate it: Avoid making your book title too long or wordy, as this can put potential readers off. Keep it as simple as possible, preferably under five words or even less. When it comes to book titles the shorter, the better – Try to keep the mystery of your book hidden until your readers read it. Similarly, you should try to avoid complicated or technical words in your story. Even if your story is about physics or time travel, try to give it a name that everyone can understand. 
• Keep it relevant: Your book title must have some relevance to your storyline or plot. Don’t go completely off-topic, by giving your book a title that just sounds, ‘cool’, but has no meaning behind it. For instance, you wouldn’t want to read a story called Forbidden Dragons that has no references to dragons in the story at all – How disappointing would that be!

Book titles are hard. And sadly there is no secret formula for creating the perfect book title. However there is a useful exercise you can do to create your own book title (or at least an early draft of it). The easiest way to come up with a basic book title is to think of an adjective and a noun relevant to your story. 

Take for example you have a gothic story about a dragon. Following the adjective and noun technique, you might come up with the following potential book title ideas:

• The Dark Dragon
• The Grim Dragon
• The Gothic Dragon
• The Blood Dragon
• Bone Dragon

As you can see the above example book titles start with an adjective and then are followed by a noun. Including ‘The’ at the beginning is entirely optional. Using this basic technique you should be able to come up with hundreds of potential book titles for your story. 

It may not be a perfect technique for creating your own book title, but it’s a great start. More importantly, it’s a marvellous way to get your brain thinking and to get those creative juices flowing. And you never know, using this technique you’ll be able to come up with the best story title ever! So go on…Give it a go! 

Using this technique we have created a printable book title generator. Here you can use the first letter of your first name and surname to generate a random book title for your next story:

To get you started here is a list of over 160 book titles to inspire you:

• The Magic Tree
• Winter Fairy
• Wizards of Ice
• Call of the Forest
• The Enchanted Ones
• A Spell Too Far
• A Potion For The Wise
• Tower To The Stars
• Me, Moonie and Magic
• The Last Flame
• Lost Warriors Of Elysium
• Night Light
• Eye of the Wolf
• The Hollow Spirit
• Love of Tomorrow
• Never Again
• Eternal Soul
• When Love Lasts
• Nothing In This World
• Tales of the Heart
• Stolen Love
• Yes, Maybe, No
• Together For A Day
• Burning Poem
• Whispers of a Ghost
• Dead Man’s WIsh
• Skeletons in the House
• The Lost Soul
• A Party For Ghouls
• Monster Strike
• See Zombie and Run
• Don’t Go There
• Signs of the Past
• The Monster In The Dark
• Horror Stories In The Dark
• Soulless Dead
• Lonesome Shadow
• Space Galaxy Adventure
• Into The Stars
• The Happy Alien
• Aliens of a New Kind
• Earth To Unknown
• Dark New World
• The One After Mars
• Martian Boy
• Signs of Life on Jupiter
• Dangerous Moon
• Bizarre Robot
• Imaginary Gravity
• Mysterious Cyborg
• Stay Hidden
• What’s Over There?
• Clues And More Clues
• Never to be Solved
• The Mystery of Mr Watkins
• Who Took My Book?
• Who Stole My Homework?
• The Meaning of Z
• The Secrets Of Mr. Miller
• Who Is Mary Walker?
• The Crimes of Martin
• The Lost Portrait
• Blank Paper
• Behind the Door
• Who Were They?
• Bad Surprise
• The Cover Up
• The Perfect Thief
• The Secret Witness
• Season For Revenge
• Innocent Eyes
• Long Road To Go
• One Boy And The World
• Neverending Trip
• Point A to Z
• The Search For Bella
• Travelling To New Lands
• One Car And The Road
• Captain’s Lost Treasure
• Unsolved Crimes
• Who Stole My Cat?
• The Judgement
• Judge of Crime
• Detective Collins and the Van
• Nice Try John
• Get Away And Run Away
• A Sharp Punishment
• Unofficial Crimes
• The New Kind
• Fear Of Those
• We Are Powerful
• Elite of the Unknowns
• We Still Exist
• The New Days
• One Way Ride
• Bang, Crash and Boom
• A Boring Day
• Action Pack Man
• The Bad Guy
• A Cowboy’s Story
• Lone Cowboy
• Riders Of The West
• Cowboys In A Storm
• Horse With No Rider
• Yee-haw! Let’s Get Em!
• Cattles And Horses
• Quest Of The West
• The Two-Cent Men
• Burning The Breeze
• Ridin’ To Roscoe
• The Prince of Darkness
• Cursed Queen
• Warrior Princess
• Slay Like a Princess
• The Blue Knight
• Arealia, Forest Princess
• Iceman: The Melt Down
• The Power Seekers
• Fire And Water
• The Amazing Adventures of Ice Boy
• Homeless Heroes
• Mutant Academy
• Unique And Powerful
• Cupcake Kitty
• Christmas Turtle
• The Angel And The Star
• Snow This Christmas
• A Turkey For Christmas
• Changing Times
• Never The Same
• Back In TIme
• World of Tomorrow
• World of Yesterday
• Yesterday is Today
• Before The Past
• Standing Still
• An Elephant’s Journey
• Cats, Dogs And Other Pets
• The Other Animals
• Swimming With Sharks
• My Best Friend The Lion
• Snail’s Speedy Adventures
• Once Upon A Rat
• Rain On Those
• Miss Minnie And The Bees
• Galaxy Bugs
• Invaders of the Earth
• Trapped Like A Bug
• One Mole And A Cat
• Secrets Of Mara
• The Unwanted Toy
• My Neighbour The Alien
• One Spell Away
• Caveman in the City
• Dragon Invasion
• Talking Trees
• Ninja Cats Rescue Mission
• The Strange Key
• Message in a Bottle
• Whispers in the Wind
• Beyond the Horizon
• Chronicles of Celestia
• Shadow Dance
• The Forgotten Kingdom
• Cogs of Time
• Starlight Serenade
• Veil of Illusions
• The Sapphire Crown
• Phoenix Reborn
• Secrets of the Silver Forest
• Echoes of Eternity
• Midnight Mirage
• Song of the Sirens
• Celestial Dreamscape
• Shattered Realms
• The Astral Alchemist
• Serpent’s Embrace
• Quantum Quill
• Twilight Reverie
• Oracle’s Overture
• Whirlwind of Wonders
• Beyond the Veil
• Enigma of the Ember Stone
• Aurora’s Embrace
• Nexus of Nebulae
• Stormweaver’s Saga
• Labyrinth of Legends
• Whispers of the Waning Moon
• Chronicles of the Crystal Citadel
• Quantum Quasar
• Ember’s Lullaby
• The Velvet Veil
• Enchanted Odyssey
• Moonlit Mosaic
• Scepter of Shadows
• Astral Symphony
• The Chronicles of Evermore
• Echoes of Eldoria
• Sapphire Serenity
• The Stargazer’s Sonnet
• Whims of the Whispering Willow
• Enigma’s End
• Celestial Sonnet
• Oracle’s Odyssey
• Cogs and Chronicles
• Symphony of Shadows
• Echoes in the Silence
• Threads of Destiny
• Silent Reverie
• Whispers of Yesterday
• The Art of Letting Go
• Shadows of Reflection
• Kaleidoscope of Memories
• Uncharted Waters
• Mosaic of Moments
• Fragments of Time
• The Color of Tomorrow
• In the Blink of an Eye
• Footprints in the Sand
• A Symphony of Souls
• The Language of Rain
• Dancing with Shadows
• Serendipity’s Song
• The Road Less Traveled
• Wandering Hearts
• Windows to the Soul
• Notes from Nowhere
• Reflections in Blue
• The Art of Beginning Again
• Whispers of Wisdom
• The Silent Symphony
• Tangled Threads
• The Canvas of Life
• Pages of Possibility
• Trailblazers and Tribulations
• Ripple Effect
• The Unseen Canvas
• Echoes of Tomorrow
• Silent Sparks
• The Tapestry of Time
• The Alchemy of Change
• Veins of Vulnerability
• Footprints of Fate
• The Palette of Promise
• Shattered Illusions
• The Stillness Within
• Untold Stories
• The Journey Home
• Melodies of the Mind
• Hidden Harmony
• Echoes of Euphoria
• Shadows in the Attic
• The Patchwork Path
• The Language of Light
• Whispers of Wonder
• A Symphony of Silence
• Echoes of Myra
• Beyond the Surface
• The Quiet Revolution
• Serendipity’s Edge
• The Canvas of Tomorrow
• Footprints Across Time
• The Art of Balance
• Shadows in the Mirror
• Mosaic Moments
• The Color of Rain
• Songs of Serenity
• Kaleidoscope of Reflection
• Windows to Yesterday
• Echoes of Evolution
• The Ripple Effect
• The Dance of Shadows
• The Road Not Taken
• Pages of Serendipity
• The Unseen Symphony
• The Echo Chamber
• A Palette of Promises
• Shadows of Tomorrow
• Fragments of Fate
• Whispers in the Attic
• Trails of Transformation
• My Mind’s Mystery

Can you create your own book title using the adjective and noun technique or from the ideas in our book title generator? Share your book titles with us in the comments below.

Coming up with the perfect title for your book can be tricky! A good title should be catchy, descriptive and make readers want to pick up your book. When brainstorming ideas, think about your target audience, genre and the main themes or topics of your story.

Using the book title generator can give you a huge list of creative options to get your imagination going. Pick words and phrases that sum up the essence of your book or capture something intriguing about the plot or characters. You can combine interesting adjectives with nouns related to the setting or conflict.

Also consider literary or poetic devices like alliteration, rhyme, repetition and wordplay. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different possibilities until you find the ideal title that captures the spirit of your writing. The most important thing is to choose something memorable that will appeal to readers browsing bookshelves or online listings.

See our guide on how to come up with a good book title .

While it may seem tempting for a book to have no title and let the writing speak for itself, publishers will require books to have a title before being published. Some key reasons for this include:

• Titles are crucial for marketing and helping readers quickly identify what a book is about. Without a title, it’s very difficult to promote or sell a book effectively.
• Titles give structure and context when a book is added to a catalogue or bookshelf. They allow books to be organized and categorized.
• Many online book retailers require a title field when submitting book information. Title-less books would likely get rejected.
• Readers browse books by title all the time. No title means no way for potential readers to easily reference the book.
• Titles provide convenient shorthand to refer to a book in conversation or reviews.

So while a purely content-focused book with no title may sound avant-garde, it’s highly impractical from a publishing and marketing perspective. The title plays a critical role in a book’s discoverability and commercial viability. That’s why publishers require even the most experimental literary works to have a title before hitting the shelves.

When choosing a title for your book, you do have a lot of creative freedom, but you can’t use just any title you want. Here are some important considerations around book titles:

• You can’t use a title that is already in use by another book. Titles need to be unique to avoid copyright issues. Doing a quick search on Amazon or Google Books can help check if your desired title is taken.
• Be cautious about using titles with branded names or trademarks. You may need permission to use words like Band-Aid, Kleenex etc.
• Don’t use misleading titles that have nothing to do with the book’s subject matter, as readers will feel deceived.
• Check if the title is search-friendly. Extremely vague, odd or cryptic titles can get buried in search results.
• Be sensitive with provocative or offensive titles that may turn off readers or distributors.
• Steer clear of book titles with clickbait-y wording, as readers dislike misleading hype.

While the book title space is vast, do your research to ensure your chosen title is distinct, accurate, marketable and in line with industry norms and reader expectations. The right title can excite readers and set your book up for success.

Our Book Title Generator provides an endless supply of creative and unique book titles to spark your imagination. Let us know in the comments if you found the perfect title for your story among our suggestions.

What’s your favourite title idea from our generator? We’d love to hear how this tool helped you in your writing journey. Keep using it to brainstorm titles until you discover that ideal attention-grabbing name for your masterpiece!

Marty the wizard is the master of Imagine Forest. When he's not reading a ton of books or writing some of his own tales, he loves to be surrounded by the magical creatures that live in Imagine Forest. While living in his tree house he has devoted his time to helping children around the world with their writing skills and creativity.

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Book Title Generator

10,000+ good book titles to inspire you..

Generate a random story title that’s relevant to your genre. You can pick between fantasy, crime, mystery, romance, or sci-fi. Simply click the button below to get started.

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How to come up with book title ideas.

Need an original book title, and fast? We got you. Here are 8 ways to come up with book title ideas. 

1. Start free writing to find keywords

Write absolutely anything that comes into your head: words, phrases, names, places, adjectives — the works. You’ll be surprised how much workable content comes out from such a strange exercise.

2. Experiment with word patterns

Obviously, we’re not advocating plagiarism, but try playing around with formats like:

“The _____ of _______”

“______ and the _____”

These will work for certain genres, though they are by no means the only patterns you can play around with. Have you noticed how many blockbuster thrillers these days feature the word “woman” or “ girl” somewhere in the title?

3. Draw inspiration from your characters 

If your central character has a quirky name or a title (like Doctor or Detective) you can definitely incorporate this into your book title. Just look at Jane Eyre, Percy Jackson, or Harry Potter, for instance — working with one or more or your characters’ names is a surefire way to get some title ideas down. Equally, you can add a little detail, like Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure, to add a little color to a name and make it title-worthy.

4. Keep your setting in mind

Is your book set somewhere particularly interesting or significant? Even if your title isn’t just where the action takes place (like Middlemarch by George Eliot), it’s something to have in the back of your mind. You can include other details, like The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum or Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay, to give your readers a sense of action and character, as well as setting (which tend to be linked).

5. Look for book title ideas in famous phrases 

Think Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird here — this is a central symbol and significant piece of dialogue in the novel. It’s enigmatic (what does it even mean? Is it a warning? An instruction?) and makes us really sit up when these words appear in the text itself. Try and think of your inspiration for writing your book or sum up your central theme in a few words, and see if these inspire anything.

6. Analyze the book titles of other books

You might be surprised at how many books refer to other works in their titles ( The Fault in Our Stars by John Green comes from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar , and Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men takes its inspiration from a Robert Burns poem). Going this route allows authors to use an already beautiful and poetic turn of phrase that alludes to a theme in their own book. From Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials , so many books have used this technique that might also work for you.

7. Don’t forget the subtitle

In non-fiction publishing, there’s a trend of evocative or abstract titles, followed by a subtitle that communicates the content (and is packed with delicious keywords that the Amazon search engine can’t resist). This is also another way to get around long titles — and to add a little panache to an otherwise dry subject matter. In the United States, it’s also quite common to have “A Novel” as a subtitle (if, you know, it’s a novel). In the United Kingdom, this practice is much rarer.

8. Generate a book name through a book title generator

If you’ve gone through all of the above and are still wringing out your brain trying to come up with the golden formula — fear not! There are other ways to get the cogs whirring and inspiration brewing, such as title generators.

And speaking of cogs whirring, let us present you with the...

15 best book titles of all time

Witty, eye-catching, memorable — these famous book titles have it all. Without further ado, here are 15 best book titles you can take inspiration from.

• I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
• Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
• The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton
• Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler
• And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
• Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
• The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

Looking for even more story title ideas?

If you’re agonizing over your book title, you’re not alone! Some of the best book titles today emerged only after much teeth gnashing. The Sun Also Rises was once titled Fiesta ; Pride and Prejudice was once First Impressions . Then there was F. Scott Fitzgerald, who reportedly took forever to think of a good title. He ultimately discarded a dozen ( Gold-Hatted Gatsby , The High-Bouncing Lover , and Trimalchio in West Egg included) before reluctantly picking The Great Gatsby .

So it’s tough out there for a novelist, which is why we built this generator: to try and give you some inspiration. Any of the titles that you score through it are yours to use. We’d be even more delighted if you dropped us the success story at [email protected] ! If you find that you need even more of a spark beyond our generator, the Internet’s got you covered. Here are some of our other favorite generators on the web:

Fantasy Book Title Generators : Fantasy Name Generator , Serendipity: Fantasy Novel Titles

• Sci-Fi Novel Title Generators : Book Title Creator , Story Title Generator

Romance Book Title Generators : Romance Title Generator

Crime Book Title Generators : Tara Sparling’s Crime Thriller Titles , Ruddenberg’s Generator

Mystery Novel Title Generators : The Generator .

Or if you think that generators are fun and all — but that you’d rather create your own book title? Great 👍 Kick off with this post, which is all about how to choose your book title . And once you've got the words down, make sure you capitalize your title correctly .

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K-Dramas Like Lovely Runner: A Time Called You, Twinkling Watermelon & More

T he new fantasy-romance K-drama Lovely Runner has gained much popularity among the viewers since its debut on tvN . The series aired on April 8, 2024, on the network. Starring Kim Hye Yoon and Byeon Woo Seok, the series revolves around the theme of time slip and time travel .

Some other notable K-dramas deal with time travel, romance, and more. Look at some intriguing K-dramas similar to the Byeon Woo Seok and Kim Hye Yoon starrer below.

A Time Called You

One of the most popular fantasy K-dramas of recent times is A Time Called You . It is similar to Lovely Runner’s theme of romance and time travel. The series premiered on Netflix on September 8, 2023. It stars Ahn Hyo Seop and Jeon Yeo Been as the leading pair.

A Time Called You chronicles the fascinating love story of two characters from two different timelines. The story unfolds when a woman, Jun Hee time travels to 1998 from 2023 and meets Si Heon, who resembles her boyfriend, who has passed away. Viewers can watch the K-drama on Netflix.

Twinkling Watermelon

Another K-drama similar to Lovely Runner is Twinkling Watermelon . It is a hit Korean series depicting a time travel story revolving around friendship, love, and family. It first made its arrival on tvN on September 25, 2023. The drama stars Ryeoun, Seol In Ah, Choi Hyun Wook, and Shin Eun Soo.

Twinkling Watermelon centers around a CODA boy, Ha Eun Gyeol, who time travels to the past in 1995. There, he meets with his father’s younger self and becomes best friends with him. The series also depicts two heartfelt love stories. The series is currently available on Viki and Viu in selected regions.

Tomorrow, with You

Tomorrow, with You is another noteworthy romance K-drama similar to the ongoing Korean drama series Lovely Runner . It first aired on February 3, 2017, on tvN. It stars Shin Min A and Lee Je Hoon as its central characters.

Tomorrow, with You follows the time travel story of a husband Yoo So Joon and his wife Song Ma Rin. The series depicts a story of selfless love. Viewers can watch the K-drama on Viki in selected regions.

My Perfect Stranger

Another time travel romance K-drama like Lovey Runner is My Perfect Stranger. Jin Ki Joo stars as the female lead, Baek Yoon Young, in the series, while Kim Dong Wook plays the role of the male lead, Yoon Hae Jun. The K-drama first debuted on May 1, 2023, on KBS2.

My Perfect Stranger tells the fascinating and unique time-travel love story of Yoon Hae Jun and Baek Yoon Young, who travel back to 1987. The K-drama is available to stream on Viki, Kocowa, and Viu in selected regions.

Alice is another highly arresting time-travel K-drama similar to Lovely Runner’s theme. It made its arrival on SBS TV on August 28, 2020. The series stars Joo Won and Kim Hee Sun as Park Jin Gyeom, Yoon Tae Yi, and Park Sun Young, respectively.

Alice depicts the time-travel sci-fi story of a woman who has a resemblance to a deceased woman. The story unfolds when she travels back to 1992 in Seoul and meets Park Jin Gyeom. Viewers can watch the series on Viki.

Some other noteworthy K-drama series similar to Lovely Runner include Familiar Wife, Blue Birthday, Splash Splash Love, and more.

The post K-Dramas Like Lovely Runner: A Time Called You, Twinkling Watermelon & More appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More .

Waupaca theater group to present murder mystery farce as dinner theater show: What to know

What: Waupaca Community Theatre presents “Critics’ Choice”

When: 6 p.m. April 25, 26 and 27

Where: Par 4 Resort Ballroom, 201 Foxfire Drive, Waupaca

Admission: $35 online at our.show/cc or find Waupaca Community Theatre on Facebook .

Background: The new comedy, “Critics’ Choice,” will be presented as dinner theatre. Written by central Wisconsin playwright Pat Phair, the play is a murder mystery farce as well as a brush with the time-space continuum. While 21st century newspaper theater critics are watching a play set in the mid-20th century, they come under suspicion for the crime. Instead of remaining the innocent bystanders that they are, they get caught in the search for the murder suspect.

What they’re saying: “It is unique in its plot and the cast is just phenomenal,” said Brad Leonhardt, playing Sheldon. “To be able to bring a talented local playwright’s script to the stage in a dinner theater environment is a new experience for me that has me bursting with anticipation. Each rehearsal unveils the artful pieces of this show, which when combined as a whole, I am certain will leave audiences grinning and wanting more.”

Take home message: “‘Critics’ Choice’ is the first comic play that I’ve directed. When Pat presented the opportunity, I was hesitant, knowing that getting an audience to laugh is not as easy as people might think it is,” said director Barbara Laedtke. “Doing comedy is hard but when I heard Pat’s play read out loud for the first time, I knew that the script would give some of our experienced community theatre actors the device they needed to play and be outrageous.

Submitted by Waupaca Community Theatre director Barbara Laedtke.

More From Forbes

The best u.s. airlines in 2024—according to a new report.

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The Best airlines in the U.S. is Alaska, according to a new study.

When you’re looking for flights, you’re probably most loyal to the airline that you have status with or that has a hub in your city—most often, they’re one in the same. Or, you’re looking for the best flight deals, which should be a little bit easier to come by this spring as flight costs are down 7% year-over-year. But safety, comfort, and other factors are also top of mind when it comes to booking flights, and a new study from WalletHub, a personal finance company, took those considerations and other metrics into consideration to determine the best U.S. airlines of 2024 .

Alaska Airlines is the top U.S. airline, according to the report that used 13 metrics to evaluate the nine largest carriers in the country, plus a regional carrier.

This year’s list is a shakeup from the previous two years, as Alaska has dethroned Delta as the top airline. Delta was WalletHub’s top airline in 2022 and 2023. But Alaska has been previously ranked as the best airline, taking the top spot on WalletHub’s list from 2017 to 2019 and again in 2021.

Alaska Airlines is ranked the No. 1 airline in the U.S. by WalletHub.

A budget carrier, Spirit Airlines, cracked the top 3 and was also named the safest airline. Meanwhile, Delta led in categories like reliability and comfort.

How Was the Best U.S. Airline Determined?

For its rankings, WalletHub considered factors like reliability, comfort, affordability, and safety. That’s to say the analysts considered which airlines had the lowest rates of delays and cancellations, which airlines offer the most leg room and in-flight perks like free wifi, the price of flights, and safety incidents per 100,000 flights.

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The analysts used data from the U.S. Department of Transportation. When it comes to things like flight cancellations and delays, the team collected information about each airline, but then tossed out any disruptions that were caused by weather, security, or National Aviation System-related cancellations as they’re not specific to any one carrier.

Passanger airplane flying above clouds in evening.

Categories were also weighted differently, with baggage and departures accounting for 50 points, safety counting for 35 points, and in-flight comfort counting for 15 points. Within each category, points were assigned — i.e. in the comfort category, leg room got a max score of 2 points.

Ahead, we dive into the ratings from WalletHub, which includes best overall, most comfortable , safest, and the most budget-friendly.

What are the Best Airlines in the U.S.?

An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 landing at Portland International Airport at dusk.

Here are the top airlines, according to the study findings from WalletHub:

WalletHub's list of Best airlines in 2024.

No. 1: Alaska Airlines

No. 2: SkyWest Airlines

No. 3: Spirit Airlines

No. 4: Delta Airlines

No. 5: United Airlines

No. 6: JetBlue Airways

No. 7: Hawaiian Airlines

No. 8: American Airlines

No. 9: Frontier Airlines

No. 10: Southwest Airlines

What are the Most Reliable Airlines in the U.S.?

A Boeing 767 passenger aircraft of Delta airlines arrives from Dublin at JFK International Airport ... [+] in New York as the Manhattan skyline looms in the background on February 7, 2024. (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP) (Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images)

WalletHub analysts say Delta had the lowest rates of cancellations, delays, mishandled luggage, and denied boardings, which earned the airline the top rank in this category.

No. 1: Delta Airlines

No. 3: Alaska Airlines

No. 4: United Airlines

No. 5: Southwest Airlines

No. 6: Spirit Airlines

No. 7: JetBlue Airways

No. 8: Hawaiian Airlines

No. 9: American Airlines

No. 10: Frontier Airlines

What are the Safest Airlines in the U.S.?

Spirit Airlines is the safest airline, according to WalletHub, because it had a low number of incidents per 100,000 flight operations, no fatalities, and fewer than 15 people injured in the last five years. The airline's relatively new fleet of aircrafts also helped boost its score.

No. 1: Spirit Airlines

No. 2: Alaska Airlines

No. 3: Frontier Airlines

No. 4: SkyWest Airlines

No. 5: American Airlines

No. 6: Delta Airlines

No. 9: United Airlines

What are the Most Affordable Airlines in the U.S.?

Los Angeles, CA - April 04: A Spirit Airlines jet taxis at Los Angeles International Airport where ... [+] travelers are getting a window seat view of wildflower fields blooming between the runways at the airport on Thursday, April 4, 2024 in Los Angeles, CA. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

For this ranking, WalletHub analysts looked at the passenger revenue per available seat mile. On the low end, Spirit’s was 5.23 cents per mile and on the high end, American Airlines’ rate was 16.15 cents per mile.

No. 2: Frontier Airlines

No. 3: SkyWest Airlines

No. 4: Alaska Airlines

No. 5: JetBlue Airways

No. 6: Hawaiian Airlines

No. 7: Southwest Airlines

No. 8: United Airlines

No. 9: Delta Airlines

No. 10: American Airlines

What are the Most Comfortable Airlines in the U.S.?

Tail with the logo of JetBlue, Airbus A320 passenger aircraft of the low-cost airline as seen at the ... [+] tarmac and jet bridges of LaGuardia Airport in New York City. (Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

WalletHub considered things like in-flight entertainment options, snacks and drink availability, leg room for the comfort category.

No. 1 (Tie): Delta Airlines

No. 1 (Tie): JetBlue Airways

No. 2 (Tie): Alaska Airlines

No. 2 (Tie): American Airlines

No. 2 (Tie): Southwest Airlines

No. 3: United Airlines

No. 4: Hawaiian Airlines

No. 5: Spirit Airlines

No. 6: Frontier Airlines

Note: SkyWest, a regional carrier, wasn’t included because it serves other major airlines, which dictates what in-flight services and amenities are provided.

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Here’s your fashion horoscope for what to wear this Taurus season

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We find ourselves in that time of year dedicated to the most sensuous and worldly of the earth signs — that is, Taurus season. We are so grateful for our baby bulls, because they remind us that food, drink, sex and money exist to be experienced in all their glory. And what better way to indulge in all these things than by traveling? Liberate your carefully selected and impeccably preserved vintage designer purse strings (we’re talking Taurus, after all) and go somewhere.

The ritual of travel is as visceral as it is spiritual. It’s the sweat collecting under your collar while you speed-walk to your gate (just to make sure it’s there, right?) as much as it is a 4 a.m. kiss on a starry beach accessible only by motorcycle. And the ritual before the ritual — packing — becomes a delicate, fraught dance of selection, a personal curatorial Everest that requires the traveler to dream, first and foremost, of how rainy the breeze might be on the way up the Eiffel Tower, how they might dress for both a rooftop dinner and a volcanic hike just outside San Salvador, if they’ll long for a stiletto boot at the Beijing opera or be too entranced by the show to care that they brought the flats instead. The careful balance of environmental factors in wardrobe selection, however, comes secondary to the crown jewel of functionality: the all-purpose travel jacket .

You could subscribe to holiday gift-giving. Or you can move different like Goth Shakira

The digital director is known for their sharp observations of the world around us and worlds beyond us. The rest of us just want to follow along.

Dec. 4, 2023

Trip jacket selection is an art and a science, best done elegantly, with attention paid to form, function, aesthetics and viability — as a pillow when folded into fourths or eighths on a long-haul flight. It should be able to take you to a museum and a visit to the botanical gardens with street food in hand on the same day. For this, may I suggest pet-tree-kor’s Green Helicteres Isora Jacket . The Shanghai-based imprint’s name is a nod to “petrichor,” a functionally and mystically perfect word that exists solely to describe the divine perfume that greets your nostrils after a rain (a smell that, allegedly, humans can detect more astutely than a shark’s nose can detect blood).

This garment, rendered in a tweed blend with a gorgeously mossy sheen, is both architectural in its structure and fluid in its silhouette. It looks at once inviting and familiar — almost like your most gallant grandfather’s jacket from the days he used to go out dancing with your grandma — and polished and elegant. It wouldn’t look out of place in a cozy diner on a rainy night in San Francisco’s Chinatown or on a dewy morning at the Rhode Island beach house of your friend with generational wealth. The shade of the jacket is an oft-underrated neutral, pairing nicely with virtually any other piece in your suitcase, maybe even amethyst or royal blue too. The Helicteres isora, the jacket’s namesake, is a vibrant plant from northern Oceania whose leaves dry in tawny-green curlicues, like nature’s fractals.

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And nature’s most esoteric fractal you shall be in your pet-tree-kor travel jacket, cruising through the liminal space of LAX on the way to your next adventure. Does your manic pixie dream girl complex fantasize about an ethereal-looking stranger mesmerized in reverie as they gaze upon the dapples of fluorescent Tom Bradley terminal lights reflecting off this sumptuously swamp-hued fabric? Mine too. For all the grounding and presence that resets our nervous systems, our earthly vessels would be naught without the dream of a shimmery green.

Goth Shakira is a digital conjurer based in Los Angeles.

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Watch CBS News

U.S. issues travel warning for Israel with Iran attack believed to be imminent and fear Gaza war could spread

By Debora Patta , Tucker Reals

Updated on: April 13, 2024 / 5:25 PM EDT / CBS News

Update: Iran launched drone attacks against Israel on Saturday. Read CBS News'  latest coverage here .

Tel Aviv  — Israel is bracing for a worst-case scenario that U.S. officials believe could materialize within just hours — the possibility of a direct attack on Israeli soil by Iran in retaliation for a strike almost two weeks ago that killed seven Iranian military officers. Iran has vowed to take revenge for Israel killing its commanders, who were hit by an April 1 strike on the Iranian embassy in Syria's capital.

Two U.S. officials told CBS News that a major Iranian attack against Israel was expected as soon as Friday, possibly to include more than 100 drones and dozens of missiles aimed at military targets inside the country. Sources have told CBS News the retaliation could include attacks carried out both by Iranian forces, and proxy groups around the region that it has been funneling additional arms to for weeks.  

The officials said it would be challenging for the Israelis to defend against an attack of that magnitude, and while they held out the possibility that the Iranians could opt for a smaller-scale attack to avoid a dramatic escalation, their retaliation was believed to be imminent. 

Asked Friday how imminent he believes an attack is, President Biden responded, "I don't want to get into secure information, but my expectation is sooner than later." The president urged Iran not to move forward, saying his message to Tehran was: "Don't."

Tehran has not indicated publicly how or when it will return fire, so it's unclear how far Iran's leaders will go. If they decide to carry out a direct attack on Israel, there's fear it could blow Israel's ongoing war against Iranian ally Hamas up into a much wider regional conflict.

With the Iranian retaliation expected at any time, the U.S. State Department on Thursday warned Americans in Israel not to travel outside major cities, which are better protected from incoming rocket fire by the country's Iron Dome missile defense system. The latest guidance noted that travel by U.S. government employees in Israel could be further restricted with little notice as things develop in the tinderbox region.

"Whoever harms us, we will harm them," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Thursday as he visited troops at an Israel Defense Forces airbase. "We are prepared … both defensively and offensively."

On Saturday, all U.S. embassies in the Middle East were put on high alert and required to hold emergency action committee meetings. Diplomats in Lebanon and Israel were specifically told not to travel to certain areas within those countries.

Sima Shine, a security expert and former official with Israel's national intelligence agency Mossad, told CBS News it was a dangerous moment for the region, and the "most worried" she has been. She said anxiety over an all-out war was likely just as high "on both sides, in Israel and in Iran."

If Iran does choose to strike Israel directly, it could involve a complex missile and drone attack similar to the one Iranian forces launched against a Saudi oil facility in 2019 .

"They will try to do it on the military or some military asset," Shine predicted. "But the question will be the damage. If there would be many injured people, killed or injured … I think it has the potential for a huge escalation."

Shine stressed, however, that she still believes neither side actually wants a regional conflict.

U.S. "really trying to avoid war"

The U.S. sent a senior general to Israel this week to coordinate with the close American ally on any response it might make to an Iranian attack. Speaking Friday on "CBS Mornings," America's top military officer said, "we're really trying to avoid war."

"This is part of the dialogue that I have with my counterparts within the region, to include the Israeli chief of defense, who I talked to yesterday," said Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr., adding that the U.S. military was "doing things not only to prevent a war, but at the same time, one of my primary things is to make sure all the forces in the region are protected."

"My role, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is to plan and prepare," Brown said. "That's one thing we do very well."

Brown's Israeli counterpart, Chief of the General Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, "completed a comprehensive situational assessment on the readiness of the IDF for all scenarios," Israel's military said Friday. 

"The IDF is very strongly prepared, both offensively and defensively, against any threat," Halevi was quoted as saying in the statement. "The IDF continues to monitor closely what is happening in Iran and different arenas, constantly preparing to deal with existing and potential threats in coordination with the United States Armed Forces." 

The IDF said the visiting U.S. general, Central Command chief Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, was taking part in the IDF's situational assessment.

The dilemma for Iran, said Israeli expert Shine, is to figure out how to deliver its promised response to Israel's attack in Syria, but in a way that does not lead to further escalation. Likewise, Shine said Israel could choose to show restraint when it responds to whatever Iran eventually does.

If either side gets the balance wrong, the consequences for the region, and even the world, could be dire.

Weijia Jiang, David Martin, Margaret Brennan and Olivia Gazis contributed reporting.

• Middle East
• Benjamin Neta​nyahu

Debora Patta is a CBS News foreign correspondent based in Johannesburg. Since joining CBS News in 2013, she has reported on major stories across Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Edward R. Murrow and Scripps Howard awards are among the many accolades Patta has received for her work.

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