Time Machine

“We can see the past, but we can’t change it.  We can change the future, but we can’t see it.” That’s a quote from an upcoming book by that brilliant new writer Cliff Tomaszewski. I’ll identify the book title at a later date.

So what’s all this talk about the past and the future, you ask? Well I was just thinking about a time machine that I have access to. No this one is different from the one that the Doctor owns in that British science fiction series that’s been around for almost fifty years. [Side Note #1: This series, which I first started watching back in the seventies, is a perfect example of what can be done with good stories, and a minimum use of special effects. Not that I’m against special effects in movies, but I find the story to be much more interesting than what the movie people use to illustrate it. Sorry, but this is true even for my favorite author’s stories about the boy wizard. The books were so much better than the movies, especially the last one.]

Neither is it related to the one created by H.G. Wells, although that one was spectacular. It did, however, violate the rules stated in the quote that opened up this piece. We can indeed change the future, but we can’t see what those changes will accomplish. [Side Note #2: Don’t believe me? Then think about all of those fore thinking people who saved a lot so that they would have money for their later years. Of course they knew that money will suffer from the effects of inflation, so they invested their savings in rock solid stocks like Enron. Too conservative perhaps, so they took occasional fliers on new up and coming stocks like “Face Book.” If they could see the future, would they have picked those stocks? Probably not.] [Side Note #3: Don’t get the idea that I’m against saving for the future. But since we can’t see the future, from our comfortable arm chairs in the present, we have to apply the rule that considers that inability. Restaurants have to consider “Location, location, location.” Investing in the stock market requires “Diversification, diversification, diversification.”]

When is he going to get back to that time machine? Well, there’s no time like the present. This time machine is controlled by anyone, and everyone, who has ever written a story. If the hero of your tale is fighting the bad guy, and the villain pulls out a ray gun that will dissolve the hero and the girl who he is protecting, then the hero must activate his personal super-duper nuclear powered electronic shielding devise. But wait a minute. When you wrote about the equipment the hero had grabbed to go on this adventure, you never mentioned the shielding device.

Here’s where the time machine comes into play. For some, this time machine will be activated by an eraser and a pencil.  For others, like me for instance, I have my computer go back to that page where the hero is gathering his equipment, and add in a last minute thought that he might encounter a force so diabolically strong that he can’t overcome it by him, or her, self. So he slips the shielding device into the equipment bag, and suddenly he is back in the future and he has the answer to the villain’s ray gun. It’s just that simple.

Of course for those foolish enough to deal with only historically accurate information their hero is going to be toast, or maybe a puddle of goo.

So if you want to be able to have a time machine that will allow you to change the future, by changing the past, start writing. Then like Wells and Rowling, and yes even me, you too can face problems in the future that you can solve by traveling back to the past. For an interesting treatment of how time can be affected read “Time Out” by clicking on the picture on the right hand column.