Writer's Story Prompt: A Twist on Time Travel

    Time travel is a common story element. When I was querying literary agents about five years ago, a lot of them seemed to hate it. I guess they had good reason; according to their blogs, time travel was one of the most popular topics in the letters they received. If I had to read, "And then Timmy finds a time machine..." about fifty times a day, I'd probably get tired of it, too. (Side note: Timmy is a nuisance anyway, and should be properly dealt with).

    Still, there's a good reason why time travel is so common in stories: it's fun! Readers and TV watchers must like it, or it wouldn't keep showing up. As the agents said, the real difficulty is finding a unique angle on it. So, for this writer's prompt, take a popular topic like time travel and brainstorm a way to make it original. Here's an idea to get you started:

    While your character is off time-traveling, the world ends. That is, the world of her / his own time. Your character no longer has a "real" time to go home to and is essentially a time refugee. What does your character do and why? Does your character travel to the moment before the world ended and save other people? Does she try to change what happened or does she believe it can't be changed?

    Have fun writing!

    -MK

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Writer Prompt: Quantum Teleportation

Quantum teleportation has been in the news a lot this week (see here, here and here). I'm not going to pretend that I understand it, but I do think it's fascinating and I love trying my hardest to grasp it. Even a daydreaming, creative writing, doodling weirdo like myself can tell that this data transfer is a major breakthrough.

So, for your writing prompt, write a story set in a world where quantum teleportation is taken for granted. That can mean anything you want: Is data received instantly or even before it was sent? Have scientists found a way to teleport people? Read about quantum mechanics or any other aspect of science that you find fascinating today and imagine a future society or alternate world where today's breakthroughs are commonplace.

-MK
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