Constructing a story

It seems, regular reader, as if Real Life (tm) is going to be a bit of a nuisance and cause a little disruption to my blog writing in the coming weeks. There’s a small life event imminent that I am told takes precedence and in the interest of retaining full mobility in all of my limbs I have determined that the writing may have to be done only as and when I am able. In secret. Whilst behind hard cover. But isn’t that how all the best marriages work?

So, this week I have dug into my archives and found a piece of work that I produced whilst on a residential writing course a few years ago. 

The brief was to come up with the idea for a story and not write it, but to identify the Main Character, the Secondary Characters and some minor Characters, articulate the Point of Change (the event that sets all other events in the story in motion), what the Obstacles (major and minor) are and how they can be resolved, and finally to give a brief rundown of the Resolution. The only part to be written in full was the final scene.

Here’s what I came up with…

Time travel

Main character

Alex Burroughs, 27, Research Scientist – discover the secrets of the universe

Secondary characters

Rupert Mansfield, 59, Senior Research Scientist – gruff, two-faced, opponent

Tanya Reynolds, 31, Research Scientist – supporter

Uncle Albert, 73, retired, wealthy – supporter

Minor characters

Alex's mum – doesn't understand but puts him in touch with Uncle Albert

Andrew, research scientist – Rupert's lackey, doesn't like Alex

Pizza delivery guy – gets to know Alex quite well, light relief

Security guard – prevents Alex from getting into the lab

Point of change

Alex discovers a solution to the equations governing the theory of relativity that allows time travel and it appears that it would be possible to construct a machine using these principles to shift a human being through time.

Apple unveiled the new iWatch and the fanboys went wild.

Obstacles

Main conflict - Rupert verifies the equations but announces the discovery as his own. Alex objects and is summarily dismissed for trumped up reasons.

Obstacle – Alex is determined to continue his research and follow up on his discovery, but he doesn't have the resources and is shunned by the scientific community.

Resolution – Uncle Albert provides the money for Alex to go it alone and through his contacts can gain access to the necessary equipment.

Obstacle – Alex and Tanya have a romantic history that didn't work out. He still loves her, but she believes the lies that Rupert has told and sides against Alex.

Resolution – Tanya comes to realise that Rupert does not fully understand the science involved and little clues point to the fact that the discovery was actually made by Alex.

Obstacle – A race to build the machine. Rupert has the backing of the lab, the scientific community and the general public. The first to give a working demonstration of the machine will go down in history alongside Galileo, Newton and Einstein.

Resolution – Against the odds, both machines are finished at the same time as Tanya has played saboteur to delay the completion of Rupert's machine.

Resolution

Both parties have tested the time travel machines using light beams, with success. Alex wants more testing but Rupert decides to travel himself at a press conference to make sure he is first. Alex realises one of the implications of the equations during further testing and stops his experiments, but he doesn't think Rupert will be aware of them. The press conference is due to start in an hour. History is about to be made.

Alex rushes to the lab to warn Rupert. His calls are being ignored. Security has instructions to stop Alex from interfering. The scene is set. The machine is set for 5 minutes in the future. Rupert should disappear and reappear in 5 minutes. Alex screams for him to stop, being restrained by the security guards as the world looks on. Rupert pushes the button...and vanishes.

The world holds it's breath. 5 minutes counts down. Nothing. Alex walks away, head down, knowing what has happened.

10 minutes. Nothing. Uproar at the lab. The media are speculating. Tanya still there.

15 minutes. Nothing. Tanya has chased out and found Alex by the river, looking up at the stars. She asks him to explain – what does he know?

       He laughed and looked down at his hands. 'It's my fault. The answer was always there but I missed it.'

       'What? What did you miss? I've looked at the equations and everything, everything, says that time travel can be achieved. People have spent months proving your theory is right. Hell, even your tests showed it was working.' She put her hand on his arm and her voice softened. 'What is it?'

       He met her eye for the first time. 'In the tests we used light.'

       'Yeah?'

       'Light has a particular property. It travels at the speed of light. It was in motion when it was sent through time.'

       'I don't understand.'

       'The theory of relativity states that at the speed of light objects gain mass because they cannot exceed the speed of light – we know that light itself doesn't do this. Some people have theorised that light is a special case...' He paused, waiting for her to fill in the blanks. She didn't disappoint.

       'Light doesn't gain mass, it occupies all points at the same time.'

       'Exactly.'

       'So?'

       'So when we sent it through time it disappeared. When it came back it simply popped back into existence at the point that we expected because it already existed there. Call it quantum entanglement.'

       'With you so far.'

       'That is only the case with light.'

       'Stop stalling. What are you trying to say?'

       His hand crept up and covered hers. 'The equations are correct. Time travel does occur. I have no doubt about that.' His eyes drifted up to the stars. 'What I didn't see is that to travel in that dimension, the time dimension, all movement in the other three dimensions is stopped. Absolutely stopped.'

       'Ok. So Rupert should have just reappeared at the exact spot that he left,' she said.

       'That's just the thing.' He looked back at her. 'He did.'

       'What?' Then her eyes widened as it dawned on her what he was saying. 'No,' she whispered.

       'Yes. Rupert stopped moving in the three dimensions of space so that he could travel 5 minutes in time.' They looked up at the stars together this time, hands clasped. 'But the Earth, the solar system and the galaxy just kept on moving.'