Future plans... Thoughts on Time Travel story

I'm just gonna simply ask for advice. Planning a time travel story on top of existing projects in the backlog.
I already made the framework, already made the plot, characters, and the intersections/themes.

With that said, even though it's only in its initial stage, I can already tell that, as is, it is much less compared to previous projects, so, I'm either doing something wrong or missing something entirely. It could be that I focused too much on the system itself, and just don't know how to make it really emotional (for the reader), or it could be that the basic principle of reason is flawed. MC goes back in time to save one person, and yeah, that how it starts, but the issue is finding different motivation outside of that, for the other characters' and their alternate iterations. it's not bad, but far from a masterpiece.
How do others tackle this beast?

I tackled it by writing two chapters ... and then putting it on a back burner for ... almost a year now.

When that happens, this is what I do;

My MC ventured out of his home to save some kidnapped kids...(that's where I started)
After saving the kids, what more? (I let him discover that there are more kids)

If he ended up saving them, then what again? (I didn't leave any clue for him to find them, so he was forced by some big powers to fight in their battleground to get the clues)

After getting the clues, I didn't let him directly save them (he discovered that there is actually more to the kidnapping. A very influential figure was behind it, and the kids were worth much more than he thought. And the journey was very long. During the journey, he encountered many obstacles that made him consider giving up, but the thrill of adventure he had experienced will not allow him to go back home)


The kids were just some random characters I added for fun, but when I gave significance to them, I could write more than I initially planned.
And when I get tired of that, I give significance to another character.

And when I lose inspiration on that too, I connect the two characters together and create a big problem.

For any time travel story, please recognize that if you're going to make the plot complicated, you're going to need to world-build briefly for each time period. I'm not saying this to put you off, but it'll become very important, because in each time period, you'll need to explain why things are the way they are - be they the past or the future. *^^* This should be the aim of anyone attempting a time travel story, BTW.

LeilaniOtter said:

For any time travel story, please recognize that if you're going to make the plot complicated, you're going to need to world-build briefly for each time period. I'm not saying this to put you off, but it'll become very important, because in each time period, you'll need to explain why things are the way they are - be they the past or the future. *^^* This should be the aim of anyone attempting a time travel story, BTW.

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See, this is one of the things. I can easily reconstruct the world building for each new arc/branch. But, I guess the problem I'm already seeing is, it doesn't feel emotionally invested into some of the characters, or rather, the character doesn't seem to have much valid reason to get involved (beyond the whole ~ save the world excuse). Not sure how to add what is needed.

Lysander_Works said:

See, this is one of the things. I can easily reconstruct the world building for each new arc/branch. But, I guess the problem I'm already seeing is, it doesn't feel emotionally invested into some of the characters, or rather, the character doesn't seem to have much valid reason to get involved (beyond the whole ~ save the world excuse). Not sure how to add what is needed.

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I recommend stories like Psycho X Past for an idea of how to do it. Not one to one with what you want, but for the general time period stuff, you can get an idea of how to do it maybe.

Lysander_Works said:

See, this is one of the things. I can easily reconstruct the world building for each new arc/branch. But, I guess the problem I'm already seeing is, it doesn't feel emotionally invested into some of the characters, or rather, the character doesn't seem to have much valid reason to get involved (beyond the whole ~ save the world excuse). Not sure how to add what is needed.

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That's going to be the real challenge then - keeping the characters that matter at the forefront and decide their lives and fates apart from the secondary or extra characters. *^^* This is why I don't handle time-travel. It is way too difficult for me.

LeilaniOtter said:

That's going to be the real challenge then - keeping the characters that matter at the forefront and decide their lives and fates apart from the secondary or extra characters. *^^* This is why I don't handle time-travel. It is way too difficult for me.

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And yet it's the challenge making me want to do it more