Draft Plan For A Story #1

[Arch9CivilReactor]

I am considering writing a story and found an idea I want to refine. Even though it’s not 100% of the time I tend to figure something out after sharing the idea on blogs like this.

I’m thinking of writing a story about a ‘regressor team’. Basically, 5 time loopers that all start off the story in a makeshift team but die horribly on the job. For the sake of convenience let’s call them a mercenary group of sorts in an urban fantasy.

I’ve got the personality of each character and their personal goals down but wonder if it would be excessive to force all that story in early chapters. Since this is a team story I wonder if focusing too much on the main character’s regression would take up too much chapters.

Usually, a story having one regressor alone has to deal with that character being over-informed on everything as well as skilled. If there are five of them, who may die at different times but return to the same point, wouldn’t that make them far too powerful to the point of bending one’s suspension of disbelief if they lose?

I wonder if there are any creative ways to limit the regression ability within the group without taking too much away from their character.

One of my ideas was making the entire team die if one of them dies, but that would only make them stronger since they would always be on the same page. However, if they all have different agendas and always act separately, thus dying at different times, then it might become too chaotic.

I guess someone will say that should depend on personal preference and what kind of story I’m trying to tell, but I’m interested in what kind of limitations can be put on a group shared regression ability. Random consequence? Reincarnation? What would be a fun consequence for using the regression ability?

Now that I mention it, reincarnating them in the past with their prior identity wiped would be too much… because then I’d have to build up the new identity. Also having to pick between limited time travels or the ‘infinite regression’ genre.

Maybe limited regressions is the key but idk.

What do you guys think?

 

[HouseDelarouxScribbles]

It is indeed an idea, a little odd on execution but interesting enough that I do have two major questions:

First, what is the major genre this is set in?
The way you describe it, it feels like this is an action/thriller kind of story; it feels like you are very interested in the 'concept' of 'multiple regressors'. If it is typical urban fantasy with very normal power scaling and such, wouldn't anyone with time stop powers have to make you bend the story because that would be very much unbeatable from the start?
Perhaps each regressor can have a different attitude towards their power, for example, one is more depressed like Subaru from RE:Zero, another is maniacal like Homura from Madoka, it would make the story interesting if so and open up different ways of writing. E.g One person is designated comedy relief and spouts mad scientist lines from Steins;Gate.

Second, who is the actual regressor in the team?
Almost every time travel story has only one time-traveller because multiples always cause some sort of writing problem. If all five of them are looping in time constantly, how would you tell a consistent story? Here's a simple problem to solve:

Slider A goes back in time and tells everyone about a timeline where Slider B died.
Slider B in the 'new' timeline says that actually, he went back in time because only Slider A died.
Who has the right perspective on the timeline?
This is especially complicated if their powersets differ even a little bit. A solution is to have a fixed POV for each arc, just to simplify things, though that goes back to the 'one time traveler problem'. I don't know how a reader is supposed to sit through that unless its a sort of comedy.

What it feels like is that you are looking at 'each person has an ability to cheat death'. Does it have to be time-related for each of them? Do they need to all have the same powerset of travelling back in time? Why can't they have different types of time-related powersets, like one person has literally King Crimson (erasure of consequences) while the other has Dio's The World (actual time stop)? Those are actually beatable abilities, though you would need main-character status to do so.
As a side-note, Negima 2 has done a variation of 'everyone is immortal in some way', one of the characters sets a save point like a video game, and even having a single immortal like that causes the story to descend into all sorts of terrible writing. But nobody reads Negima for the plot, so that's okay. Yours seems to be a more serious story, so I can imagine all sorts of headaches in writing it straight.

I think you do get close to something common about time-travel though; the passing on of knowledge from different timelines can be a way of 'getting stronger'. It can be both a strength and limitation in that the knowledge is not complete or that it sometimes has errors due to the bias of the viewer. Once again, the problem of clarity in story rears its head again.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

A few years ago, TNT had a series called, I think The Lazarus Project. It posited that there were some people who were sensitive to changes in the timeline, and recruited them to MAKE changes in the timeline, using technological devices that, essentially, jumped them back to a "save point."
It was cool and convoluted (sadly we lost our cable access halfway through the series and I keep forgetting to see if it turned up anywhere else since).
This sounds kind of similar (and the main villain was one of the team ... only to be replaced by another later).
The "save points" (a set time, based on GMT, but only triggered by specific events) kept the "counter looping" to a minimum (and a way to bypass this was a goal for one of the villains).

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

If you make ot a mystery genre that could be really fun.
With each having a different perspective and asymmetric knowledge of events, things could go out of wack from what they remember.

Of course, you need to figure out what the mystery is as an author first.
Maybe one or more is a traitor, maybe there is a 6th party that forced this to happen to them through some mystical and unknown power.

Mystery isn't my forte unfortunately. But I think the contrast with regression could be interesting. The characters supposedly know something, but theres still mystery for them. Maybe they have to work together to figure it out.

 

[Arch9CivilReactor]

It is indeed an idea, a little odd on execution but interesting enough that I do have two major questions:

First, what is the major genre this is set in?
The way you describe it, it feels like this is an action/thriller kind of story; it feels like you are very interested in the 'concept' of 'multiple regressors'. If it is typical urban fantasy with very normal power scaling and such, wouldn't anyone with time stop powers have to make you bend the story because that would be very much unbeatable from the start?
Perhaps each regressor can have a different attitude towards their power, for example, one is more depressed like Subaru from RE:Zero, another is maniacal like Homura from Madoka, it would make the story interesting if so and open up different ways of writing. E.g One person is designated comedy relief and spouts mad scientist lines from Steins;Gate.

Second, who is the actual regressor in the team?
Almost every time travel story has only one time-traveller because multiples always cause some sort of writing problem. If all five of them are looping in time constantly, how would you tell a consistent story? Here's a simple problem to solve:

Slider A goes back in time and tells everyone about a timeline where Slider B died.
Slider B in the 'new' timeline says that actually, he went back in time because only Slider A died.
Who has the right perspective on the timeline?
This is especially complicated if their powersets differ even a little bit. A solution is to have a fixed POV for each arc, just to simplify things, though that goes back to the 'one time traveler problem'. I don't know how a reader is supposed to sit through that unless its a sort of comedy.

What it feels like is that you are looking at 'each person has an ability to cheat death'. Does it have to be time-related for each of them? Do they need to all have the same powerset of travelling back in time? Why can't they have different types of time-related powersets, like one person has literally King Crimson (erasure of consequences) while the other has Dio's The World (actual time stop)? Those are actually beatable abilities, though you would need main-character status to do so.
As a side-note, Negima 2 has done a variation of 'everyone is immortal in some way', one of the characters sets a save point like a video game, and even having a single immortal like that causes the story to descend into all sorts of terrible writing. But nobody reads Negima for the plot, so that's okay. Yours seems to be a more serious story, so I can imagine all sorts of headaches in writing it straight.

I think you do get close to something common about time-travel though; the passing on of knowledge from different timelines can be a way of 'getting stronger'. It can be both a strength and limitation in that the knowledge is not complete or that it sometimes has errors due to the bias of the viewer. Once again, the problem of clarity in story rears its head again.

Thank you for getting into the knitty gritty about this. I think you have a point. Maybe a trigger condition for the Regression and knowledge should be separated. That way the limited regressions can have a meaningful impact.

A thought occurred to me that maybe if I slowly revealed that the other characters also regressed but without the MCs knowledge, it would make for a compelling Mystery in trying to figure out what happened to them while the MC was in a death state. After looking at @Princess_Azmiranda_Myrian Comment I’m becoming more intrigued about that idea.

If I set the trigger for the Regression happening only when the ‘team’ dies, it should generate some consistency in that they will all return to the same point in the past at the same time. The only difference is those who lived longer would have more knowledge about the future events.

If I do this, I can probably go one of two routes.

One would be to have the main character ‘die early’ so his teammates are the ones with the scattered knowledge. Since the trigger mechanism will likely be hard for anyone to figure out early on, them not sharing future knowledge would make some sense.

The other would be having the main character ‘die last’ which will make him the most informed about the future events. Probably needed if he wants to take control of his team and actually do something proactively instead of being chaotic.

@CharlesEBrown gave a good idea to a villain in this scenario sensing their loops and interfering based on counter examination. Maybe like Omniscient Reader Viewpoint where prophets are comparing the first timeline with the new one.

I’m definitely fleshing out this idea since it sounds so interesting. I guess the question to ask now would be how to keep the villains relevant and not too OP. Considering if they knew only the first timeline then the MC would easily beat them after losing one regression (since either the prophet adapts by seeing too much or cant because they see too little).

Maybe making the villain simply be normal like in Tokyo Revengers is the way to go idk.

Going to ruminate on that.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

@CharlesEBrown gave a good idea to a villain in this scenario sensing their loops and interfering based on counter examination. Maybe like Omniscient Reader Viewpoint where prophets are comparing the first timeline with the new one.

At that point, it sounds like The Sacred Timeline from the Loki series on Disney+

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

Conspiracies and time regression has made me think of Steins Gate, and I didn't even realize it until now.