Fictional Fixation

Prompt of the Day:
In a world where time travel is possible but heavily regulated, your protagonist is an ordinary citizen who has just received an unexpected visit from a future version of themselves. This older version claims to have traveled back in time to stop a catastrophic event—a war, a disaster, or a personal tragedy—that will occur in the protagonist’s near future. However, the future version warns that every action taken to prevent the catastrophe will come with unintended consequences. They urge the protagonist to make a choice: allow the event to happen and preserve the timeline, or intervene and risk altering the course of history in ways that could lead to unforeseen dangers. As your protagonist grapples with the weight of their decision, they must confront their own fears, desires, and moral compass. What do they truly want for their future, and how far are they willing to go to rewrite it?

Tips for the Prompt:

1. Time Travel Rules:
   Since this is a time travel story, the rules around it should be clear, even if they are not immediately explained in detail. Time travel should have its limitations and consequences, such as limited ability to change the past, a strict law enforcement agency monitoring temporal disruptions, or a mysterious organization preventing time meddling. The future version of the protagonist may offer cryptic clues about the rules, keeping the mystery intact while hinting at how delicate the timeline really is.
2. The Older Version of the Protagonist:
   The older version of the protagonist is a key character. They should feel familiar but altered in profound ways. Perhaps their personality is more jaded or hardened, and they carry the emotional baggage of knowing how the protagonist’s life plays out. This character may be a mix of mentor and warning figure, urging their younger self to make difficult decisions. Their motivations can be ambiguous—do they truly care about the protagonist’s well-being, or are they trying to rewrite history for their own reasons?
3. Moral Dilemmas:
   The core of this prompt is the moral dilemma: intervene to change the future, or let events unfold naturally. As your protagonist weighs their options, they should feel torn between personal desires and the greater good. What is the right thing to do when your actions could potentially lead to worse outcomes? These questions should challenge the protagonist’s values and force them to grow throughout the story.
4. Consequences of Time Travel:
   Time travel often comes with unintended consequences. Each change to the past creates ripples that can have far-reaching impacts. Perhaps small changes seem harmless at first, but they build into something much larger. The protagonist should experience these shifts in real time, facing a rapidly changing world as a result of their decisions. The consequences should feel inevitable, as if no action is without a cost.
5. Unraveling the Catastrophe:
   The event the protagonist must prevent can be both personal and large-scale, such as a family tragedy or a global disaster. Unraveling it can involve investigation, puzzle-solving, and uncovering hidden truths. The protagonist will need to gather information, piece together the future’s fragmented warnings, and navigate through a web of lies and confusion. What seems like an obvious choice might not be so simple after all.
6. The Stakes of History:
   As the protagonist gets closer to making their choice, they should realize the immense weight of the decision they’re about to make. They are not just altering their own future, but potentially the fate of others. This awareness should create tension, as the protagonist must consider how their actions may impact their loved ones and the world at large.
7. The Final Choice:
   The story should build toward the protagonist’s final decision. Will they allow the event to unfold as it was meant to, accepting the future they have seen and the consequences that come with it? Or will they make a bold choice to intervene and risk everything to change their fate? The ending could be tragic, redemptive, or bittersweet, but it should leave readers with a sense of how time, choice, and destiny are intertwined.

This prompt is perfect for writers who enjoy exploring time travel, moral complexity, and character-driven stories. It combines speculative fiction with emotional depth and offers a rich canvas for examining the consequences of tampering with time. If you love writing about fate, choice, and the paradoxes of time, this is your prompt! Happy writing!