Welcome back to the lab. Things have calmed down since your visit last month—I’ll tell you more about that later.
I want to get to our topic: Paradox!
I can’t think of a better way to transition into our topic than talking about the building we’re standing in. I’ve transformed the Time Travel Writing Lab into a replica of The Seattle Central Library in downtown Seattle. This library is an architectural wonder. It’s not only a prodigious 
library but it’s a magnificent work of art. Look around you. As you can see, we are standing inside of what looks to be a sculpture—a sculpture where there’s plenty of open space to meet friends, take classes, surf the web in the computer lab, and of course read books.
I’ve set up my favorite steampunk desk over here next to this angled wall of windows—I love the diamond pattern of the windows. Take a seat on one of the stools. You might remember my computer system: the AMD Ryzen Threadripper, VPN and Tor Relay…and all that.
When you make the decision to write time travel, one of the first questions you have to ask yourself is… What’s my paradox going to be? I thought it was time we did a review of some of the options.
Paradox—funny word that. Doing a quick Internet search gives us the Cambridge Dictionary definition of Paradox as: a statement or situation that may be true but seems impossible or difficult to understand because it contains two opposite facts or characteristics.
Let’s do another Internet search—going to Thesaurus.com I see where they use the words contradiction and puzzle for their two-word definition of paradox. The first four synonyms they quote for paradox are: absurdity, ambiguity, anomaly and enigma.
Why is it important to examine the word paradox? Well—I think—digging into the meaning of words can sometimes reveal a sort of DNA of the story that you will be telling. It can inform your storytelling and might guide the crafting of your time travel narrative. Paradox is so fundamental to any time travel story, and that’s why I think it’s important to understand the word.
In our very cursory exploration of the word paradox I am struck by the synonyms. I have a sort of time travel storytelling hypothesis: I think a good time travel story needs to have elements of the four synonyms that came up in a Thesaurus.com search. In my opinion, if you want your time travel writing to be interesting, entertaining or just fun, it has to be at least a little absurd, have some ambiguity, be somewhat anomalous and definitely enigmatic.
But enough of my hypothesizing. Doing another quick search, I see that The Grandfather Paradox, The Casual Loop Paradox and The Fermi Paradox are the three most popular—and one might argue the foundational paradoxes of all temporal paradoxical storytelling.
Breaking them down…
The Grandfather Paradox: Quoting Wikipedia, The Grandfather Paradox is a paradox of time travel in which inconsistencies emerge through changing the past. The name comes from the paradox’s common description: a person travels to the past and kills their own grandfather before the conception of their father or mother, which prevents the time traveler’s existence. Despite its title, the grandfather paradox does not exclusively regard the contradiction of killing one’s own grandfather to prevent one’s birth. Rather, the paradox regards any action that alters the past, since there is a contradiction whenever the past becomes different from the way it was.
The Causal Loop Paradox: Quoting from Wikipedia once again, A Causal Loop Paradox is a paradox of time travel that occurs when a future event is the cause of a past event, which in turn is the cause of the future event. Both events then exist in spacetime, but their origin cannot be determined. A causal loop may involve an event, a person or object, or information.
The Fermi Paradox: When applied to time travel, this paradox poses the question: If time travel were possible, where are all the visitors from the future? As a time travel writer, you can answer that question.
A deeper dive into time travel paradoxes will lead us to: The Ontological Paradox, the Bootstrap Paradox, the Predestination Paradox, the Polchinski Paradox, the Self-Visitation Paradox and others. Getting a clear definition for many of these can take you into a paradoxical minefield that will have you running head first into the ultimate time travel writer’s paradox: think about it—but don’t think about it!
You don’t have to limit yourself to a single paradox. I play with the Fermi and Grandfather paradoxes in my storytelling. I also think it’s fun to use paradox as a way of giving your reader a subliminal message.
That pretty much wraps up our review of paradoxes.
Oh my gosh, I almost forgot to tell you about the time travel closet. Ada got it all sorted out. She had a lot of assistance from Carl Jung and the kind people at the Netflix helpdesk—and we’ve had some very exciting visitors coming through the closet. As a matter of fact, I have one person who came through the time travel closet this morning and he’s out—I guess seeing the sights of the city. You might even say he’s taking an overview of the city.
[Ada enters the area to speak] “Excuse me Julie—we should be keeping our eye on the sky. He should be returning any time now—I’ll be back when he lands.”
Oh—thank you Ada—we’ll start watching the sky.
Okay, we need to turn our attention upward. I know it’s hard to see—it’s a beautiful bright sunny day. I’m going to move the glass ceiling out of the way, so we can get a better look. He should be coming in from the east. So, what we’re looking for is—is Iron Man. Not actually Iron Man—but it’s—it’s the suit.
I don’t see a thing. We have such a clear day. Almost no clouds in the sky. It’s a little cold with the ceiling open.
I hope he hasn’t lost his way. That shouldn’t happen. I would never imagine that happening.
He’s got to be… Oh, there—I see the gold and red of the suit against the pale blue of the sky. The sunlight is reflecting off the suit. Do you see that? Oh—Oh, here he comes—he’s coming in fast… stand back! Let’s give him plenty of landing…
[Ada comes running back into the area] “Did he crash?”
No—it was a hard landing, but he’s on his feet. Mr. Bernays, do you know how to open the faceplate?
“Ha—Ha—Ha, yes I have full command of the device. I’ve told you—please call me Edward. I apologize if I frightened you. Thank you for letting me take the suit out—it was very exhilarating.”
Of course, Edward—Ada will show you to the Red Floor where you can get out of the suit and then we can have tea and a chat before you head back.
“Wonderful—I’d enjoy a hot cup of tea.”
I’m sorry I didn’t introduce you to Edward Bernays, but the potential consequences of the Grandfather Paradox are still something that lingers in my imagination… so, I didn’t want to take any chances.
I hope this review of time travel paradoxes has given you some interesting writing craft to think about. To leave the lab, all you need to do is walk straight ahead right through the double doors.
I hope to see you next month in The Time Travel Writing Lab.
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Nicely written, Julie! I enjoyed it! My favorite handling of certain paradoxes is a deterministic closed-loop timeline. I doubt if Heinlein’s ultimate treatment of that trope (“—All You Zombies—”) will ever be outdone. Of course, that treatment does raise philosophical questions of free will, but that’s a good thing to ponder.
Hi Michael, thank you so much for taking the time to read my column and post a comment. I so much appreciate your kind words.
Yes! I think the use of paradox in time travel storytelling allows us to pose philosophical questions to readers in a comfortable, non-confrontational and entertaining way. That’s one of the primary reasons I love writing time travel.
Thanks again for your comments. I hope you’ll keep reading. Next month, I’ll be reviewing time travel sub-genres. And—I’ll be starting a casual loop of my own in the Time Travel Writing Lab.
I’m looking forward to your next month.
By the way, have you read Ryan Wasserman’s Paradoxes of Time Travel? He’s a philosophy professor at Western Washington in Bellingham. I think you’ll like it.