The Loop by Mobius - Short, Sci Fi, Horror - A boy gets a visit from his future self and his life changes forever. 6 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Alright Mobius!

MASSIVE SPOILERS BELOW!!!

So I like Looper, I like it a lot, but I’m also aware that if you actually assess the time travel element and try to coherently put the story together it simply just doesn’t add up. Something similar is going on here, I think?? Maybe?!

If his mum, sorry, mom (for my American cousins) dying is what pushed him into doing this amazing stuff, then surely her death is something he hasn’t actually got to do? Unless his future self realised that in order to create the machine he’d have to travel back in time to kill his mom and create world peace. But then that’d mean that he’s created the machine regardless, and so the mother slaughter just doesn’t add up. I’m soooooo bloody confused, I could very well be wrong and so that’s why I’m utilising the Looper clause.

Just as I liked Looper I actually liked yours (potential plot holes aside). There was a tension, there were stakes in the family unit and a blood soaked love that I could get on board with. The technology was there and the horror was too, so it ticks the boxes. Maybe scratch the world peace thing, felt a bit cheesy, but that’s an easy fix.

Overall I’d say if I suspend my time travelling questions (again, I could be wrong there) then I liked it.

Well done writer, I cared and there was horrory/future stuff. Nice.

Cam

Very good writing on display here, well done. A few action blocks could be trimmed but not enough to be a bother.

As far as the story and theories, I get it but I don't either. Yes, he should have seen this coming and, seeing that he lived long enough to transport back to the future, will probably survive and be able to change events again...I would think. And why doesn't his young self remember the happenings? Was it part of the patch?

Unknowns aside, there's a lot here and with more thought, it could be ironed out.

Well done, writer!

Quoted Text A dark shape suddenly fills the gap. Joshua sees the glint of the lava lamp in an eye peering at him.

This took me three reads to figure out what I was looking at – once I figured it out I really liked the visual – somehow it needs to be clearer.

Quoted Text Similar features, same hair color, same eye color.

I would add: “as Joshua’s.

The logic at the end confused me.

SPOILER

If his Mom doesn’t die like she did – he doesn’t invent time-travel – so he comes back to kill her – but why??? Someone killed her in the first place – right? Why not just let that event take place? Maybe I’m missing something.

Good effort for the most part – I was intrigued.

THE LOOP

I like time travel movies like LOOPER, which this has shades of, but you pretty much have to hit me over the head with exposition so I can follow it.

I am also confused as to why Older Joshua has to return to the past to kill his Mom.
UNLESS, someone like Biff Tannen hijacked the time machine from Older Joshua in the future to un-kill the Mom, so the time machine would NOT get built, and there would be NO world peace.

So, in theory, that changes the future world back to a violent society and therefore gives Older Joshua a valid reason to return to the past and make sure the murder is carried out.

As for the murder ... isn't there a more humane way for older Joshua to respectfully kill Mom, rather than breaking every glass picture frame over her head?  I mean, give her a suicide gummy from the future and let her die in her sleep.

Overall, pretty good.

Just rethink the time travel stuff and give Older Joshua a justifiable reason to come back.

Thanks for entering the contest.

Good luck in the finals.

Hi writer,

Got a good old-fashioned Bootstrap Paradox going on here. Time travel, especially looping is so messy to configure properly, as in; to be properly understood, and plausible. I guess the only line that could lend credence to the plot is:

OLDER JOSHUA: “I don’t remember this. You won’t either, not really. It’ll just be a bad dream for you.”

Perhaps the whole event is locked into a memory wall/cube and protected from his waking consciousness. The drive to create time travel in his later years could be a nagging, or relentless obsession to correct the past that he may have overwritten to protect his core identity, but, only creating the events that were so traumatic in the first place… does that make sense… no? Maybe I’m way off.

One of my favorite series on Netflix is ‘Dark’ (similar time loop driven series). I’ve watched it a few times to see how they tied up all the loose ends, and I’m still amazed at the complexity, yet simplicity of the whole thing. Mind = Blown.

Anyway, I won’t read it twice, cause I think I have a firm concept of what you were going for. Well done for tackling such a twisted concept. BTW, the author name: Mobius, as in Möbius strip … clever.

This is well written and the concept, whilst not original, is well handled... until you get into the problem with these sort of scripts... the internal logic is usually wonky.

But this is a well written effort and I liked it.

Oh, God. Time travel stuff really messes with my head.

I think for emotional pull somepne else needs to be responsible for Mom's death, (an intruder) and Joshua would still have the drive to invent time-travel. I think the younger and older Joshua witnessing Mom's death would really pull at the heartstrings.

The opening is great, scary,. I'd play a bit more on that, perhaps place the intruder at that point. Just a suggestion.

I had a similar problem as Dave getting my head around the eye/lava lamp visual/line. Easy fix.

This line:

All those
people would never have been saved

--  needs more depth, or modesty, or examples, or something. Doesn't exactly endear us to Joshua, just makes him appear ironically a bit egocentric, if you know what I mean. We need to feel the good he's done, the lives he's saved. Hard task in six pages.

There's a lot to like here but it needs a bit more fleshing out emotionally.

Though this story works in a dramatic sense,  the time travel aspect has problems. In order for Joshua to invent time travel, Mom has to die. Joshua invents time travel so he can stop her murder. But he discovers he killed her when he comes back from the future. The only way he could discover that is if he, Older Joshua B, saw Older Joshua A killing Mom. But in order for Older Joshua A to come back, there had to be an earlier version of him doing the killing. As far as I can determine, there is no beginning or ending to this cycle.

So did Older Joshua kill his mother previously and if he didn't why didn't he just let things occur naturally?

Time travel stories confuse me at the best of times but I did enjoy it none the less.

Well written and a nice ending.

Well done.

Your basic time-travel short. No real new ground broken. Which is fine. It just doesn't hit as hard as it could because we've seen it before.

It was written well enough, and I enjoyed it for what it was. I just would have liked to have seen something different.

This is a good story and well told to but I don't see it fitting the requirement at all.
They wanted a gadget or something that does something - and yes he invented something to help people you said. But you just brushed over it. It wasn't about that saving device at all. It's about time travel.

The dialog has some exposition for me too especially later in the story when Older Joshua just dumps a lot of info on younger him.
But overall it reads well.

I struggled to understand this as well and I'd be interested to hear from the writer. This is basically the Edith Keeler episode of STAR TREK. In order for Earth to survive, Edith Keeler had to die. And Kirk had to prevent McCoy from saving her.

I have no issue with rewriting that in today's context from the viewpoint of the man who INVENTED time travel, however I didn't see a need for him to visit his former self, as the mom was never reported as saved.  I think the crux of the story is in this dialogue passage, but it's still not clear to me:

OLDER JOSHUA
Five years ago, I came back. And I
saw me, now, five minutes ago, just
before I came into your room. I
couldn’t understand it. So I made a
promise to myself that no matter
what, I wouldn’t do it. I could
never do it.

AJR

It reminds me on the X Files episode where the scientist comes back to stop he and his team from discovering time travel by killing them, because with time travel, there is nothing to live for because you can already know it all.

Very good and sad story, though.

Story: Time travel stories are always so difficult to review, because you want to overanalyze them to death.  For example, if he’s already invented time travel, couldn’t he then come back and NOT kill his mom? Or would that change the future and his ability to invent time travel?  Just logic issues for me is the only problem I have with this, otherwise a solid story.

Characters: Both Joshuas are pretty well-developed and I like how they play off each other.

Dialogue:  Pretty good – nothing to quibble with here.

Writing:  Solid story from beginning to end, but I really hope once this challenge is over you come back and explain the time travel logic behind this.

Meeting the challenge:  Meets the challenge.

Does this meet the criteria? I don' t think so. Sci-fi = yes but I doubt time travel will be invented in the next 50 years but maybe it will? Budget - Yes, easily. Horror - No. Murder, even the murdering of a parent isn't horror.

As for the story, it's well written and easy to follow. A very familiar tale which works on an emotional level as we feel for both versions of Joshua and his dilemma.

As with all time travel stories it struggles to work on a logical level as who killed the parent the first time around to drive Joshua to invent time travel? It's the old self-fulfilling prophecy thing which I always think is a bit of a get out of jail free card for writers.

Another bit of convenience is the 'forgetting' aspect which is used to fill a plot hole and yet there is no reason for Joshua to forget who killed his mother.

There's an expositional conversation in the middle which feels a little false, yet overall the story works for what it is and is quite decent.

-Mark

There’s something touching about this script - an older version helping the younger

But for me a few things need a tidy.

The dialogue is exposition heavy with lots of explaining, began to feel like a lecture. Hard to pull off when there’s a lot to explain, so a few more pages would help.

I can’t imagine that the invention of time travel is all great - in favt I wrote a script about the darker implications (ultimate weapon) so it sounds a bit like a sales ad in places

But I could picture the Older version  coming back to tweak something in his younger life, like getting the girl  with a view to breaking the machine after, only for it to go wrong


All the best

I don't have anything to add that hasn't already been said, but I did enjoy it.

Really good work there writer.

A simple, fun story, professionally told. Doesn't bring much new to the table, and the tropes are definitely on the cheesy side, but the dark edge to it keeps it spinning along.

I'd like to see the script dive a little deeper and open up the possibility that its paradox dangles...that there was no original murder and no original murderer. Exploring that might take this into new territory.

Interesting story. There's nothing really "wrong" with the writing, it's just not very visual. Made for a bit of a slow read.

Still, creative and it hits all the marks of the OWC criteria. Really good work here.

I see some people say it was hard to understand. Sorry but I feel the need to chime in:
I did understand it.

So, the time machine inventor went back in time once (and hence the dialog about going there 5 years from "now"). He saw that the boy was not moving towards making the time machine. That's why he decided to go back again, but earlier in time and kill the mother.

But the writer will do the better job at this. He just can't right now and I know how bad it feels lol.

As you might know, I was late to the party. I had this nugget of an idea right away, but I couldn't find an ending that satisfied me. Time travel stories are messy. It only sort of came together on deadline day and I wrote 80% of it in the two hours before submitting.

I pictured a couple of ways this time loop might have happened, but the one that rings most true to me is he actually did save his mother from being murdered by coming back in time, and loses his reason to invent time travel at all. He returns to a horrible, hopeless future, the only one who remembers a different timeline, and realizes he has to invent time travel to prevent this future from happening. Still armed with his knowledge of time travel, he rebuilds his machine. He goes back to the past, but he's going back from a different future, a future where he never went back in time because his mother was never killed. He can't stop himself from saving her because he was never there, and the murderer isn't there either because that event had to change for this future to exist. The way I see it, time repairs itself to resolve paradoxes, and alternate futures exist based on different events taking place, events based on decisions. So whatever the last decision was to bring the murderer into the home was changed and they never enter, allowing this alternate future to exist. So if there is no one to stop from killing his mother, he has to become the killer himself to ensure the peaceful future for all.

Obviously, there's WAY too much there for six pages. I had to be satisfied with knowing there's a way this time loop could exist, but there was no way I could explain why. I stuck to the loop itself, the self-fulfilling prophecy he's stuck in now, doomed to repeat it each time and not knowing why.

Of course, an audience wants to know why. I might return to this without the attempt at infusing horror into it, make it a sci-fi drama and see if I can figure out a way to inform the audience without completely changing the story. There's something there for a good short.

As for the whole story, it would make a cool feature, even low budget, depending on what that future looks like.

Time travel stories are messy, that's for sure. Thanks for reading and commenting.