Thread: Time periods- need some serious help

ok i need some serious help, im trying to figure out which time period would be idea for my character to achieve her goal in. I dont know whether to do it in one time period or a series of four different ones. and what are some time periods that would be cool? So far i think western and medevil are interesting.

Definitely four. No doubt about it. I suggest including southern with your two. Someone else can come up with another one.

What is your character's goal. When I think of different historical eras, I think of technology. What technology do you want available or not available to your character? I suppose you could also consider what level of political, economic, or social progress do you want your character to interact in. C.M.

her goal is to forge a halo back together, it needs to be as difficult as possible. the story is set in modern times and shes getting sent back into time to x y and z time periods

How can your character exist in four different time periods? Time travel just so that you get to write about more than one historical era sounds like a really bad idea to me. I would choose just one and do it well (meaning lots of research).

Originally Posted by KissMySass

her goal is to forge a halo back together, it needs to be as difficult as possible. the story is set in modern times and shes getting sent back into time to x y and z time periods

Well then, it can't be one time period then, can it?

Originally Posted by KissMySass

medevil

medieval = medi + eval
from medium aevum (in latin)

Sorry, I know it's rude, but I can't let that go uncorrected, especially from someone who wants to write a story in that setting. (It's also a very broad setting -- you'll have to do some work to narrow it down a bit.)

Without more information about your story, I can't give any other help. The settings should flow naturally from the characters and the conflict (which should flow naturally from the setting, etc).

The Middle Ages were a very spiritual time, so it's plausible your character might have go back there to acquire tools, skills, or knowledge that were available in the Middle Ages that have since been lost. The west might have black smithing knowledge or technology if your character is going to "forge" her halo back together. One of the more interesting periods from a science and technology standpoint was the Enlightenment (1650-1800 more or less). All kinds of devices, scientific instruments, etc were being invented then.

Why don't you go back to cave men times. I've only ever read Jean M Auel's Earth Children series set in that time period, and look on the bright side: your book will almost certainly be better than that crap.

God wants my character to achieve her goal in different time periods to teach her a lesson. each piece of the halo are in these periods and she is stuck until she does so or die

Cave man times, ancient Greece or Rome, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the old west, the anti-bellum south - all of these have possibilities. The ones you choose might be determined by whatever challenges you want to present your character with. Some challenges are more prone to certain time periods. Good luck. C.M.

Ooh, how about going forward in time to a post-apocalyptic future, so she can see what the world will be like if she should fail at her task?

Four time periods; God; halo.

OK, why not set them 1000 years apart, and taking in Josh's idea, the Middle Ages, and the Western/Victorian era, that would mean for example: 45 BC, 855 AD, 1855 AD, and 2855 AD.

45 BC might be significant because that was when the Julian Calendar replaced the Roman Calendar, Julius Caesar defeated Pompey is named emperor (or dictator) for life, and was it about ten years into the 500 years of Roman rule of Britain and the persecution of the druids -

855 BC was about the time when some thought the Church was ruled by a female pope -

It also changes the date from the 11th to the 9th century, indicating that Joan reigned between Leo IV and Benedict III in the 850s. According to the Chronicon: John Anglicus, born at Mainz, was Pope for two years, seven months and four days, and died in Rome, after which there was a vacancy in the Papacy of one month. It is claimed that this John was a woman, who as a girl had been led to Athens dressed in the clothes of a man by a certain lover of hers.

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1855 was a crucial year leading to the American Civil War:

November 21 – Large-scale Bleeding Kansas violence begins with events leading to the Wakarusa War between antislavery and proslavery forces...

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2855 is certainly far enough ahead to play with post-apocalyptic regimes, and yet still well within the seven thousand and twenty years to complete the Nostradamus quatrains.

ETA: oops; quotes are from Wikipedia.