Some one stole my idea!

I had an idea for a novel about 20 years ago called the lov'ng time Or The Love in Time. The basic premise was a social sciencist travelling back to study 1920s Ireland from a thousand years in the future, meets and falls in love with the landlady of the guest house he has to stop in periodically at the end of his journey down the timeline. These stops are to allow him to acclimatise to the diseases and socialisation patterns of the period he is heading to. The idea was to have 2 chapters setting out his life and her life, and then alternating each of 11 chapters (one per visit) with her viewpoint and his viewpoint. Starting with he meeting her for the first time on his first visit where she is in her late fifties and he in mid twenties and continuing until she was about 20 and he was still in his mid twenties. The idea was that he and she get to know each other better as the other gets to know them less. Confused? I still find it hard to follow sometimes. Of course, the big problem is that the last jump he has to take will leave him spending years in a period slightly before she was born and how to end the whole story. Personally, the ending always depended on my mood. And right now I’d be inclined that he carry on as he originally intended and that he writes it all off as a fling and that she die alone and miserable. Oddly enough that was my humour when I first mapped it out and I was encouraged to leave it as a bitter ending by someone who I subsequently found out had been involved with someone I was smitted with at the time. Strange advice to get, I work on something bitter and twisted and one of the people who had me in the bitter and twisted mood advising me that this is the way to go!.

Tomorrow, I might prefer the heroic answer which is….

If someone asks for it I’ll tell you. Otherwise, it is best left to the imagination . Which is another ending idea too. you are left wondering what choice they make. Of course as the writer you really can't leave it unknown in your own head. It would drive me nuts not to know.

Here is the printed version of what seems on the surface to be similar to my idea.

The Time Travellers Wife

Steal my precious will ya, Ms. Niffenegger?