Novel / Literary fiction, time travel
When I Was Old
An old man who can visit his own past can't stop trying to fix it, and every fix costs more than the last.
- Status
- Planned. First chapter not started.
- Length
- Nothing drafted yet
- This draft
- First draft, June 2026
An older man can travel into his own past. At first he only watches the key moments of his younger life, sure that if he stepped in he could make it better. So he steps in, small things first: money left where his younger self will find it, fights headed off before they start. All the while he's losing his grip on the present he actually lives in.
On one of those trips he meets a woman who is kind, free-spirited and very much in the present, and she tells him plainly to stop rewriting history. He falls in love with her anyway, and he has to choose between staying with her in the past and going home.
- A prologue, five chapters and an epilogue, in four movements.
- The time travel is left unexplained on purpose. It's dreamlike, not technical.
- The one rule that matters: watching slides into meddling, and meddling ripples.
- Influences: The Time Traveler's Wife, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Butterfly Effect and Arrival.
- The four main characters still need names before the first page.
Nothing drafted yet. This is where they'll show up as I write them, so check back.
Revision notes8 open
- bibleThe four main characters have no names
Every document refers to them by role: the older traveler, the younger traveler, the love interest and the kind woman. The public post says they'll need names before a first page.
- bibleA device, or no mechanism at all
The bible says the time travel is deliberately unexplained and dreamlike. The earlier notes file says he "uses a device or method", and the references file files it under a "Time Travel Device" heading while also saying it's never fully explained. Decide whether there's a physical device in the story at all.
- bibleIs she his first love?
Everywhere else the love interest is a woman the older man meets on a trip to the past. The notes file calls her "his first love", which suggests his younger self knew her too. That changes the whole triangle between the two selves and her; decide whose relationship it is.
- structureThe father's death has no chapter
The plot and the bible's Act III say the older man's meddling caused both the woman's death and his father's. The chapter outline's Chapter 4 only covers her death. Decide whether the father stays in the story and where that realization lands.
- structureThe stay-or-go choice is never resolved
Act II sets up a choice between staying with her in the past and returning to his own time, but no document says what he chooses, or where he is (past or present) when the kind woman finds him. The outline needs that answer before Chapter 4.
- structureWhere the title line lands
The key line, "That was a different me, that was when I was old," is described as the moment he accepts his mistakes, but the chapter outline doesn't place it, and it doesn't say who he says it to. It could close Chapter 5 or the epilogue.
- bibleNo years, ages or places yet
None of the documents says when the older man lives, which years of his youth he visits, how old either self is, or where any of it happens.
- structureThe README describes a different book
The project folder is filed as a memoir, and its README describes "a memoir exploring the paradox of feeling old when young and young when old". Every planning file and the bible describe a time-travel novel. The README should be updated to match.
Version history1 draft
Current · June 2026
First draft
Not started yet. The plan is an outline, a character list and a story bible.