"Detour to the Past"
Based on the characters created by Robert Zemeckis & Bob Gale
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Synopsis: On his way back from an errand in the future, Marty accidentally crash lands in the past--1886, to be precise. With the DeLorean damaged to the point of being out of commission, Marty has no choice but to look up Doc Brown, now married to Clara for a year. The couple are also expecting their first child--Jules--at any day.
Doc starts the repairs on the time machine immediately, but still believes that Marty won't be able to go back home for at least a week. While killing time with the Browns during the course of that week, Marty hopes frantically that the baby won't be born until after his departure, since he is unsure if his presence could affect that. Things go well for most of the week--but then, just days before he is to leave, Clara suddenly goes into labor.... |
| Length: Approximately 30,000 words |
| Written: January 1997; December 1997 - March 1998 |
| Revised: March 1998 |
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Author's Notes: Those of you who have participated in the Interactive Story may notice that the first chapter looks awfully familiar. Well, what can I say? For some reason, in December 1997, I started getting ideas for this abandon story and decided to just do it. I think my story and the I.S. ventured in two entirely different directions, too. One big one--in this story, the characters never visit 2015 and stay in 1886. For some reason, I've always liked writing more about the past than the future. The time travel culture shock is more fun to play with there.
This story has been interesting to write, since it's literally been unplanned. It's the most spontaneous story I've yet written, and one that could quite possibly be about nothing, really. Reading it all completed, I was struck on how heavy it seemed on the conversational side. There isn't really any action or adventure in it. I just picked this story up to work on while I was plotting out my next one. And, before I knew it, I was swept into finishing it. I didn't feel I should put a Tannen in this, though I was tempted. But I'd been there, done that with "Return to the Past," so.... One thing that I was able to do with this story, however, is tie up a couple loose ends from "Return to the Past." Like the whole thing about Marty posing for those publicity pictures. Ah yes, the title. Well, I have trouble coming up with titles, but this one fit. I am kind of annoyed with myself in that this is something like the third BTTF story title that ends in the word "past," but my thesaurus yielded no better word than that one. So past it shall be. |
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