Ideally, time travel should make sure he's even more boned than before for some reason.

 

Since everyone here seems to be suggesting what they think is ideal in a time travel story, I will advise you to completely ignore any or all of them (and this goes for my post too) if they go against the general idea of your story. Most of the don'ts suggested in this thread have been done well in some story or the other -- Backwards With Purpose, which is the best conventional time-travel fic in the fandom, does many of the things spoken against in this thread, but it executes them well, and its praise is well deserved. Obviously, the execution is the key here.

In any case, the whole time-travel thing has been already done in a million different ways, and unless you have anything new to add to it, it might not be worth writing the story. Fortunately, Harry leaving the Horcruxes alone and focusing on teenage Riddle is quite uncommon. But then, teenage Riddle is quite the degrade from the adult version of Voldemort Harry was fighting, so you must make it introduce more conflict to keep things interesting.

I would think that's where Grindelwald would come in. The whole Grindelwald War going on would make things more interesting, and has much potential to make things go wrong for Harry. You could have Harry catch Grindelwald's attention, which would mean Harry would have to fight a war on both fronts. It would make Harry's conflict with Riddle garner outside attention, and with it comes stuff like international politics, which I love. A tentative alliance with Dumbledore too, I suppose.

Alternatively, and this is purely personal preference, you could make Dumbledore an antagonist. For instance, Harry tries to kill Riddle and by some giant misunderstanding, Dumbledore believes Harry to be Grindelwald's agent sent to either recruit or kill Tom. This makes Dumbledore take Tom under his protection, and Harry now can't kill Riddle without taking on Dumbledore as well. You could play with this to make a twisted Mentor-student relationship between Tom and Albus. Just don't make Dumbledore evil or manipulative or anything like that.

Now, I've read your story Clash, and liked it for most part. The best things about Clash are its atmosphere, unique plot and the twisted Rose/Albus/Scorpius dynamics. You should focus on your strengths, and between Dumbledore, Harry, Riddle and Grindelwald, you've got quite a bit to play with here. A certain amount of mystery in the plot is appreciated as well. The action scenes in Clash aren't the best though, so you might have to work on that.

Finally, don't bash, ever. There is very little that would turn me away from a story as quickly as bashing -- whether it's character bashing or Canon bashing. If you dislike any character and its evident to your readers from your story, then you're doing things wrong.

So, yeah, hopefully I could contribute something useful. But does this mean you're abandoning Clash? As much as I would like to read the new story, I would very much prefer it if you finish Clash first. It is a rather unique story, and it would be shame if it were to be abandoned.

 

You know, for once I'd like to see a timetravel fic where Harry is sent to the future.
You could go a lot of ways from there; maybe he sees an apocalyptic future, maybe he sees the canon future. Then he has to try and figure out how to get back and use his knowledge (or what he thinks he knows) to change it for the better.
Or maybe future!Harry and past!Harry switch places every once in a while. That'd be cool too.

 

I love time-travel stories.

They're usually a medium of wish-fulfillment, a breeding ground of overpowered!Harry vs. the canon universe where an author makes very little effort to actually introduce new story elements into the mix.

Now, understand this: this is often what readers want from their story. Fix-it fics and super!Harry fics have a tremendous amount of self-indulgent appeal. You couldn't typically classically view them as 'good' stories, and yet they're widely loved. There's something to be learnt from that: people love a badass character.

From the start of HP fanfiction, people have been searching for a way to make Harry everything he's not in canon: powerful, competent, driven. The biggest fundamental draw to a time-travel story is that it's a simple solution to make Harry all of those things immediately. Harry from the future has years and years of experience under his belt, enough to shape him into whatever the writer and the audience want him to be before you've even started reading the story. You know what you're getting when you click the fic.

So this, in my opinion, is why nearly everyone loves time-travel stories. Given that, where can you go wrong?

When there is no challenge.

When in the realm of powerful!Harry - the core aspect of most time-travel stories - the biggest pitfall of that genre is the biggest pitfall overall. A powerful character given no challenge is like a man fishing in a lake where no fish live: tedious, boring, and a giant waste of time when you eventually realise it.

A challenge isn't overcoming obstacles, like getting rid of the horcruxes and killing Voldemort. Too many writers never grasp this: A challenge is something that forces the character off-balance. When a plan goes badly astray; when you don't win that fight; when the villain succeeds and you're scrambling to put the pieces back together to fix it.

The more powerful the character the bigger the challenge should be. Always write your stories with the intent of knocking the main character down, because only then can he stand up again as a badass.

What are the best ways to provide a challenge? Make things happen differently this time around.

This is the best way to combat the pitfall discussed above: introducing new aspects from unforeseen directions prevents the story becoming the same predictable mess so many fix-it fics are. This easily gives you the opportunity to completely derail the protagonist's plans.

Perspicacity put one solution beautifully: Rabid butterflies. The butterfly effect, knocking down domino after domino, is your tool to quickly steer the story into new waters. Waters with hulking, massive, and very hungry fish.

Another solution is to use Harry's background to your advantage. Time-travelling!Harry's future was different, even from canon. When he goes back, you can make some thread follow him. You can interpret that literally, such as another antagonist travelling back in time, or mentally, where his own mental issues and internal struggle screw him over and cause him to derail everything (a good example of this is Circular Reasoning by SwimDraconian, where Harry isn't up for playing the part of his past self), or even have his new actions take him down an unexplored path, to discover something Harry in canon would never have stumbled upon - don't change canon, but exploit the unexplored.

I've written everything from Harry discovering that Voldemort was trying to save the world the whole time, to Harry only believing that he lived in the future and travelled back in time due to implanted memories. The former is the 'unexplored path' angle - Harry never would have stumbled upon Voldemort's motives unless he'd had his experiences from the future. The latter is the mental conflict - what on earth is real when your memories tell you what happened in the future and nothing you see contradicts this, but you know it never actually happened?

However you do it, and to whatever extent, you're not going to have an interesting story unless you've introduced new aspects and new challenges. It's a pretty universal rule overall, but so, so important for a time-travel story. Embrace the competent!Harry, provide him with sufficient challenges, and make everything important as different as you can when you can.

 

I admit I hadn't given much thought to the role Grindelwald would play but this is a very good idea. It's a fascinating angle that would introduce loads of different tensions to the story. Definitely a larger scope than I was thinking. Maybe I'll go with a revolving third-person perspective after all.

A student-mentor relationship between Tom and Albus would be a challenge to develop given how much they flat out resent each other - it would certainly be more feasible to do Albus and Harry or Tom and Grindelwald. Though I'll admit, your idea is much more interesting. I like the idea of Albus not embracing Harry with open arms. And what would an alliance between Tom and Albus bode for the futurefuture?

Not sure how all these ideas will play out, but you've definitely given me a lot to mull over. So many ways Harry could screw up history.

I'm not abandoning Clash, but muse be fickle and you get tired of writing the same damn thing after two years. I plan to have the next chapter up after finals. Hopefully I'll get a major chunk of it written over break and be speedier with updates.

(Also, since you mentioned the action scenes, would you mind elaborating on what you thought was wrong with them? Action's definitely not my forte, I know that, but no one's ever made that critique before so I'm really curious. Definitely looking for ways to improve.)

EDIT: stupid question, but how do I do the @someone hyperlinky thing?

 

Regarding the Harry vs. Dumbledore and Riddle which I was going to suggest before seeing it wasn't a novel idea I think Dumbledore mentoring Riddle could be plausibly achieved. Voldemort's morality can be summarized by his line in the Philosopher's Stone, "There is no good and evil, only power, and those too weak to seek it." If future badass Harry comes and storms Hogwarts, smashing through everything, Aurors guarding the castle from Grindlewald, professors, the headmaster, older pure-blood students with acclaimed dueling skills before contemptuously disarming Riddle, having him at his mercy, and about to kill him, when Dumbledore shows up with his ridiculous phoenix and insistence on light magic and just wreaks Harry's face. Riddle might decide that the power he craves might not come from dark magic and terror but apparent virtue and the complete admiration of his peers. He'd still be a sociopath but follow a less violent route, claiming power diplomatically. Dumbledore might see, or want to see, a young man he can spare from his own mistakes and train him while fending off increasingly dangerous attacks by Harry who is growing steadily more unhinged through his own use of dark magic. Just a thought.

More on topic, my favorite long distance time travel has to be Altered Destiny where Harry raises Tom. That time period is largely unexplored and there are enough tantalizing ideas, Nazi wizards, tomb raiding wizards that its a shame. Young Tom could be killed in the first chapter and I'd still read whatever happened next then.

 

shez: put an @ in front of someone's name.
It doesn't show up in preview, but if the member name's valid it'll notify that person.

Also, I'm loving this idea from Puzzled and Stan. I see it playing out in tone a little like quite a few DLP-borne HP/DF crossovers do - a green eyed stranger appears who wields immense power, and turns the world on its head.

The concept is intriguing. Done right, probably from multiple perspectives in order to understand why events unfold as they do and what pushes Voldemort and Dumbledore together and forces them to overcome their mutual disdain, it could be incredibly compelling. And that's not even to speak of where Grindelwald fits into all this - the man's an unanticipated element in a world where Harry's presence has tipped the balance of so many things.

I've always seen these four as the key players, and yet have never read anything where they're all a threat at once. Each have their own alliances, their own goals - in this case, Dumbledore wishes to protect Riddle, who seeks power only for himself but has the potential to learn otherwise, especially when presented with an overwhelming threat. Harry tries to obliterate Voldemort through any means while also not wishing to harm Dumbledore, and Grindelwald's attention would be drawn to those who could fight evenly against Dumbledore - potentially this means both Harry and Riddle. Harry may honestly see Grindelwald as a non-issue at first: a man who will be defeated by Dumbledore. But his own actions will almost certainly change whatever he expects the future to unfold as.

 

For Time Travelling Harry, here's my suggestion: bring the Future Voldemort along for the ride.

There: this Voldemort is presumably wiser, more competent, and more powerful than the original Voldemort. He can dish out Dark Magic that probably hasn't been discovered yet. He'll know his horcruxes aren't safe, who should be killed immediately, and maybe even that Harry himself should not be killed.

And, above all else, Harry will have massive obstacles in his way, in the form of Voldemort himself and all the Butterflies he'll inevitably unleash.

 

I'm always surprised this isn't done more. Does anyone know any stories where this happens? I know I've seen at least one, but I don't think it was particularly noteworthy.

 

I love time travel stories in theory, although they nearly always disappoint. Unfortunately I can't tell you my best ideas, because I'm using them.

However, I think that if you're going to have Harry go back in time, there needs to be a twist on it, otherwise it's the same old story. For example, in one of my stories, Harry can't control his time travel and everything goes much worse. I think you need something unique, that's my main thing. Oh, and also, no nonsensical bashing. Only sensical.

 

Lets not make him too competent now, seeing that the antagonist here is a teenager. In this case, I would prefer Harry's competence level to be better than teenage Riddle's, but a shade less than Voldemort, Dumbledore and Grindelwald. Also, and this part is purely personal preference -- I prefer Harry to be noticeably Harry, not some stranger in Harry Potter's skin. As someone who likes canon Harry, I take offense to calling him incompetent. But that is a topic I've ranted about often enough in the past, and will not do again here.

Agree with everything else, especially the Rabid Butterflies part. The canon redo achieved its zenith in Backwards with Purpose -- which had an extra time traveller (which Palindrome mentioned) and lots of family issues to spice things up from the relatively bland NoFP.

Damn. And you never posted this? Although I remember the Pokemon fic Regret to be a rather interesting combination of both of your ideas. Never seen it done in HP though.

This Four Way stuff with Harry, Tom, Grindelwald and Dumbledore really intrigues me. Especially with the possibility of a Tom-Dumbledore alliance. And Grindelwald has the Elder wand, and Harry knows he has it, and that could be factor as well. Heh, the butterflies might be getting a little too rabid here.

Rhaegar I : Eh, too messy. Personally I would prefer it if Voldemort somehow got future Voldemort's memories. Has that been done before?

Jeram : Bashing is nonsensical by definition. If it made sense it wouldn't be called bashing, would it?

 

It's like Deadwoodpecker is paying you to advertise his fics or something.

 

Her, not his. And sadly no, but I like her fics well enough that I will gladly do it for free.

 

Stan I see you understood me perfectly. The point is, of course, is that it is okay to make characters antagonists or troubled. There must be logic behind it and consistency. The classic example is Ron or Dumbledore. Hell, even Snape has some layers (which are that he's a bastard, but he's not completely evil).

 

I've rarely ever seen Dumbledore as an antagonist done right, most because the writer doesn't know how to pit two characters who have fundamentally good morals but diverging views on how to get stuff done against each other, and more often than not Dumbledore crosses the line over to outright bad guy because Harry has to look good. If those are the straits you want to sail down, then you'll have to be careful, especially if you're doing the whole Harry vs Dumbledore/Tom vs Grindelwald, because they are four characters with very powerful idealogies, and there's an inherent danger in sublimating one or more of them in order to make the rest come on top. Even more so if you're partnering Riddle with dear Albus.

I've also never quite understood the rationale of having Harry not tell Dumbledore some of what's going on, especially when shit starts to go to hell in a handbag. I'm not proposing a full-disclosure, these-are-all-my-cards type thing, but I've genuinely never understood why most writers (tbf I haven't read many time travel fics) go for the polar opposite and have Harry be an uber-paranoid guy, often without any plausible, in-story rationale as to why.

As to things to avoid, most of them have been said. There's nothing to truly avoid, so far as you can pull it off, but the generic race-against-time, must-get-into-DOM-to-activate-magical-time-macguffin-while-Voldemort-is-attacking thing has been done to death. Shoot for something a bit more original.

 

I've been toying with a story where Harry's going back in time is caused by a paradox caused by a bad guy going back in time.

So Harry finds himself unexpectedly in the past, has no plan, and thinks all the things that go wrong around him are his fault, that he has done something to cause the history to deviate from the original path while in fact there's this other guy who's doing all the shit.

Who says the good guys have to be the only ones desperate enough to change history to win the war?

 

Don't use Groundhog Day as a guideline.

Or introduce a wildcard demigod like it was always part of the plan.

 

Don't abandon the story midway.

 

One should almost always avoid anything with goblins or especially shopping trips. I don't understand how that's still a thing after over a decade.

 

I would prefer a time-travel story about a remorseful villain rather than a fallen hero to be honest. I have never been too fond of the genre. That's not to say I don't read or enjoy them, its just that so few stories exist about people just dealing with their mistakes after the fact rather than travelling back in time to fix them.
A fic where Voldemort feels the weight of what his actions have brought about offers a lot of potential.
Think about it. His regime a few centuries down the line almost causes the annihilation of the Wizarding world. The weight of immortality weighs heavy on him so much so that it has become a curse. Cue research to go back in time to avoid the mistakes he made.
A hero travelling back in time to fix his failures is sympathetic enough I suppose, but the angst can be so much more effective if it comes from a villain who finally realizes the horror of his own deeds. An interesting twist can be the hero travelling back at the same time to stop him not realizing the villain has changed and wants to fix things.