There are fantasy or scifi movies or books where a main character doesn't believe that X is real, but then they do. Each time it's done a little differently, and sometimes it's too convenient. In one of my projects it is easy because a person has time and resources to gather tons of proof for other characters, but I also started developing a story similar to The Lake House, or Frequency, where it is technology that allows people to move information through the ages. I need them to figure out pretty quickly that this is happening, and I also need a way that each of them encounters this technology. It's a lot to unpack in 5 seconds. Unlike Frequency, this is not just two people with a regular piece of technology that is suddenly "magic", and also the rules of time don't allow them to do something that drastically changes things (sort of like the first Terminator or Time Traveller's Wife. Whatever happens was always going to happen). Bottom line: This is a piece of technology that was developed to pass information through eras, and it fell into the hands of some rando in one era and some rando in another era. One of them is related to the developer of this technology and maybe heard rumors about it. The other is clueless about it. I don't want them both to have heard about it and to be open to believe it from the get go, because it's a too perfect scenario. I'm sure it'll hit me in a few days, but if anyone has an idea or a question I'd love to hear it. Or maybe you have an example from a book or a movie (about any fantasy or scifi scenario) where the writer was brilliant with the whole "and then the character realizes it's real." I want it quick but not too clean, if that makes sense.
I'd expect readers to detect the convenience in giving one characters time and resources to gather proof. I'd suggest to take some of that away from them so as to put the character into more conflict The revealing-of-the-truth seems like it will be part of the authorial project, or dear to the writer - so that might be a character to reveal An example of this that I like is 'The Crying of Lot 49' by Thomas Pynchon It isn't just an example of the "believing it's real" convention: the whole story is a deconstruction of it - delivering some pithy comments on fiction readers' relationship with the truth _O_<|
Well, if it can send information backwards in time, it should be fairly easy to prove to the person in the past: Just pick a historical event that occurred some time after the message arrived and go: "This is going to happen." As for sending information forwards in time, we already have that technology. It's called "writing things down." I dunno, am I misunderstanding the question here?
First things first, I very much like that idea. I look forward to you writing it so I can put it in the 'Favourite SciFi and Fantasy contrivances' thread. On your question. My only input it to remind you of how readily readers and viewers suspend disbelief in this area. Within two minutes of meeting Doctor Who the most sceptical person jumps merrily onto the, 'oh, he's a time traveller' wagon. I think we, as readers/viewers, just accept that the characters in fiction have a lower standard of proof for things that are incredible but the reader already knows to be true. A decade's worth of Gold Cup winners comes to mind.
Along these lines, a good way to have someone in the future believe that you're from the past is to have them find some piece of historical documentation of your existence. Outlander does this a lot. If the time between the two characters in question is a lot shorter, though (a la The Lake House where it's like five years), I'd suggest a time-stamped internet post or journal entry. It all depends on the specifics of your story, but I agree with Fervidor: write something down and have it get old. If it's the person from the future convincing the one from the past and you need to convince them fast, you could have the person from the future just start listing recent presidents or something of equivalence to whatever society you're writing in. The person from the past won't have proof (yet), but if it's said with enough assuredness, it's hard to dismiss. If I met someone from 1976 and tried to convince them I was from 2022, with a certain level of suspended disbelief, they'd have a hard time arguing with me if I confidently blurted out "Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush Jr, Obama, Trump, Biden." Who could make that up on the spot?
I can't think of what could help for that writing. I would share still that this same difficulty I anticipate has me almost always in my writing working in very different settings from any of our modern urban or industrial scenes. I try to have settings where characters are more open to things that will be more unbelievable to individuals in the world we are most familiar with. They would have beliefs about things without that much evidence, and something new appearing that is contrary to those can be more persuading.
