Why 'Time Owes No Favours' Is Supposed to Hurt

I recently wrote a piece for Belle's Back To Our Youth unofficial challenge, and it was one of the hardest stories I’ve written from an emotional standpoint. The piece is called Time Owes No Favours. If you haven’t read it yet, I recommend doing so for context—it’s a story I’m incredibly proud of.

It’s the first time I’ve ever written with myself as the main character. Normally, my characters—whether good or bad—are built from pieces of me and other people I know. Don’t we all do that? But this time, it wasn’t a portion of me. It was just me. Unnamed, yes, but anyone who knows me even a little will likely recognise the details and connect the dots. It’s not a secret.

My aunt Fil died in a car accident on May 18th, 1985. She was the first person I truly knew and loved who died. Even though it happened nearly 40 years ago, I still remember fragments—of her before she died, and of the massive hole her death left behind.

Aside from how heartbreaking it was to write, the process raised some important ethical and literary questions I hadn’t anticipated.

Per Belle’s challenge prompt, the story involves going back in time to prevent something terrible—my aunt Fil dying in that crash. That premise alone brings a moral dilemma, which I try to explore in the story. If you could go back in time, what would you do?

Many people say they’d stop something monumental—9/11, the Dunblane massacre (which I mention, along with the Pan Am Flight 103 Lockerbie disaster). But would you, really? Or would you choose something more personal?

That was my dilemma. In the end, my loyalty to my family—and the chance to lift the grief that has hung over us since 1985—won out.

But as I was writing, I hit a major snag. Should I change details to avoid upsetting family members who might see this as a half-hearted attempt at fictionalising a real tragedy? Or would that be even more insulting—as if I were trying to obscure or soften something deeply real?

In the end, I chose to use real names and to keep most of the details true to life. That felt honest. That felt right.

But that choice brought a whole new challenge. Not only did I have to navigate the usual narrative complications of time travel—changing the past has consequences—I also had to reckon with the weight of altering the past on the page. Changing history in fiction can feel like rewriting grief—and that carries consequences too.

If, in the story, I prevent Fil’s death, I change the future. That’s rich material for character conflict—especially when the character is me. But the deeper question is this: when telling stories rooted in real-life tragedy, what’s truly gained in rewriting the outcome?

Would anything really be gained by imagining a version of the world where I stopped her from driving, where she lived to a ripe old age?

Or would that be a slap in the face—a shameful, insensitive dismissal of the grief my family has actually endured?

Sure, it might be comforting. Even cute. But I try not to avoid the bad just for the sake of the good.

Some people will argue that it’s fiction—that it’s imaginative, idealistic, even healing to dream of better endings. And yes, there’s truth in that. But when a story walks that fine line between fiction and non-fiction—when it isn’t entirely made up—I believe there’s reason to be cautious. To be respectful. And to ask ourselves, not just what if—but why?

Interestingly, while the ending may seem anticlimactic to some, if I did have the chance to go back—just for one last cuddle, the chance to tell my aunt I loved her, and to give her a picture with oversized feet that might eventually end up in the bin—I’d take it. Without hesitation.

*

Thanks for reading!

Here are some other things: