Kika Hatzopoulou on crafting timelines and love across worlds in Moth Dark
Kika Hatzopoulou shares how she built the layered timelines, emotional anchors, and mythic romance of Moth Dark, her haunting new fantasy.
In Moth Dark, Kika Hatzopoulou spins a lush romantic fantasy that bends time itself. The novel follows Sascia, a girl bound to a world of darkness and to the heir who rules it, as she fights to preserve everything she loves across timelines. In this piece, Hatzopoulou offers a behind-the-scenes look at how she built her intricate, rule-bound world—and shares practical advice for writers who want to craft their own time-crossing tales.
Guest post by Kika Hatzopoulou, author of Moth Dark
Time travel, parallel timelines, or interwoven pasts—stories that play with our perception of time have always been some of my very favorite: from the modern classic The Time Traveler’s Wife to YA favorite Ruby Red to big sci-fi films like Arrival and Interstellar. Writing a story that spans multiple timelines is thrilling, but it can easily leave readers confused. When I wrote Moth Dark—a timeline-crossing romantic fantasy about a girl in love with a world of darkness and with the mysterious heir to its throne, who must fight to prevent the destruction of all she loves— I followed some practical strategies to plan the narrative, anchor the characters emotionally and keep the reader invested in the tale.
- We Need Rules
Every time-travel story needs consistent rules. Can characters change the past, or is it irreversible? Who can travel through time and who can’t? Are there loops or alternate realities? Defining these rules early helps guide the reader through the story and avoid confusion. For example, in Moth Dark, I named the interweaving timelines of the story ymneen, meaning knotted time, and clarified early that ymneen is the creation of this ancient god-like moth that my heroine, Sascia, befriends early in the story.
- Map It Out
Before writing, map out each timeline, noting major events, smaller moments, and emotional beats. In Moth Dark, the human world and the world of the Dark don’t run in parallel timelines, which means that each time Sascia meets the princet Nugau, Nugau arrives from a different time—the past, the present or the future—and Sascia has to piece together what has happened in between. Using my handy color-coded cards, I mapped out their separate lives and how they interconnect, making sure that the reader stays invested in how their lives weave—or rather, collide—together.
- Emotion is the Anchor
Time travel can be disorienting, so your characters’ emotional journeys are your anchor. In stories like The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger or the film Interstellar, our hearts break even though we knew what was coming, because we feel empathy and connection with these characters. Moth Dark is at its heart, a romance—between two people and two worlds. In my opinion, it’s the striving force that propels readers forward.
- Make It Visual
Visual cues or narrative markers help readers know where and when they are. In Outlander, for example, Claire knows she’s in the past because of the clothes, animals and nature that surrounds her. In Moth Dark, Sascia makes sure to look for specific battle scars on Nugau’s skin. Simple but very useful!
- Play With Both Narrative and Theme
This one is my favorite. When writing a time-travel—or in my case, a timeline-crossing—story, you can play and experiment with the narrative structure. You can sprinkle in recurring motifs, or share the answer before you pose the question, or give added nuance to the consequences of a choice. I’m not going to spoil Moth Dark, but I will say that I worked very hard to give the reader an ending that brings everything together in a way that is both unexpected and still emotionally rewarding.
- Edit, Edit, Edit
When dealing with time travel, even a small change can have ripple effects. Tracking these carefully keeps the story clear and the reader invested. During revisions, check that actions in one timeline logically affect others and ensure that there’s always an emotional payoff, both for the character and the reader.
I hope these techniques help you take your reader on a journey through time. I strongly recommend it—so far, with all its timey-wimey shenanigans, moth sidekicks and star-crossed love story, Moth Dark is my favorite book I’ve written!
