GENRE 101 – Adventures

“Never fear quarrels, but seek hazardous adventures.”

Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

Setting

The term adventure originates from Latin and means in a broader sense, that something is happening, something has come up. Even if the adventure was initiated by choice, the events that follow are always uncommon and unexpected and they bring everyday life to a halt.

The whole point is to create a digression that keeps the protagonist and the reader from anything that is regulated and normal. An adventure is what you seek, when you are fed up with the daily grind, which can be anything at this point, as long as the adventure is a completely different life experience. It almost always involves a change in location, willingly or unwillingly, events that are out of the protagonist’s control and constant threats of danger.

One very old tale, that has all these aspects of an adventure story is the Story of Sinuhe. The protagonist in this story is an ancient Egyptian official who flees political unrest after the assassination of the king and lives through many adventures in a foreign country before being able to return to his old life.

This story is almost 4000 years old, still here we find the classical conventions of the adventure novel:

• The protagonist is unsuspecting.
• The events are unexpected.
• His escape leads him to places he has never seen before.
• He meets people who are very different from his countrymen.
• He braves many difficulties and dangers.
• His efforts are rewarded.
• He returns to his home in order to resume his former life.

The similarities to the storyline of the much younger epic story of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien are compelling. The Hobbit Bilbo literally goes on An Unexpected Journey and returns later as a much wiser, braver and wealthier person. The Hobbit is a classical Adventure in addition to being a Fantasy story.

Another highly influential tale of the genre is The Life And Strangely Surprising Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. The story with the very descriptive title inspired not only many novels and movies and created its own sub genre, the Robinsonade. It also gave rise to the survival theme in video gaming. Again, it embodies all conventions of classical adventure storytelling.

Characters

Now that we know our setting, let us look at the protagonists and their allies. The driving force of any story are the characters. Imagine what The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas might have read like if D’Artagnan had been lazy or shy. It would never have happened. There would not have been an adventure. So when his father tells him never to avoid a duel, especially since they are forbidden by law and take twice as much courage, that is exactly what the young man does and what lands him not in the adventure he had prepared for but an even more dangerous one. Protagonists in adventure stories have to be brave, they have to be curious and they have to be determined, because it is all too easy to give up when things get tough. We do that all the time in real life, it has no place in an adventure. Remember, the adventure has to be exceptional.

One can find determination in the old heroes of ancient times as well. In the Etana and the Gilgamesh Epics, tales as old as writing itself, the focus lies on the quests of two ancient kings. The heroes are willing to go as far as the underworld to achieve their goals, a motive that has later been taken on by many Greek epicists, most famously by Homer in his Odyssey.

Whether you should invest in a background story depends on what drives your protagonist’s actions.

The force may be in their personality like curiosity, wanderlust, survival instinct. In these cases the past has only very little if any influence on the current events. Here, the background story is optional, it may even slow the pace of the adventure.

If the drive is the result of past experiences, like loss, poverty or the pursuit of love and honour, you will need to address that fact. It is the most personal aspect of the story and will determine the fate of your protagonist.

On this note, a background story can be the decisive factor in whether there will be a happy ending or not. For a character as obsessive as Captain Ahab whose sole purpose in life has become the revenge on Moby Dick, there can be no happy end. Whether he is successful or not, he has no life to return to. Chasing the whale is all that is left. And of course nothing works out as he had planned, neither for him nor his allies.

Dynamics

We have brought our characters and their motivations to the setting, but what about the typical mechanisms in adventure stories?

There is a great variety of popular elements in the adventure genre that can be used as building blocks for a storyline. Tasks and quests, obstacles and adversaries have to be taken on one by one until the protagonist reaches the grand finale.

Some recurring narrative elements of the genre are searches for a special object or a certain person, think Holy Grail, treasure hunts including riddles and puzzles and dangerous traps, clever trickery and illusions, exploration of foreign territory and withstanding forces of nature, making friends in unlikely places, fighting competitors, animals, creatures and even spirits. Be inventive! Look for events that will definitely make you forget your daily life: Around The World In 80 Days begins with a wager, a competition of honour. Treasure Island has pirates and hidden gold in it. The Count Of Monte Christo features a jail break, a very effective cure against the worst form of monotony.

You can seamlessly combine the adventure genre with any other genre you like, because it provides such a great arsenal of entertainment. It can be funny and it can be sad, it can be light and it can be thoughtful, awkward, sexy and shocking. It can be whatever you want it to be, except ordinary.

One of the most prevalent challenges in this genre is keeping the balance between drama and action.

Have your main characters rub each other the wrong way sometimes. This is a great tool to make sparks fly and showcase their level of energy to the reader. Energy is especially important for characters in this genre. If they are able and ambitious too, the more fun the adventure will be.

Beware of the traps of melodrama. Try to focus on deeds more than on social interactions. Adventures can be the genre of unexpected turns and events, that deflect attention from dry conversations and too much seriousness. When you are in the midst of a sea battle or trying to break into an ancient tomb riddled with traps, that is not the time to get emotional. Rather it is the time to make impulsive decisions, practice quick thinking and hand out snappy remarks.

Keep the thoughtfulness for the phases of low excitement in between the action scenes. You can use drama, e.g. conversations, romance and arguments to repress some of the energy that is building up in the fast-paced action scenes. Think of the back and forth between highs and lows like the motion of a swing. You can gain momentum for the next unexpected turn of events during the low times.

Most popular Adventure subgenres include:

Western

• placed in the North American Wild West between 1800 and 1900 CE
• Common characters are law-man, cowboys, bounty hunters, natives and soldiers.

Survivalist Fiction

• documenting the struggles of humans in a hostile environment setting
• includes post-apocalyptic, post-civilization scenarios and Robinsonade.

Revenge

• the protagonist’s goal is to revenge an injustice or injury
• can be set in any era, location, universe.

Expedition

• exploration of foreign territory or ancient sites
• can lead to an accidental discovery of forgotten cultures or mysteries

Treasure Hunt

• the characters are specifically looking for treasure, profit and wealth
• they are following a trail of instructions

Epic

• elaborate tales of heroic deeds that aim to preserve and teach heroic virtues
• includes royal sagas, chivalry tales and national epics

Search

• the main characters are looking for a specific person or object, that was either lost or hidden

Picaresque

• a lower class individual is struggling in a corrupt world through a series of significant events
• there is no plot

Nautical

• the protagonist is a seaman or a marine officer
• usually in the Age of Discovery, but not exclusively

War

• the protagonist tries to survive exceptional hardship during war times as a soldier or civilian

Pirate 

• the protagonists are pirates or travel with pirates
• mainly in the Age of Discovery, but can also take place in earlier ages or space
  

Prehistoric

• the protagonists are prehistoric humans
• era and location are usually not specified or only vaguely hinted at

Lost World

• a hypothetical setting
• era and location relative to real history are unknown or have been forgotten
• can include alternative prehistory or bygone high tech civilizations

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