The Adventure of Writing Adventure Fiction

Even if my novels are basically fantasies, I consider I'm writing adventure fiction, too. After all, they contain many of the same elements.

If this is the fiction genre you love to read, it's the one you should try to write, too.

Because unless you have a passion for it, you can't light any fires in your readers.


Heard Any Good Hunting Tales Lately?

Adventure is probably one of the oldest fiction genres. Think exaggerations of hunting tales around the cave's fire. Add the suspense of "I almost didn't make it" and "It stood five times my height", and you've got the seeds of an adventure.

The Illiad, The Odyssey, the tragedies Shakespeare wrote, all of these are adventures (and now considered classics, too!). Wouldn't you love to have your adventure novel become a classic?

Writing adventure fiction can obviously follow those old plot lines; hero's journeys, heroic tragedies. Just twist them into modern form, and you can write a winner.

Reading such classics, or "newer" works like Erksine Childers The Riddle of the Sands, the first of two acknowledged modern suspense novels (published in 1903), will give you a place to start.

Or if you like spy novels, they began to show up as early as 1915 with The Thirty Nine Steps by John Buchnan.

From there, we begin to see more of this style of novel, our thirst for it exploding after the end of World War II (with the beginning of the Cold War). Technothrillers, legal thrillers and all the modern sub-genres followed.


Blood, Bedlam, Bullets and Bad Guys

I've borrowed the main title of Michael B. Gannon's book just above, (The complete title and subtitle are: Blood, Bedlam, Bullets and Bad Guys: A Reader's Guide to Adventure/Suspense Fiction) because it succinctly describes what writing adventure fiction is all about.

He gives a great "definition" I'm going to share with you:

"Lusty spies, deadly plagues, courtroom intrigue, fanatical terrorists, murderous psychopaths, state-of-the-art weaponry, destructive acts of nature, political conspiracies, evil Nazis, Russian crime kingpins, and international drug cartels are but a few examples of the elements that can be found in the adventrue/suspense genre. Oftentimes lumped under the catchall label of "thrillers," it is difficult to define the term "adventure/suspense" precisely because authors often combine situations from other genres such as mystery, horror, science fiction and even romance."

That sums it up beautifully. A hero or heroine in constant peril amidst constant mayhem.

If you're writing adventure fiction, your characters better expect the worst. There's always a villain. Protagonists have "everything" thrown at them and must reply on their on mental and physical skills to get out of each fix. Action and excitement permeate the whole novel, turning it into a roller-coaster of dread and exhilaration for the reader.

Why do we like to be scared this way? Vicarious adventure. No, we aren't in those exotic places for real, but it sure feels like we are. Chased through the streets alongside the hero, the villain hot on our heels. If you can write a series, all the better. Your fans will adore you for it.

And you may have the makings of a blockbuster film if you write a blockbuster adventure. They are one of the most frequent genres to be turned into film.


Wide Open Spaces

If you think writing adventure fiction constricts you to too tight a format, think again.

You could write about spies and secret agents. You could write about disasters (volcanoes, hurricanes, terrorists blowing up entire buildings...).

War is always a popular theme, as are maniacs and murders.

Like the paranormal? Great. That fits, too.

Know a lot about high finance? Use it to create your adventure.

Former lawyers have turned to writing legal thrillers. Former cops have turned to writing police adventures. Techno-geeks (no offense intended, we need techno-geeks, too) can write techno-thrillers.

Big business is another target. So are Nazis, Asia, Russia and the Middle East. (Or, in those countries, the U.S.) Aliens, sea adventures, scary science, political and religious fanatics round out the common subjects of this broad genre. But, as Mr. Gannon said, even romance can be an adventure, if written right.

So, why are you waiting? Get writing, and get selling! I can't wait to read your next one.