CHARACTERISTICS
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PLOT: Something must happen, meaning there has to be action/conflict
within the story. Motivation is important but the journey itself is
the most important aspect of the plot in an action/adventure story.
The focus is always on the scenery and the events that occur within
the adventure.
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STRUCTURE:
o Motivating Act- The story gets started immediately and is
exciting.
o Journey Act- Reader is familiar with the object and reason why
the adventure is going on, just not sure of the difficulties
ahead.
o Goal Act- There should be some sort of reward at the end for the
characters who survived the adventure. Ex: romantic involvements
or heroic acclaim for main characters
CHARACTERS: The protagonist is usually male, not always, but in most
cases, with a range of twenty to forty years old. The character
should be an unlikely hero. This character (or characters) goes
through obstacles: can be human, elemental, institutional, or
obstacles within the protagonist himself.
DIALOGUE: Get to the point: start in the middle of the conversation,
the first thing that a character says should be related to the
problem in the scene. Avoid a lot of description: don’t spend a lot
of time telling the reader what the characters are doing while
they’re talking. Characters & cross-talking: allowing characters to
interrupt each other in order to get important information on the
page in a short space.
SETTING: exotic places (ex. Jungle), out of the way corners or
underworlds.
LANGUAGE: NO complex sentences. Direct language and short sentences
make the action lively. Show, don’t tell!
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AUTHORS TO TAKE NOTES FROM:
Tom Clancy: one of the world’s fastest selling thriller writers, his first book “The Hunt for Red October” was
turned into a film along with two of his other novels, “Patriot Games” and “Clear and Present Danger.”
Justine Korman: children’s action/adventure books, for example Winnie the Pooh, Disney movies turned into
children’s books: Hercules, Mulan.
Sir Henry Rider Haggard: all of his adventure novels are set in exotic locations; he is the founder of the Lost
World literature.
Edgar Wallace: co-creator of the short story “King Kong” which is a highly successful film today.