Thinking about genre

Consider the conventions of action and adventure stories. Usually they include:

• Hero. In an adventure story, the hero is more than just the main character. They have a clear goal and they are active about achieving it. They don’t just sit around and wait to get their own way, they do something about it. Throughout the story the hero usually develops or grows as a person, learning something about themselves or the world that they inhabit.
• Villain. In adventure stories, there is often an antagonist who works against the protagonist.
• Physical risk. One of the key conventions of this genre is that risk and physical danger forms the backbone of the storyline.
• Rising tension. Adventure stories are characterised by high stakes and rising tension. As Chuck Sambuchino notes: ” if things come too easily to your protagonist, if he doesn’t have to struggle, then a reader is less likely to care about whether he succeeds. But if your character faces and overcomes some tough challenges, then a reader is more likely to connect with him and there will also be a greater emotional payoff at the end when the protagonist ultimately succeeds.”
• A race against time. Giving your character time constraints is a great way to increase the tension in your story. As Michael Moorcock notes: “Time is the important element in any action adventure story. In fact, you get the action and adventure out of the element of time. It’s a classic formula: “We’ve only got six days to save the world!” Immediately you’ve set the reader up with a structure: there are only six days, then five, then four and finally, in the classic formula anyway, there’s only 26 seconds to save the world! Will they make it in time?”
• Plot twists. When you are writing an adventure story, ensure you surprise yourself and your reader with the series of events in your story. Don’t get too excited, though, plot twists that are too unbelievable or inconsistent with the world of your story or your characters, will just put your reader off. “It is a cheap trick merely to surprise and shock the reader, especially at the expense of logic,” writes Patricia Highsmith in Plotting & Writing Suspense Fiction. “The ideal is an unexpected turn of vents, reasonably consistent with the characters of the protagonists.”