  Action/Adventure
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Conflict, adversity, and struggle are needed ingredients for good adventure writers. Many times they provide the stories within the story that keep the reader reading.
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How many stories have you read or how many movies have you watched that begin with the words The Adventures of...? Stories of adventure have filled the pages of many books throughout history.
Mark Twain once said, “There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.”
Western stories and movies are based on adventure. The exploration stories of men like Lewis and Clarke and Christopher Columbus are stories of adventure. 2001, A Space Odyssey, The Time Machine, Back to the Future, and The Matrix are adventure movies based on the idea of time travel and virtual reality. Stories of adventure fascinate the “desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.” In the movie The Matrix, Neo is brought to life by the challenging words on his computer screen, "Wake up, Neo. The Matrix has you. Follow the white rabbit." Thus, the adventure begins.
With adventure come challenges and risks, conflicts and struggles – for the treasures are buried and must be found. Along the way are many obstacles and the writer of adventure knows the value of this struggle in his story. For without the struggle, there is no adventure. Showing how a story’s character faces these struggles reveals to the reader much about that character. It will reveal the character’s strengths and weaknesses. In many ways, how a character overcomes difficulties will allow the reader to identify with the character. The adversities keep the reader on the edge of his seat, wanting more, waiting to see what will happen next. When this is done properly, the reader will be concerned for the welfare of the character. This keeps him reading.
Athol Dickson’s novel the River Rising is the story of man trying to find answers to his past. Hale Poser, the main character, was raised in an orphanage, knowing little about his family. In his search to find his identity, he encounters many difficulties. Some of his struggles are against people who desire to keep his past a secret; other adversities are against the forces of nature. He learns of a woman who may be able to help him find answers, but she lives in the wilderness and he must cross a swampy region to get to her. Hale Poser gets lost in the swamp. The following excerpt from River Rising reveals part of the struggle on his journey across the swamp.
By dusk that second day all signs of the bayou had been lost, and his leaking pirogue lay adrift within the massive swamp. The pain in Hale’s hip no longer allowed him to stand. Instead, he sat on the single bench near the rear of the pirogue, his off-center weight driving the bow up and out of the water. He tried to pole the little boat along from that position, but his efforts were slow and laborious, and even if he could have flitted across the surface with the energy of a water bug, the question remained: which way to go?
Everywhere he saw the same isolated stands of cypress, tupelos, and willows rising from the waters. Cattle egrets and great blue herons loitered one-legged on half-sunken logs, eyes intent upon the shallows, waiting for dinner.... Hale saw things differently now. It had taken just a day and a half for these creatures to transform from friends to passive onlookers at best. Some might even be enemies. Mosquitoes, for example, which had been strangely absent, began to find uncovered places on his body. Even the thin cotton fabric of his shirt was no protection from their merciless attacks, soaked as it was in sweat and stretched tight across his back. He removed his hat from time to time and used it swat around behind like a horsetail shooing flies, but this brought only temporary relief. And still he had no idea which way to go. Still he kept moving.
That second night was unlike the first. The mosquitoes made sleep impossible. Animal calls in the near distance disturbed him, where before they had been a comfort. He lay face up in the pirogue, slapping at his body and praying hard for rain to slake his thirst. But the morning of the third day dawned clear and bright, with no hope for drinking water from that quarter. His lips began to crack. It was difficult to swallow.
Eventually, disoriented, Hale tries to drink the vile swamp water and becomes violently ill, before finding his way through the swamp - only to encounter more difficulties at the hands of vicious men. The difficulties and Hale’s response to the adversities are a big part of the story… the adventure. Hale does find his answers, but at a great cost.
When Neo selects the red pill in the movie The Matrix, the journey only begins. He is off to find buried treasure, but what happens along the way is the adventure. Conflicts, adversities, and struggles - a good adventure writer uses these things to bring the story to life. In the ‘big’ story, there are many smaller stories of adversity. Keep the reader involved in the story by revealing the struggles of the character within the story.
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Following are a few stories and poems that reveal conflicts and/or adversity and the struggles of a character within those difficulties.
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| |  | Escape (E)
A journey through forests and obscure medical facilities. Please rate and review!
#1226729 by Becca Morgan   |
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I appreciate the opportunity to be a guest editor and am interested in things writers would like to see discussed in future Action/Adventure newsletters.
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Action/Adventure: May 23, 2007 Issue [#1728]
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