4 Tips for Good Adventure Writing
Let’s be honest. Adventure is one of the most fun genres out there to write. It involves re-creating action and all the suspense that goes with it, an obvious quest to alchemize into a hero’s journey, and (usually) a clear climax with a reckoning or a reward at the end. There’s the drop into the flow state of writing these aspects, that’s as addictive as any drug.
(The 7 Rules of Travel Writing.)
And, of course, there’s the romance of going on an adventure to experience it for yourself as the writer. Although it must be noted that, much like many romanticized pursuits (say, writing itself), such activities can often entail more suffering in the moment than meets the public eye.
Still, in service to adventure storytelling, I’ve been privileged to climb mountains, ski from a helicopter, raft whitewater, sail the tropics, and hike through foreign countries. In researching my latest book, Thirty Below: The Harrowing and Heroic Story of the First All-Women’s Ascent of Denali, I flew over North America’s highest peak in a bush plane and wandered the Alaskan wild.
But making a living wage off of adventure writing takes more than going on a few outdoor missions and recording them. The best stories transport readers on their own adventure, through both the external and internal journeys of the characters involved. They make readers feel the biting cold in their own bones, the thin air in their lungs; the fear, desperation, and determination, and the relief and bliss at the end as if they were living it themselves. They spur readers to question how the world works, what we’re capable of in it, and, just maybe, their own place amongst it all.
If I’m lucky, and I’ve put in the effort and devotion that such stories demand, I can sometimes hit those marks. Not always. And not all of them all of the time. But in my own journey to becoming a successful adventure writer, these are some of the things I’ve learned along the way about how to tell a good story.
You Can Write About Things You’ve Never Done Personally
For Thirty Below, I did not climb Denali myself. I already know from other mountain climbing that my body doesn’t do well at altitude. But I am a backcountry skier who dabbles in ski mountaineering, so I understand the call of the mountains; I’ve been on multi-day expeditions with a small team of people; and I’ve been in wilderness situations where I thought I might die (seriously). All of that can be translated to help re-create a narrative, and to get inside the heads of the people who lived it to have an inkling of what they might have been feeling.
You can translate your own experiences, no matter how much smaller in scale they may seem to what you’re writing about, to lend you the empathy you need to craft a compelling—and accurate—narrative. Just because you’ve never been on a mega-adventure doesn’t mean you can’t tell a story around it. As with all great writing, you can mine your own life and pull from it what serves you.
Imbue It With Heart
Action only goes so far without emotion. What’s the adventurer thinking in that dire moment? What drives them to risk their bodies, or even their lives, in the first place? Why do they keep returning to quests that require so much suffering and sacrifice? What’s the reward, beyond descending the river or surfing the biggest wave or reaching the summit?
Climbers, contrary to popular belief, don’t just climb a mountain “because it’s there.” The internal landscape at play in these narratives is often more compelling than the external one.
Intersperse Fast-Paced Action With Slower Relief
These tales are, by default, quite intense. Readers need a break at times from what can be a breakneck speed of events. In my first draft of Thirty Below, in the chapters where the climax builds and lasts at a fast pace for several pages, my editor marked a spot where readers needed to be able to relax before taking on the next phase of action and emotion.
It can be a fine line for where to take these breaks. In an early draft of Alone at the Edge of the World, a solo sailing survival story I wrote for Atavist in 2022, I broke up the action with flashbacks from the main character to offer her present-moment experience context and keep the reader in suspense; my (very good) editor cut those breaks to instead keep readers in unbroken action. But that was a much shorter narrative than a book-length piece.
Where to give readers moments of quiet can often be a gut instinct, and one that is easily checked by a second pair of experienced eyes. If you don’t have the fortune of a very good editor in your corner as you’re writing, don’t hesitate to reach out to other readers for feedback.
Find a Pressing Issue With Which to Connect It
Sometimes a good story is just a good story to tell for its own sake. But more often than not, there has to be a “why” behind it, particularly in this current shrinking landscape of publications that publish adventure writing. Editors need a good reason with good timing, either that’s relevant to the moment or somewhat groundbreaking.
For example, I connected a female alpinist’s quest for a first ascent with the pressure she was feeling over the surprising loss of her mentor; a story about Arctic archeology expeditions to climate change; and Thirty Below to the fact that there are next-to-no mainstream adventure and exploration books, a la Into Thin Air and The Wager, featuring women.
I wish you luck on your own journey. Happy adventuring, in both the wilds of the real world and re-creating it on the page.
Check out Cassidy Randall’s Thirty Below here:
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