Tips for Writing Adventure Novels and The Benefits of Second Hand Books to The Environment

Adventure stories have been around as long as fiction itself. There are adventure stories in the Bible and in ancient mythology, and some of the first fiction authors wrote tales of adventure (Homer’s Odyssey, anyone?). 

To combine the definitions found on Merriam-Webster’s website, an adventure is an exciting or remarkable undertaking usually involving danger or risk. As with every genre or sub-genre, there are some basic rules that apply to adventure stories.  

Here are tips to consider when writing your next great tale of adventure novel. 

Make your Plot Active and Coherent 

Plot is an important element in writing an adventure story. In creating and structuring your plot, always pay close attention to pacing. The pacing of your story must be brisk. It should be quick and active to avoid boring the readers and losing their interest. Do not be too descriptive. Avoid writing too much exposition and setup, as it can usually make your story drag. Adventure stories are generally made to entertain and excite the readers. By writing too much exposition and unnecessary details, you are running the risk of dampening the elements of entertainment and excitement. 

In addition to being active, your plot should also be coherent. This means that the shorter plots with sub-conclusions that drive your story forward should all be consistent to your overarching plot. When your plot is incoherent, there is a great possibility that the readers will find your adventure story confusing and pointless to some extent. 

Read popular adventure novels.  

If you are a first-time adventure writer, we highly recommend you start by selecting a classic adventure book so that you can see how successful authors apply the genre in their stories. 

Create Compelling Characters 

Characters are also an important element in an adventure story. They drive the story as a whole, and they create different types of conflicts, tensions, and resolutions. Without the characters, there would be no adventure in a story. To write a good adventure story, you need to make your characters as compelling as possible. Your protagonist, particularly, should be likeable and relatable. They should possess great characteristics such as courage and determination, but they should also have some flaws that can increase their internal conflict. Ultimately, your protagonist should be someone that the readers can root for. 

Aside from the protagonist, you should also take some time in inventing your antagonist. Your antagonist is just as important as your protagonist. Make them recognizable and also likeable to some extent. Give them a sense of complexity and authenticity. It is important for your antagonist to have some fascinating characteristics so they can make the adventure story more interesting. 

Pace it.  

A successful adventure novel keep’s the reader on the edge of their seat with constant suspense. Be sure to keep a story moving, even between dramatic plot points. When you have completed your first draft, go back and read it through to identify any pacing issues and eliminate anything that is too descriptive that may slow the story down. 

Find a Setting That Will Intensify the Story 

Adventure stories usually take their characters from a familiar environment to a new setting to create more conflicts and tensions. This new setting should further intensify the story. It should increase the risk for the protagonist, and it should help in driving the story toward the climax. If your character lives in the city, for example, send them to a deserted island without a map. Make your character experience different kinds of challenges while in this new setting. 

Allow your protagonist to transform.  

From the moment you introduce them through the denouement, your main character will undergo a transformation and come out a changed person at the end of the story. Those risks and obstacles they endured will give them a new perspective on the world. 

Include Many Risks and Twists 

Adventure stories are generally exciting and mind-blowing. They usually entertain the readers and leave them on the edge of their seats. To write an adventure story that lives up to its genre, you need to make your story as intense as possible. It should be full of risks and twists that can pump the adrenaline of the readers and make their minds boggle. These risks and twists should be unpredictable and surprising to an extent, but they should also be consistent to the overarching plot. 

Always Consider Authenticity in Writing 

The ultimate key to a convincing adventure story lies in its authenticity. Authenticity does not necessarily mean realism but rather how close a story is to the truth. To write a convincing adventure story, your storytelling should be real within the context of its own world, and the words and actions of your characters should be true to themselves. 

Both of these things should also be true to life. They should ultimately reflect the reality without having to rely on it heavily at the expense of the imagination. Indeed, writing an adventure story is not as easy as it seems. It takes a great amount of creativity, imagination, and proficiency in literature to produce a good adventure story that the readers of the genre will surely patronize. Nevertheless, with enough learning and practice, you can certainly create your very own convincing adventure story someday. 

Buying Second Hand Novels  

One of the key values of sustainable living that most of us are already familiar with is the phrase "Reduce, reuse, recycle." By recycling things that have already been made and removing them from landfills, second hand books shopping decreases the environmental impact of our purchases. Second hand purchasing, most crucially, has a big positive impact on the environment. For a variety of reasons, this is true.  

Environmental Benefits of Buying Second Hand Books to the Environment 

Buying second hand books rather than new books reduces pollution.  

Every new thing has an impact on the environment and pollutes it in some way. During the production process, pollution might occur at any time. From the extraction of raw materials to product manufacturing and global dissemination. Natural resources are consumed at an alarmingly high rate. Traditional fertilizers, pesticides, and other chemicals are routinely used in this process.  

Toxic chemicals are utilized to manufacture synthetic colors for our clothing, for example. They're also routinely dumped into the environment and into bodies of water. Manufacturing intermediate and finished products is also quite polluting.  Thousands of tons of CO2 are released into the atmosphere during the movement of goods around the world. Greenhouse gases are discharged into the atmosphere and contaminants are spread across the environment when goods end up in landfills. As a result, contaminated groundwater and soil exist.  

Creating new objects, as we have seen, leads to global pollution. It contributes to water, air, and land pollution. One of the most effective methods to help conserve the environment is to buy second hand novels rather than new.  

Second hand book shopping helps the environment by conserving natural resources.  

Buying used products such as second hand books helps to minimize the need for new things. Creating new objects also demands the use of natural resources, as previously noted. Many of these resources, however, are non-renewable. We need oil, which is not a renewable resource, to create plastic things, for example.  

According to scientists, if global consumption levels continue unchanged, we will only have 47 years of oil left. Many natural resources are also not obtained in an environmentally or ethically responsible manner. Right now, we’re thinking about unsustainable wood production. It results in the extinction of wildlife habitats, environmental damage, and the extermination of indigenous peoples. The mining of key elements used in electronics has huge social and environmental consequences. Humanity's demand for natural resources exceeded the planet's ability to replenish that year on July 29, 2019.  

We are outraged as environmentalists! As a result, in order to protect the environment, we recommend second hand book shopping! When you buy something second hand, you are ensuring that natural resources are preserved. You're not promoting immoral or unsustainable behavior, either.  

Buying used books rather than new books helps us lessen our carbon footprint.  

Conserving water in our daily life is one of the most significant actions we can take to live more sustainably. Our water footprint includes not just the amount of water we consume on a daily basis, but also "hidden" water. Hidden or virtual water is the water used to manufacture the goods we consume. We frequently forget the reality that generating new things takes massive volumes of water. A cotton t-shirt, for example, requires approximately 713 gallons (2,700 liters) of water to manufacture. As a result, every time you purchase a new t-shirt, you are leaving a water footprint. This is true for other products such as second hand books as well.  

As a result, we can see how crucial it is to purchase second hand books rather than new whenever possible. In the long term, buying second hand books saves a lot of water! Humans cannot life without water, which is one of the most essential resources on the world. We must not waste it as if it were infinite.  

Buying second hand books saves you money and energy.  

In order to make material products, we also need a lot of energy to keep machines and factories operating. Electricity can be generated using coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear energy, and other energy sources. As a result, we are reducing our dependency on non-renewable energy by avoiding purchasing new books and instead choosing second hand books.