Fiction driven by physical action, exploration, danger, and the protagonist's journey through unfamiliar or hostile territory.
Adventure fiction puts movement at its center: quests, voyages, expeditions, escapes, and the physical challenges of navigating dangerous territory. The protagonists are active and resourceful, the settings are often exotic or remote, and the pacing is relentless. Adventure is one of the oldest story shapes (think The Odyssey) and continues to thrive as a standalone genre and as an element woven into fantasy, science fiction, and thriller.
Adventure teaches you to write action, movement, and physical stakes. If your stories feel static, studying adventure fiction's emphasis on forward momentum and environmental challenge will give you tools to energize your pacing. It's also a reminder that fiction can be pure fun without sacrificing craft.
The template for adventure fiction: a boy, a treasure map, pirates, and a voyage into danger.
Nonfiction that reads like adventure fiction: an explorer's obsessive quest for a hidden Amazonian civilization.
Greek mythology as adventure, following the witch Circe through centuries of exile, monsters, and self-discovery.
Write a scene where your character must cross a dangerous physical space (a river, a mountain pass, a collapsing building). No magic, no weapons, just their wits and body. Make the reader feel the physical effort, the specific dangers, and the improvised solutions. Adventure writing is embodied writing.