PLOT THREAD: Adventure

The Adventure Plot Thread are stories of going somewhere, getting something, and/or sharing a journey. This plot thread is the building block of action scenes, chapters, and even the entire story a la Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. By itself, it’s a fun, entertaining adventure… mixed with other threads, you get a more complex one with emotional depth. At a smaller scale, it becomes the character’s goal for a scene (go to X. Get Y. Fight Z.)

Purely by itself though, these stories are action films, heists, friends going on quests/trips together. It could be hyper-competent people doing cool things in amazing set pieces. Look how cool that feat, or athletics, or accomplishment is. It gives the reader the wish fulfillment of “I want to be like them”. We want heroes to look up to. In adventure, we know the prot is going to get out of it and survive. We never doubt that (unlike all the other plot threads).

If theadventure plot thread you’re writing is more focused on a team than a singular hero, it is an “ensemble piece”.

Ensemble is a group/team of competent people working together to solve problems, and you want to be friends with them and hang out with them.

You’ll want to combine different people in different scenes, the audience eats that up.We want to see different characters on the team interacting with each other in odd pairings “just to see” what they’d say to each other.(What if you put character A with B? OK, what about A with C? Oh man, I wonder how A and C get along. etc.)

They need to be interdependent and their different skills complement each other. Each character needs same emotional weight. You need a lot of story compression to introduce each member. Have a competence porn scene. Have one sentence backstory drops (inside jokes, bickering, insults) to show friendship. Every character should have an inherent flaw that leads to bad decisions. Give the ensemble as an arc as well.

Adventure Plot Thread:Key Elements

• Quest:Usually to retrieve, rescue, or steal a McGuffin. Could be go “somewhere”, a travelogue. Plan a heist. Escape a prison. Escort someone somewhere. Deliver something. Could be win a tournament.
• Team: Protagonist(s) need to work with someone (or others) to do this quest. It can be a partner or a team. The arc could be the team coming together. OR the arc is the prot realizing what they’re missing. ORthe prot realizing they wanted to go home this entire time.
• Prize:This is the McGuffin. It has less meaning after achieved.
• Road Apple: Quest gets averted to address a need. Ideally, need ties into the want (McGuffin)

Adventure Plot Thread: Progress Bar

A SERIES OF LOCATIONS & LANDMARKS:The protagonist is given a McGuffin goal, puts a team together, and uses team to get the McGuffin (planning, making steps, going up the rungs, traveling)… while character learns about themselves.

• Each signpost/stop must mean something.
• The team are elements the hero is missing (heart, brains, courage). And they could each have a intro that eats up your setup. Team members may have what Blake Snyder politically incorrectly calls the “Limp and Eyepatch” folks (each ally has a unique “thing” that makes them easy to identify).
• If escapee/runaway plot, the prot is first excited by all the fun B-World stuff, new skills/magic/people… but then the hidden costs start to reveal themselves, and the grass is NOT greener on the other side

Adventure Plot Thread: Plot Beats

• STASIS: Introduce the “Hero” and the Quest. This should happen fairly quickly. Can show prot’s allies.
  • McGuffin can be item/person to get/steal/rescue
  • McGuffin can be delivering item/person somewhere
  • McGuffin can be getting to a location
  • McGuffin can be winning a contest/trophy
  • McGuffin can be destroying an item/person
  • McGuffin can be prot wanting to escape a situation (prison, poverty, etc)
• DISRUPTION:If they refuse the Quest, then show how. If Quest gets a giant Roadblock, then show stakes.
• REFUSAL: Show the Prot avoiding, mismanaging, or making up excuses to not take the quest. Refusing to talk to the quest-giver. But eventually, Prot is convinced to go on the quest.
• ROADBLOCK: Prot wanted to go on this quest from the start, but they just met a giant roadblock that prevents them from starting right away.
• RAISE THE STAKES: If Prot wanted to go on the quest from the start, then give them reasons not to. A half-man, mentor, or ally tells them how crazy this idea is.
• OPPORTUNITY: If Prot wants to escape, they’re given a chance via a job opportunity, a magic boon, a overheard secret… but there’s a heavy cost to pay.
• B-WORLD:Hijinks and Preparation. If Prot didn’t have a team previously, they may assemble one now. If the team’s already assembled, the team is practicing, prepping, and working to vibe together. Maybe they’re partners who don’t get along, and you show them not gelling.
  • Assembling and recruiting the team
  • Preparing, practicing, playing together to vibe/gel
  • Working together for the first time. Traveling together.
  • If Escape plot, the Prot is now seeing the benefits/cost (hidden or otherwise) of taking this opportunity. If escape to a weird B-world, get trained or go on adventures with a new Dynamic character.
• MID-to-LOWPOINT:False Victory. Hero and/or Team does something that’s a significant move forward on their quest… but it’s not a real victory.
  • They learn the wrong lesson by doing something unethical, or decide on the wrong metric (e.g. winning vs. family)
  • The Antag meant for themselves to be caught. It’s an elaborate ruse.
  • The partnership or team have a breakup or start fighting a lot more after getting along.
  • If a heist/caper, we meet the villain for the first time, or see their power exercised for the first time. Or reveal how the Antag has something unexpected.
  • If escape/runaway, Prot achieves something in the new underworld, but will start to see the “hidden costs” if the opportunity they took. Or has to start paying for it.
• Escalate False Victory’s Wrong (or Anti-Theme) Lesson.
  • Keep doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons
  • Always one step behind the Antag. Their traps, tricks, decoys, minions. Or there’s infighting.
  • If team broken up, they each run into problems that show how much they need each other.
  • Team infighting. They start to lose trust, lose faith. They lose one of the members.
  • The plan starts falling apart due to the unexpected thing the Antag revealed.
  • The cost of taking this opportunity to escape/runaway is starting to mount up. It weighs more and more.
• The Height/Limit of Anti-Theme (All is Lost/Dark Night of Soul)
  • Prot hurts the person they love/need the most in the worst way possible because Prot is stuck on the wrong lesson still (anti-theme)
  • Prot does yet another thing that’s anti-theme, but this time, the cost is they lose everything.
  • If split-the-party, each partner/teammate hits a wall where they think of others and realize how much they need each other
  • They find the McGuffin and the McGuffin refuses to go.
  • Everything goes wrong for the heist/caper plan.
  • In the Underworld, the escapee/runaway sees the worst of the cost, maybe in another character. Sees the opportunity wasn’t worth it.
• CLIMAX:Final Climatic McGuffin Getting Scene
  • Prot/Team don’t get the McGuffin, but learn the real value of this Quest: finding a family in each other
  • Prot/Team gathers what’s left, begs allies to come back, and fight the big bad… together and in synchronicity.
  • Prot/Team arrive “home”, but they can’t actually go back to “home” because they’ve changed, or home has changed.
  • Prot/Team confess their love, or welcome them to the family, or introduce them to a new home.
  • McGuffin survives and honors the dead
  • In a heist/caper Prot gets the McGuffin and reveals how it was done to the Antag/Cop/something.
  • Escapee/runaway decides to keep paying the cost, or goes home.

Sources & Resources

• Snyder, Blake. Save the Cat Goes to the Movies. Michael Wiese Productions, 2007.
• Sanderson, Brandon, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells, hosts. “11.14: The Element of Adventure.” Writing Excuses,season 11,episode 14, Dragonsteel Production, 3 April 2016, https://writingexcuses.com/11-14-the-element-of-adventure/
• Sanderson, Brandon, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells, hosts. “11.16: Adventure as a Subgenre.” Writing Excuses,season 11,episode 16, Dragonsteel Production, 17 April 2016, https://writingexcuses.com/11-16-adventure-as-a-subgenre/
• Sanderson, Brandon, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells, hosts. “11.17: Elemental Adventure Q&A.” Writing Excuses,season 11,episode 17, Dragonsteel Production, 24 April 2016, https://writingexcuses.com/11-17-elemental-adventure-qa/
• Sanderson, Brandon, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells, hosts. “11.49: Elemental Ensemble, with Michael Damien Thomas.” Writing Excuses,season 11,episode 49, Dragonsteel Production, 4 December 2016, https://writingexcuses.com/11-49-elemental-ensemble-with-michael-damien-thomas/
• Sanderson, Brandon, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells, hosts. “11.51: Ensemble as a Sub-Genre, with Lynne M. Thomas.” Writing Excuses,season 11,episode 51, Dragonsteel Production, 16 December 2016, https://writingexcuses.com/11-51-ensemble-as-a-sub-genre-with-lynne-m-thomas/
• Sanderson, Brandon, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler, and Dan Wells, hosts. “11.52: Elemental Ensemble Q&A, With Claudia Gray.” Writing Excuses,season 11,episode 51, Dragonsteel Production, 24 December 2016, https://writingexcuses.com/11-52-elemental-ensemble-qa-with-claudia-gray/
• “Lecture #2: Plot Part 1 — Brandon Sanderson on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy"YouTube, uploaded by Brandon Sanderson, January 29, 2020, https://youtu.be/jrIogch5DBU
• “Lecture #3: Plot Part 2 — Brandon Sanderson on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy"YouTube, uploaded by Brandon Sanderson, February 12, 2020, https://youtu.be/Qgbsz7Gnrd8

All other plot thread notes here