In terms of a genre Adventure is one of the major outliers. Unlike genres like Fantasy and Sci-Fi, Adventure is not confined to a specific setting or tone like Mystery and Horror. An Adventure can be defined in a similar way to any story, it contains progression, a climax and a conclusion. However, this can be subjective as, whilst I personally can describe every story I’ve read as an adventure of sorts, this explanation is not universal.
It’s not the destination, it’s the journey- Ralph Waldo Emerson
An adventure, in its simplest terms, can be seen as the journey of the author’s characters going from point A to B, sometimes literally other times metaphorically. The most important part of of an Adventure story is the journey itself as this is where all the best points of progression and development occur. The Odyssey started at Troy and ends in Ithaca but the reason it is famous is because of the events in between the two destinations. The story in The Fault in our Stars by John Green is an adventure because of what the main characters go through together. They took a step out of their normal lives to broaden their perspective of reality and grew more as individuals.
To sum up what I’m trying to say, don’t let your own adventure be limited by a specific genre. An Adventure novel can be whatever you make it.
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