Arm chair adventure stories are easy to write, but you do need to have props and an interest in a particular adventure is a must. No writer can successfully fake an interest in sky diving or mountain climbing if something of its thrill is not there.

By props I mean books and articles and movies and others that can get you started piecing together your story. You will need to work out ahead of time what thrill you are seeking, when did it happen, who are the characters and which ones leads, where in the world does this adventure take place, and who will be reading about it once it is successfully woven together. Last, ask yourself, can I pull this off or will be simply wasting my time.

Source of inspiration for armchair travel story:

This is true: I once wrote a story about an Alaskan cruise. How silly of me to write a story about a watery adventure when I much prefer the land and would under no circumstances lock myself on an ocean liner for two weeks. Not even if I could afford it. I did not know that fifteen years ago when I wrote the story. Then I was only thinking of writing a short story and I needed a setting that would place the characters together for a week or so. It seemed that a cruise would the ideal way. Alaska and its potential for real adventure was unfortunately underplayed.

I chose Alaska for the setting and did so after looking over an Alaskan vacation guide. This gave me my initial idea and from that I created this story where adventure was taking place, but it was of a quiet reflective sort. I finished the story and it now rests somewhere in my files. I suppose it has merit, but I never tried to have it published. It lacked something, and that could have been adventure. Instead, this story was a mild sort of romance.

The timing for my adventure story took place in the time it was written, in the early nineties. It flashed back frequently to the late forties. Friends again after all these years was its weak plot.

The narrator is myself, the lead character and the other, of course, is the long lost friend now found again. I admit it was a weak excuse for a short story and it proved to be a weak adventure. Looking back I would not now write that story, and I would never have called it an adventure. Were I to write an adventure story concerning an Alaskan Cruise, it would be outward looking and each port where the ship docked would lend itself to further adventure.

Possibly, and I am at this time mentally rewriting my adventure, I would somehow find a way of weaving in the history of the places visited with some adventures undertaken or bit of history. How I would relate all this together into one work I have no clue at this time. Possibly it would simply be a travel book of adventures instead of one dull adventure; Most likely it would be a tale of tales.

With my adventure, I had selected no particular audience, but were I writing it today I would write it for the 12-14, group, or a young adult group. And before I set out to research I would at first seek to find what kind of writing is being done in classroom texts and would try to write something relative to what they are learning. It is important to be knowledgeable about what is being taught in schools. Publishers look for this.

The final question I ask myself, am I the one to write the particular adventure story I proposed? No. The only way I would ever do that at my age is to be stuck on a ship for this length of time and have some real never before recorded facts to weave into the adventure of a lifetime. But were I to choose, I would choose a land trip. I like to walk around, stretch my legs and observe nature close up.

Learn more about this author, EMoore.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Writing tips: How to write a choose-your-own-adventure story?
We want to hear your view. Write now!