How to Write Action Adventure Novels

by Michael Newton

“You could have been killed,” I said.

  She slipped off her shorts and panties, took another sip of brandy, came to me.

  “Were you hoping to get killed, for Christ’s sake?”

  “Hush,” she repeated.

  I was shuddering uncontrollably.

  She seemed calm. If she had been afraid during the climb, the fear had left her the moment she touched ground again.

  “What is it with you?” I asked.

  Instead of answering, she began to undress me.

  “Not now,” I said. “This isn’t the time—”

  “It’s the perfect time,” she insisted.

  “I’m not in the mood—”

  “Perfect mood.”

  “I can’t—”

  “You can.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “See?”

  In Child of Blood, I used a similar technique and let my readers fill the gaps with their imaginations:

  She set the brush aside and considered her reflection in the mirror. “Two gray hairs this week. That proves it.”

  Kneeling at her side, he slid an arm around her waist. “I’ve got a thing for older women.”

  “Pervert.” But she had to catch her breath as he nibbled on her earlobe, nuzzling the soft curve of her neck. “That’s nice.”

  He slipped his hand inside her robe and cupped one pliant breast, the nipple coming to attention in his palm. He teased it with his thumb and felt her shiver at his touch.

  “You’re not so old.”

  “I’m feeling younger all the time.”

  His hand slid between her thighs until she clamped her legs around his wrist and held it captive.

  “Now I’ve got you.”

  “Not a chance. The hand is quicker than the eye.”

  “You’ll have to prove it, mister. Oh … oh, yes … right there.” He brought her to the edge, then drew his hand away. “Where are you going?”

  “Bed. We old folks need our sleep.”

  “Too late.” She followed him, her robe forgotten on the chair.

  Good taste aside, the timing of a sex scene should be logical, appropriate to the progression of your story. Characters may not have time (or energy) for making love within the context of a tale that spans a single day or less, with hectic chases, shootouts, and the like to keep them hopping. Even macho men get tired, sometimes, and flying lead can have disastrous effects on the libido.

  Still, a sex scene may fit in at unexpected junctures of a story, if you have established opportunity and motive. Desperation in the face of almost-certain death is frequently employed as an excuse for characters to grab a quickie for the road. Besieged by nameless horrors in a rural supermarket, two of Stephen King’s protagonists reach out for one another in “The Mist.”

  We went up the narrow flight of stairs and into the office. It was empty, as she had said. And there was a lock on the door. I turned it. In the darkness she was nothing but a shape. I put my arms out, touched her, and pulled her to me. She was trembling. We went down on the floor, first kneeling, kissing, and I cupped one firm breast and could feel the quick thudding of her heart through her sweatshirt. I thought of Steffy telling Billy not to touch the live wires. I thought of the bruise that had been on her hip when she took off the brown dress on our wedding night. I thought of the first time I had seen her, biking across the mall of the University of Maine at Orono, me bound for one of Vincent Hartgen’s classes with my portfolio under my arm. And my erection was enormous.

  We lay down then, and she said, “Love me, David. Make me warm.” When she came, she dug into my back with her nails and called me by a name that wasn’t mine. I didn’t mind. It made us about even.

  In Prairie Fire (Gold Eagle, 1984), the Executioner is cornered on a small midwestern farm, surrounded by his enemies, when he enjoys an unexpected close encounter with the lady of the house:

  “Toni, listen—”

  “No,” she told him flatly, interrupting. “You said it yourself; this is all the time we have. Tonight we may …. “ She hesitated, swallowed hard around the knot of fear and tension in her throat, and tried again. “I don’t intend to waste my last few hours by denying what I feel.”

  He looked at her and understood the yearning that so often gripped combatants on the eve of mortal conflict. Something in the human animal demanded it, an affirmation of survival in the face of violent death.

  And was there more to it than that? The soldier neither knew nor cared. He shared the lady’s urge, her primal passion.

  “They’re expecting us inside,” he said, and knew before he finished speaking that it sounded lame.

  “So they are.”

  As in the realm of violence, pitfalls wait here for careless writers. Brainless bimbos who immediately spread their legs for any man who buys a round of drinks or offers them a compliment are hopelessly clichéd. Some such exist, of course, but when your hero has his way with every woman he encounters, you are veering out of genre fiction into adolescent fantasy. Likewise, if you discover that your female characters are frequently excited by the thought of violent rape, you need to think again. This caveman attitude is totally passé, and anyone who doesn’t recognize the fact is sadly out of touch with modern-day society.

  Your characters should keep the facts of life in mind as they pursue their various adventures. Contraception may be something to consider, and your people should be normally aware of AIDS, venereal disease, and so on. I am not suggesting that your novel should become a condom advertisement, but your hero may look foolish, in this modern day and age, if he engages frequently in random couplings with total strangers. (The odds are stacked against him as it is, remember, what with terrorists and mafiosi breathing down his neck. Unless it fits your story line, he doesn’t need disease to make things worse.)

  Your choice of genre grants you ample opportunity to probe the boundaries of good taste, but there is something to be said for self-restraint. A violent confrontation can be artfully described and still deliver where it counts, without a quart of blood or heap of brains thrown in for emphasis. You can deliver an erotic scene without examining each orifice in microscopic detail or resorting to the tired clichés of pulp pornography. As any feminist can tell you, gross, exaggerated sex scenes usually have their roots in twisted views of women.

  (Perhaps the oldest, most offensive sexual cliché revolves around the female character who loses self-control in public places, at the least appropriate of times. In Jakarta Coup, a female executioner—and communist, of course—is so excited by the act of shooting helpless victims that she lifts her skirt and starts to stroke herself. An equally repugnant scene, depicted in Behind the Door, finds “heroine” Elizabeth Shea “betrayed by her body,” growing hopelessly aroused at the sight of a friend being raped by two hospital orderlies. Instead of seeking help, she starts to masturbate ferociously, in a repulsive sequence that should grab the 1988 Bad Taste Award hands-down.)

  Sadistic sex and violence may be useful to a novel—normally in scenes depicting the activity or thoughts of an unbalanced villain—but you should beware of making them the reason for your story. And remember, please, when dealing with the rough stuff, that a little goes a long, long way.

  Your characters are not expected to lead hum-drum “normal” lives—far from it. But they are not Supermen and women, either. Bear in mind that they are human beings, vulnerable to the injuries, diseases, and emotional assaults that plague their peers. You can invest your people with a measure of humanity without creating nerds and weaklings. In the long run, I suspect your readers may be grateful for the change of pace.

  10. “It Seemed So Real”

  Homework time. Again.

  I’ve said it more than once, and I assert the author’s right to repetition here. To make it in the action field, your work must be (or seem) authentic. Sure, I know you’re writing fiction, but that simply means your characters and plot are fictional. It doesn’t m
ean you dream up all the technical material to suit your fantasies as you proceed.

  I cannot overemphasize the fact that many of your readers will have backgrounds in the military, law enforcement, or intelligence. It may not make them geniuses, per se, but I can guarantee it doesn’t make them dummies, either. Each of them is thoroughly conversant with the hardware and the operational procedures in their field of expertise, and they can spot a phony in an instant. Never mind the fact that they are reading action novels to escape from day-to-day reality. They’re after the adventure, granted, but they want it couched in realistic terms, with weapons, vehicles, and other pieces of equipment that perform correctly in a world where all the laws of nature still apply.

  Of course, having a background in the military or intelligence, police work, or any technical or scientific field may assist you in your writing. We’ve discussed the benefits of “writing what you know,” but don’t despair if your experience does not include a stint of military service, graduate degrees in astrophysics, or the like. It isn’t necessary to assassinate a man before you write a murder story, and your readers should be willing to accept a ringer, if you do your homework.

  Stories may arise from many sources. Red Storm Rising, a phenomenal best-seller for Tom Clancy, grew out of the author’s interest in a board game. It’s a long way from the writer’s den to World War III, but Clancy made the leap in style—and so can you, if you apply yourself. The key, for those of us who don’t possess encyclopedic knowledge of the world at large, is research.

  Sound familiar? I should hope so. We’ve already looked at sources of material on background for your characters (in Chapter 7), on languages and jargon (Chapter 8), and on weapons and their handling (Chapter 9). Please don’t be intimidated when I say that we have barely scratched the surface of our research. Bear in mind that you picked out a story line and sketched a plot because it sounded interesting to you. It shouldn’t cost you much in terms of human suffering, therefore, to take some time and study up on information you may need to make the story work. If you are bored to tears while doing research on your topic, I suggest you do us all a favor and forget it. If the author has no interest in his story, why should anybody else?

  Essentials

  Before we tackle the specifics, I feel duty-bound to scrutinize an action writer’s basic reference shelf. What’s that? You thought your favorite authors simply knew it all, and poured their boundless knowledge onto paper as the stories came to life? So sorry. Guess again.

  No matter how you manage to approach the action genre, you will need at least a general familiarity with world affairs and politics. Why’s that, you ask? Because, dear friends, assassination, terrorism, war, and all the other juicy stuff begins with people, arguing—and ultimately killing—over territory, ideology, self-interest. If you’re not aware of who hates whom, and why, smart money says your fiction will be seriously short on depth and understanding.

  Politics and world affairs are no great mystery. Subscribe to any of the major weekly magazines—like Newsweek, Time, or U.S. News & World Report—to keep abreast of recent action. Daily papers and the evening news are valuable story sources, as we noted earlier, and you should add at least one major daily to your shopping list. A current almanac should certainly be added to your reference shelf, and you can glean valuable information from yearbooks issued by the publishers of various encyclopedias.

  Regardless of your story’s setting, foreign or domestic, you will have to grapple with geography. It’s nice if you can travel widely, do your research on location, and enjoy a tax-deductible vacation in the bargain. If, however, you cannot afford a trip to Northern Ireland, Lebanon, South Africa, or Bangkok, don’t give up. The necessary information is available and well within your grasp.

  A good world atlas is essential to your bookshelf. Twenty dollars, give or take, will put you in the game with fairly detailed maps of every nation in the world, the fifty states, and sundry other information on the population, customs, climate, languages, and other trivia about your chosen field of operation. Tourist guidebooks can be helpful, filling in the details on hotels, historic landmarks, ethnic neighborhoods, and so forth. If your people do their hunting stateside, buy yourself a decent road atlas of the United States for openers. Street maps of specific cities are available from libraries, gas stations, tourist bureaus, chambers of commerce, or your automobile club. Incorporation of real streets and landmarks lends authenticity to your writing, but watch out for libel suits while you’re at it. Use local telephone directories—available in major libraries—to weed out names of actual establishments and individuals, sparing yourself some serious headaches. (You’d be surprised, but the proprietor of Tony’s Bar and Grill on Elm Street may resent depiction of his business as a gay bar, a sleazy doper hangout, or a front for agents of the KGB.)

  A final word on general sources. I enjoy the several People’s Almanacs, prepared by David Wallechinsky and his father, novelist Irving Wallace. Certain information in the trade-size volumes has grown dated over time, but they still brim with priceless bits of obscure history, political trivia, and information on “Who Really Rules” various nations of the world. Another vital source, for me, has been What’s What, a “visual glossary” of everyday objects, edited by Reginald Bragonier and David Fisher. If you’ve ever felt the urge to look inside a fighter airplane’s cockpit, puzzled over the internal mechanism of a pistol, or simply wondered what to call the plastic tips you find on shoelaces, What’s What is the book for you. Any time you’re at a loss for words, you simply find the illustration of a uniform, a vehicle, a hairdo—name it—and the several parts will be concisely labeled, making sure you get it right the first time, every time. I cannot overemphasize the value of this single volume, which has served me well on literally every book I’ve written since it fell into my hands.

  Okay, enough on basics. When you come to the specifics of your story, you will find (thank God!) that books and articles exist on everything.

  Unless you’ve just imagined something on your own, I can assure you someone, somewhere, has described your chosen process, place, or thing in print. From A to Z, it’s all been covered—or it will be, by the time you get around to plotting out your novel. There is no excuse for any modern novelist to write from ignorance and try to fake it as he plods along.

  We obviously don’t have time or space to mention every reference book available on every subject known to humanity. Consult your local library or scan the subject index of Books in Print for a sampling of sources on your chosen topic. While you’re at it, don’t forget the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature, an annual index of magazine articles published in English, covering virtually any subject you can name.

  The good news is, we do have time to list some special sources that may come in handy for adventure writers, whether you are doing paramilitary work, police procedurals, or techno-thrillers. Authenticity is still the key, across the board in genre fiction, and a sampling of the titles listed here should get you started.

  Rolling Thunder: Use of Military Vehicles

  Military vehicles and hardware play a crucial part in modern action novels, but you needn’t be an engineer or jet mechanic to produce a realistic manuscript. Technology is waiting at your fingertips, and if you feel inventive—as Clive Cussler did in Firefox—information on existing hardware may be helpful when you sit down to design your own.

  If you intend to deal with aircraft in your story, keep a weather eye on nomenclature, capabilities, and armament. The necessary information may be gleaned from works like NATO Air Power Today by Michael Gething; USAF Today by Dana Bell; or US Naval and Marine Aircraft Today by Don Linn. Robert Jackson takes you into the cockpit with Flying Modern Jet Fighters, and Larry Davis conducts a combat tour in Gunships. Whirly-birds receive adequate treatment in Michael Gething’s Military Helicopters, and in two volumes by Paul Beaver: Attack Helicopters and Modern Military Helicopters.

  Taking your war to the sea, you will
probably want to peruse Jane’s Fighting Ships, a definitive source, which also costs the proverbial arm and a leg. More affordable volumes include Paul Beaver’s NATO Navies of the 1980s, along with The U.S. Navy Today and Soviet Navy Today, both by Milan Vego. Subsurface action is covered by Paul Beaver, in Nuclear-Powered Submarines, and in Submarine Warfare Today and Tomorrow by John Moore and Richard Compton-Hall.

  An army may travel on its stomach, but few leave their vehicles behind. Coverage of the subject may be found in Modern American Armor, by Steven Zaloga and James Loop; in Tank War Vietnam by Simon Dunstan; and in US Infantry Combat Vehicles Today by Steven Zaloga and Michael Green. Simon Dunstan crosses the Atlantic for a treatment of British Combat Vehicles Today. Zaloga and Loop visit the Middle East with Israeli Tanks and Combat Vehicles, backed up by S. M. Katz in Modern Israeli Tanks and Combat Vehicles. Helmoed-Roemer Heitman gives us a view of The South African War Machine. Steven Zaloga covers “enemy” hardware in Soviet Tanks Today, and teams up with James Loop again to present Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles.

  Researching Strategy

  Miscellaneous hardware and tactics are covered in a wide variety of reference works. Among the more intriguing are Duncan Long’s Modern Ballistic Armor, dealing with “bulletproof” gear, and Peter Stiff’s Taming the Landmine. If one of your characters is facing a polygraph examination, you may want to browse through Vlad Kalashnikov’s Beat the Box: The Insider’s Guide to Outwitting the Lie Detector. Pursuit of missing persons is covered handily in You Can Find Anyone by Eugene Ferraro, and preparation of false identities is examined in New I.D. in America by an anonymous author.

  Accurate portrayal of military (or paramilitary) tactics is central to many action/adventure novels. If you’re a veteran yourself, no problem. If you’re not, relax and check out several of the references available to one and all. Guerilla Warfare by Bert Levy, will provide the basics for a war of hit-and-run, while Steven Zaloga takes you Inside the Soviet Army Today for a look at the opposition. J. K. Cilliers provides a close-up view of African combat in Counter-Insurgency in Rhodesia, and John Wiseman, former SAS instructor, teaches his readers how to Survive Safely Anywhere. Your people have to eat while living off the land, and you will find some pointers—not to mention earthy recipes—in The Green Beret Gourmet by James Guttenberg. Down-and-dirty police tactics are discussed by Steven Mattoon in his SWAT Training and Deployment. Ninja 1990 by Scott French and Lee Lapin puts a cutting edge on modern martial arts, and Paul Elhanan examines a different side of the action/adventure business in Keep ’Em Alive: The Bodyguard’s Trade.