How to Write Action Adventure Novels

by Michael Newton

  Let’s talk about the ladies for a minute, shall we? In the modern action novel, woman’s place need not be strictly in the home-or in the bunker. Granted, females in the genre have been largely relegated to the roles of damsel in distress or luscious sidekick/bedmate to a macho man—Mack Bolan’s April Rose, “Miss Paradise” in Dennison’s War, Krysty Wroth in Deathlands—but the times are changing, guys. As noted earlier, some racy heroines have surfaced lately in the subgenre of adult Westerns, with respectable showings in single titles like Flood, The little Drummer Girl, The Third Deadly Sin, The Tuesday Blade, The Traveler, and The Passion of Molly T. A survey of the literature would seem to indicate that members of the “gentle sex” can hold their own quite nicely, thank you, both as heroines and heavies.

  While we’re on the dark side, it is perfectly legitimate for you to deal with bigots, sadists, child abusers—name your poison—but you must beware of painting rabid deviants as heroes. I have seen it done successfully on one occasion, in a quirky murder yarn called Killer on the Heights, and even then the narrator, a racist vigilante, had to square accounts through an improbable (and poorly handled) suicide. If you insist on canonizing kooks and crazies, you not only jeopardize potential sales, but also risk offending major portions of your audience.

  This doesn’t mean your heavies can’t have sympathetic traits—perhaps a member of the Klan who draws a private line at vandalizing churches, or a psychopath who suffered terrible abuse in childhood. Everybody has a past, and most (I won’t say all) have good points, if you care to use a microscope, but don’t lose sight of who and what these people are, in their relation to your tale.

  (A brief time-out. I frankly have no interest in your politics, religion, nationality, or sex life. Writers are inevitably subject to the influence of factors in their private lives, but real professionals don’t let it show in print. If you are simply looking for a propaganda forum, I suggest you don’t belong in genre fiction. Check out Writer’s Market for a sampling of the countless periodicals that trade in off-the-wall ideas, and find yourself a niche where you feel more at home.)

  The Name Game

  Once you have solid characters in mind—or, better yet, on paper—you must give them names. No problem? Guess again. Your choice of monikers for heroes, heroines, and heavies often sets the tone for everything that follows, shaping audience perception of the characters before your people have a chance to hit their stride.

  What’s in a name? Plenty! I hate to argue with the Bard, but I suspect a rose relies as much upon its label as its fragrance in the bid for popularity. Suppose, for instance, it was called a cactus (or a hemorrhoid!). The fact is, folks, there’s something in the sound.

  Author Thomas Millstead, in an essay on the christening of genre characters (How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Writer’s Digest Books, 1987), has prescient words of warning for the novice writer:

  The most quickly spotted tipoff to the amateur is the choice of names…. Too often they seem pinned on hastily, randomly, without purpose. They may be drab while the character is colorful. Or they may suggest ethnic or social backgrounds that have nothing to do with the characters or the narrative. Or several characters may have names closely resembling each other, sowing confusion.

  Above all, they don’t ring true to the spirit or mood of the story.

  They do not strum those subconscious chords that prompt the reader to suspend, unwittingly, all disbelief.

  Admittedly, in real life our names may not ring true either. But in fiction too much disparity between name and persona can be lethally disruptive. The dominating precept is verisimilitude, a faithful wedding of narrative and name.

  Or, simply stated, if the names don’t fit, your characters may not fit, either.

  Ian Fleming had a special knack for naming characters, his tongue-in-cheek approach producing classics that inevitably linger in the reader’s mind when fine points of his plots are long forgotten. Hugo Drax. Jack Spang. Emilio Largo. Auric (i.e., “golden”) Goldfinger. Ernst Stavro Blofeld. And the Fleming ladies! Dominoe Vitale. Tiffany Case. Vesper Lynd. Honeychile Rider. The incomparable Pussy Galore.

  Names needn’t be concocted with a leer in mind, however. In The Dead Zone, Stephen King deliberately calls his hero Johnny Smith to demonstrate that psychic trauma may be visited upon the most innocuous and ordinary of the species. Names like Bolan, Carter, Cody, Hawker, Lyons, Steele, and Stone may lack the Fleming poetry, but they possess a certain “ring” that suits the genre.

  Back in Chapter 4, I noted that I often tag my characters with simple letters, in the place of names, while I’m constructing profiles. This does not mean you should name your people alphabetically, with Mr. Arnold chasing Mr. Bates, who loves Miss Coolidge, daughter of the late, lamented widow Dunn, and so forth. This is amateurish to the max, and editors will spot it in an instant. Likewise, as we learned from Millstead, you should not have Tommy Barnes and Tillie Bates pursuing Tony Baker through Bavaria. It gets too damned confusing, and if you can’t tell your characters apart without a program, why should any of your readers care to try?

  If perfect names suggest themselves the first time out, be thankful. If they don’t, you needn’t panic. Telephone directories will yield a crop of nifty surnames, everything from Aames to Zwissler. Major dictionaries frequently contain appendices of given (“Christian”) names, complete with roots and ancient definitions. Failing that, there are innumerable “baby books,” replete with names enough to staff an army.

  Researching Heroes and Heavies

  The creation of dramatic characters is your responsibility, but realism in the action genre may require at least a modicum of research. Bear in mind that many of your readers have extensive backgrounds in the military, law enforcement, or intelligence; they recognize mistakes in terminology, procedural behavior, weapons nomenclature, even uniforms—and many air their gripes in letters to the publisher. The chances are you won’t be fired because you put the wrong patch on a uniform or place your hero in a nonexistent unit of the military, but habitual mistakes can be embarrassing, and they are easily avoided with a minimum of homework.

  Thankfully, a wealth of published information is available on military life, covert intelligence collection and police procedures, paramilitary groups and counterterrorist activities … you name it. G-men, T-men, spooks and saboteurs, detectives, psychos, terrorists and gangsters; if it walks and talks, somebody, somewhere, has produced a book or article with all the background information you will need to make your characters compelling, lifelike. (While you’re at it, keep in mind that one-time “heroes”—agents of the FBI or CIA, especially—are often cast as heavies since the seamy revelations of the latter 1970s. Feel free to break the mold and drop a ringer in from time to time.)

  For military background on your heroes, check out Ian Padden’s Fighting Elite series, published by Bantam Books. Individual volumes cover training, armament, and military actions undertaken by Marines, the Army Rangers, Air Commandos, and the rugged Navy SEALS. For decent coverage of forty-odd nations—including NATO signatories, Warsaw Pact, and nonaligned—consult Uniforms of the Elite Forces by Leroy Thompson and Michael Chappell. Illustrations and text provide fairly detailed coverage of elite military units, from dress uniforms to specialized combat gear, weapons, and training. Also available, from Sterling Publications, is an eighteen-volume Uniforms Illustrated series, covering various nations and military eras through text and photographs.

  Dealing with a foreign army? Not to worry. Some of the countless sources on the bookshelf include March or Die by Tony Geraghty (French Foreign Legion); Modern Elite Forces by David Miller; Inside the Soviet Army Today by Steven Zaloga; Warsaw Pact Ground Forces by Gordon Rottman; Russia’s War in Afghanistan by David Isby; and GSG-9 (covering German counterterrorist activities) by Rolf Trophoven.

  Few police agencies have been scrutinized as closely (or as critically) in recent years as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The best
study to date is Sanford Ungar’s FBI, a comprehensive volume published in the wake of Nixon’s resignation, with particular attention given to the Bureau’s areas of jurisdiction, investigative techniques, and chain of command. A fascinating inside view is found in William Sullivan’s The Bureau, focusing on power politics within the FBI, while Nelson Blackstock covers dirty tricks in COINTELPRO. A dated, left-wing view of Bureau history is offered in The FBI Nobody Knows by Fred J. Cook.

  The CIA has sticky fingers in a thousand different pies, and agents of “the Company” are staples of adventure fiction, playing both sides of the street. Regardless of your viewpoint, you can get background information from many sources. David Wise and Thomas Ross created a sensation with The Invisible Government, a volume that has much to say about the first two decades of the CIA’s covert activities. More valuable background is contained in OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency by R. Harris Smith. Victor Marchetti and John Marks met strenuous opposition to publication of their volume, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, which remains informative despite numerous strategic deletions of “sensitive” material. The dark side of Agency business is plumbed by Charles Ashman in The CIA-Mafia Link, and by W. H. Bowart in Operation Mind Control. Bob Woodward brings matters immediately up to date in Veil: The CIA’s Secret Wars, 1981-1987.

  Foreign intelligence agencies have likewise received a wealth of exposure in recent years. David Wise and Thomas Ross followed their success in The Invisible Government with The Espionage Establishment, updating coverage on the CIA while tacking on surveys of intelligence gathering in Britain, China, and the USSR. The husband-wife team of Thomas Plate and Andrea Darvi provide a valuable resource volume in their Secret Police, and The Hit Team by David Tinnin and Dag Christenson offers an inside view of Israeli intelligence and counterterrorist activity. Michael Footner’s Interpol examines the inner workings of a major international police network. A fascinating, if chaotic, overview of the intelligence community is offered by James Hougan in Spooks. For a peek behind the Iron Curtain, browse through John Barron’s KGB and its sequel, KGB Today.

  Mercenary soldiers figure prominently in the modern action genre, and the bookstores periodically abound with memoirs of various soldiers for hire. The single constant source of information on mercenary activities is, of course, Soldier of Fortune magazine, each issue packed with articles on tactics, weapons, and contemporary actions in a dozen “dirty little wars.”

  For an overview of the territory, check out The Specialist by Gayle Rivers. Details of mercenary dress and armament are provided in Leroy Thompson’s Uniforms of the Soldiers of Fortune. More specific sources include: Mercenary by Mike Hoare; The New Mercenaries by Anthony Mockler; and Peter MacDonald’s Soldiers of Fortune.

  Police procedures and organization are examined in a multitude of recent texts. The best all around is Jonathan Rubenstein’s City Police. More detailed information on investigative tactics may be gleaned from the following volumes: Fundamentals of Criminal Investigation by Charles O’Hara; Frank Patterson’s Manual of Police Report Writing; Homicide Investigations by Le Moyne Snyder; Modern Criminal Investigations by Harry Soderman and John O’Connell; and Techniques of Crime Investigation by Aren Svenson and Otto Wender.

  The Gang’s All Here

  Villains, given their intrinsic liberation from the rules and regulations of polite society, are more diverse than their opponents on the side of law and order. Before progressing to specific criminal fraternities, you might peruse some general sources and acquire a feel for deviants in general, how they think and talk and act as they go merrily about their shady business. Bloodletters and Badmen by Jay Robert Nash is a pioneering encyclopedia of American crime, but watch out for numerous factual errors in the text. A better selection might be The Encyclopedia of American Crime by Carl Sifakis. British author Colin Wilson has produced several reference works on the subject, including Encyclopedia of Murder, coauthored with Patricia Putnam, and a new Encyclopedia of Modern Murder, prepared with Donald Seaman. Casting modesty aside, I’ll also recommend my own Most Wanted, an encyclopedic survey of the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” fugitives, coauthored with my wife, Judy.

  Traditional organized crime—i.e., “The Mafia”—provides a fair proportion of the heavies in contemporary action/adventure novels. Before you start blundering around in unfamiliar territory, tacking Italian names on all your villains and stuffing them with pasta, check out The Mob by Virgil Peterson for a survey of the multi-ethnic underworld. (Remember, we’re avoiding those clichés!) Richard Hammer does a fair job of summarizing syndicate history in Playboy’s Illustrated History of Organized Crime. The links between mobsters, corrupt unions, and modern political assassinations are examined in The Hoffa Wars by Dan Moldea and in David Scheim’s Contract on America. Norman Lewis surveys the traditional Sicilian Mafia in The Honored Society.

  In recent years, the old-line godfathers have faced stiff competition from new arrivals on the syndicate scene. Outlaw biker gangs are X-rayed, with telling effect, by Canadian author Yves Lavigne in Hell’s Angels: Taking Care of Business. Chinese Triad societies get the treatment from Fenton Bresler in The Chinese Mafia and from Sean O’Callaghan in The Triads. Japan’s expanding syndicate is studied in The Yakuza by David Kaplan and Alec Dubro and in The Tattooed Men by Florence Rome. International drug syndicates are examined in The Underground Empire by James Mills, and in Alfred McCoy’s The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia.

  Terrorists are all the rage in modern action novels, and you ought to be acquainted with their tactics and philosophies. The best general sources are The Terrorists by Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne, Brothers in Blood by Ovid Demaris, and The Terror Network by Claire Sterling. Specific terrorist movements are targeted by Christopher Dobson in Black September (Palestinians), by Richard Gott in Guerilla Movements in Latin America, by Jillian Becker in Hitler’s Children (the Baader-Meinhof gang), and by Tim Pat Coogan in The I.R.A. Stateside. The terrorist activities of Satanic cultists are reviewed by Maury Terry in The Ultimate Evil, and James Coates surveys modern neo-Nazis in Armed and Dangerous.

  In the last analysis, however you decide to pair your heroes off against your heavies, they should be as big and bad and real as you can make them. If your characters don’t “live,” I guarantee your story won’t.

  Still with me? Great. So far, you’ve picked a story line, prepared an outline, and created living, breathing characters. It’s not enough to simply have your people race around the countryside and shoot each other, though. They must communicate. And you, proud parent that you are, must teach them how to talk.

  8. Say What?

  Regardless of your story line, its setting, or the choice of characters, your novel must have dialogue. Case closed. It doesn’t matter if your hero and his girlfriend have been mute from birth, they must communicate between themselves and with others, and the people who surround them must continue speaking in a normal fashion. There has never been, as far as I know, a successful “silent” novel, stripped of dialogue. If anything, such classics as The Miracle Worker and The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, dealing with mute protagonists, place even greater demands on their “normal” characters to carry the weight of the tale.

  Some novice writers are intimidated by the thought of fabricating realistic conversations—I was—but the plain fact is, there’s just no way around it. So, you’ve read some classy novels and decided for yourself that you can’t measure up to dialogue prepared by Mailer, King, or Michener. Join the club. They didn’t start out breaking records at the bookstore check-out counters, either—and they still draw barbs from critics when they fumble. (Don’t believe me? Study the reviews of It, Centennial, or Tough Guys Don’t Dance.)

  Everybody starts as a beginner in the writing game, and every working writer polishes his work, his style, through practice. Read voraciously and type your fingers to the bone. Odds are, you’ll get the hang of writing decent dialogue before you know it.


  A Word on Basics

  Because of manuscripts I’ve seen in slush piles (and in trash cans), I’ve decided to pause here for a brief review of English 101. Successful dialogue has style, but there are raw mechanics to be dealt with, too, and tons of style may not be adequate to cover faulty execution. Who will bother seeking hidden treasures in your work if your approach is semiliterate?

  According to my dusty textbooks, there are three ways of constructing sentences with dialogue.

  John said, “Throw down your gun and raise your hands.”

  “Throw down your gun,” John said, “and raise your hands.”

  “Throw down your gun and raise your hands,” John said.

  Of course, I know you learned all this in junior high school, but it couldn’t hurt to spend a moment studying the three examples, all the same. Note the positioning of punctuation marks, which periods and commas fall inside quotation marks, which fall outside. Your editor expects a few stray typos in a manuscript, but if you always get it wrong, he may suggest—and none too kindly—that you take your act to night school for a quick refresher on the basics.

  As a rule, each speaker rates a separate paragraph, so your dialogue should come out looking something like:

  “Throw down your gun,” John said, “and raise your hands.”

  Bob dropped his pistol in the dust. “Where are you taking me?”

  “We’re going to the county jail,” John snapped.

  Some authors (and some editors) ignore this standard practice, but the end result can be a jumbled mess that leaves readers hopelessly confused regarding who said what to whom. In spite of the opinions aired by certain high-brow critics, awkward, murky prose is not a mark of classy writing. Rather, it is generally a sign of laziness and negligence.