Action/Adventure Aficionados discussion

Does anyone recognize the formula fiction used in mainstream thriller/suspense/action/adventure novels? If so, is it an issue or do you see the thriller template as always exciting when plots are reused with different characters, settings, etc.?

I think we all see it, sure.

It definitely hinders me. For example, even in Alistair MaClean novels--he writes in such predictable patterns--I can no longer read him at all. Nothing worse than the feeling that I've 'already been down a road once before'. Same thing happened to me with Clive Cussler and Robert Ludlum.

Feliks, I agree. James Patterson is an author that comes to mind for me, yet he sells millions of novels. Personally, I love a great thriller with originality.

Y'know Ken its very odd but in the other bestselling genres of this era, similarity, repetition, and redundancy seem to be a primary draw for many readers. Franchise readers and series readers--they ask for it. Its unfathomable.

If the protagonist is a great character, perhaps a follow up book or two could work, but in a completely different scenario would be nice. Jack Reacher is a decent character, but sixteen stories? Jack Reacher eats lunch and shoots the bad guys...Jack Reacher goes to a movie and kills the bad guys...Jack Reacher parks his car and kills the bad guys.

Yes, some authors do it well (though I do not know how).

I would vote Adam Hall as someone who delivered a series which never got stale. John D MacDonald...

Thanks for the tip Feliks...I'll give it a try. Who is your favorite author?

Favorite thriller author? I'm tempted to nominate Adam Hall yet again. For several reasons: he's prolific..about 16-20 books. He's ingenious ('Sinkiang Executive' has his protagonist crash- landing a MIG into Siberia in order to locate someone).

He provides a wealth of authentic detail. If you extracted just the brief action sequences from LeCarre and set them in their own novel-length books, that's how good Hall reads.

Finally, he wastes no time trying to be stylish, slick, psychological, or hip; instead, he sets you up to do exactly what a thriller ought to do; which is to make it so you are flipping pages as fast as your eyes can read--very few thriller authors actually achieve this basic function, I find.

Of course, if you are asking me who my favorite pure espionage author is, I'd immediately name LeCarre or Deighton.

Favorite literary author? It would look like this:
Dickens - 19th c English
Stendhal - 19th c European
Montaigne, Dante - pre-19th c European
Robert Burton - pre - 19th c English
Somerset Maugham, Evelyn Waugh - early 20th c English
Thomas Mann - early 20th c European
Le Carre - 20th c postwar, English, fiction
Joan Didion - 20th c American, female, nonfiction
Edmond Wilson - 20th c American, male, nonfiction, (criticism)
Shirley Jackson - 20th c, fiction, female, best also in horror
Thomas Pynchon - 20th c fiction, male, American
Herman Melville - pre 20th c American, fiction
HL Mencken - pre 20th c American, nonfiction, (criticism)

I'm not really clear on formula versus original, but series are generally pretty much the same, definitely follow a formula. I don't like the Jack Reacher series, but found James Bond & Matt Helm novels very enjoyable. There are a lot of similarities between all the series (characters, plots, & dangers) but the difference for me was in the logic & mechanics of the story.

Fleming was a spy. Hamilton was a hunter, spent time tromping around the wilderness, owned boats, & wrote about all of these things in sporting magazines. He wrote a book about sailing. Both wrote what they knew. I read a couple of Hamilton's articles about hunting in Sweden & his fiction book just changed the prey. Such realism shines & makes even a simple story a lot more interesting.

Childs doesn't bring that sort of realism to his series, even though Reacher is a good hero. Childs portrays shotguns as cannons. It's pretty obvious he's never loaded a shell much less shot one. (Hamilton wrote a very readable article on the subject while he was trying to optimize reach & spread while not tearing up a bad shoulder.) Reacher runs around for several days in the heat, in the same clothes without a shower & is still attractive to women. A neat trick, but my wife sends me to the showers after a single day. After 2 she probably wouldn't speak to me.

For me, characterization helps a lot. All 3 series had that. A hero or heroine that I can identify with & really get behind can cover a lot of ills, but only if the rest of the world is well written. It's even better when I know or have in common some of the experiences. I've been to a lot of the places & done a lot of the same things as Hamilton. His descriptions & attitudes are similar to my own, but he also has a subtle sense of humor that compliments his practicality.

Here's a little something:

Novelist James W. Hall makes a case that the biggest hits from the past hundred years share 12 features.

Almost every one of the best-sellers engaged with the hot-button social issue of its time — race (Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird), sex (Valley of the Dolls) or politics (The Hunt for Red October) — expressing, in Hall's words, "some larger, deep-seated and unresolved conflict in the national consciousness." Again and again, the books feature fractured families and protagonists who are outsiders. "What's true for Scarlett [O'Hara] is also true for Allison MacKenzie and Jack Ryan and Mitch McDeere and Professor Robert Langdon," he writes. And the American Dream (or Dream Deferred or Dream Perverted) looms large as a motif; it is variously exalted or depicted as corrupt (Peyton Place), even nightmarish (The Dead Zone, Jaws). Secret societies abound (The Godfather, The Firm and, of course, The Da Vinci Code), which Hall interprets as speaking to the American "suspicion of institutions, public and private, that might in some way undermine our personal liberties."

So, is all lit formulaic to some degree?

Its a clever theory. And may even be true.

But if it is true, its not true for all literature; because even books like the ones mentioned are merely the blandest, most bourgeoisie bestsellers. You wont find Thomas Pynchon's or Saul Bellow's books fitting into such a generalization. Those are authentic voices.

Anyway his idea is certainly bourne out by what we can observe on Goodreads: the books which consistently draw the most gab and brouhaha, are 'Mockingbird' and 'Lolita' and similar "controversial works". The underlying question though, is: controversial to who? American provincialism does exaggerate and scandalize stuff that the rest of the world is long since bored with.

I think Hall came up with an excellent general formula. Thanks, JDB.

Feliks, I don't think the term "American provincialism" is a very good term to use without qualifying it with 'current' & 'popular'. Without a time association, it makes it seem as if our society is static in its thinking. And I certainly hope that the 'popular' opinion isn't our guiding one. Too much idiocy.

The provincial attitude can be applied to every culture I've encountered or read about. While I think your term is correct, it's generally taken as a derogatory term. Even with our growing globalization, we are all sure that our issues are the only ones that really have any significance. Of course, they do, to us. The changing mores, needs, & stresses in our societies are far more important than those of another country or continent. Some, like race, religion, & sex, tend to span larger areas & longer time periods, so speak to a larger audience, but are going to be quite different, too. Race relations in the US or South Africa are far different than they are in Europe, for instance.

I don't think "To Kill A Mockingbird" is controversial nor is it bland. It's a well written story that touches on a lot of the buttons that make us human: coming-of-age, race, law, honor, & others. All of those are hallmarks of an enduring story, not a bland one.

Not sure I follow your objection to my remark. American provincialism is simply a historical truism, not a slur. Yes, it can be used as a slur--and many have often done so--which is why it still stings, because its still true.

Question: what do you mean by the phrase, 'time association'? That today's America shouldn't be criticized for backwardness? But we've still got rednecks, illiterates, a hilariously weak public education system. Still got people shuffling around in the street who barely know who Thomas Jefferson was. Or what the Constitution is. What's that statistic about 3/4 of American adults barely ever picking up a book after high school?

I wouldn't say every-culture-in-history could be labeled 'provincial' in the way the US has always been. Our geography (separated by two oceans) reinforces our remoteness from world culture; whereas closely-neighboring European countries all have a history of intermingling which makes for exchange-of-ideas.

Next: you don't think 'Mockingbird' is controversial? But this is a longstanding component of its reputation. It's one of the most apparent things about it. After all, readers (around Goodreads, for instance) rarely debate about the quality of its prose.

I can see how you might not think its bland (this is an impression that either strikes you individually, or not-- because so very few voices in our society are willing to pan it publicly). I'm glad you enjoy the book, but not everyone feels the same.

Our better angels: I too worry about what wisdom ultimately steers/guides us--intellectualism? Not from our leaders, surely. The whims-of-the-masses is usually what prevails. You know what H.L. Mencken said about democracy merely being an incubator for mediocrity. Has the American mindset remained static? No, I'd say its steadily getting *worse*.

Didn't really object & not worried about it being a slur, just pointing out that it isn't unique. Every culture & area is to some extent, some more than others. As big, rich, & diverse as the US is, it has far more to worry & think about at home than most. Most Europeans that I know have a very weird, provincial view of the US, too. I dated a Norwegian gal for a while & she couldn't believe how different the US was from what she thought she knew from Hollywood & the news.

A time association because we worry about some things a lot more than others over the years. Causes come & go. Certainly the sexual mores of today are nothing like they were a century ago, right?

'Mockingbird' WAS controversial when it was written. Now it's just really good historical fiction. I don't think there's any controversy about it today except most parents today wouldn't let their kids walk the streets the way Jeb & Scout did, more's the pity. The characters & the setting are too well drawn for it to be bland, but then it does bring back a lot of memories for me. I grew up around small towns like theirs. Of course not everyone is going to think so, but I often find that people seem to revel in either singing the praises of or reviling classics. Too often, I doubt they've read more than the Cliff Notes or others' opinions.

Mencken might have been on to something, but the more history I read the less I worry about society going downhill. For instance, our political elections still haven't managed to descend back down to the level they were at 200 years or so ago for all the negative campaigning. It only seems that way. We learn an idealized version of history with the warts glossed over or left out entirely. The extremes are held up as examples, but ours are often lost in the trivia of the day - just as they often were in the past.

Bradbury might not have agreed with me. He has a great caution in Fahrenheit 451 with Captain Beatty's speech.
...If the Government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely `brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy....

Interesting topic and points. It is easy for an author to follow a successful formula--as Feliks pointed out, Alistair MacLean (after starting out strong) basically wrote the same story over and over with a different setting (he had a number of personal problems and he can to hate writing). I work very hard to keep my plots fresh and interesting (I hope!), but hitting all the plot points, etc. can make a work seem formulaic. There's so much out there that at some point it can all seem the same!

Sometimes when you have a somewhat formulaic plot structure it can be helpful to weave multiple plot lines into one novel which can make things look fresh even though they do perhaps rely on proven formulas.

In my opinion the best novels in the action genre are character driven action novels. If the reader cares about the characters and the action flows from the content of their character the plot will resonate and the journey of the mind will be a more satisfying experience. Action for the sake of action creates nothing more than a surface read in two dimensions rather than the four dimensional world of a great novel.