Let’s talk about tropes! But what is a trope?
According to Oregon State University, “the meaning of the word ‘trope’ is a storytelling convention, device, or motif; specific tropes might be a characteristic of a particular genre of storytelling.”
As writers, we understand that tropes play a critical role in writing fiction. They’re the story building blocks that help us navigate character development, plot progression, and exploring the different themes of our novels.
For readers, familiar or favorite tropes are like a signpost stating that you’re in the right place; they provide a sense of comfort and connection, making it easier to engage with the story. After all, nobody wants to be half way through reading a horror novel, a romance story, or an action-adventure tale while still wondering when anything horrific, romantic, or action-packed is going to occur!
When writing action-adventure fiction, you need to understand the expectations of the genre. Action/adventure books thrive on excitement—they’re jam packed with tension, larger-than-life characters, good vs. evil, and defeating seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
Here are a few of our favorite action-adventure tropes to consider as you write your book.
Do you have a favorite of your own? What about one that isn’t on the list?
1. The Reluctant Hero
One of the most classic action-adventure tropes, The Reluctant Hero is a protagonist who initially resists the call to heroism, but ultimately rises to the challenge. Starting as a regular person, these characters sit comfortably in their routine life until circumstances force them to step up and embrace their destiny. The trope tends to work well because it mirrors real-life hesitation when facing big challenges, allowing your readers to become more invested in the character’s journey.
Against the backdrop of external conflicts, your reluctant hero battles their own doubts, fears, and personal limitations a little more than you might expect from a standard protagonist. As they struggle against the antagonistic external forces present throughout the narrative, you can explore their specific fears and motivations. Maybe they worry about failing others, fear losing loved ones, or struggle with imposter syndrome—each of these burdens being particularly difficult to shift away from, even when victory is achieved at major story milestones. In fact, you can enhance the effect here by creating situations that specifically challenge your hero’s initial reservations, such as placing major characters they care about in mortal peril, or throwing them into a puzzle solving situation they know they just aren’t good at.
Still, with each challenge comes a step toward success: gradual changes in confidence, skills, and willingness to take action. Audiences can’t help but root for the reluctant underdog who shows tangible growth with new fear they overcome, or each new challenge—each new responsibility—they take on.
In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins is the quintessential reluctant hero. He is hesitant to leave the Shire and take on the burden of the One Ring… but ultimately steps up to protect Middle-earth.
2. The Mentor
One of the most beloved characters in action-adventure stories is the Wise Mentor: an experienced guide who trains and prepares the hero for their journey, often providing wisdom and advice. Whether it’s Obi-Wan Kenobi teaching the ways of the Force, or Mr. Miyagi dishing out enlightenment by way of martial arts, these characters serve as both teacher and emotional anchor for your hero. You’ll find that a well-crafted mentor can provide your story with depth, offering guidance when your protagonist feels lost and sharing wisdom earned through years of experience.
Any compelling mentor figure in your story should be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for their student. You’ll often see this character stepping in to protect the hero at a critical moment, sacrificing themselves and creating an emotional turning point that pushes your protagonist toward embracing their destiny. In their mentor’s absence, your protagonist must now stand on their own, making decisions and facing challenges with newfound confidence.
Also note than an effective mentor doesn’t just tell your hero what to do; they guide them to discover truths on their own. By leaning into aspects of the mentor’s personality and background, you can create engaging scenes where your mentor figure uses unconventional methods, riddles, or practical exercises to impart knowledge, making the learning process more meaningful for both your character and readers—provided, of course, that the relationship and methods blend naturally into the plot rather than feeling forced or preachy.
3. The MacGuffin
Once again, we’re venturing into one of action-adventure fiction’s most powerful tools: the MacGuffin. This storytelling device serves as the central object or goal that drives the plot forward, often with significant power or importance to the characters.
But there’s a twist when it comes to an effective MacGuffin: they may keep the plot moving, they aren’t inherently important to the resolution of the story.
Introduce a MacGuffin early in the story, ensuring it holds value for multiple characters, creating conflict and motivation. Against the backdrop of the story itself, the MacGuffin stands as the treasure everyone wants. Whether it’s a mysterious briefcase, a magical artifact, or a secret formula, this object becomes the focal point of your characters’ desires. You can make it something tangible, like the aforementioned briefcase in Pulp Fiction, or something more abstract like a piece of classified information. What matters is its perceived value to your characters.
Around your MacGuffin, you’ll weave a web of pursuit, conflict, and motivation. Your characters will chase it, fight for it, and make difficult choices because of it. The beauty of this device lies in how it naturally creates tension and propels your story forward without feeling forced. As your characters pursue the MacGuffin, you introduce new challenges, reveal hidden motives, develop relationships, and allow the actual story to emerge organically. The object’s movement through different hands creates natural plot points in your story’s timeline, and keeps your readers engaged along the way.
One vital aspect of your MacGuffin is its power to raise the stakes. You need to establish why this object matters so much and what might happen if it falls into the wrong hands—or never gets found at all. The more significant its potential impact, the more invested your readers will become.
In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the Holy Grail serves as the MacGuffin that motivates Indy’s quest and the conflicts that arise around it. An example of a central object that is not a MacGuffin would be the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings, due to how the object itself directly influences the characters, the world around it, and, ultimately, the story’s resolution.
4. The Chase Scene
An adrenaline-fueled sequence where characters pursue or flee from one another, often involving high stakes and thrilling action, the chase scene is one of the most well-worn action-adventure tropes. All action sequences serve as the heart-pounding highlights of your story, where tension peaks and your characters face their most intense challenges. Think the thrilling car chases of Mad Max: Fury Road, zooming Speeder pursuits in the Star Wars series, or rooftop chases in any number of action thrillers.
Action sequences like these require a delicate balance of pacing and detail. Build tension by establishing a clear goal for the chase, such as retrieving the MacGuffin or avoiding a head-on clash between hero and villain. You’ll want to use shorter sentences during intense moments and longer ones to give your readers a breather. Mix up your character’s movements with quick decisions, near-misses involving innocent bystanders, and unexpected obstacles acting as proverbial roadblocks.
Use the environment as more than just a backdrop; turn it into an active participant in your action sequence. Let your characters interact with their surroundings in creative and unexpected ways. Building an engaging environment means thinking about weather conditions, terrain features, and nearby objects that could become impromptu weapons or obstacles. You can use these elements to create unique challenges and opportunities that turn a potentially bland action sequence into something dynamic, heart-pounding and memorable.
With each action sequence, you need to gradually escalate the stakes. Start with smaller obstacles and work your way up to bigger challenges, and don’t forget to consider your character’s emotional state each time. You can weave in their thoughts, physical sensations, and quick decisions to make the sequence feel more immediate and personal—let your readers feel their racing heart, sweaty palms, and the rush of adrenaline.
5. The Hidden Identity
Unlike straightforward storytelling where characters wear their hearts on their sleeves, action-adventure (and thriller) fiction thrives on hidden identities and deception. For your story to make effective use of the hidden identity trope, you’ll need to weave in subtle clues and misdirections. Your character might use disguises, fake names, or an affected personality. You can play with various elements like cloudy backgrounds, conflicting loyalties, or secret allegiances that mask their true nature.
Before you unveil your character’s true identity, build tension through careful pacing and strategic hints. You’ll want to create moments that make your readers gasp and flip back through pages to spot the clues they missed—after all, the success of your dramatic reveal depends on how well you’ve laid the groundwork. A peculiar habit, an unexplained skill, or a gradually-becoming-more-obvious connection to another character are great ways to build to a reveal that’s both surprising and inevitable, giving readers that satisfying “aha!” moment.
Be careful, however, because any identity deception you include will reshape your entire narrative. You’ll need to consider how this secret affects your character’s actions, relationships, and the overall story arc from beginning to end, so readers don’t feel like it came entirely out of nowhere—or that it’s a contrivance created only so you could include a surprise plot twist.
As you develop your plot and work on scattering the breadcrumbs that reveal the character deception within, keep your eyes open for natural sources of tension and subplot opportunities. You can use these to enhance conflict, deepen character relationships, and drive your story forward. Think about how each revelation can trigger new complications or resolve existing conflicts in unexpected ways, and not only during the story’s climax.
In Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Captain Jack Sparrow often plays with his identity, both for humor and plot development.
6. The Last-Minute Rescue
Every great action-adventure story features a ticking clock—an upcoming event or disaster that signals a major point in the story’s timeline, and is often the end of your hero’s chances to succeed.
And any ticking clock leads to the opportunity to deploy a particulary thrilling trope: the last-minute rescue.
Simply put, this is a dramatic moment where a character is saved from danger just when all hope seems lost. Build up a seemingly hopeless situation, then introduce a character or element that arrives unexpectedly to save the day. Let your hero struggle just long enough to make readers doubt the outcome, but don’t drag it out so long that it becomes unbelievable. The sweet spot lies in building tension right up to that critical tipping point—the moment after which success would be entirely unbelievable.
In addition to timing, you’ll want to ensure your rescue makes logical sense within your story’s framework. Plant subtle hints earlier in your narrative that can explain how the rescue became possible. This way, your readers won’t feel cheated by a random save, but rather impressed by your clever setup.
In The Avengers, Iron Man saves New York City from a nuclear missile just in the nick of time, turning the tide of battle.
7. The Team of Misfits
A diverse group of characters, often with conflicting personalities, who come together to achieve a common goal. Your team might include the reluctant hero, the wise-cracking sidekick, the mysterious specialist, and the unlikely ally. Their different backgrounds, skills, and personalities create natural tension and opportunities for growth as they first learn to tolerate one another, and then to work effectively together.
As your story progresses, you’ll need to show how your team overcomes their differences and learns to trust each other. Internal conflicts can range from personality clashes to disagreements about mission objectives or methods, opening the door to changes in group dynamics as characters must set aside their differences and individual desires in service of the greater good. You might include scenes where former rivals save each other’s lives, or where characters share vulnerable moments during downtime or find common ground through shared experiences—each of which offers plenty of opportunity for subplot material to be mined.
Individual team members should bring something unique to the table. Your story becomes more engaging when each character has their moment to shine, whether it’s the tech expert hacking security systems, the smooth talker negotiating with adversaries, or the sharpshooter taking down a formidable foe with a single, masterful shot. These distinct abilities create opportunities for creative problem-solving and showcase why the team needs every member if they’re going to succeed at the ultimate goal.
A great team of misfits is an oddly complementary team of misfits. Like characters in an asymmetrical video game, the specific expertise or talents of one character can prove an invaluable compromise for the talents lacking in another—in both the physical and interpersonal sense. Use this to create satisfying payoffs for your readers, leaning into how each character’s strengths can help overcome specific challenges, and how their weaknesses might force them to rely on their teammates. Over time, the pieces begin to settle more solidly into place, turning what was once a jumbled mess of clashing personalities, motivations and methods into a well-oiled machine that can still get rickety from time to time.
In Guardians of the Galaxy, a group of outcasts and misfits unite to save the galaxy, each contributing their unique skills and quirks.
8. The Betrayal
A plot twist where a character’s true loyalties are revealed, often leading to significant consequences for the hero.
Betrayal is a common trope in action-adventure storytelling, and often winds up blending itself with a couple of others we’ve covered in this article: The Mentor and The Hidden Identity. The difference between the hidden identity trope and the betrayal trope is that the latter doesn’t necessarily have to be the result of intentionally disguised identity or motivations. Betrayal can come at the drop of a hat, as a supporting character makes a value judgment that happens to weigh firmly on the losing side for our hero.
For the best effect, you’ll want to build trust between them and your protagonist before bringing the betrayal to light. Make the betrayer likable and helpful, creating genuine bonds that will make the eventual betrayal more impactful. Your readers should feel the same shock and emotional punch as your main character does when the truth is out—after all, it’s difficult to feel truly betrayed by someone you never trusted in the first place. If the betrayer has been considering a switch of allegiance for some time, make sure to foreshadow that fact subtly through character interactions and dialogue, making the eventual reveal shocking yet believable.
In The Dark Knight, Harvey Dent’s transformation into Two-Face and subsequent betrayal of Batman creates a powerful emotional impact—made especially poignant by the fact Dent’s villainous turn is largely driven by his own feelings of betrayal.
Remember, though, that not all betrayals are final. In Uncharted, cavalier character Victor “Sully” Sullivan acts as a business partner, fellow adventurer and mentor/father figure to the young Nathan Drake—but despite their history and personal relationship, his mercenary nature gets the better of him when he betrays Nathan, only to return as a friend after his conscience drives him back to the right path.
Action-Adventure Tropes: In Conclusion
It isn’t difficult to see why the action-adventure genre, in literature, cinema and video games, is enduringly popular. Packed with core story tropes that offer excitement, danger, edge-of-your-seat thrills, and access to complex, iconic characters, there’s plenty to love from just about any angle. Implement any of these tropes in your story and you’ll do well to signal that your readers are in the right place, managing expectations while you drive the plot forward.
The only question is: what kind of adventure are you going to treat us to next? It’s time to get to work.
Oh, and if you need a wise mentor of your own to help you through building your story from the ground up, getting it written, and bringing it to the world in professional shape, AutoCrit is here to help. Give it a try today—you’re sure to be thrilled!
Happy writing!
