Let's dissect a genre: what makes an adventure story?

[Darth_Biomech]

How would you define an adventure, and how it's different from say, an action? What's important for it?
Pirates of the Caribbean or Indiana Jones feel like an adventure, though something like James Bond or Die Hard... doesn't. Why is that?
I'll put my thoughts under a spoiler so you could write your thoughts first. =D

Spoiler

Why the first spoiler never works without a second one?

Spoiler

I've identified five staple elements to an adventure story. If even one removed, it have serious risk of crumbling down and falling into a different genre:

Romanticization
Both the events and place where the story tends to happen are somewhat idealized. Adventures rarely, if ever, strife for realism, they strife for excitement, even the danger staple doesn't feel particularly... dangerous. It doesn't feels like something you should definitely try to avoid, like that dark alley on an empty street late at night from which a muffled snickering can be heard.
Mystery to solve
The unknown, the exotic, the thrilling, things that provoke exploration and discovery. Sometimes it's a treasure map, sometimes it's a cursed gold amulet, sometimes it's a shrouded in darkness past of your eccentric relative or a promise of being first somewhere. It's also a challenge that dares the main character to action.
Freedom
Adventure feeds our escapism beast with particularly high-calorie burgers. In adventures there's almost never any rules and limitations, there isn't a grey dull man standing over your shoulder watching everything you do and mumbling "hey, you can't do that", while having an actual power to ensure you won't do that. In adventures the heroes often are either misfits from the start, or join a group of misfits to start off the adventure itself. They're decoupling from the society, laws and mundane, to experience the freedom to do everything they want without caring about things like "what will the people think?", "what if it's not legal?", or "but I have an appointment this Friday". So an adventure creates a promise that you will be able to toss these things aside and do something exciting.
Travel
In order to have thrilling new experiences, you need to be able (freedom) to get into a different and preferably exotic (mysterious and\or romanticized) place. in order to continue getting these experiences, you typically need to continue traveling further into even more mysterious and daring events and places.
Danger
Well, this is self-explanatory. It pumps adrenaline, it challenges abilities, it rises the stakes, it tests braveness, and so on. And adventure story has to have danger in it. Yet, the danger almost never seems, uh, real, due to romanticization I mentioned earlier. It's here to drive the stakes, put a pressure on characters and pump adrenaline and be daring, not to get ugly or cause distress and PTSD.

[kmlangleyauthor]

My initial reaction is that the main point of action is the excitement, with the plot revolving around the action. While adventure doesn’t necessarily have to have a lot of action in it for it to be exciting. But I also feel like this is too watered down of a definition for each genre and there’s obviously many variables to each of them.

Edit: now that I’ve read your spoilers, I highly agree with them.

[LadyN]

I feel like adventure is more of the travel and less of the fighting. Yes, fighting is important. But if you have too much of it, it’ll overload the traveling and turn it into and action story where they go places. This could only work for stories with a mercenary protagonist.

And I agree with your points. Those all are important

[AVXP]

I think, just travel.
People say they are going on an adventure or just came back from an adventure.
I think it's in the definition.

ad·ven·ture
/adˈven(t)SHər,ədˈven(t)SHər/
Learn to pronounce
noun
an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity.
"her recent adventures in Italy"
Similar:
exploit
escapade
deed
feat
trial
experience
incident
occurrence
event
happening
episode
affair
stunt
caper
romp
antic
quest
crusade
campaign
venture
verbDATED
engage in hazardous and exciting activity, especially the exploration of unknown territory.
"they had adventured into the forest"

[Iris-Grimoire]

I think it becomes more adventure than action when it's more about getting out of the characters' comfort zone than their conflict with X thing. Doesn't even have to be across a country - maybe they discover all the weird streets in their city, or all the hidden corridors in a library. The structure revolves around "go to new place that's not like their usual to solve this problem" rather than "get here to fight this or figure out this high stakes problem", though they can all be part of a premise together.

[Rhonder]

The thing that stands out to me as the defining point with an adventure story is that the travel to different locations and discovery within those locations being the main focus.

Other genres might have travel included but I feel like it's often to push forward a specific plot thread and perhaps aspects of the travel are more to the point. "we're going to fly to paris to infiltrate a museum and steal the treasure". They're going from point A to point B, but it feels like more of an action story premise because the focus is on the action-oriented scene that happens at the destination. Getting from point A to point B is relatively straight forward and the journey itself isn't really important.

That differs from something like "we have a month to get to paris on foot and steal this treasure or X will happen!" where the actual journey/adventure will be at the forefront. Sure it might reach the climax in an action scene but rather than hopping a plane to just get to point B, there's an adventure involved. Maybe at that point it's more of an action/adventure story... but I feel like that's a popular mash up I guess? Or rather that Adventure itself rarely seems to be a primary genre, but coupled with something else? Dunno.

[kitschensyngk]

As the saying goes, it's not the destination, it's the journey.

It's not just point A to point B.

We know how the story is going to end. What matters is how your protagonist gets there.

What happens along the way? Who do they meet? How will this adventure affect them on a personal level?

[Darth_Biomech]

We know how the story is going to end. What matters is how your protagonist gets there.

I think the main part is exactly that we don't know how the story will end or what the protagonist will reach. That's the "mystery" part. No adventure story I know had the final goal being a known location or object, at least half the plot was always about searching for it, and the reader was discovering it along with the characters.

[Mxhannadi]

For me, I always look at the way they used to do it in the '80s. Just a random adventure with company with no boring conversations and things that have nothing to do with the actual plot.

[foxmailer]

My opinion, and it may not be widely shared; I don't believe there are any 'types' of stories. There are just stories. They all have conflict in them, or they wouldn't be stories, they'd be something else. The conflict in the story may well be something entirely trivial, but if it matters to the characters, then it will matter to the readers.

Best of luck in your future creative endeavours xx

[malwdark]

People traveling, lots of encounters, talking on the road and finding answers on their way.

My comic is adventure

Survivors | Tapas

[Inspector_Spinda]

TravelIn order to have thrilling new experiences, you need to be able (freedom) to get into a different and preferably exotic (mysterious and\or romanticized) place. in order to continue getting these experiences, you typically need to continue traveling further into even more mysterious and daring events and places.

Although, not all adventure must technically include travel for the characters in a long distance sense. A comic about exploring a giant city could be considered an adventure.

[Merj]

Nice topic, let me share what i think. The origin of the word Adventure comes from ADVENTURA, that means "things to come", derivated from the latim verb ADVENIRE (to reach).

This way, when one character is out to adventure, usually he is trying to reach something far away, he'll have to travel and many unexpected things will happen in his way that escapes the calm life concept (danger, weirdness, adrenaline). sometimes he can be forced into adventure (like the many narratives where the character fall into another world and the goal is to go back home), sometimes he go out on a quest... it can be long, it can be short, it can be impossible to reach the goal as long as the character still on his way.

Really nice genre, i'm loving the points of view i'm seeing here.

[Merj]

I do agree the way is the important part, where things have to happen to be an adventure, but the finale being obvious is not always true. The character can fail, the objective can lost meaning and change, the adventure can keep on going without end... there's many ways to breakfree of the "Hero always achieve his goals" expectation on a adventure!

[But_a_Jape]

"Long distance" is relative and I'd say exploring a giant city still fits within the description offered by @Darth_Biomech. I think the key aspect for what makes something an "adventure" is having each different location of the story have a distinct character and environment. If every scene can take place in the same sort of location, or a nondescript location, without affecting anything in the story, that's less of an adventure.

To take your "giant city" example: an adventure series would have the characters explore distinct parts of the city - the poor slums, the rich neighborhoods, the market district, the park, etc. A non-adventure story in the city might all take place in one area of the city or the same settings (only visiting seedy nightclubs that don't each have their own theme, for example). Or it could be a slice of life about someone who just lives in the city and regularly visits different parts of it - they live in a residential area, work downtown in a tower, go shopping at the market - but since these location changes are treated as mundane and usual, there's no "adventure" in that the character is experiencing something new when they go somewhere else.

An adventure also doesn't necessitate an especially large scale. If your main character is, say, a toddler or small child, you can definitely make an adventure story out of them exploring their neighborhood or a large house they've never been in. As long as the locations are new and different to the perspective character (and thus, the reader), that's an adventure in my eyes.

[Possum]

The more I read this thread the more I am now aware of how closely Pokemon follows adventure narrative conventions

[kitschensyngk]

Even though the protagonist may reach their destination, it might not be what they were expecting, or some outside antagonistic force will intervene and set up a final confrontation. It is here where the journey is important, where the protagonist calls upon everything they have gained along the way to help them confront what awaits them at the end.