Impressions From The Books Read
Criticism and Reviews
№6

How to write an adventure novel?



  

Drivingidea.ru LogoArrow The spy-adventure literary genre, which has been clearly underestimated in recent times, can enrich those workers of the pen and keyboard who decide to contribute to its development. To write a fascinating adventure novel full of exciting events and vivid mise-en-scènes, it is enough to have basic literacy, logical thinking and a rich imagination.

Typical fast-paced road read

Those who have often had to travel by subway, commuter train or long-distance train, probably could notice that their passengers while away the time by reading not so much the wise classics of world literature, but books of more or less light genres - detectives, spy stories, adventure novels. And this is not surprising, since any road causes nervous stress, and it is easiest to reduce its impact on the psyche by reading not those works where the plot is full of drama and strong characters, but those where events develop quickly and sometimes rapidly.

In such books, the scenery changes almost on every page, and the fearless hero acts like a robot programmed to achieve the goal. Neither the death of comrades, nor the reprimands of the intelligence generals monitoring the operation, nor the forced partings with the beauties recruited by him are able to stop him.

A genre unfairly condemned by highbrow critics

Despite the fact that in literary circles the passion for such novels is usually ridiculed and considered bad form, they, strangely enough, have not yet sunk into oblivion and with enviable stubbornness return as mass road reading. Perhaps, there is simply a methodological flaw in modern literary criticism, not taking into account the reader's needs for just such dynamic and simple plots. Like Hollywood films, although they are forgotten almost immediately, they manage to noticeably revive emotions and return the imagination from high matters to the mortal earth, to which it is still useful to descend from time to time.

Seeing such a stormy interest in books of the adventure-detective genre, to the development of which, by the way, even the recognized classics Jules Verne and Dostoevsky contributed in their time, it is natural to ask the following question. Why not take part in this quiet multi-million social movement, which brings authors of fairly easy-to-write books quite good royalties?

New adventures of a former Soviet resident

After all, it is enough to be able to combine words into sentences, consistently develop the simplest plot, give cursory characteristics of the characters - and right before your eyes, pages of a fascinating narrative will begin to appear one after another. As the main character, you can traditionally choose a valiant intelligence officer, whose main features are well known from Soviet popular culture, which paid special attention to the topic of espionage.

All that remains is to send him to some not very friendly country, assign him a very difficult task, immerse him in an atmosphere of surveillance, dangers and chases, fill his days with painful attempts to unravel the tricky tricks of enemies - and who knows, perhaps the reading public will hear about a new talented creator of spy stories, and train passengers will be happy to plunge into the world of adventures he has invented. Drivingidea.ru LogoArrow

  

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Political detective as a promising literary genre



  

Drivingidea.ru LogoArrow The political detective genre, which was very popular in Soviet times, has recently been forgotten or the works created within its framework do not arouse mass reader interest. At the same time, the modern realities of world politics create very fertile ground for cultivating a creative idea in the spy detective genre.

The Rapid Extinction of a Glorious Tradition

Not so long ago, Soviet citizens would gather with their entire families in the evenings around black-and-white televisions to tensely follow the twists and turns of the multi-part feature series "TASS is Authorized to Announce...", the plot of which was built around the struggle between Soviet and American intelligence services. Even without always understanding the intricacies of the rather intricate film, viewers enjoyed the masterful acting, their thoughtful dialogues and meaningful glances. Without understanding anything in this film, boys could decide to become spies, and adults would happily note that their country was reliably protected on the invisible front.

Alas, since then this genre, although complex, but quite popular and even in demand, has practically not developed at the highest level it had achieved. And the point here was not so much that the superpower had already gone down in history, and a constellation of actors equal to "TASS..." could perhaps only be assembled in dreams, but that there was practically no one to continue the traditions laid down by Yulian Semenov. Perhaps lesser-known authors tried to create spy detectives of the same level, but, apparently, they turned out to be weak for a screen adaptation of such a scale.

Revival at a new turn of history

At the same time, the demand for thoughtful, serious, pompous works created on the basis of the current political situation has remained and is even growing against the backdrop of the one-day comedies released today. The viewer is clearly bored without the mental battles of warring intelligence agencies, scenes in high offices, political intrigues, spy failures and insidious plans to prepare military coups.

Today, writers of the new generation can return all this to him, thereby reviving the genre beloved by the masses. To do this, they won’t even have to, like Semenov, invent African countries and political regimes, because, as often happens, reality has noticeably surpassed the boldest literary fiction.

Fertile soil for popular film novels

In the same Africa today there is the country of Zimbabwe, which until recently was ruled by the elderly dictator Mugabe, and the country of Somalia, somewhat reminiscent of the mythical Mordor, the everyday chronicles of which will easily eclipse even the best works created in the genre of political detective.

The unthinkable inflation in Zimbabwe and the pre-election suppression of protest sentiments there by the army, which received financial support from Wall Street bigwigs, as well as the daring forays of Somali pirates may form the basis of new political detectives, television versions of which will certainly attract to the screens a wide mass of viewers who have a keen sense of well-constructed plots. Drivingidea.ru LogoArrow

  
Capital of Zimbabwe Harare        Federal Republic of Somalia

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Some techniques of rational reading



  

Drivingidea.ru LogoArrow The need to read a huge amount of information materials every day forces us to abandon the usual leisurely reading in favor of rational reading. It implies stopping the pronunciation of the text being read and concentrating on the fragments that carry the main semantic load.

The Growing Avalanche of Printed Information

A modern businessman striving to build a successful career is forced to read a lot of newspaper articles, analytical reviews on the Internet, advertising brochures and specialized magazines every day. It is quite difficult to cope with this task if you approach the matter in the old-fashioned way, that is, get acquainted with the information slowly, slowly mastering paragraph after paragraph, taking breaks to comprehend new information and often being distracted by repeating what has been covered. You can quickly "pass through yourself" huge amounts of information only if you learn to read very quickly and remember the main things, that is, approach the study of the material extremely rationally.

Mastering this approach is not as difficult as it seems - it is enough to apply several simple and proven methods that will equally effectively help you prepare for a school exam and get up to speed before an important business meeting. First, you need to give up the habit of pronouncing the text you are reading to yourself. Almost everyone has this habit since their first literacy lessons, during which letters and syllables are always pronounced out loud.

Giving up pronunciation for the sake of speed

Alas, articulation, which is necessary and useful at first for memorization, eventually turns into a burden, since, “pronouncing”, albeit not out loud, words, a person forces his speech apparatus to work, thereby greatly slowing down the movement of the gaze along the line. You can significantly speed up the learning process by forcing yourself to "shut up" and then perceive words only with your mind.

At first, this limitation will somewhat reduce the effectiveness of learning the material, but over time, this drawback will disappear, and the speed will increase significantly. Naturally, just a quick "scan" of the text is clearly not enough to understand the author's thoughts, remember the names of the main characters of the story, or understand the central points of the scientific report.

Focusing on the most important things and taking notes in your mind

Therefore, you need to return to what you have read, but this time with the goal of quickly highlighting and "imprinting" in your mind the most important elements of the text, around which it is usually built. As for the introduction, sometimes called nothing less than the "water part", all sorts of references to historical precedents, long and empty thoughts about the importance of the topic under discussion for the relevant industry, then during the second reading they can be safely skipped.

This will allow you to quickly return to those paragraphs where the essence of the article, its supporting points, and most important ideas are presented. Thus, rational reading will not only allow you to quickly study the "mountains" of literature, but will also help you make mental notes from it, draw conclusions, and evaluate the content. Drivingidea.ru LogoArrow

  


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