  Action/Adventure
This week: Alexander von Humboldt Edited by: Legerdemain  
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Alexander von Humboldt
When I think of Humboldt, I think of his adventuring and botany. But when studying more about his life, I find it astounding the amount of work he accomplished in his lifetime. He was interested in botany from an early age and his family encouraged it. Early on, he studied for a career in politics but later changed to science, commerce and foreign languages. His travels took him from England, Switzerland, Italy, islands in the Atlantic and Cuba.
The list of species discoveries, which he gave the Humboldt name, is lengthy. His expeditions were funded mainly but the riches of a widow he married. Much of the way Humboldt recorded his discoveries were in a holistic scientific form. The amount of detail recorded from the late 1790's to the early 1800's is astounding. In the mid 1800's he wrote volumes called Kosmos, a collection where Humboldt sought to create a compendium of the world's environment. Humboldt suffered a stroke in 1857 and died in May 1859. His private life details are sketchy as he burned his private letters.
In reading all the details of his expeditions and discoveries with all their winding twists and turns, I found of wealth of ideas for action/adventure stories. From his meteorological notes, to tracing the Amazon, to staying in the White House as a guest of President Thomas Jefferson, to his participation in the homosexual subculture of Berlin, plenty of ideas came to mind.
So when searching for an idea, or a setting for your stories, reach back into history and rediscover expeditions already taken and begin your own adventure.
This month's question: What are some of your favorite historical adventures? Send in your reply below  !
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Excerpt: I like seeing you in that t-shirt.
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Excerpt: Tony’d been my best friend in grade school. We traded baseball cards, raced our second-hand bikes, paged through Playboys snuck from my dad’s stash. I let him copy my algebra homework; he taught me his cousins’ shoplifting tricks.
Excerpt: The taller buildings in the city overshadowed the surrounding projects. And the projects themselves were decrepit, red brick houses built in close quarters, and though night had fallen, the setting of the sun did little to curb the temperature as the hot air of the summer's day remained caged within the skyscrapers and close-knit red brick houses.
The street lamps flickered to life, and an ambulance siren wailed through the night, then died out behind the other sounds of the city.
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Excerpt: The sun bowed slowly relinquishing the sky to the watchful stained orb of the moon. The evening was quiet and still just north of the “City of Oaks” in a typical suburban neighborhood of red brick two-story houses and well-kept yards. The smell of hickory smoke, a hint of barbecued meat, and freshly cut grass wafted through the air. A man-made lake lay silent as the wheel of a pink bicycle spun, discarded on its side, the owner of the bike nowhere to be seen. A large black dog started barking incessantly, as a dark pickup truck squealed off in the distance.
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Excerpt: "I never eat at Glurphwing Emporium. Did you know glurphs are typically kept in cages that are so small their heads and tails stick out?" Iscan linked me via neurofeed to a site on his favorite politico server, People for the Ethical Treatment of Terrestrial Beings from Alternate Dimensions, this one entitled "What Glurphwing Emporium Doesn't Want You to Know About Everything* (*That You Didn't Want to Ask)" and, as usual, was full of anti-carnivorous railing. A bit ironic, in consideration.
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Excerpt: He had felt no desire for liquid stimulants, but needed to kill time before the meeting. Three glasses of water and several cigarettes later, and the world outside looked very different. Rain was sheeting down and the gutters flowed with dirty, fast-running streams of water. Hover taxis and the occasional larger transport kicked up the water from the centre of the street into swirling vortexes of cloud-like mist.
Excerpt: It was like any other Wednesday, except for the commotion. I kept looking over my shoulder wondering where the shouting was coming from. Maybe someone was being fired? Shouting is definitely not a common occurrence in our office but today, it seemed to dominate the air. The words were garbled together. I turned around again trying to locate the sound and distinguish where it was coming from. Suddenly, shouting was no longer a concern.
I heard gunshots.
Excerpt: “Yeah, yeah. Tell that to the judge, slick,” Lawrence Slovengo replied coolly to the struggling prisoner as he led him to his cell. Too many times he had heard the same story, and frankly he was getting tired of it. When he had first arrived at the jail to work as a correctional officer, he had thought it would be fun. All action and adventure like he’d seen in the movies, taking on thugs and saving the world. But quickly he’d learned prison life was nothing of the sort.
| | | Invalid Item
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Excerpt: “Jeez, Don!” Lucio did not like having guns on him any more then the rest, and he held his hands half hearted up in front of him. He could not see it, but the Don's soft click in the echoing room made the message very clear. “Would you relax with the gun, man? You know I never carry those. That was why I requested you find me one for this mission.”
Excerpt: I like seeing you in that t-shirt.
| | | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#1705534 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: Tony’d been my best friend in grade school. We traded baseball cards, raced our second-hand bikes, paged through Playboys snuck from my dad’s stash. I let him copy my algebra homework; he taught me his cousins’ shoplifting tricks.
Excerpt: The taller buildings in the city overshadowed the surrounding projects. And the projects themselves were decrepit, red brick houses built in close quarters, and though night had fallen, the setting of the sun did little to curb the temperature as the hot air of the summer's day remained caged within the skyscrapers and close-knit red brick houses.
The street lamps flickered to life, and an ambulance siren wailed through the night, then died out behind the other sounds of the city.
| | | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#1386923 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: The sun bowed slowly relinquishing the sky to the watchful stained orb of the moon. The evening was quiet and still just north of the “City of Oaks” in a typical suburban neighborhood of red brick two-story houses and well-kept yards. The smell of hickory smoke, a hint of barbecued meat, and freshly cut grass wafted through the air. A man-made lake lay silent as the wheel of a pink bicycle spun, discarded on its side, the owner of the bike nowhere to be seen. A large black dog started barking incessantly, as a dark pickup truck squealed off in the distance.
| | | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#1698793 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: "I never eat at Glurphwing Emporium. Did you know glurphs are typically kept in cages that are so small their heads and tails stick out?" Iscan linked me via neurofeed to a site on his favorite politico server, People for the Ethical Treatment of Terrestrial Beings from Alternate Dimensions, this one entitled "What Glurphwing Emporium Doesn't Want You to Know About Everything* (*That You Didn't Want to Ask)" and, as usual, was full of anti-carnivorous railing. A bit ironic, in consideration.
| | | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#1729979 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: He had felt no desire for liquid stimulants, but needed to kill time before the meeting. Three glasses of water and several cigarettes later, and the world outside looked very different. Rain was sheeting down and the gutters flowed with dirty, fast-running streams of water. Hover taxis and the occasional larger transport kicked up the water from the centre of the street into swirling vortexes of cloud-like mist.
Excerpt: It was like any other Wednesday, except for the commotion. I kept looking over my shoulder wondering where the shouting was coming from. Maybe someone was being fired? Shouting is definitely not a common occurrence in our office but today, it seemed to dominate the air. The words were garbled together. I turned around again trying to locate the sound and distinguish where it was coming from. Suddenly, shouting was no longer a concern.
I heard gunshots.
Excerpt: “Yeah, yeah. Tell that to the judge, slick,” Lawrence Slovengo replied coolly to the struggling prisoner as he led him to his cell. Too many times he had heard the same story, and frankly he was getting tired of it. When he had first arrived at the jail to work as a correctional officer, he had thought it would be fun. All action and adventure like he’d seen in the movies, taking on thugs and saving the world. But quickly he’d learned prison life was nothing of the sort.
| | | Invalid Item
This item number is not valid.
#1703841 by Not Available. |
Excerpt: “Jeez, Don!” Lucio did not like having guns on him any more then the rest, and he held his hands half hearted up in front of him. He could not see it, but the Don's soft click in the echoing room made the message very clear. “Would you relax withwith the gun, man? You know I never carry those. That was why I requested you find me one for this mission.” |
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This month's question: What are some of your favorite historical adventures?
Last month's question: What methods do you use to control pacing in your writing?
Creator-of-Worlds  replies: I usually try to match an action scene with a scene of repose and reflection that is as long as, or a mite shorter than, the action scene. I use that time try to introduce new plot elements and characters and generally advance the story.
jlbane sends in: Pacing? One simple method is to manipulate the reader by the type of sentence used. Short and choppy sentences can add excitement, speed and tension while wordy and lyrical can add tenderness, passion, suspense etc... of course word choice is important as well.
lane kensington answers: I try to get the reader to understand what my characters are feeling and why they feel that way. I also try to put the reader into the situation, and example would be a thunderstorm you can say lightning flashed but its more visable to say Lightning exploded, thunder cracked then raged seeming to surround them.
ironfist submits: Keeping pace can sometimes be difficult...well at least for me anyway. Due to the fact that I often switch character veiw points keeping pace can be a tough job. So I devised a system that keeps trac of where the character is, and what place in time he/she was in before switching veiws. It really comes in handy, especialy if you`re as forgetful as I am.
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Action/Adventure: December 14, 2010 Issue [#4133]
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