How Quest Stories Have Influenced My Writing

+ more about my stories!

Do you like quest stories like The Hobbit or The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe? The fast-paced action, the drama, the high stakes? Well, I do too! Today I’m going to talk about one of my favorite tropes and the one I use the most often: the quest trope!

(If you’d like to learn more about other tropes I use in my work in progress, Project Royalty, click below!)

Five Tropes You Find In My Writing

In my opinion, there are two types of quests: high-stakes quests and low-stakes quests. High-stakes (according to Cambridge Dictionary) is defined as “involving serious risks if there is no success.”

When it comes to high-stakes quests in literature, a good example is good versus evil. Harry Potter must defeat Voldemort to save the world. Luke must win over Darth Vader or the Dark Side wins. This is the fate of the world: the good guy MUST win or the bad guy will take over the world and do truly unimaginable things to it. That is about as high-stakes as you can get.

Low-stakes quests are the opposite – there usually are some problems that need to be solved, but they’re definitely not as extreme as high-stakes quests. Some good examples include Don Quixote, The Canterbury Tales, and The Wind in the Willows. These tend to be slower paced, more cozy, and generally softer than high stakes books.

I’ve been inspired by quest books since before I can remember. I grew up with We’re Going On A Bear Hunt and the Cam Jansen series until I was finally old enough to touch the long-awaited Narnia books that lay on the bookshelf in our living room.

I was obsessed. I couldn’t stop reading and rereading the Narnia books, over and over and over. That was followed by the The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Now, I love books like Ella Enchanted, Shannon Hale’s Goose Girl, and A Wrinkle In Time. And that’s where my own stories come in.

My current work in progress, Project Royalty, is about a prince and his cousin (and their group of friends) trying to rescue their aunt and uncle from an evil villain named The Shadow. I was heavily inspired by the four kings and queens of Narnia and what might happen if two of them were kidnapped.

This is about as high-stakes as you can get. Everything is on the line in my series: the safety of the kingdom, the safety of the kids and their relatives, the fate of the world…you get the picture.

In contrast, my short story, “Cecil’s Conundrum” (which is now available to buy in the incredible anthology Firefly Tales!) is a softer quest. It doesn’t impact as many people in the story, the main conflict is internal, and it’s just a sweeter story in general.

It’s one of my favorite stories I’ve ever written — my short stories are a snapshot of the character’s life, and I think that’s the perfect way to sum up “Cecil’s Conundrum.”

Now that I’m hooked on quest stories, I’ve started seeing them everywhere in my library and in bookstores. I can only hope one day my stories will rest on those shelves alongside some of the great (low OR high-stakes) quests I’ve come to know and love.

Have you written quest stories before, and if so, which kind do you like better? If you’re a reader, what are your favorite stories with quests in them? Drop a comment below!

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