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My Horrible Experience of Getting Lost in The Jungle

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Published: Jul 15, 2020

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50 Jungle Adventure Writing Prompts

December 11, 2023 by Richard Leave a Comment

Here are 50 Jungle Adventure Writing Prompts that can take your imagination deep in the jungle. The lush green canopy beckons you deeper into undiscovered territory brimming with wonder and danger in equal measure. Prepare for thrilling expeditions through ancient ruins, close encounters with mysterious beasts, and imaginative worlds hidden within the untamed rainforest when you explore these 25 jungle adventure writing prompts!

Whether you crave wielding magical artifacts that defy reality, joining the high-stakes hunt stopping criminal enterprises threatening rare wildlife, or roleplaying as an intrepid documentarian risking it all to showcase vanishing ecosystems, you’ll find story ideas to spark your wildest jungle fantasies. Weave tales of cursed ancient civilizations, evolutionary experiments gone awry, portals to dinosaur dimensions, and more as you venture down these storytelling trails where truth collides with jungle legends.

So pack your imagination’s bug spray and machete to brave the wilderness where creativity takes root and flourishes. The verdant words await to envelop you in rainforest reveries! Let the story seeds in this blog post germinate epic yarns as you cultivate mystifying jungle tales wrapped in morning mists and emergent curiosities.

• Your protagonist stumbles upon an ancient temple hidden deep in the jungle and gets trapped inside. What dangers and surprises await them?
• A massive storm causes your protagonist’s plane to crash land in the jungle. Now they must survive and try to find their way back to civilization.
• Your protagonist is a wildlife photographer on an expedition to capture rare animal behaviors. They get a once-in-a-lifetime chance but must risk their life to get the perfect shot.
• While out for a jungle hike, your protagonist slips and falls into a steep ravine. Now injured, lost, and alone, can they find their way out?
• Your protagonist discovers a rare flower deep in the jungle that bestows magical abilities to whoever consumes it. Do they use it for good or evil?
• A team of scientists venture into unexplored jungle territory to document new species but discover prehistoric beasts long thought extinct.
• Your protagonist stumbles upon a band of smugglers using the jungle’s dense vegetation and winding rivers to transport illegal wares.
• An ancient artifact with untold powers has sat undisturbed in a hidden jungle temple for centuries until your protagonist disturbs its resting place.
• A jungle guide must lead a group of tourists to safety through treacherous terrain after they ignore warnings and get lost.
• Your protagonist plunges over raging rapids while whitewater rafting through the jungle. Can they survive and complete their journey?
• A mysterious disease threatens a remote jungle village. Your protagonist tries to find the source and cure before it spreads further.
• Greed leads your protagonist’s treasure hunting expedition into dangerous jungle territory containing deadly animals, traps, and hostiles protecting their lands.
• Your protagonist discovers a secret entrance to a thriving, hidden world existing utterly cut off from modern civilization within the depths of the jungle.
• Alien forces have invaded Earth and retreated into the jungle to establish a hidden base. Your protagonist stumbles upon it but is then captured.
• Your protagonist encounters a jungle tribe with customs never before documented by outsiders. But violating their taboos has severe consequences.
• A deranged war criminal has escaped custody and established a militia deep in the jungle. Your protagonist joins a specialized task force tracking them down.
• Your protagonist is a park ranger striving to stop poachers decimating endangered jungle wildlife for profit. But the poachers fight dirty and won’t back down easily.
• A jungle safari guide must use their expertise in survival and animal behavior to save tourists when their vehicles are attacked by wild animals.
• Your protagonist discovers a new parasite transforming jungle animals into aggressive hybrid creatures. They try to document and cure this new threat before it spreads out of control.
• While visiting an eco-lodge nestled in the rainforest canopy, your protagonist witnesses illegal logging threatening nearby indigenous communities dependent on the jungle to survive.
• Your protagonist leads an expedition searching the Amazon rainforest for rare medicinal plants than can cure disease. But traversing the dangerous terrain and wildlife to find these miracle cures won’t be easy.
• A team of documentary filmmakers disappear in the jungle. Your protagonist joins the dangerous search party to try rescuing them and uncover the truth of what happened.
• Your protagonist stumbles upon a secretive research facility housing unethical jungle genetic experimentation projects, and must expose their illegal activities.
• Tribal warfare breaks out in a remote jungle region over disputed lands rich in natural resources. Your protagonist tries negotiating peace but ultimately is forced to choose a side.
• Cryptozoologists launch an expedition through treacherous jungle terrain, braving hazards to capture proof of the mythical creature they pursue before it disappears forever.
• Your protagonist discovers an ancient civilization deep in the jungle that still lives much as it did thousands of years ago, untouched by modern technology or civilizations.
• A kidnapped child is being held for ransom somewhere hidden deep in the winding jungle. Your protagonist joins the dangerous rescue mission.
• An evil corporation is illegally clear-cutting rare sacred trees in the jungle needed by indigenous people for medicine. Your protagonist leads efforts to expose and stop them.
• Your protagonist stumbles upon a massive crater in the jungle, leading them to discover it was caused by a meteorite now emitting mysterious energy with strange effects on wildlife.
• While backpacking through the rainforest, your protagonist is bitten by a venomous snake miles from help. They race against time to find a rare flower said to counteract the venom.
• Your protagonist’s plane crashes into the jungle, leading them to discover the lost ruins of an ancient temple. Inside lies a portal to another world full of magic and danger.
• Your protagonist must safely guide a team of scientists studying endangered jungle wildlife through territories ruled by a violent drug cartel.
• An ancient book discovered in a ruined jungle temple holds secrets that could revive an extinct Mesoamerican language and culture. But dangerous tomb guardians protect it.
• Your protagonist discovers a family of Sasquatches living deep in the Pacific Northwest rainforest and struggles with whether to protect or expose them to the world.
• Your protagonist stumbles upon an isolated jungle village practicing dark forbidden magic utilizing plants and rituals to gain power and defy death.
• Your protagonist leads a documentary film crew trying to capture the first footage proving the existence of a destructive, legendary apeman beast lurking deep in the dense rainforest.
• Your protagonist joins the search for a team of activists gone missing while trying to save the jungle ecosystem from an expanding palm oil plantation.
• A jungle shaman calls upon your protagonist to help retrieve a sacred plant growing wild in treacherous terrain, necessary to cure a mysterious plague afflicting their people.
• Your protagonist must help safely evacuate researchers from their jungle camp along an emergency wilderness trail after it’s overrun by escaped exotic animals.
• Stranded campers with vital medicine head into perilous jungle territory hoping to find a clearing to signal helicopters for rescue after their plane crashes.
• Vigilantes recruit your protagonist to stealthily venture into the jungle and infiltrate illegal mining operations poisoning river ecosystems with mercury.
• Your protagonist discovers a pulsating egg in the ruined jungle temple of an ancient cult. Upon hatching, it spawns a nightmarish creature bringing their worst fears to life.
• Your protagonist leads wealthy big game hunters on a jungle safari promised to secure record animal trophies, but regrets the environmental impact.
• After their small plane crashes in the rainforest, your protagonist and the pilot spot ruins of an ancient civilization reclaimed by vegetation and attempt to find treasure.
• Your protagonist is a zoologist documenting rare behaviors in endangered jungle wildlife. But hunting poachers will do anything to silence them.
• Homeless children hide out together in the depths of the urban jungle after running away. Your protagonist, once one of them, strives to uncover their refuge.
• Your protagonist discovers a glowing fungus deep in an unexplored rainforest emanating psychic visions. They plunge into madness the deeper they explore its origin.
• A distressed woman emerges from the jungle begging for help after claiming she escaped from kidnappers. Your protagonist tries helping but senses not all is as it seems.
• Your protagonist serves as guide and bodyguard for a TV celebrity host filming their survival show in the dangerous South American rainforest.
• Cryptic carvings on an ancient temple lead your protagonist to activate a magical portal. They step through to discover an alternate world where dinosaurs rule.

We hope you were able to venture forth into fertile storytelling grounds filled with discovery and danger lurking behind every rainforest revelation. These jungle adventure writing prompts hold the potential for twisting tales stuffed with ancient secrets and bewildering phenomena hidden beneath lush canopies.

If these prompts inspired a writing adventure, please leave some of it in the comments. We’d love to read it. We also have a lot of other writing prompts on our site you may be interested in .

Related posts:

• 50 Poetry Prompts Every Writer Should Try
• Daily horror writing prompts 
• 50 Fantastic Science Fiction Writing Prompts
• 31 Creepy Writing Prompts for Every Day of October
• 50 Christmas Fiction Writing Prompts

About Richard

Richard Everywriter (pen name) has worked for literary magazines and literary websites for the last 25 years. He holds degrees in Writing, Journalism, Technology and Education. Richard has headed many writing workshops and courses, and he has taught writing and literature for the last 20 years.  

In writing and publishing he has worked with independent, small, medium and large publishers for years connecting publishers to authors. He has also worked as a journalist and editor in both magazine, newspaper and trade publications as well as in the medical publishing industry.   Follow him on Twitter, and check out our Submissions page .

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By Patrick Carpen: The Greatest Writer On Earth

The Day I Got Lost – Short Story Writing

Short Story Writing: The Day I Got Lost

When writing a short story, try to spice it up with some funny incidents. They say laughter is the best medicine so give your reader a good dose of it. Include some extraordinary events. Your reader is probably already bored with the monotony of everyday life, and in reading your story, he or she is looking for something interesting, intriguing and exciting. Remember, your story is fiction. Give free reign to your imagination. Let it run loose. But at same time, keep it relatively believable. If your story is completely unbelievable, it will lose its clout.

Here is an example of a good short story entitled, “The Day I Got Lost.”

The Day I Got Lost

At 6:AM, we set out for our adventure. The morning sun was just peeping over the mountain tops, casting its golden rays over the peaceful village of Moco Moco. The bags on our backs were packed heavy with food, clothes and hammocks. We also had our recording equipment ready to do some amazing videos. This was our big day! A trip into the jungle!

Our parents had warned us not to go into the jungle, but we carefully planned for this day when they were all gone to the airport to pick up Uncle Teddy. The plan was that we would be back before 6:pm because they would be back at 11 pm. We would unpack, wash our clothes, bathe and they wouldn’t know a thing!

After about 45 minutes of walking, we entered into the jungle. At the entrance, two huge trees, about 100 feet high, reached into the sky. The floor of the jungle was strewn with fallen leaves that crackled under our feet. The air was cool. It was a beautiful feeling just to stand there.

Rosemary, Floyd, Dexter and I all looked at each other and smiled in amazement. Our hearts were filled with wonder. Just then, we started to get angry at our parents for not allowing us to come here. Look the happiness they were trying to deny us! We thought.

Just then, a magnificent bird flew overhead. Its wings were 6 feet long and had all the colors of the rainbow. Its beak was bigger than Dexter’s head. In a flash, I pulled out my camera and snapped a photo.

We walked a little further. A monkey jumped in the tree above us. It stared at us as though it had never seen a human being in its entire life. We kept walking. We passed a beautiful giraffe. Then a tiger ran by. At first, our hearts raced but the tiger just kept going. Suddenly, we heard a loud roar behind us. We spun around. There, in front of us, stood an ape about 10 feet tall. We froze in terror, but we nearly dropped dead when he ape shouted, “run!”

We had no idea where the energy came from, but we turned and bolted faster than Olympic Athlete Usain Bolt .

It was dark when we stopped running, and we were sure we could never find our way out of this horrible jungle. We huddled in a corner. The night became pitch black. Floyd started to cry. Dexter had fainted and we were afraid he had died. “Don’t cry Floyd,” said Rosemary, hugging him. “The children will laugh at you at school tomorrow.”

“Laugh at him!” I shouted. “If we get out of this jungle alive…they can laugh all they want!” I felt like screaming at the top of my voice.

We waited for hours. We didn’t think of sleeping. We thought we were going to die. I was about to faint when I heard the sound of a helicopter. We saw bright lights flashing through the trees. We got up and waved desperately. The helicopter came down. We ran to it. It was our parents. They were searching for us. They had found us. They hugged us. We boarded the helicopter and flew upwards into the night sky – leaving that scary ape and that mysterious jungle forever behind.

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HSC English Teacher

1.6 Into the wild Part I – Lost in the jungle – Summary

1.6 Into the Wild

Part I – Lost in the jungle

    Summary

In this topic, the writer Kiran Purandare gives a thrilling account of his being lost in the jungle of Umbarzara. This excerpt is from his book ‘Sakha Nagzira’. The writer had come to this place for his research – to observe birds & note their behaviour.

 He had built a ‘ hide’ to observe the birds without being seen. A hide is a shelter disguised by covering it to make it blend with the surroundings. It is mostly used by forest travelers & Wild Life researchers.

The writer had completed his day’s work. It was a tiresome eight & a half hour long day inside the hide. He describes himself as ‘being alone here as a fox.’ Fox is a solitary creature. The fox moves alone, and he has to be alert, every time. The writer was alone doing his research work in the forest. He took every precaution while moving in the jungle. In that dense forest, taking every step cautiously, he compares himself to a fox. He camouflaged his hide. i.e. he disguised it by covering it to blend with the surrounding. He scanned the area visually. He watched with wide-open eyes & tried to make minimal sound. He treaded cautiously among the leaves grasping various sounds.  

Suddenly he heard the langurs making alarm calls for the leopard.

‘Khyak! Khyak! Khyako Khyak!’

Langoor is a species of monkeys found in the forest. It gives alarm calls after spotting dangerous animals like leopards. Apart from the Langur’s alarm calls, the writer was aware of the presence of a leopard when he saw the fresh scat lying on the trail with bluish-purple flies hovering over it. He also heard the distant alarm calls of a four-horned antelope. He uses the expression ‘sanctum sanctorum’ . It means a holy place where only a few are allowed to enter. The writer thinks that the leopard might have not liked his entry in his territory. He moved forward & the fading alarm calls made him clear that the leopard had moved away.

He walked further & met a villager with a stick in his hand, Raju Iskape – from Pitezari village. He had come to collect logs but had to retreat due to the presence of the leopard. The writer’s solitary visits to Umbarzara amazed him. Umbarzara was a haven not only for tigers but also for leopards & Sloth Bears.

They both took rest under a Kusum tree & resumed their walk. Raju went on his way. The writer followed the markings of the Forest Development Corporation. He kept moving through the forest. But after a while he was unable to find his way. The Sun was setting. The jungle would be completely in dark any minute. The writer had the sudden realization that he was lost in the jungle. He was nervous. He did not feel like eating anything. He had two bags with him. One was a Shabnam bag that contained the camera. The other small, colourful handbag had his tiffin.

All the familiar sounds of the birds & appearance of trees appeared alien to him. He was in despair having got lost in the jungle. To secure himself, the writer thought of climbing a treetop. His mind alerted him to turn back to the trail that he had left. He found dried up droppings of the Sloth Bear & resolved to move from there. There were a number of hillocks in front of the writer.

He ran frantically across a hillock & lo! He saw a bright red soil trail with the marks of a bicycle wheel on it. It indicated that a village was nearby. The writer who was frightened & desperate found this like a ‘ silver lining’ . The new found soil trail made the writer hopeful now of safely making it out of the jungle.

With trembling legs, he reached the top of the hill. He was able to hear the sounds of people. Quickly he ran towards the village & found droppings of the blue bulls nearby, sight of lantern of Rajiram Bhalavi’s farm & loudspeakers installed for Keshav Bhalavi’s marriage. He spotted the village lake & the familiar ‘Suihudaki’ hillock.

After reaching the village the first thing he did was to take a bath. He then had his food & took a nap.

He says ‘There still exists a jungle where we can get lost, isn’t this our good luck?’

He had gone through a terrifying experience of having lost in the jungle. It made him realize certain things. Humans have tried to take over the natural habitats of the wild life. Due to deforestation, there is barely any place left for humans to get lost in it. But the writer’s experience of getting lost in the jungle without any sign of human life shows that there are some places still untouched by humans. This realization made the writer feel that humans are lucky in a way. He finds positives from this experience.

• Hovering – circling in air
• Antelope – a deer like animal with horns
• In a jiffy- in a hurry

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• Craft Essays
• Teaching Resources

Getting Lost—and Found—in Personal Narrative

The ways of getting lost are no doubt infinite, but here are three, with prompts, that provide ample exploration in personal narrative:

Lost in a New Place

In her essay, “Typical First Year Professor” from Bad Feminist (Harper Perennial, 2014), Roxane Gay writes about moving to a small midwestern city to take her first full-time teaching job. She gets lost in her new building and must adapt and redefine herself in a setting very different from what she left behind:

I have an office I don’t have to share with two or four people. My name is on the engraved panel just outside my door. My name is spelled correctly. I have my own printer. The luxury of this cannot be overstated. I randomly print out a document; I sigh happily as the printer spits it out, warm. I have a phone with an extension, and when people call the number, they are often looking for me. There are a lot of shelves, but I like my books at home. In every movie I’ve ever seen about professors, there are books. I quickly unpack three boxes, detritus I accumulated in graduate school—sad drawer trash, books I’ll rarely open again—but I’m a professor now. I must have books on display in my office. It is an unspoken rule.

Gay’s arrival changes the landscape for her students, too. “Students don’t know what to make of me. I wear jeans and Converse. I have tattoos up and down my arms. I’m tall. I am not petite. I am the child of immigrants. Many of my students have never had a black teacher before. I can’t help them with that.” She clarifies that what’s unfamiliar to her students is not new to her. “I’m the only black professor in my department.” Although this aspect of her landscape is unchanged and unlikely to change, Gay acclimates to her new world and “finds” a transformed self in this new environment.

Think of a time when you started a new job or moved to a new place. List physical aspects of the setting that differed from where you’d been before. How did those differences represent who you were expected to be in the new place?

Bonus Prompt:

What physical traits such as attire, gender, body shape, mannerisms, skin color, ornamentation, did others see as unfamiliar? How did those differences affect your sense of belonging? What, if anything, helped you and others appreciate those differences?

Lost on the Way to a New Place

Sometimes we get lost travelling to a new place. In her essay, “Dear Mother,” from Dear Memory: Essays on Writing, Silence, and Grief (Milkweed Editions, 2021) , Victoria Chang contemplates her mother’s loss of homeland when, as a child, she relocated with her family from China to Taiwan. In epistle form, the narrator writes, “I would like to know if you took a train. If you walked. If you had pockets in your dress. If you wore pants. If your hand was in a fist, if you held a small stone.” Through Chang’s questions, we see the family’s exodus as disorienting, possibly frightening for a child, and how she might have carried something to remind her of home. “I would like to know if you thought the trees were black or green at night, if it was cold enough to see your breath, to sting your fingers. I would like to know who you spoke to along the way. If you had some preserved salty plums, which we both love, in your pocket.” The questions connect Chang with her mother but also reveal how the mother’s later move to the United States resulted in Chang’s lost connection with her extended family:

I would like to know where you got your food for the trip. Why I never knew your mother, father, or your siblings. I would like to have known your father. I would like to know what his voice sounded like. If it was brittle or pale. If it was blue or red. I would like to know the sound he made when he swallowed food. I would like to know if your mother was afraid.

Draft a letter to someone from your past whose journey entailed loss. This could be to a loved one who journeyed from life to death, or a relative sentenced to prison, or a friend who left home. Ask about what they saw, heard, smelled, ate, or carried.

In your letter, list the things you would like to know. Begin with physical details about the journey while allowing room for what you may have lost as a result of their departure.

Lost in a Familiar yet Changed Place

Sometimes we don’t go anywhere at all, but major life events make familiar places feel utterly foreign. In her essay, “ Still Life ” ( Brevity , Issue 62), Joanne Nelson writes of the last time she visited her brother Dale at his cabin:

A still life: barefoot, shirt but no pants, beer bottles and cigarettes and ashtray within reach. Even the smells suspended, unwashed, motionless. Piled mail. The place hazy with cigarette smoke.

Though the narrator cleans and cooks for her sick brother, no attempts to return the cabin to its previous state will return her brother to his previous state. She becomes “lost” in a space altered by illness, but the psychological act of getting lost occurs when the narrator becomes immersed in grief. Five years after his death, when a server calls out “Dale” in a diner, Nelson lists what’s missing, what she misses, what she’s lost:

I’d like to see him cross the foyer of rustling people-filled benches though, have him share in this Sunday morning buzzing energy. Hear him complain about the wait, feel his pockets for smokes, say “don’t give me that look” before stepping outside.

Write about a familiar place that felt altered after a major life event. Note the physical details—what’s new, missing, or altered—that demonstrate how the place, and therefore your life, has changed.

Bonus Prompt :

List odd, quirky, or everyday things you’d never have guessed you’d miss—things you might never see again but are, in their own way, happy reminders of what was special about that time. Alternatively, list things you’ll never miss. For example, stale hamburger buns, cracked lunch trays, and sitting alone in your high school cafeteria.

Jill McCabe Johnson is the author of the poetry collections  Revolutions We’d Hoped We’d Outgrown , shortlisted for Jane’s Stories Press Foundation’s Clara Johnson Award in Women’s Literature, and  Diary of the One Swelling Sea , winner of a Nautilus Silver Award in Poetry, plus the chapbooks  Pendulum  and  Borderlines . Jill is the founder of Wandering Aengus Press and teaches Creative Writing for Skagit Valley College. Recent works can be found in  Slate ,  Fourth Genre ,  Waxwing ,  The Brooklyn Review ,  Gulf Stream ,  Diode , and  terrain.org . You can read more at  JillMcCabeJohnson.com/writing .

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• Short Story

Lost In The Jungle

• Celine Ng, Grade 3

It all started when my father announced, “We are going to Malaysia for work.” I was depressed by this, but my mother assured me “Don’t worry Harriet, we can got to Malaysia’s tracking jungle.” “Yippee” I thought on the plane. Finally we arrived at the airport in Malaysia. I kissed my father good-bye and went with my mother. Outside the airport was a small bus labelled “Jungle Tracking”. My mum and I pushed and shoved until we found a spot for us. Then, someone came up to us and spoke. “We are going to Taman Negara, our National Park.” Afterwards, the same lady came to me and offered me an apple juice box and a chocolate bar. We drove for 3 hours and arrived just as I finished my juice. We hopped out and stretched our legs. Then, we started tracking. “This is a fern tree,” someone pointed out. “Yeah, right!” I thought. I had seen it before at the Daintree Forest in Queensland. “And this is the Strangler Fig” the lady explained. Climbing plant? This was awesome. I stared at the strangler figs and tried to draw a picture of it in my notebook. “Mum?” I called, but the tour group had left. “Mummy!!!!!” I cried. I was lost and all alone. I cried hysterically. Suddenly, a figure jumped out of a tree. It was a baby orang-utan. “I need help!” I said to the orang-utan, although I knew he wouldn’t answer. To my surprise, he said,” Me too! I got sidetracked by this durian fruit I was trying to pick!” and I pointed out to the Strangler Fig and said, “ I got sidetracked by that Strangler Fig.” “How old are you?” I asked. “2”, he answered. “How about you?” “8”. “Wow, you are a bit small for an 8 year old and do you still need your mum?” he asked. “I am a little girl and we stay with our parents until we are at least 18!” I giggled. He led me around the jungle but after awhile, I got tired. I looked up and the sun was setting. I have no food; all I have is my chocolate bar. I asked Fred whether he wanted a little of my chocolate bar but he only liked fruit. We climbed a tree and picked some fruit. As we ate our fruit, I asked Fred what it was like to live in the jungle. He described his life and adventures to me. Afterwards, it was time for me to go to bed. I asked Fred if he would like to read a book before bed, as that’s what I always do. “Books? What do you mean books?” Fred exclaimed. “Books are objects with lots of paper and words in it. They come in all different types. There are non-fiction, which means facts, fiction, which means imaginary stories and faction, which is in between. My favourite types of books are faction and adventurous stories,” I explained. I pulled out my book and showed Fred. The sight of a book astonished Fred. I knew he didn’t quite understand so I said,” Perhaps you would like to hear this story?” Fred nodded. And so I began: “Let’s read Lily Quench and the Black Mountains written by Natalie Jane Prior and illustrated by Janine Dawson: Chapter One: The Return of the Count It was snowing. Across the knife’s-edge peak of the Black Mountains a wind blew, eddying snowflakes down into the Valley of the Citadel. The wind whistled through the chinks in the walls of the miners’ huts and shredded the plumes of smoke, which struggled from the chimneys of the soldiers’ barracks. In the courtyard of the Black Citadel a gang of workers in thin clothes battled to clear a heap of snow, which had slid off the guardhouse roof. A few fires burned like teardrops at the guard posts, but that was all. I turned around and Fred has fallen asleep. I put my book away and went to sleep too. Suddenly, I heard my daddy’s voice. “Wake up Harriet, we’re going to miss the plane.” Huh? I thought. It was all a dream? I haven’t left yet? Why does it feel so real? I turned around and my Lily Quench book was lying on the floor. Behind the book, was a durian seed! THE END

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Setting Thesaurus: Jungle/Rainforest

January 10, 2009 by BECCA PUGLISI

Vines, ferns, lush foliage, tall trees (traveller’s fan, Heliconia, trumpet trees, cahoon), dense undergrowth, fronds, lagoons, cliffs, rocky outcropping, downed trees, canopy blocking the sun, mosses, creepers, water vines, brown dead fall, mud, lizards, snakes…

bird calls, wings fluttering, monkey hoots/shrieks, animal movements (growls, grunts, snorts, paws hitting the ground, slithering, hissing, animal cries), running water (rushing creaks, waterfalls, rivers, streams or rain clattering off the leaves), one’s own heavy…

stuffy & warm air, rotting vegetation, body odor, natural plant smells (sweet to attract insects/pollinators, bitter to ward them off), animal musk, flowers (few in the jungle–more in the rainforest)

Water, air thick on the tongue, edible leaves and root or fruits, prey caught and cooked over a fire (gamy, stringy, chewy, rubbery), stale breath, fresh rain

Slippery leaves, rough vines, crumbly wet ground underfoot in places, branches crackling, holding branches back, squeezing through a stand of bamboo & feeling the smooth wood against the chest and back, sweat running down the neck and face, slurping dew off a leaf…

Helpful hints:

–The words you choose can convey atmosphere and mood.

Example 1: Dusk stained the glistening foliage with shadow and murk. As nightfall descended, the sounds of the jungle began to ebb. Uncertainty hung in the warm, wet air as the creatures began to prepare for the long stretch of darkness. Soon new sounds emerged: footfalls and the rumbling growls of predators walking their hunting ground.

–Similes and metaphors create strong imagery when used sparingly.

Example 1: (Simile)  Vines slithered down the cliff face like snakes, seeking the pool of tepid water below.

Think beyond what a character sees, and provide a sensory feast for readers

Setting is much more than just a backdrop, which is why choosing the right one and describing it well is so important. To help with this, we have expanded and integrated this thesaurus into our online library at One Stop For Writers . Each entry has been enhanced to include possible sources of conflict , people commonly found in these locales , and setting-specific notes and tips , and the collection itself has been augmented to include a whopping 230 entries—all of which have been cross-referenced with our other thesauruses for easy searchability. So if you’re interested in seeing a free sample of this powerful Setting Thesaurus, head on over and register at One Stop.

On the other hand, if you prefer your references in book form, we’ve got you covered, too, because both books are now available for purchase in digital and print copies . In addition to the entries, each book contains instructional front matter to help you maximize your settings. With advice on topics like making your setting do double duty and using figurative language to bring them to life, these books offer ample information to help you maximize your settings and write them effectively.

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers —a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.

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Reader Interactions

April 13, 2021 at 6:01 pm

Amazing, really helped me, especially the hints! Thank you

January 12, 2009 at 1:26 pm

Love these posts.. 🙂

January 11, 2009 at 2:30 pm

Glad we can help. Lady G!

Thanks PJ. I posted it a bit later than usual–maybe that messed you up, lol.

CR, I agree. I love tropical locals.

Thanks Bish. I’ve never tried it, but I’d love to.

April 14, 2020 at 10:14 am

Excellent piece of writing, I especially liked how descriptive you had made the little bits and phrases for other aspiring writers to use. I’m much more of a fantasy writer but I needed this in order to do something, so it came in really helpful! I can hardly wait to get on with my assignment!

With endless ‘Thank You’s’, TheRandomizer

January 11, 2009 at 7:46 am

Great stuff! (As an aside…I saw breadfruit listed. I absolutely LOVE breadfruit. I wish I could get it here where I live.)

January 10, 2009 at 10:03 pm

hmmmm . . . makes me want to go on a rain forest adventure!

January 10, 2009 at 9:39 pm

Nice! I was about to say “wait, don’t these come on Saturdays” but then I realized it was Saturday 🙂

January 10, 2009 at 9:09 pm

YES! This is exactly what I need right now for my Amazon jungle scenes. 🙂 Thanks!

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Lost in the jungle: a harrowing true story of survival audible audiobook – unabridged.

Four travelers meet in Bolivia and set off into the heart of the Amazon rainforest, but what begins as a dream adventure quickly deteriorates into a dangerous nightmare, and after weeks of wandering in the dense undergrowth, the four backpackers split up into two groups. But when a terrible rafting accident separates him from his partner, Yossi is forced to survive for weeks alone against one of the wildest backdrops on the planet. Stranded without a knife, map, or survival training, he must improvise shelter and forage for wild fruit to survive. As his feet begin to rot during raging storms, as he loses all sense of direction, and as he begins to lose all hope, he wonders whether he will make it out of the jungle alive.Lost in the Jungle is the story of friendship and the teachings of nature, and a terrifying true account that you won’t be able to put down.

• Listening Length 9 hours and 10 minutes
• Author Yossi Ghinsberg
• Narrator Pat Young
• Audible release date January 27, 2013
• Language English
• Publisher Audible Studios
• ASIN B00B6TEO5Q
• Version Unabridged
• Program Type Audiobook
• See all details

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Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison

Mr. Bankman-Fried, who was convicted of stealing $8 billion from customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange, faced a maximum sentence of 110 years.

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By David Yaffe-Bellany and J. Edward Moreno

David Yaffe-Bellany and J. Edward Moreno have covered the collapse of FTX extensively.

Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange who was convicted of stealing billions of dollars from customers , was sentenced to 25 years in prison on Thursday, capping an extraordinary saga that upended the crypto industry and became a cautionary tale of greed and hubris.

Mr. Bankman-Fried’s sentence was shorter than the 40 to 50 years that federal prosecutors had sought after a jury found him guilty of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering — charges that carried a maximum penalty of 110 years behind bars. But the punishment was far above the six and a half years requested by his defense lawyers.

Mr. Bankman-Fried, 32, did not visibly react as Judge Lewis A. Kaplan handed down the sentence in Federal District Court in Manhattan. His parents, the law professors Joe Bankman and Barbara Fried, sat two rows from the front, staring at the floor.

“He knew it was wrong. He knew it was criminal,” Judge Kaplan said of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s actions.

Before the sentence was delivered, Mr. Bankman-Fried, cleanshaven and wearing a loosefitting brown jail uniform, apologized to FTX’s customers, investors and employees.

“A lot of people feel really let down, and they were very let down,” he said. “I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry about what happened at every stage.” He added that his decisions “haunt” him every day.

Mr. Bankman-Fried was also ordered to forfeit about $11 billion in assets.

At the sentencing, Judge Kaplan pointed to testimony from Mr. Bankman-Fried’s trial that showed the FTX founder’s extreme appetite for risk, saying it was his “nature” to make colossally dangerous bets. “There is a risk that this man will be in a position to do something very bad in the future,” he said.

Judge Kaplan also said Mr. Bankman-Fried had lied on the witness stand and failed to take responsibility for his crimes. “He regrets that he made a very bad bet about the likelihood of getting caught,” he said. “But he’s not going to admit a thing.”

Mr. Bankman-Fried, currently housed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, will be sent to a low- or medium-security prison, the judge said, very likely near his parents’ home in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The sentencing signified the finale of a sweeping fraud case that exposed the rampant volatility and risk-taking across the loosely regulated world of cryptocurrencies. In November 2022, FTX imploded virtually overnight, erasing $8 billion in customer savings. At a trial last fall, he was convicted of seven counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.

His sentence ranks as one of the longest imposed on a white-collar defendant in recent years. Bernie Madoff , who orchestrated a notorious Ponzi scheme that unraveled during the 2008 financial crisis, received a 150-year sentence in 2009. He was in his 70s and died 12 years later. Elizabeth Holmes , who was convicted of defrauding investors in her blood-testing start-up, Theranos, was sentenced to 11 years and three months in 2022.

A representative for Mr. Bankman-Fried declined to comment. In a statement, his parents said, “We are heartbroken and will continue to fight for our son.”

Ira Lee Sorkin, the defense lawyer who represented Mr. Madoff, said he was not surprised Mr. Bankman-Fried got a stiff sentence, albeit a shorter one than his own client.

“He is 32 years old, and he will see the light of day,” he said of Mr. Bankman-Fried. “But he is going to spend a lot of time in a cell.”

Just 18 months ago, Mr. Bankman-Fried was a corporate titan and one of the youngest billionaires on the planet. With his face plastered on billboards and magazine covers, he could raise money seemingly at will. He hobnobbed with actors, musicians and superstar athletes, cultivating an image as a nerdy do-gooder who intended to donate all his wealth to charity.

Based in the Bahamas, FTX was one of the largest marketplaces for cryptocurrencies — an easy-to-use platform where investors could exchange dollars or euros for digital coins like Bitcoin and Ether. Its valuation was north of $30 billion.

But over less than a week in November 2022, a run on deposits exposed an $8 billion hole in FTX’s accounts. Mr. Bankman-Fried resigned, handing over power to a team of lawyers who promptly filed for bankruptcy. The next month, he was arrested at his luxury apartment in the Bahamas and charged with stealing from customers to finance billions in political contributions, charitable donations and investments in other start-ups.

The investigation moved with startling speed for such a complex case. Within months, three of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s top deputies, including a former girlfriend, pleaded guilty to fraud charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Mr. Bankman-Fried was initially granted home detention, but the judge revoked his bail in August after ruling that he had tried to intimidate witnesses, and sent him to the Brooklyn detention center.

At the trial in October, Mr. Bankman-Fried’s former colleagues testified for the prosecution, telling a jury that they had conspired with him to loot customer accounts. When he took the witness stand, Mr. Bankman-Fried seemed evasive at times, repeatedly claiming that he couldn’t remember crucial details of his FTX tenure.

“When he wasn’t outright lying, he was often evasive, hairsplitting, dodging questions,” Judge Kaplan said on Thursday. “I’ve never seen a performance quite like that.”

After he was convicted, Mr. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers and family embarked on a long-shot campaign to secure a lenient sentence and rewrite the public narrative about FTX’s failure. In a sentencing memo, Marc Mukasey, one of the defense lawyers, argued that Mr. Bankman-Fried had sometimes behaved strangely on the stand because he was autistic. He also cited the mogul’s charitable initiatives, arguing that FTX was supposed to be a force for good in the world.

But the defense’s case centered on the money that FTX users lost when the exchange went under. Since FTX’s bankruptcy, its new leaders have cobbled together billions of dollars to return to customers, partly by liquidating stashes of digital coins and selling Mr. Bankman-Fried’s stakes in other companies. Mr. Mukasey claimed those customers would eventually be made whole through the bankruptcy process, putting the losses caused by Mr. Bankman-Fried’s actions at “zero.”

The prosecutors rejected that argument. While FTX’s new leadership has predicted that customers will eventually get their deposits back, the money they receive will be equivalent to the dollar value of their holdings in November 2022 — and won’t account for a recent surge in the crypto markets that sent Bitcoin to its highest-ever price .

Mr. Bankman-Fried “demonstrated a brazen disrespect for the rule of law,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo. “He knew what society deemed illegal and unethical, but disregarded that based on a pernicious megalomania.”

On Thursday, Judge Kaplan said of FTX’s victims: “The defendant’s assurance that they will be paid in full is misleading. It is logically flawed. It is speculative.”

Over the past several weeks, the prosecutors filed hundreds of letters from FTX customers that laid out how the financial losses had devastated their lives. One customer said the collapse had led to “suicidal thoughts.”

“Sam Bankman-Fried has to think for the rest of his life of the multitude of lives he destroyed with his selfishness and superficiality,” the customer wrote. “I really hope that justice will teach him the difference between life and video games.”

Another FTX user, Sunil Kavuri, who lost $2 million when the company collapsed, testified at the hearing that the implosion had wiped out money he planned to spend on a house and his children’s education.

“I’ve lived the FTX nightmare for almost two years,” he said.

When Mr. Bankman-Fried spoke, he offered a sometimes-rambling assortment of thoughts, apologizing for his mistakes while insisting that FTX had enough assets to make customers whole.

“I made a series of bad decisions,” he said, his leg shaking. “They weren’t selfish decisions. They weren’t selfless decisions. They were bad decisions.”

Mr. Bankman-Fried has vowed to appeal his conviction, hiring a lawyer from the law firm Shapiro Arato Bach to oversee that effort. But in his remarks, he appeared to accept that he would be in prison for some time.

“At the end of the day, my useful life is probably over now,” he said.

Matthew Goldstein contributed reporting.

David Yaffe-Bellany writes about the crypto industry from San Francisco. He can be reached at [email protected]. More about David Yaffe-Bellany

J. Edward Moreno is a business reporter at The Times. More about J. Edward Moreno