What is your take on adventure writing? Do you make expansive plots, or are your adventures simpler to complete and move on?
What I try to do....and this will vary a bit depending on the game.... is create scenarios that will demand attention of some sort, then introduce the PCs to that situation, and then see what happens.
I certainly have ideas or thoughts on what's possible going forward, but I actively fight the impulse to determine any future events that will occur after play begins. I'll craft backstory and history, and I'll give NPCs motives and goals that may indicate the kinds of things that they may get up to, but I won't say "once the PCs do A, then B will happen" or anything like that.
I used to run games with a heavier hand and a sequence of "first this, then that, then this, and then on to that". I try not to do that, or to do it as little as possible. Again, the game of choice and other factors play a part here.
Do you go with predetermined events? If so, how do you make them enjoyable and get buy in from your PCs for the temporary suspension of agency?
I'll do something predetermined at the start, to kick things off. After that, I want to do as few predetermined things as possible. If things stall out, and the players aren't sure how to proceed, then I'll introduce something with the intention of getting things moving again.
This isn't to say that I don't have ideas of what to introduce at any point in the future. If I've introduced the Empire and the Death Star as elements of play, then the destruction of a planet may very well be in order, and a climactic battle at the Death Star may, as well. I just do not commit to those ideas because depending on what the players have their characters do, it may not make sense for those things to happen.
Are these literary trope explorations better suited for one shot style adventure? If not, how do you weave in and out of these events during play?
I don't think there's anything wrong with using those kinds of tropes as the starting situation of a campaign, or a new adventure or scenario. In my experience, if you want to have the PCs be captured and figure out a way to escape, then the best way to go about that is to simply start them off as captured. Well, no, that's probably the second best way.... the best way would be to only have them be captured as an actual result of play. But barring that.... assuming you want them to be captured, then just declare at the beginning that they are. Don't play out a battle whose result is predetermined.... that's an exercise in futility, and the players will likely realize that, and many may be frustrated by it. So skip that BS and just start with them in custody, and then get to the actual play.
Same thing with similar tropes like a shipwreck and so on. Don't be coy.... just do the thing that you want to explore in play. Don't waste time setting it up because ultimately, having a two hour session that consists of a combat where all the PCs are captured despite whatever clever ideas they come up with amounts to the same as a 5 second sentence "You've been captured by the duke's men".