Learning from Francis...

On an extended break from writing, I am attempting to catch up on reading things that inspire me, that help me as a writer.

So I've started to read the entire collection of Dick Francis all over again. I own the first 40 or so of Francis' horse-racing-based thrillers in used paperback format and find I re-read them, in order, once every four or five years.

I call them "environmentally friendly" books: they leave absolutely no residue in my brain. I can read them, then go back to them three or four years later and remember very little about any one of them.

That's not because they are awful books. It's because they are so cleanly, effortlessly written and offer such intensely paced plots that I rend to race right through them, just like one of Francis' jockeys on a championship hurdler races through a steeplechase course.

Francis' novels are all well-written, carefully plotted mysteries with sympathetic characters. I find I learn a lot about writing from his books and a lot about the many different careers/interests his characters enjoy.

I'm trying to slow myself down this time around, to be sensitive to why his books work so well. It's a useful exercise, attempting to learn from one of the best, most successful authors of our time.