By Their Errors
You Shall Know Them

So pitiful were my powers of observation in the beginning that I read the first page of Tom Sawyer fourteen times in a row before I could at least understand why I laughed.   

"You don't understand the mind of Asimov," the professor responded. 

The man shook his head in disbelief, "I am Isaac Asimov." 

The professor glared at him. 
"And what makes you think you understand your own mind?"

The great Asimov was silenced. 

There are clues which dangle like little strings from a huge ball.  Pull the right one and everything unravels.  In 1954 I discovered Ellery Queen.  Ellery was meek, mild mannered and capable of brilliant feats of deduction.  His father was a high standing police detective that could get Ellery introduced to various crimes that needed solving, and his valiant sergeant could keep the bad guys from physically demolishing our great master of deduction. 

For years I wanted to write like Ellery Queen and waded through all of his books again, in despair.  Where the professors of literature can extract skeletons that hold up the plot and make the story move, I found nothing.  Queen was too smooth, too polished for my mind to pierce even when some professor showed me the entire layout.  Oh, I could understand what the professor was saying, even see it in some instances; but as far as duplicating those feats in my own writing... huh uh!

Therefore it was without any premonition of any kind that I opened up his book UNDER ORDERS and discovered all the magic was gone.  I could not believe it.  I must be having a bad day and not have known it when I began.  Over again I started, and the novel still failed to lift me up and carry me forward.  I set the book aside for a day then came back, and it was still the same.  Me, it had to be me!  I have every novel written by Dick Francis.  Back to my bookshelf I went and picked out any Dick Francis book at random.  Within two paragraphs he had picked me up and was sweeping me forward, as always. 

Under Orders was opened again and I began to read once more.  I wanted to quit, every minute, but I slogged on through the whole, entire book, searching for that breath of magic that has endeared me so completely to Dick Francis.  Alas and alack, that magic was entirely missing.  The plot was there, the flow was there; had it been some new author's name on the jacket I would not have been disappointed in the least for it was and is -- good.  But this was supposed to be Dick Francis, MY Dick Francis -- and the magic was missing. 

The reason that I mentioned Ellery Queen earlier is that all of the Queen stories and novels were written by two brothers.  One created all the plots and the other fleshed all of them out.  Occasionally there were family bickerings over the merits of the writing, or of the plot but all in all they did a remarkable job of creating a cohesive work of art.  Now that I have read Under Orders and pondered over it for some time I wonder if I would not have been in the same state of shock had I read an Ellery Queen novel that had been written by only one brother.

It may be that Mr. Francis had a wife that gave a final polish to his work.  Perhaps Mr. Francis gave a final polish to her work?  Somehow I doubt that either of these permutations are true.  According to Powell's Books: "Francis lives in the Caribbean. In June 2000 he and his wife, Mary, who helped with much of the research for the books, celebrated their 53rd wedding anniversary. Sadly, Mary died later that year, bringing to an end one of the great literary partnerships of the twentieth century. However, a new partnership now blossoms with his younger son, Felix, who has helped with the research for Under Orders, the first Dick Francis novel for six years."

That proves my point.  Dick Francis had a different partner for this book.  It was written, well-written, but I do not believe this book was published before the master had even started the final polish.  Oh, it was mapped out -- mapped out and ready for the master's hand. 

And THAT is wonderful news for you and me as emulative writers.  Even better, Under Orders is a Sid Halley sequel.  Sid is one of the master's favorite characters.  That means we can go back to Whip Hand and the other Sid Halley novels and see EXACTLY how Dick Francis set up the orchard and plucked the plums off the trees he planted.  As we read along, little promptings will come, "What Mr. Francis was going to do here is --" 

Even if we never do learn how to duplicate his finesse, we can glean an understanding of the principles involved.  As it is with Mr. Francis so it is with any other writer we admire.  Given unlimited access to any writer's trash can we could eventually understand every tool and strategy s/he employed.  Failing to obtain the trash can we can almost duplicate the Under Orders opportunity. 

First, we need to know the master we wish to emulate.  That is predicated on reading their best work repeatedly.  Then we read the earlier works (or the later works if the magic is lost) and -- using what knowledge we have gleaned -- REPAIR the work to our own satisfaction.

We're not going to publish this repair work so there is no plagiarism involved.  This process is purely a personal learning experience.  What we want to happen is for the groove of greatness to open in our own minds so that we can use the mechanics to produce our own masterpieces.  Maybe we will never produce plums for the world, but the quality of our work shall definitely improve with professional practice, following in the footsteps of the masters.

And now we have a very interesting development to consider:  Dead Heat, a book by Dick Francis AND Felix Francis has been published.  For several month now I have refused  to even open it up.  Now it is my birthday and my wife decided to indulge me with this  half-branded Dick Francis Book.  After choking over the price I did finally open it, but I was ready to reject it at any second as a feeble imposter.  Instead I discovered a masterpiece of writing that is head and shoulders above Dick Francis alone. 

Dick Francis books are found in the mystery section, but actually they are adventure novels with a mystery (or two or three) as the plot.   Dead Heat is a genuine mystery book.  I was more than half way through before I even had a suspect, then I changed suspects twice more, and I still got the wrong guy.  The adventure in the book is swallowed up by the mystery.  Traditional Francis Plum planting is done throughout the book but all are done on a higher level than ever done by Dick Francis on his own.  Plucking the plums is done in an almost sleight of hand fashion.  If you (the reader) catch them, that's fine.  If they sail over your head that's okay, maybe your subconscious mind will pluck up the plum and insist you have just had a singular treat on a par with Christmas plum pudding.  This degree of improved success is so powerful it can only be attributed to the input of Felix Francis. 

It is my fervent hope that our boy Felix Francis will soon be rolling out a stream of  books that are entirely his own.