I’m always telling members of my writers’ groups to spend some time reading a novel by John Grisham. Any novel. Don’t think about his craftsmanship (which is considerable) – at least not right away. Just watch yourself reading, and notice how you feel.

You can’t stop.

That’s how you want your writers to feel. I always describe it as feeling like you’re riding a horse that’s decided to take charge of where you’re going and how you’ll get there.

A few months ago the writing group at the prison where I volunteer got together to get a gift for me – a copy of a Grisham book I’d mentioned wanting to read: Bleachers, the story of a successful high school football coach. As the book opens, Coach Rake is dying, and football players from years past have gathered to say good-bye and honor his memory.

It’s a tremendous book even if (like me) you don’t know a whole lot about football and might not understand some of the plays and strategies that move the story along.

And move it does, as Grisham’s books always do, and I tried to figure out why. It was tough to stop to step away from the story to analyze what Grisham was doing – he’s that good. But I managed to catch my breath long enough to notice that he holds back some important information in order to keep you interested.

In Bleachers, there are two unknowns that get you hooked right away. First, why was Coach Rake – legendary for his football successes – fired?

Second, what really happened during that championship game when the Rake and the assistant coaches simply disappeared, leaving the players to make all the calls themselves?

 I don’t know how Grisham does it – whether he’s so good that he just knows how to keep the story moving, or whether he consciously plans it that way. I know that Emma Donoghue, author of Room (one of the best novels I’ve ever read) plans her books that way.

In a 2011 Writer’s Digest interview, she discussed how she outlines her work:

…it’s more like planning a military campaign or something. It’s quite exciting, because what you’re trying to do is to keep up the reader’s energy at every point. You’re looking for those spots where things would sag or get lost or come off the rails. You’re trying to keep up the momentum.

A fascinating business, writing – always trying to figure out what the best writers do, and how they do it.