Travel with French writer, almost direct (6)
I believe the answer is:
govern
'direct' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'travel with french writer almost' is the wordplay.
'travel' becomes 'go' ('go' can be a synonym of 'travel'**).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'french writer' becomes 'verne' (I've seen this before).
'almost' means to remove the last letter (most of the word but not all of it).
'verne' with its final letter taken away is 'vern'.
'go'+'vern'='GOVERN'
(Other definitions for govern that I've seen before include "Rule or administer" , "Manage - control" , "Run" , "Rule with authority, perhaps a country" , "Control and direct the affairs of" .)