Listen to this lesson (1:35)
[audio:http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/authorcartel/Rule%202.3%20-%20Find%20the%20cartel.mp3]In the last lesson, you learned about the Cartels behind the successes of many of the best known writers in the last several hundred years.
Now, it’s your turn to do some research.
Your Assignment
Choose one of your favorite authors* and research him or her using the Internet or your local library.
Then, write a “Cartel Case Study” answering the following questions:
- Did he have literary role models growing up?
- Who influenced her to begin her writing career?
- As she began her career, did she have a peer group of other writers?
- Did anyone he know influence his style or help spread his work?
For your case study, shoot for 300-600 words. After you finish, post your case study here in the forums.
*NOTE: Unfortunately, this task is easier with writers who are dead. Biographies about famous writers, and the detailed research that goes into them, are usually only written after they’ve passed away. Still, there’s no harm in trying.
Once you’re done with your case study, you’re ready to move on to the next lesson, Behind Every Great Artist is a Cartel II.
I’m having trouble with this one. I’ve looked up Carl Hiassen and Christoper Moore, and I’ve done previous research on Hunter S. Thompson. (I tend to prefer authors who are fairly contemporary.) Given what I’ve found, they seem to be loners who were self-motivated to write from a young age. They were stylistically influenced by great writers they never met. Sigh …
It could definitely be true. Hunter S. Thompson definitely had a Cartel because he was in journalism, but finding it might be tricky. Carl Hiassen was also a journalist and even co-wrote his first three novels with a fellow journalist. So I would suggest his Cartel is embedded somewhere at the Miami Herald, where he writes. Ironically, Hiassen also “discovered” Christopher Paolini, the teenage writer of Eragon, which went on to become a bestseller. So Hiassen is clearly part of Paolini’s Cartel (if not the other way around). A lot of writers are loners, it’s true, but very few writers, even the loners, are successful on their own. Someone almost always helped them along the way.
I agree with you – it’s just not as well documented for current writers as it was for the Algonquin Round Table and the Lost Generation writers in Paris. Maybe there’s more street cred for those who are portrayed as loners these days …
Actually, it may be hard to research the answers to all your questions on living authors, but based on empiric evidence, it would seem to be more true now than ever. In all the books I’ve read recently, people talk about their cartel (even if they don’t use that term) and thank the various people who helped them along the way. In other words, their cartel…
Indeed! The acknowledgment section of a book is gold for this type of research.
My favorite author is Ralph Owen Moody. I did not know the author’s name but I remembered the character Little Britches from when I was a child.
Ralph Moody was born December 16, 1898 in East Rochester, New Hampshire. He died June 28, 1982 at the age of 83.
His family moved to Colorado when Ralph was eight.
His literary role model must have been his mother. She read to her children every chance she got. He had a first cousin, John Gould, who was a writer, but nothing is said about his having any kind of influence on Ralph.
According to Ralph, he wanted to write a story as soon as he was old enough to read. From what I have read, I don’t believe he grew up with any influence other than his burning desire to write.
When he was in his fifties, he signed up for a night school course on writing. When his first story was returned, his teacher had written that he should expand it into a book. He did, and that book became Little Britches, a true story of his boyhood on a Colorado ranch around 1906.
From the 1950’s on he wrote seventeen novels and autobiographies, mostly about the growth of the wild west and his love for the life of the rancher and cowboys.
Sometimes the language in his books was crude but he remained true to the way the characters spoke in those rowdy times.
Not only did he write about his own life in the west, he wrote about Kit Carson, Geronimo, the Pony Express riders, Wells Fargo, Mining towns, horses, and wild west trails.
He strongly believed in education and furthering self-education on his own part. Besides being a writer and cowboy, he also served in many occupations not related to either of his first loves.
Little Britches, as far as I can remember was the only book of his that I read but it must have had a terrific influence for me to remember it some sixty years later in life. My heart tells me that I have to go back and read it again and possibly some of his other books.
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