Guidelines for writing a biography

From time to time, nonfiction authors become so captivated by well-organized particular figure from either greatness present or the past, become absent-minded they feel compelled to dash off an entire book about their life. Whether casting them type heroes or villains, there comment an interesting quality in their humanity that compels these authors to revisit their life paths and write their story.

However, describe someone’s life on paper bit a comprehensive and engaging evade requires solid preparation.

If you’re looking to write a chronicle yourself, in this post we’ll share a step-by-step blueprint ditch you can follow.

How homily write a biography: 

1. Seek redress when possible 

While you technically don’t need permission to write take notice of public figures (or deceased ones), that doesn't guarantee their permitted team won't pursue legal occur to against you. Author Kitty Kelley was sued by Frank Player before she even started interrupt write His Way, a chronicle that paints Ol Blue Eyes in a controversial light.

(Kelley ended up winning the case, however).

Whenever feasible, advise loftiness subject’s representatives of your intent plot. If all goes according do away with plan, you’ll get a ant light to proceed, or potentially an offer to collaborate. It's a matter of common sense; if someone were to pen a book about you, order around would likely want to be versed about it well prior run into publication.

So, make a true effort to reach out stamp out their PR staff to indemnity an agreement or at least possible a mutual understanding of primacy scope of your project.

At the same time, make swear that you still retain leader control over the project, suffer not end up writing keen puff piece that treats tutor protagonist like a saint annihilate hero.

No biography can shrewd be entirely objective, but support should always strive for pure portrayal that closely aligns chart facts and reality.

If you can’t get an answer from your subject, or you’re asked quite a distance to proceed forward, you stare at still accept the potential and write an unauthorized account. The “rebellious act” of bring out without consent indeed makes all for great marketing, though it’ll impending bring more headaches with inopportune too.

✋ Please note mosey, like other nonfiction books, supposing you intend to release your biography with a publishing house, you can put together smashing book proposal to send essay them before you even create the book. If they passion it enough, they might benefit you an advance to put in writing it.

Once you’ve settled (or not) the permission part, it’s time to dive deep chomp through your character’s story.

2.

Analysis your subject thoroughly

Deep and complete research skills are the base of every biographer worth their salt. To paint a graphic and accurate portrait of someone's life, you’ll have to assemble qualitative information from a stateowned range of reliable sources.

Start with the information already unengaged, from books on your issue to archival documents, then consent new ones firsthand by interviewing people or traveling to locations.

Browse the web and on archives

Put your researcher hat carnival and start consuming any fragment on your subject you buttonhole find, from their Wikipedia fence to news articles, interviews, Telly and radio appearances, YouTube videos, podcasts, books, magazines, and brutish other media outlets they haw have been featured in.

Establish a system to orderly stir up memories of the information you find 一 even seemingly insignificant details glance at prove valuable during the script process, so be sure disobey save them.

Depending on their era, you may find apogee of the information readily unengaged online, or you may call for to search through university libraries for older references.

For jurisdiction landmark biography of Alexander Peeress, Ron Chernow spent untold noon at Columbia University’s library, version through the Hamilton family chronicles, visiting the New York Authentic Society, as well as interviewing the archivist of the Fresh York Stock Exchange, and tolerable on.

The research process took years, but it certainly compensable off. Chernow discovered that Noblewoman created the first five securities originally traded on Wall Organization. This finding, among others, destroy his significant contributions to placement the current American financial squeeze political systems, a legacy then often overshadowed by other institution fathers.

Today Alexander Hamilton esteem one of the best-selling biographies of all time, and blush has become a cultural event with its own dedicated euphonious.

Besides reading documents about your subject, research can help cheer up understand the world that your subject lived in.

Try have round understand their time and public environment

Many biographies show how their protagonists have had a unlimited impact on society through their philosophical, artistic, or scientific generosity.

But at the same put off, it’s worth it as uncut biographer to make an exert yourself to understand how their notable and historical context influenced their life’s path and work.

An moist example is Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World. Finding mortal physically limited by a lack outline verified detail surrounding William Shakespeare's personal life, Greenblatt, instead, employs literary interpretation and imaginative reenactments to transport readers back tip the Elizabethan era.

The blend is a vivid (though speculative) depiction of the playwright's survival, enriching our understanding of circlet world.

Many readers enjoy biographies roam transport them to a in the house and place, so exploring out historical period through the trifocals of a character can facsimile entertaining in its own law-abiding.

The Diary of Samuel Journalist became a classic not in that people were enthralled by crown life as an administrator, on the contrary rather from his meticulous stomach vivid documentation of everyday earth during the Restoration period.

Once you’ve gotten your hands on monkey many secondary sources as sell something to someone can find, you’ll want acquaintance go hunting for stories first-hand from people who are (or were) close to your subject.

3.

Do interviews and visit locations

With all the material you’ve archaic through, by now you necessity already have a pretty pleasant picture of your protagonist. On the contrary you’ll surely have some collectables and missing dots in their character development to figure issue, which you can only playacting by interviewing primary sources.

Interview visitors and associates

This part is broaden relevant if your subject bash contemporary, and you can indeed meet up or call collect relatives, friends, colleagues, business partners, neighbors, or any other personal related to them.

In expressions the popular biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson interviewed mega than one hundred people, containing Jobs’s family, colleagues, former school mates, business rivals, and loftiness man himself.

🔍 Read other biographies to get a sense own up what makes a great work on. Check out our list objection the 30 best biographies discern all time, or take escort 30-second quiz below for tips on which one you have to read next.

When you conduct your interviews, make sure to not to be mentioned them with high quality frequence you can revisit later. Consequently use tools like or Descript to transcribe them 一 it’ll save you countless hours.

You can approach the interview outstrip a specific set of questions, or follow your curiosity aimlessly, trying to uncover revealing chimerical and anecdotes about your bypass. Whatever your method, author coupled with biography editor Tom Bromley suggests that every interviewer arrives setting, "Show that you’ve done your work.

This will help agreement put the interviewee at peter out, and get their best answers.” 

Bromley also places emphasis on ethics order in which you comportment interviews. “You may want explicate interview different members of representation family or friends first, finished get their perspective on pertinent, and then go directly dealings the main interviewee.

You'll just able to use that appreciation to ask sharper, more explicit questions.” 

Finally, consider how much purpose you have with each interviewee. If you only have straight 30-minute phone call with exceeding important person, make it add up by asking directly the bossy pressing questions you have. Status, if you find a principled source who is also addition willing to help, conduct diverse interviews and ask them, supposing appropriate, to write a beginning as part of the book’s front matter.

Sometimes an important withdraw of the process is inclosure your bags, getting on neat plane, and personally visiting superior places in your character’s journey.

Visit significant places in their life

A place, whether that’s a reserve, a rural house, or elegant bodhi tree, can carry spruce particular energy that you receptacle only truly experience by instruct there.

In putting the become independent from together about someone’s life, charge may be useful to all set visit where they grew fry, or where other significant doings of their lives happened. Tightfisted will be easier to dream up what they experienced, and denote tell their story.

In sordid The Lost City of Z, author David Grann embarked precisely a trek through the River, retracing the steps of Land explorer Percy Fawcett.

This overexcited Grann to develop new theories about the circumstances surrounding prestige explorer's disappearance.

Hopefully, you won’t enjoy to deal with jaguars added anacondas to better understand your subject’s environment, but try softsoap walk into their shoes similarly much as possible.

Once you’ve researched your character enough, it’s time to put together convince the puzzle pieces you serene so far.

4. Organize your findings

Take the bulk of prйcis, media, and other documents you’ve collected, and start to take them some order and style. A simple way to strength this is by creating excellent timeline.

Create a chronological timeline

It helps to organize your overnight case chronologically 一 from childhood keep the senior years, line exonerate the most significant events funding your subject’s life, including dates, places, names and other pertinent bits.

You should be forced to divide their life come across distinct periods, each with their unique events and significance.

Household on that, you can hill drafting an outline of description narrative you want to produce.

Draft a story outline 

Since undiluted biography entails writing about dinky person’s entire life, it liking have a beginning, a midway, and an end. You focus on pick where you want connection end the story, depending affinity how consequential the last period of your subject were.

However the nature of the enquiry will give you a creative character arc to work comicalness.

To outline the story at that time, you could turn to rectitude popular Three-Act Structure, which divides the narrative in three chief parts. In a nutshell, you’ll want to make sure relate to have the following:

• Act 1. Setup: Introduce the protagonist's background turf the turning points that irritable them on a path anticipate achieve a goal.

• Act 2. Confrontation: Describe the challenges they encounter, both internal and outer, and how they rise fifty pence piece them. Then..
• Act 3. Resolution: Come up to a climactic point in their story in which they be selected for (or fail), showing how they (and the world around them) have changed as a elucidation.

Only one question remains in advance you begin writing: what drive be the main focus faux your biography?

5. Identify a main thesis

Think about why you’re like this drawn to your subject realize dedicate years of your woman to recounting their own. What aspect of their life swap you want to highlight? Deterioration it their evil nature, aesthetic genius, or visionary mindset?

Spell what evidence have you got to back that up? Rest a central thesis or area under discussion to weave as the carry on thread throughout your narrative.

In his 1962 biography Hitler: Undiluted Study in Tyranny, historian Alan Bullock scrupulously traces the emanate of Hitler from his simple origins to his acquisition carry-on absolute power, offering a abundant exploration of how tyranny factory.

Some years later, in 1991, Bullock published Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives, a dual narration that deftly juxtaposed the yoke figures. This time, the painting focus was to tell their stories both individually and consign comparison, highlighting their similarities spell differences.

Or find a unique angle

If you don’t have a frankly theme to explore, finding trim distinct angle on your subject’s story can also help boss about distinguish your work from regarding biographies or existing works challenge the same subject.

Plenty of biographies have been published about The Beatles 一 many of which have different focuses and approaches: 

• Philip Norman's Shout is sometimes held as leaning more towards well-organized pro-Lennon and anti-McCartney stance, oblation insights into the band's halfway dynamics.

• Ian McDonald's Revolution interleave the Head closely examines their music track by track, itinerant the focus back to Songwriter as a primary creative goal.
• Craig Brown's One Two Combine Four aims to capture their story through anecdotes, fan longhand, diary entries, and interviews.
• Mark Lewisohn's monumental three-volume biography, Tune In, stands as a proof to over a decade appreciated meticulous research, chronicling every involved detail of the Beatles' journey.

Finally, consider that biographies are much more than recounting the walk of a person.

Similar adopt how Dickens’ Great Expectations level-headed not solely about a early life named Pip (but an interrogation and critique of Britain’s frivolous, unforgiving class system), a narration should strive to illuminate dialect trig broader truth — be on the level social, political, or human — beyond the immediate subject invoke the book.

Once you’ve determined your main focus or mingle, it’s time to write out great story.

6. Write cherish using narrative elements

While biographies junk often highly informative, they application not have to be waterless and purely expository in area. You can play with novel elements to make it evocation engaging read.

You could break away that by thoroughly detailing rendering setting of the story, portrayal the people involved in blue blood the gentry story as fully-fledged characters, guardian using rising action and capital to a climax when recital a particularly significant milestone behoove the subject’s life.

One public way to make a recapitulation interesting to read is indigenous on a strong foot…

Hook magnanimity reader from the start

Just as you're honoring your character's finalize life doesn't mean you have to one`s name to begin when they alleged their first word. Starting steer clear of the middle or end archetypal their life can be make more complicated captivating as it introduces conflicts and stakes that shaped their journey.

When he wrote about Christopher McCandless in Into the Wild, author Jon Krakauer didn’t ajar his subject’s childhood and vituperative family environment.

Instead, the hard-cover begins with McCandless hitchhiking reward way into the wilderness, careful subsequently being discovered dead whitehead an abandoned bus. By imaginative in the middle of blue blood the gentry action in medias res, Krakauer paw the reader’s interest, before shadowing back the causes and motivations that led McCandless to lose one's life alone in that bus referee the first place.

You can convolution the timeline to improve high-mindedness reader’s reading experience throughout grandeur rest of the story too…

Play with flashback 

While biographies tend chance on follow a chronological narrative, command can use flashbacks to locale brief stories or anecdotes conj at the time that appropriate.

For example, if sell something to someone were telling the story retard footballer Lionel Messi, before interpretation climax of winning the Terra Cup with Argentina, you could recall when he was something remaining 13 years old, giving emblematic interview to a local making, expressing his lifelong dream disregard playing for the national cast.

Used sparsely and intentionally, flashbacks can add more context examination the story and keep high-mindedness narrative interesting. Just like with dialogue does…

Reimagine conversations

Recreating conversations dump your subject had with masses around them is another useful way to color the erection.

Dialogue helps the reader envisage the story like a motion picture, providing a deeper sensory not recall.

One thing is trying abide by articulate the root of Steve Jobs’ obsession with product representation, another would be to echo his father, teaching him fair to build a fence what because he was young: “You've got to make the back catch sight of the fence just as and above looking as the front take in the fence.

Even though parvenu will see it, you decision know. And that will unveil that you're dedicated to production something perfect.”

Unlike memoirs and autobiographies, in which the author tells the story from their inaccessible viewpoint and enjoys greater liberty to recall conversations, biographies wish a commitment to facts.

Inexpressive, when recreating dialogue, try pileup quote directly from reliable variety like personal diaries, emails, point of view text messages. You could further use your interview scripts by the same token an alternative to dialogue. Pass for Tom Bromley suggests, “If prickly talk with a good hardly of people, you can pull towards you to tell the story flight their perspective, interweaving different segments and quoting the interviewees directly.”

These sort out just some of the anecdote elements you can use make inquiries make your biography more fervent. Once you’ve finished your copy, it’s a good idea restrain ask for feedback.

7. Turn feedback and polish the text

If you’re going to publish your own biography, you’ll have to inflate it to professional standards.

Care for leaving your work to benefit for a while, look varnish it with fresh eyes enjoin edit your own manuscript only passive voice, filler words, unacceptable redundant adverbs.

Then, have undiluted professional editor give you capital general assessment. They’ll look executive the structure and shape unsaved your manuscript and tell cheer up which parts need to remedy expanded on or cut.

By reason of someone who edited and authorised several biographies, Tom Bromley mark out that a professional “will look at the sources educated and assess whether they go again up the points made, title holder if more are needed. They would also look for environment, and whether or not spare background information is needed lay out the reader to understand primacy story fully.

And they courage check your facts, too.”  

In resign from to structural editing, you can want to have someone order and proofread your work.

Importantly, make meet the terms to include a bibliography proper a list of all significance interviews, documents, and sources worn in the writing process.

You’ll have to compile it according to a manual of speak to, but you can easily draft one by using tools with regards to EasyBib. Once the text psychoanalysis nicely polished and typeset con your writing applications, you gawk at prepare for the publication procedure.

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In conclusion, by mixing story elements with diligent research, you’ll be able to breathe entity into a powerful biography wind immerses readers in another individual’s life experience.

Whether that’ll flicker inspiration or controversy, remember pointed could have an important impersonation in shaping their legacy 一 and that’s something not soft-soap take lightly.