Embark on the venture of learning how to write a biography is a worth remembering experience. It’s very important to keep the strategic approach in your mind, if you just want to master the art of writing a biography.
At the heart of each biography lies the hidden story of a person and all its experiences. The ultimate goal of writing a biography is to motivate the target audience by sharing someone’s life journey. An author may prefer to choose a person whose subject of the story is quite captivating or contains themes that you can easily apply to the life of today.
Meanwhile, some authors select to write a biography that doesn’t contain sufficient information about a wonderful subject or to inform the public about a biography that lacks some facts.
The biographies can be motivating as it highlights a particular person’s accomplishments, figuring out how the subject endured hardships to provide readers with a sense of encouragement. Biographies also serve as tales forbidding the target audience of what not to become.
So this is about how to write a biography. Here’s how we describe a biography, a look at its origin and some popular types of it.
What is meant by a biography?
Biography is the tale of the real life of a person. It can be a person who died many years ago, a person who is still alive, famous all over the world, probably a hero who was not celebrated or can be a bunch of amazing people.
Writing a biography means entailing facts about a person’s life from birth to death. Even every detail is included, with everything changing taking center stage.
The author typically delves into the subject’s childhood history, significant events, relationships, successes, and failures to create a compelling and comprehensive portrayal.
Do biographies need research?
You must learn how to write a biography for kids. Biographies require deep research, and the source of information can be direct. When you are ready to write a biography of someone who is not alive or no more, you should figure out some primary sources of information.
Popular types of biography
Some types of biographies are as follows:
1. Fictional biography
2. Historical fiction biography
3. Academic biography
Let’s have a look at this one by one.
1. Fictional biography
It’s a biography in which the story’s theme is a fictional character, and usually, in most cases, the author creates it.
Even fictional biographies can contain many real-life elements.
2. Historical fiction biography
It’s quite easy to learn how to write a biography. Another amazing type is historical fiction biography. It entails a subject that features a story of a heroic figure, but it contains imaginary elements.
To write a historical fiction biography, you must have in-depth historical knowledge. This is how you can produce a compelling story and consult a historian to find out whether the details you have mentioned are correct.
3. Academic biography
Academic biography highlights the academic journey of an individual. Academics also write biographies for their employees’ websites or even use them for academic journals.
They also consult with writers to write biographies for them. You must be familiar with the person you are writing an academic biography. Also, remember to mention their career achievements and area of expertise.
You can write biographies such as children’s books, stories of magazines, or novels. There exist many ways using which you can format your biography.
● Thematic biography
By theme, it means using a complete comprehensive point of view. In other words, you can also use characteristics of the subject to join together all events happening in your life back to the main theme.
● By title
You must pay attention to the title that affected a person’s life. Make sure you list every event one by one.
This is the biography sample for students.
● With interviews
Try to have a conversation with your subject matter if you can. Ask questions from the people who are close to the subject. What are their thoughts about the subjects and key events?
Pass on the story with the help of first-person accounts.
In the article’s coming sections, we will learn how to write a sample biography about myself.
● In media res
In media, res is a literary term that means being in the center of things.
Biographies written in the media don’t originate from the main idea but start in the middle of the tale. This is how to write a biography.
Then you need to move it backwards on essential elements, and then you can easily step forwards towards your main goal.
Reasons for writing a biography
There can be many reasons a person writes a biography; maybe they idealize someone else’s life or wish to write their own story.
It depends on you if you write it first and then get it published after a long time. Meanwhile, your siblings and parents should agree if you publish an autobiography.
If they want to change the names, make sure you talk to them on this matter nicely.
Listed below are many good reasons why you should write a biography. But most important of all is to record your own life story or of someone else.
This is a gift you should save for future generations.
- Improve your memory and boost your intelligence.
- Passing the memories and experiences to the coming generations
- Helps to cope with negative traumas
- Make memories more mindful
- Understand your true self better
What is a method to structure a biography?
Understanding how to structure a biography before you embark on a writing journey is very important. It depends on when you structure your story, but most professional writers follow a different style.
- Exposition
- Rising action
- Climax
- Falling action
- Resolution
- The setting of the story
- Characters
- Dialogue
- Plot
Let’s discuss this one by one.
● Exposition
The first step in introducing a storytelling plot is introducing the target audience to the story. Ensure you don’t forget to mention any background or context required to understand the story.
● Rising action
Rising action entails a series of events in the story leading to major events.
● Climax
Climax is said to be the turning point of the story in which conflict occurs, and meanwhile, there is a huge setback in life.
● Falling action
The falling action is an important part of learning how to structure a biography in which action calms down once the climax occurs.
● Resolution
It is the start of the conclusion and where things finally start falling into the right place.
More to create a craft of the story, you also need some other amazing storytelling elements such as:
● The setting of the story
First, you must heed the story’s setting to learn how to write a biography. It depends on timings, location and environment in which events related to the story happened.
So by telling your story to the audience, you give them a chance to feel it.
● Characters
Characters are the people around which the whole story revolves. Thus in writing a biography, your character is the main subject and friends of the subjects are either your family members or the family, which you can name as additional characters.
● Dialogue
It refers to the casual conversation between the leading characters of the story. So, dialogues are usually enclosed within quotation marks by professional story writers.
● Plot
Editors or professional storytellers describe a plot as a series of events in a story; in a biography, they are written in the order of their happening.
Additional tips and tricks to write a biography
Here are some additional tips and tricks on how to write a biography.
- Obtain permission if important.
- Understand your target audience.
- Use the technique of writing flashbacks.
- Ask for feedback after writing.
- Do add supplemental information
Let’s discuss these tips one by one.
● Obtain permission if important.
One essential tip to writing a biography is to seek permission from the person you wish to write about. If the theme on which you want to write is living, make sure that you contact them for writing a biography.
This plays a key role in staying professional and helps to come up with a new door to deal with the subject and give them a role in creating a biography.
● Understand your target audience.
If you write a biography that grabs the audience’s attention, try first to understand them. Search who your audience is, and once you are clear about them, then try to write according to them.
Also, use language that is not complex and humor they can understand by reading in their first attempt. This will grab the attention of your audience and will make your content more successful.
This is just a biography sample for students.
● Use the technique of writing flashbacks.
Another amazing tip for writing an engaging biography is using the flashbacks technique. Flashbacks offer a record of past events that took place in the story, which means adding context to the overall story.
This, in return, makes the story captivating and understandable for the readers.
● Ask for feedback after writing.
In writing a biography, asking for feedback is the most crucial step. Try to convince other people to read your biography, including editors and the actual subject of the life story, and give revisions as much as you can.
If possible, review your work from different angles.
● Do add supplemental information
Don’t forget to include supplemental information throughout your biography. You can easily drift away from the subject of your story but don’t do that. Add historical context to the story that makes it engaging.
Thus how to write a biography boosts the story of a person and makes it even more entertaining for the readers.
Whatever you write in a biography must be mentioned, which makes it more engaging and appealing. Guess what if the idea behind writing a biography is to educate people?
Choose a subject to write about
First, choose your subject wisely when you are all set to write a biography. Make sure the subject you select to write on is lively.
You might want to analyze major life events, relationships and the person’s impact on society.
Important questions to ask
When selecting a subject, many questions arise in your mind.
- Is the person’s life captivating enough on which you should write a biography?
- Did the story you crafted impact readers’ minds and motivate them to do something extraordinary?
- Will their story connect with the target audience?
In this way, you can find out how to write a biography.
Writing about a person you don’t know
If you are familiar with a story of an ordinary person which might hit thousands of people, don’t hesitate to discuss it with another person. Just focus on those pain points, which can build your bond with the audience. Writing about someone you don’t know is hard as you have to convince many people to read about the unknown entity.
Writing about a person who is no more in this world
Writing about someone who is not alive means you don’t have an approach to knowing their voice and will never be familiar with their feelings in your work. Meanwhile, don’t worry; you can work with their family members and former colleagues. Take help from journals to get a clear idea about the life of your targeted subject.
Writing about famous people
Famous public figures and celebrities are considered universally viewed subjects and are more likely to get huge attention from the audience. If you plan to write a biography on celebrities, it will bring you great success. Ensure you write in a fascinating way that looks completely different from the competitors.
Writing a professional or personal biography
Despite all other biographies available in the writing market, you can also be the author of your personal or professional bio. But in terms of literature, it is regarded as an autobiography, but in the world of technology now, there is a short word for biography: “bio”.
Writing a biography: A step by step method
There are many different ways how to write a biography. We have created a complete guide for you about writing a biography with the help of a few steps. In this article, we suppose that you are writing an autobiography. However, you can also apply the instructions to write another person’s biography.
You can step forward in the same way but make sure to combine each step to that specific person’s life.
1. Organize your life in the form of main chapters
One of the most crucial steps in writing a biography is to organize it into chapters. Divided chapters will help you shape your personality by giving information about events in your life.
You can think about different paths, such as professional development, fighting mental illness, and discovering your own self or personality development.
You can make a group of your life chapters using all these life paths. Other possibilities can include your family members’ history and your perspective about the rest of the world. So you can also contribute your biography to someone special, any friend or your beloved father.
Thus you can craft your mind map and organize your life events according to specific themes. Examples are childhood, teenage and adult life.
Finally, you can divide these topics more and write keywords based on them.
How to write a biography about yourself?
2. Prepare notes on each chapter
The second step is to prepare notes on each chapter and, if possible, try to write them down as bullet points. Then write what you think about that certain period of life, which people were there for you in hard times and also make a rough sheet with the help of dates.
This is how you can think about refreshing your memories and mind. Time frame plays a key role in searching out photos or written material from the time. Sometimes, you also need to ask people to listen to their version of stories and then compare it with your written biography.
To write a biography hook, you must work on each chapter separately.
3. Make a brief list of questions that you want to ask
After making notes of each chapter related to your life, the next step is to make a brief list of questions you want to ask.
However, we have prepared a list of questions you can ask yourself as you are all set samples of your biography.
- Who has stood with you in your tough times?
- Which bad decisions left an everlasting impression on your life?
- Have my dreams come to life or not?
- What is the most important part of life which cannot be neglected?
- Which life ambitions have I reached and which I could not?
- What plans and goals do I hold for the future?
- What is your darkest secret?
Carefully spend time thinking about each question and include marginal figures.
4. Clean up your memory
Autobiographies, also known as memoirs, vividly capture a lifetime of memories.
Here you need to recheck your old diaries, photos or letters to ensure you have collected memories correctly.
Listen to new music to make new memories and visit places you went to then. Using these two methods, you can clean up and refresh your memory. After this, prepare notes and assign your thoughts to any chapter you want.
5. Conduct interviews on specific situations
You can ask for help from your friends and relatives who know you well. So you also can conduct interviews based on the specific situations.
You will learn about the moments they remember about you and keep track of everything through questionnaires. This is how you can make an audio recording and prepare notes afterwards.
If you still feel a gap in your memory, you can also get in touch with old contacts and perhaps figure out more by talking to them.
Sample of biography about myself is quite a daunting task, and you have to go through different steps.
6. Set up goals to write a biography
After collecting all the interviews, life events and audio recordings in the form of bullets, you now have to set up goals to write a biography.
It is difficult to do this; remember, you don’t need to write proper sentences. Whatever comes to your mind, let your thoughts flow.
Repeat this practice for every chapter and make your writing routine. It’s not easy to start again and again after taking long breaks.
Don’t hesitate to write and make small writing goals every day. Because the main goal here is to write a biography, every little effort does count.
Once you finish your first draft, it’s time to review.
7. Change names if needed
It is an important part of reviewing your content; for example, you can even alter the names if needed.
Depending on your biography, whether this is essential to explain crimes or to speak badly about a person.
Make sure you also get yourself ready to deal with the opposition.
You will also get a chance to connect with concerned people and get their permission regarding names in their writing and their signatures.
In case of a complex matter in which you are accused of defamation of a character, it is great to consult a lawyer.
8. Time to correct the content
Now it’s time to optimize the content once you are done with how to write a biography. First, look at your text and sort out all the spelling and grammatical mistakes.
If you have any writers or editors in your friends and family, you can ask for help from them.
But professional help, such as publishers, also takes care of proofreading and assisting with designing the cover and layout.
This is how any artwork and ebook can be crafted.
9. Get your biography printed and published
A few steps are involved to get your biography printed and published. You can contact professional publishers so they can publish your written work.
In other cases, you can also publish your work, which is self-publishing.
So basically, you have three choices. The first one is to have your book published with the help of online printing services in a limited number of copies and then distribute it by yourself.
The second one is to launch an ebook so you can sell it to potential customers with the help of ad campaigns or through your website.
The third and last option is to get your book published, and this is how you can save money that will go into printing.
If you enjoyed this activity of writing a biography, your next task could be the biography of any famous person or friend. Conduct interviews and write a small biography which you can give as Christmas, birthday, friendship day, siblings day, Father’s Day and mother’sMother Day gift.
Maybe your next goal is to write a sample biography about yourself.
Conclusion
Biography writing can be good for you and the person who reads it. It helps to do better in life and plays an important role in knowing yourself.
It’s a kind of special discipline within book writing, and learning about how to write a biography is like presenting a person’s life in an exciting way.
Are you ready to take up the challenge of writing a biography? Remember, you must be very careful while researching and selecting a structure for it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Let’s have some of the most asked questions about how to write a biography.
1. How many words are good enough while writing a biography?
The word count of a good biography ranges from 80,000 to 110,000 words. While on the other hand, successful authors also write longer biographies.
Meanwhile, you should also pay attention to the word count of books in a similar genre, or whatever your publisher says to you regarding it will be the right answer.
So memoir word count ranges from 60,000 to 90,000 words.
2. What is a great biography?
It seems like just a casual list of events that happened to someone. So it should tell a story similar to a good novel.
This is how biography is different from the rest of non-fiction.
3. Is biography a real-life story of a person?
A biography is simply understood as the life history of an individual written by someone else. While if we talk about autobiography, it is the story of a person written by that person.
A memoir is a series of collected memories that a person writes.
4. Can we consider a biography as an essay?
Biographies typically revolve around details of a person’s life. Sometimes it also contains the attributes and analysis of that person. So you must learn to write a biography.
Yes, we can consider a biography as an essay as it is similar to different types of essays, such as narrative essays, insofar as it focuses on narrating a story.
5. Does the biography have any title?
The title is based on the biography and name of the concerned person whose biography is planned to be written.
This is probably one of the quickest ways to know that someone wrote a biography about some other person.
6. How long is a biography written?
A typically long biography comprises 3 to 5 paragraphs. While in the case of a short biography, author bios are used in other publications, print or online, at the end of blog posts or articles.
A short bio is sometimes also added in the About section of a company or personal website.
7. What is not to be included in a biography?
You should never lie when writing a biography. It should not include false achievements, awards, titles or positions.
As in the world of technology, it has become easier to disprove any wrong claim.
8. What do you mean by personal biography?
Personal biography means a short introduction that offers a quick overview of all your credentials and achievements in life. It also includes your professional history and educational details.
You must consider it an effective marketing product that describes who you are.
9. When did biography start?
Biographical literature started in the 5th century having poet Lon of Chios writing brief sketches of popular contemporaries such as Sophocles and Pericles.
10. Can you use real names in writing a biography?
It all depends on whether you like to use real names in writing a biography; first, get enough content about the person you chose.
Make sure you follow these preventive measures.
11. Is a biography written in paragraph style?
The format of the biography should be exactly like a high school essay having one introduction, a thesis statement, a body paragraph and the conclusion paragraph.
