How to Write a Biography

As you may already know, biography is a written account of a persons life. Now, if a person writes about his own life, it would be called an autobiography. Writing the biography of another person involves a great deal of research, whether you know the person you are writing about or not. So, to do justice to the person you are writing about, you should make sure that you have researched every aspect of his or her life and have taken everything in consideration.



First step is to read as much as you can about the person in subject. Get your hands on every book, magazine, and article on the internet about that person. It would be great if you can get an interview with them so you would have firsthand information. It is best that they are agreeable to the biography you are writing. In short, its best if your biography is authorized; unless of course, you are trying to expose a not-so-nice facet of that persons life and he wouldn't have agreed to have it written. In this case, you are writing an unauthorized biography, which could also attract a lot of readers because of its revealing nature. Otherwise, an acknowledgement from your person in subject and an interview with him would be a great help.



After you have gathered all your materials, carefully choose the angle of your biography. Is it going to be about his personal life, his career, or a particular period his life? Choose the one that you think is most interesting and striking based on your research something that has not been explored by other researchers. Once you have decided, you can now request for an interview. Selecting your angle before the interview would give you focus and enable you to plan the flow of the interview. This way, both your time and your subjects time would not be wasted on irrelevant questions.



Come to the interview prepared with a recorder with full batteries and spare tapes etc, and of course, with an organized set of questions. Be sure to ask questions that your collected books and research materials cannot answer. Or, if there are unverified facts from your research materials, make sure you ask them from your interviewee if you plan to include them in the biography. In the interview, explore your subjects inner and personal world. Ask him about the things that he does, which are not known to the public. People would only read your biography if it is offering something that is not yet out in the open.



Now, you are ready to outline the biography and begin your draft.