how to write biography wikipedia

Citation Needed! A Guide to Writing and Editing on Wikipedia

• Editing an Existing Wikipedia Article
• Creating a New Wikipedia Article
• Women's History Month
• Need More Help?

The Process

• Create your account and practice editing. Try to make 10 edits before you get started on your assignment. Information on account creation can be found on the ENL 3895 section of this guide.
• Make sure your article doesn't already exist! Search for it on Wikipedia. If it does exist, you can simply edit the existing article.
• Use the Article Wizard to start creating your new article. This will help you create a draft space for your article. Make sure to bookmark it and share with your group. Multiple people can edit the same draft, so only one person in your group needs to create the draft.
• Write! Check out the links in the Helpful Resources box if you need some more guidance.
• Hit the blue "Publish page..." button when you're done! This will allow the page to either be published, or be sent for review by other Wikipedia editors. Consider saving a copy of your article somewhere to ensure you have an extra copy of it. The 'download as PDF' link on the left is great for doing just that.

Helpful Resources

• Manual of Style From Wikipedia. "The MoS presents Wikipedia's house style, to help editors write articles with consistent and precise language, layout, and formatting, making Wikipedia easier and more intuitive for users. Plain English works best. Avoid ambiguity, jargon, and vague or unnecessarily complex wording."
• Your First Wikipedia Article Everything you need to know about writing and creating your first Wikipedia article.
• Article Development The process by which articles turn from short 'stubs' into useful, longer articles.
• Examples of Good Articles Language and literature articles that are considered 'good articles' by Wikipedia. These can serve as good examples of what your finished article should look like.
• << Previous: Editing an Existing Wikipedia Article
• Next: ENL 3895 >>
• Last Updated: Jan 17, 2023 3:01 PM
• URL: https://belmont.libguides.com/wiki

Encyclopedia

Writing with artificial intelligence, getting started writing on a wiki.

• CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 by M . C. Morgan , Kyle D. Stedman

M. C. Morgan’s wiki is at http://biro.erhetoric.org

The Simplest Writing Space

Wikis were designed with simplicity in mind: The writing space is minimal—a text field. The controls are pedestrian—Edit and Save. The formatting is fundamental—Type to enter text, hit return twice to create paragraphs. Use equal signs or hash signs for headings, slashes for emphasis, enclose links in double-brackets, or just paste in urls. The tools are basic—Create and link new pages by using WikiWords.

The writing space is easy to read, and creating pages is simple so that you can focus on writing.

Navigation and page management is also stripped down—Use the PageIndex to see what’s on the wiki, use RecentChanges to see what’s new, and use the all-important PageHistory to look at previous versions of the page.

Caption to Image I (Image of StyleGuide page): A well-developed WikiPage. Writers have used headings to organize the page and included links to related topics by writing Wikiwords into the flow of the text. The writers have also left three signals that invite readers to develop the page further: the [more] under Jumping In, the ellipses in the bullet list, and the note “Let’s add a WelcomeRitual.”

Wikis don’t demand that you write in a particular way, but they don’t give you any guidance on how to proceed, either. Wikis are very different writing spaces than weblogs and paper notebooks, and to make the most of them, you may need to learn some new moves, some of the new media literacy skills Kyle Steman mentions. Wiki users have developed some general practices for writing on wikis. This article will help you get started developing your own techniques, whether you use a wiki collaboratively or on your own.

One Draft Centrally Located

Wiki articles develop over time and often by multiple hands. So the idea on a wiki is to keep things centrally located—all in one place. Notes, the developing draft, and discussion on the draft are all posted to one place. Everyone’s on the same page, everything is always current, and additions and changes and deletions are played out on the page itself.

If you’re working solo, the centrally located draft is a benefit. All your notes, considerations, and sections of developing drafts are all in one place. And what you’re working on is always the most up-to-date material. You access it from any device, you can recover earlier drafts using the PageHistory, and that means that you can move in and out of drafting and refactoring easily, without shuffling through versions.

The WikiWord

The WikiWord is central to using a wiki. WikiWords—more accurately, wiki phrases—are created in traditional wikis by using capital letters in the middle of the phrase or word, as in WikiWord, or CamelCase, or MyGreatIdea. The wiki treats a phrase in CamelCase (as this move is called) as a potential page name and a link to that page. That means that you, as the writer, treat a CamelCase word as a topic: A point of interest to be developed, a path to create, an idea, problem, issue, concept to think about. On any page, create a WikiWord to start a new page.

WikiWords are powerful because the WikiWord is both the title of the page and a link to that page. Once created, using the WikiWord anywhere on the wiki will link to that page, and that allows you to cross-reference any page from any other page.

Some wikis are not set up to use CamelCase WikiWords but require another way to indicate a WikiWord, such as double square brackets. While there are good reasons for this, there are better reasons for using CamelCase to designate WikiWords. If you’re setting up your own wiki, use CamelCase to encourage you to keep your WikiWords concise.

ThreadMode and DocumentMode

Wiki writers have developed ways of working from notes-and-drafts-and-discussion-all-in-one-page to everyone’s advantage. On a wiki, rather than thinking in terms of writing a draft, think of moving from a set of loosely connected notes towards a more formal document. In WikiTerms, drafting is moving from ThreadMode to DocumentMode.

ThreadMode is a dialogue: It is open-ended, collective, dynamic, and informal; it can develop as a page or develop on a page, but it develops organically, without knowing where it’s going.

ThreadMode is tentative rather than absolute; opinionated but not seeking closure; exploratory and so seeking light rather than winning ground. ThreadMode writing is grounded in specifics to make sense of abstractions. Its end is to help others understand and create, not to win. It’s an attitude.

The tone of ThreadMode is not off-the-cuff, sermonic, or preachy. ThreadMode may be informal but it is public thinking: designed, considered, and polite. ThreadMode presents a position, a way of understanding, and presents it clearly and persuasively.

Rather than replying to a discussion entry, the writer can refactor the page to incorporate the suggested change, then delete the comment. ThreadMode slips delicately into DocumentMode.

If you’re collaborating with others, keep ThreadMode going by phrasing contributions in first-person (using I) and signing them. Place comments and additions near the material they address rather than simply placing them at the end of the exchange.

Contribute in ThreadMode by

• Adding a comment furthering the conversation.
• Editing older comments to improve the flow or to re-open a discussion that has become closed. It’s ok to trim ThreadMode redundancies to open the discussion, but be respectful to maintain meaning.
• Editing ThreadMode entries to create WikiWords.
• Splitting conversations by moving them to a new page. Develop each further.
• Capturing the ideas of the thread in a paragraph that suggests a pattern for the DocumentMode.

Caption to Image II (image of AnArcy page being edited): A failrly new WikiPage being edited in ThreadMode. Contributors  are adding ideas in a bullet list below the DoubleLine and are signing their contributions. As the ThreadMode discussion develops, writers will start to refactor the exchange into DocumentMode.

DocumentMode

DocumentMode is more formal, more like an end point. It’s expository, essayistic. It’s a semi-formal synthesis of the ideas brought out in ThreadMode. To develop in DocumentMode, draw on ThreadMode material. Arrange it, summarize it, counter-point ideas, edit the sentences for clarity and tone. That is, refactor ThreadMode material.

If you’re working with others, develop the DocumentMode text in third-person and remove the names of contributors. (Place the names of all the contributors at the bottom of the section.) Add WikiWords to the text where concepts seem to open to new pages. Cut material you’ve used (it’s recoverable if necessary), and move material that still needs to be incorporated to a place on the page for notes, below the DoubleLine.

Contribute to DocumentMode by

• Reorganizing the page to reveal a latent pattern in the threads and discussions.
• Adding headings.
• Adding examples.
• Qualifying the argument.
• Editing the text.
• Creating new topics by fusing words into WikiWords.

The DoubleLine

Use a DoubleLine to distinguish between the stuff in ThreadMode and the stuff in DocumentMode. You could use formatting, sidebars, a suggestion and approval area, but all of that slows things down. In keeping with the WikiWay—quick and simple—wiki writers use a DoubleLine near the bottom of the page, typically created by typing two sets of hyphens to create a horizontal rule. Material above the DoubleLine is in DocumentMode; material below is in ThreadMode. This doesn’t mean Finished/Unfinished. It’s more like palette and canvas, or raw material (ThreadMode) and developing work (DocumentMode). It means placing material that is more fully formed and ready for further work above the line, while adding notes, roughs, jottings, headings without content, fragments of lists . . . below the line.

Caption to Image III (image of AnArchy page in reading mode): The AnArchy page in ThreadMode. The DoubleLine is visibile when the page is being read. One contributor, Aaron, has added a new WIkiWord to extend the page laterally to a related topic, CoOperation.

In either mode, use WikiWords to indicate further options for development. Add a new WikiWord, or combine a few words already in the text to create one as a way to signal, “This is an alternative direction.”

Use headings and lists in either mode to help you organize stuff as you work. Know that everything will change as you move from ThreadMode to DocumentMode.

Refactoring

Refactoring is how wiki writers move from ThreadMode to DocumentMode. They refactor. The term comes from computer programming, where it specifies re-working code to be more efficient and effective. Programmers will often rough out a procedure on the fly, without much planning, just to get something working, and to get a sense of what the procedure will entail. Later, as they work though the rest of the program, they return to the procedure to rethink it, make it more efficient, faster, requiring less processing power and less cognitive overhead for other programmers to understand, while retaining the same functionality. By refactoring, complex steps can become one or two elegant steps. A long chunk of documentation explaining the procedure becomes a single line. The procedure itself becomes modular, reusable elsewhere.

Composing on a wiki can take advantage of the same working practices. Abandon involved planning. Instead, rough something out that just sort of works. It doesn’t have to be elegant; it doesn’t have to work well; COMMA but it’s enough of a start to refine. It will be wordy, with lots of noise that will have to be cut out. It will wander. But it’s on the page where you and others can refactor it. It may be above the DoubleLine, or below, closer to ThreadMode or DocumentMode.

In refactoring writing, that 250 word proto-paragraph might become a single sentence, even a single clause—something more efficient and effective and elegant than the ThreadMode freewriting and wandering. But that’s what DocumentMode is: Prose refactored to effective high efficiency. Writing with a high signal to noise ratio. Writing that relies on every comma, word, clause, phrase, sentence. Writing that is well-wrought to make reading closely worthwhile.

Caption to Image IV (Image of StyleGuide in reading mode): A well-developed, but still developing, WikiPage being edited. Early contibutions have been refactored under headings and organzied into lists, and related topics have been included as WIkiWords that link to those topics. WikiPages are never completed. Jump In.

Headings and Lists

Wiki pages use headings to signal the organization of the page. Wiki writers use headings and lists to generate and roughly organize material in ThreadMode, and to guide refactoring into DocumentMode

Create headings to suggest where ThreadMode contributors might add ideas and directions they might take. Use headings to reorganize sprawling threads so writers can readily review what’s developing. Use lists to quickly gather brief examples, points, possibilities, comments, ideas that will be developed in refactoring.

For refactoring, use headings to organize the page. Review the threads to discover an emerging pattern for the page. Gather material under the headings and refactor it to suit the head. If a pattern isn’t working, create new headings, try a different pattern. Use alternative patterns to refactor further.

For instance, a ThreadMode might be made up of a set of arguments. As you read through them, some seem to be for the matter at hand and some against. In good refactoring, start with two heads: Pro and Con, or For and Against. Then as you collect the ThreadMode material under the heads, you can refine the headings to suit the developing material. Pro and Con might become Strengths, Weaknesses, Complications, Views to Consider Further. This might be called RefactoringByHeadings.

A proto-paragraph in ThreadMode might be refactored as a heading, saving 250 words for content rather than an unnecessary transition paragraph. Many paragraphs are lists in disguise and can refactored into a bulleted list—one that is then ready for more development. Refactoring will signal whether the points need more development or not.

While headings have not been common in much expository and argumentative writing, they ought to be—for effectiveness and efficiency both in writing and reading. You can use headings as you draft and refactor, and cut them when you submit the final version.

Use external links to sources on the web to document your topics. Use WikiWords to link to related topics and documents elsewhere on the wiki: other topics, alternative pages, revised versions, a variety of lists of topics. Internal linking using WikiWords becomes more valuable over time, as you build an expanding set of topics and notes. The mechanics of linking is handled by the wiki so you can concentrate on making sense. This takes effort over time, but the payoff is worth it.

Collaborating With a Wiki

Wikis were designed to support collaborative work by not getting in the way of collaboration. But the writers – whether one or a thousand—have to incite and manage both the writing and interactions between writers. This is where ThreadMode and DocumentMode come into play to help direct attention and work. If you’re collaborating, here’s how to proceed.

Choose a leader for the project or the page. Everyone starts in ThreadMode. The leader might set the goals or start the page with a note at the top, but everyone is involved sketching out ideas, responses, notes. Talk to each other on the page. Phrase ThreadMode exchanges in first-person.

After you’ve developed a mess of notes and directions, the leader can start drafting those ideas into DocumentMode: summarizing, combining, concatenating, rephrasing, collating. Everyone joins in. Phrase DocumentMode text in third-person. When you incorporate material from the thread, cut what you’ve used. When something needs more development or discussion, add a note to that effect, or move the point below the DoubleLine.

Then continue the ThreadMode discussion. This time, others can start to comment on the evolving DocumentMode text. Even better, others can start to edit, tighten, check, and add directly to the DocumentMode text. Use headings to signal the organization of the page. Signal topics for further and alternative development by creating WikiWords. If you have a point to add, just add it. Others will see it and may develop it further, refine it—or perhaps eliminate it.

If a discussion on a point breaks out, move the discussion below the DoubleLine to indicate that it’s active.

Keep up the pace. Have everyone return to the page two or three times a day. Find out what’s changed using the RecentChanges command. The more quickly things move, the more energy you gain to refactor threads into DocumentMode.

Continue until you’ve reached a stopping point. If there is more to develop, leave the notes below the DoubleLine.

Wiki for One

Wikis were originally designed for collaboration, but they famously support one writer writing for multiple courses and projects. The wiki process for composing—ThreadMode to DocumentMode by way of refactoring—works well for one person working because it helps you keep track of where you are in the process: what you’ve done so far, and what you might do next. Use the wiki as a notebook. Keep class notes, ideas, notes for projects, and observations all in one place. They will be there when you want to develop them further. Use the PageIndex and RecentChanges and the search function to find things.

Create an index page for a major project, and keep links to your notes, sources, and drafts, on that page, like a table of contents.

Think of your wiki as a notebook, one you expand, re-organize, and refactor over time.

Finding a Wiki

To get started with a wiki, use one of the free-mium wiki services on the web. You sign up for free or inexpensive access to a dedicated wiki space, which you can make public or keep private. Check the Wikipedia entry for wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wik i, for some consideration of these services.Wiki Matrix, http://www.wikimatrix.org , lets you compare the wikis commonly available. It includes a wiki choice wizard to help you narrow your choice down.

Any of these would be good for student use.

• Wikidot http://www.wikidot.com/
• PBWorks http://pbworks.com

An alternative is running your own wiki on your local computer, laptop, or tablet. Search Google for wiki + your platform of choice to get started.

More? Try the WikiWritingHandbook

I’d like to thank the reviewers and editors of writingcommons.org for their feedback and suggestions. M C Morgan

Brevity – Say More with Less

Clarity (in Speech and Writing)

Coherence – How to Achieve Coherence in Writing

Flow – How to Create Flow in Writing

Inclusivity – Inclusive Language

The Elements of Style – The DNA of Powerful Writing

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How to Write a Biography

Last Updated: May 28, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Stephanie Wong Ken, MFA . Stephanie Wong Ken is a writer based in Canada. Stephanie's writing has appeared in Joyland, Catapult, Pithead Chapel, Cosmonaut's Avenue, and other publications. She holds an MFA in Fiction and Creative Writing from Portland State University. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 1,870,669 times.

Writing a biography can be a fun challenge, where you are sharing the story of someone’s life with readers. You may need to write a biography for a class or decide to write one as a personal project. Once you have identified the subject of the biography, do your research so you know as much about them as possible. Then, dive into the writing of the biography and revising it until it is at its finest.

Researching Your Subject

• If the subject does not give you permission to write the biography, you may want to choose a different subject. If you decide to publish the biography without the subject’s permission, you may be susceptible to legal action by the subject.
• If the subject is no longer alive, you obviously do not need to ask permission to write about them.

• You may create research questions to help focus your research of the subject, such as, What do I find interesting about the subject? Why is this subject important to readers? What can I say that is new about the subject? What would I like to learn more about?

• For in person interviews, record them with a tape recorder or a voice recorder on your computer or phone.
• You may need to interview the subject and others several times to get the material you need.

• You may also want to visit areas where the subject made a major decision or breakthrough in their life. Being physically in the area can give you a sense of how the subject might have felt and help you write their experiences more effectively.

• When researching the time period ask yourself: What were the social norms of that time? What was going on economically and politically? How did the social and political climate affect the subject?

• You may also include historical events or moments that affected the subject on the timeline. For example, maybe there was a conflict or civil war that happened during the person’s life that affected their life.

Writing the Biography

• You may end up focusing on particular areas of the person’s life. If you do this, work through a particular period in the person’s life chronologically.

• For example, you may have a thesis statement about focusing on how the person impacted the civil rights movement in America in the 1970s. You can then make sure all your content relates back to this thesis.

• Flashbacks should feel as detailed and real as present day scenes. Use your research notes and interviews with the subject to get a good sense of their past for the flashbacks.
• For example, you may jump from the person’s death in the present to a flashback to their favorite childhood memory.

• For example, you may focus on the person’s accomplishments in the civil rights movement. You may write a whole section about their contributions and participation in major civil rights marches in their hometown.

• For example, you may notice that the person’s life is patterned with moments of adversity, where the person worked hard and fought against larger forces. You can then use the theme of overcoming adversity in the biography.

• For example, you may note how you see parallels in the person’s life during the civil rights movement with your own interests in social justice. You may also commend the person for their hard work and positive impact on society.

Polishing the Biography

• Revise the biography based on feedback from others. Do not be afraid to cut or edit down the biography to suit the needs of your readers.

• Having a biography riddled with spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors can turn off your readers and result in a poor grade if you are handing in the text for a class.

• If the biography is for a class, use MLA , APA , or Chicago Style citations based on the preferences of your instructor.

Biography Help

Community Q&A

• Be careful when publishing private or embarrassing information, especially if the person is not a celebrity. You may violate their "Right of Privacy" or equivalent. Thanks Helpful 31 Not Helpful 5
• Have the sources to back up your statements about the subject's life. Untruthful written statements can lead to litigation. If it is your opinion, be clear that it is such and not fact (although you can support your opinion with facts). Thanks Helpful 16 Not Helpful 15

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/writing/how-to-write-a-biography.html
• ↑ https://au.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/how-to-write-a-bio
• ↑ https://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/3-tips-for-writing-successful-flashbacks
• ↑ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/how-to-write-bio/
• ↑ https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/editing-and-proofreading/
• ↑ https://www.plagiarism.org/article/how-do-i-cite-sources

About This Article

Before you write a biography, gather as much information about the subject that you can from sources like newspaper articles, interviews, photos, existing biographies, and anything else you can find. Write the story of that person’s life, including as much supporting detail as you can, including information about the place and time where the person lived. Focus on major events and milestones in their life, including historical events, marriage, children, and events which would shape their path later in life. For tips from our reviewer on proofreading the biography and citing your sources, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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How to Write a Biography: A 7-Step Guide [+Template]

From time to time, nonfiction authors become so captivated by a particular figure from either the present or the past, that they feel compelled to write an entire book about their life. Whether casting them as heroes or villains, there is an interesting quality in their humanity that compels these authors to revisit their life paths and write their story.

However, portraying someone’s life on paper in a comprehensive and engaging way requires solid preparation. If you’re looking to write a biography yourself, in this post we’ll share a step-by-step blueprint that you can follow. 

How to write a biography: 

1. Seek permission when possible 

2. research your subject thoroughly, 3. do interviews and visit locations, 4. organize your findings, 5. identify a central thesis, 6. write it using narrative elements, 7. get feedback and polish the text.

FREE RESOURCE

Biography Outline Template

Craft a satisfying story arc for your biography with our free template.

While you technically don’t need permission to write about public figures (or deceased ones), that doesn't guarantee their legal team won't pursue legal action against you. Author Kitty Kelley was sued by Frank Sinatra before she even started to write His Way , a biography that paints Ol Blue Eyes in a controversial light. (Kelley ended up winning the lawsuit, however).  

Whenever feasible, advise the subject’s representatives of your intentions. If all goes according to plan, you’ll get a green light to proceed, or potentially an offer to collaborate. It's a matter of common sense; if someone were to write a book about you, you would likely want to know about it well prior to publication. So, make a sincere effort to reach out to their PR staff to negotiate an agreement or at least a mutual understanding of the scope of your project. 

At the same time, make sure that you still retain editorial control over the project, and not end up writing a puff piece that treats its protagonist like a saint or hero. No biography can ever be entirely objective, but you should always strive for a portrayal that closely aligns with facts and reality.

If you can’t get an answer from your subject, or you’re asked not to proceed forward, you can still accept the potential repercussions and write an unauthorized biography . The “rebellious act” of publishing without consent indeed makes for great marketing, though it’ll likely bring more headaches with it too. 

✋ Please note that, like other nonfiction books, if you intend to release your biography with a publishing house , you can put together a book proposal to send to them before you even write the book. If they like it enough, they might pay you an advance to write it.  

Book Proposal Template

Craft a professional pitch for your nonfiction book with our handy template.

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

Deep and thorough research skills are the cornerstone of every biographer worth their salt. To paint a vivid and accurate portrait of someone's life, you’ll have to gather qualitative information from a wide range of reliable sources. 

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

Browse the web and library archives

Put your researcher hat on and start consuming any piece on your subject you can find, from their Wikipedia page to news articles, interviews, TV and radio appearances, YouTube videos, podcasts, books, magazines, and any other media outlets they may have been featured in. 

Establish a system to orderly collect the information you find 一 even seemingly insignificant details can prove valuable during the writing process, so be sure to save them. 

Depending on their era, you may find most of the information readily available online, or you may need to search through university libraries for older references. 

For his landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow spent untold hours at Columbia University’s library , reading through the Hamilton family papers, visiting the New York Historical Society, as well as interviewing the archivist of the New York Stock Exchange, and so on. The research process took years, but it certainly paid off. Chernow discovered that Hamilton created the first five securities originally traded on Wall Street. This finding, among others, revealed his significant contributions to shaping the current American financial and political systems, a legacy previously often overshadowed by other founding fathers. Today Alexander Hamilton is one of the best-selling biographies of all time, and it has become a cultural phenomenon with its own dedicated musical. 

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

Try to understand their time and social environment

Many biographies show how their protagonists have had a profound impact on society through their philosophical, artistic, or scientific contributions. But at the same time, it’s worth it as a biographer to make an effort to understand how their societal and historical context influenced their life’s path and work.

An interesting example is Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World . Finding himself limited by a lack of verified detail surrounding William Shakespeare's personal life, Greenblatt, instead, employs literary interpretation and imaginative reenactments to transport readers back to the Elizabethan era. The result is a vivid (though speculative) depiction of the playwright's life, enriching our understanding of his world.

Many readers enjoy biographies that transport them to a time and place, so exploring a historical period through the lens of a character can be entertaining in its own right. The Diary of Samuel Pepys became a classic not because people were enthralled by his life as an administrator, but rather from his meticulous and vivid documentation of everyday existence during the Restoration period.

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

With all the material you’ve been through, by now you should already have a pretty good picture of your protagonist. But you’ll surely have some curiosities and missing dots in their character development to figure out, which you can only get by interviewing primary sources.

Interview friends and associates

This part is more relevant if your subject is contemporary, and you can actually meet up or call with relatives, friends, colleagues, business partners, neighbors, or any other person related to them. 

In writing the popular biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson interviewed more than one hundred people, including Jobs’s family, colleagues, former college mates, business rivals, and the man himself.

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

Which biography should you read next?

Discover the perfect biography for you. Takes 30 seconds!

When you conduct your interviews, make sure to record them with high quality audio you can revisit later. Then use tools like Otter.ai or Descript to transcribe them 一 it’ll save you countless hours. 

You can approach the interview with a specific set of questions, or follow your curiosity blindly, trying to uncover revealing stories and anecdotes about your subject. Whatever your method, author and biography editor Tom Bromley suggests that every interviewer arrives prepared, "Show that you’ve done your work. This will help to put the interviewee at ease, and get their best answers.” 

Bromley also places emphasis on the order in which you conduct interviews. “You may want to interview different members of the family or friends first, to get their perspective on something, and then go directly to the main interviewee. You'll be able to use that knowledge to ask sharper, more specific questions.” 

Finally, consider how much time you have with each interviewee. If you only have a 30-minute phone call with an important person, make it count by asking directly the most pressing questions you have. And, if you find a reliable source who is also particularly willing to help, conduct several interviews and ask them, if appropriate, to write a foreword as part of the book’s front matter .

Sometimes an important part of the process is packing your bags, getting on a plane, and personally visiting significant places in your character’s journey.

Visit significant places in their life

A place, whether that’s a city, a rural house, or a bodhi tree, can carry a particular energy that you can only truly experience by being there. In putting the pieces together about someone’s life, it may be useful to go visit where they grew up, or where other significant events of their lives happened. It will be easier to imagine what they experienced, and better tell their story. 

In researching The Lost City of Z , author David Grann embarked on a trek through the Amazon, retracing the steps of British explorer Percy Fawcett. This led Grann to develop new theories about the circumstances surrounding the explorer's disappearance.

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

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

Take the bulk of notes, media, and other documents you’ve collected, and start to give them some order and structure. A simple way to do this is by creating a timeline. 

Create a chronological timeline

It helps to organize your notes chronologically 一 from childhood to the senior years, line up the most significant events of your subject’s life, including dates, places, names and other relevant bits. 

You should be able to divide their life into distinct periods, each with their unique events and significance. Based on that, you can start drafting an outline of the narrative you want to create.  

Draft a story outline 

Since a biography entails writing about a person’s entire life, it will have a beginning, a middle, and an end. You can pick where you want to end the story, depending on how consequential the last years of your subject were. But the nature of the work will give you a starting character arc to work with. 

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

• Act 1. Setup : Introduce the protagonist's background and the turning points that set them on a path to achieve a goal. 
• Act 2. Confrontation : Describe the challenges they encounter, both internal and external, and how they rise to them. Then..
• Act 3. Resolution : Reach a climactic point in their story in which they succeed (or fail), showing how they (and the world around them) have changed as a result. 

Only one question remains before you begin writing: what will be the main focus of your biography?

Think about why you’re so drawn to your subject to dedicate years of your life to recounting their own. What aspect of their life do you want to highlight? Is it their evil nature, artistic genius, or visionary mindset? And what evidence have you got to back that up? Find a central thesis or focus to weave as the main thread throughout your narrative. 

Or find a unique angle

If you don’t have a particular theme to explore, finding a distinct angle on your subject’s story can also help you distinguish your work from other biographies or existing works on 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 regarded as leaning more towards a pro-Lennon and anti-McCartney stance, offering insights into the band's inner dynamics. 
• Ian McDonald's Revolution in the Head closely examines their music track by track, shifting the focus back to McCartney as a primary creative force. 
• Craig Brown's One Two Three Four aims to capture their story through anecdotes, fan letters, diary entries, and interviews. 
• Mark Lewisohn's monumental three-volume biography, Tune In , stands as a testament to over a decade of meticulous research, chronicling every intricate detail of the Beatles' journey.

Finally, consider that biographies are often more than recounting the life of a person. Similar to how Dickens’ Great Expectations is not solely about a boy named Pip (but an examination and critique of Britain’s fickle, unforgiving class system), a biography should strive to illuminate a broader truth — be it social, political, or human — beyond the immediate subject of the book. 

Once you’ve identified your main focus or angle, it’s time to write a great story. 

While biographies are often highly informative, they do not have to be dry and purely expository in nature . You can play with storytelling elements to make it an engaging read. 

You could do that by thoroughly detailing the setting of the story , depicting the people involved in the story as fully-fledged characters , or using rising action and building to a climax when describing a particularly significant milestone of the subject’s life. 

One common way to make a biography interesting to read is starting on a strong foot…

Hook the reader from the start

Just because you're honoring your character's whole life doesn't mean you have to begin when they said their first word. Starting from the middle or end of their life can be more 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 open his subject’s childhood and abusive family environment. Instead, the book begins with McCandless hitchhiking his way into the wilderness, and subsequently being discovered dead in an abandoned bus. By starting in the middle of the action  in medias res, Krakauer hooks the reader’s interest, before tracing back the causes and motivations that led McCandless to die alone in that bus in the first place.

You can bend the timeline to improve the reader’s reading experience throughout the rest of the story too…

Play with flashback 

While biographies tend to follow a chronological narrative, you can use flashbacks to tell brief stories or anecdotes when appropriate. For example, if you were telling the story of footballer Lionel Messi, before the climax of winning the World Cup with Argentina, you could recall when he was just 13 years old, giving an interview to a local newspaper, expressing his lifelong dream of playing for the national team. 

Used sparsely and intentionally, flashbacks can add more context to the story and keep the narrative interesting. Just like including dialogue does…

Reimagine conversations

Recreating conversations that your subject had with people around them is another effective way to color the story. Dialogue helps the reader imagine the story like a movie, providing a deeper sensory experience. 

One thing is trying to articulate the root of Steve Jobs’ obsession with product design, another would be to quote his father , teaching him how to build a fence when he was young: “You've got to make the back of the fence just as good looking as the front of the fence. Even though nobody will see it, you will know. And that will show that you're dedicated to making something perfect.”

Unlike memoirs and autobiographies, in which the author tells the story from their personal viewpoint and enjoys greater freedom to recall conversations, biographies require a commitment to facts. So, when recreating dialogue, try to quote directly from reliable sources like personal diaries, emails, and text messages. You could also use your interview scripts as an alternative to dialogue. As Tom Bromley suggests, “If you talk with a good amount of people, you can try to tell the story from their perspective, interweaving different segments and quoting the interviewees directly.”

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These are just some of the story elements you can use to make your biography more compelling. Once you’ve finished your manuscript, it’s a good idea to ask for feedback. 

If you’re going to publish your own  biography, you’ll have to polish it to professional standards. After leaving your work to rest for a while, look at it with fresh eyes and edit your own manuscript eliminating passive voice, filler words, and redundant adverbs. 

Then, have a professional editor give you a general assessment. They’ll look at the structure and shape of your manuscript and tell you which parts need to be expanded on or cut. As someone who edited and commissioned several biographies, Tom Bromley points out that a professional “will look at the sources used and assess whether they back up the points made, or if more are needed. They would also look for context, and whether or not more background information is needed for the reader to understand the story fully. And they might check your facts, too.”  

In addition to structural editing, you may want to have someone copy-edit and proofread your work.

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Importantly, make sure to include a bibliography with a list of all the interviews, documents, and sources used in the writing process. You’ll have to compile it according to a manual of style, but you can easily create one by using tools like EasyBib . Once the text is nicely polished and typeset in your writing applications , you can prepare for the publication process.  

In conclusion, by mixing storytelling elements with diligent research, you’ll be able to breathe life into a powerful biography that immerses readers in another individual’s life experience. Whether that’ll spark inspiration or controversy, remember you could have an important role in shaping their legacy 一 and that’s something not to take lightly. 

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