How to start a biography of a person
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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:
FREE RESOURCE
Biography Outline Template
Craft a satisfying story arc for your biography with our free template.
1. Seek permission when possible
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
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Get started by: Creating a website → | Getting a domain →
Which three words would you use to describe yourself? Most of us have been asked this question and many of us have fumbled through it awkwardly.
Coming up with a personal description can be daunting. But there are times when it’s essential - whether we’re updating our LinkedIn profiles, blogging for Medium or creating a business website of our own.
In this post, we’ll go over how to write a bio, step by step. To help guide you, we’ve also included a handy template, along with some professional bio examples for your inspiration. With these resources, you’ll find that writing a bio, as part of learning how to make a website from scratch, is much easier than you might think.
Before you learn how to write a bio, you should have a clear understanding of what it is and why you need it.
In the world of literature, a personal biography can span the length of an entire novel, like Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom or Malala Yousafzai’s I Am Malala. In the online world, however, a bio is a sh
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Exploring biographies
Watch: What is a biography?
A biography is a non-fiction text about someone's life.
Biographies are true pieces of text, based on fact, so biographers (the people who write biographies) have to do a lot of research. They use websites, letters, photographs, diaries and newspapers to help them.
Because biographies are written by someone else, they are written in the third person(//).
They are usually written in chronological order (the order in which events actually happened).
For example, watch this clip. It gives a biography of the scientist Marie Curie.
Watch: Biography of Stephen Hawking
Even though biographers do lots of research, they can only guess at what it was like to be that person, or the thoughts and feelings the person had.
If the person they want to write about, or anyone who knew them, is still alive, biographers sometimes carry out an interview to ask lots of questions about the person's life.
Here's another biography of a scientist, this time Professor Stephen Hawking.
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