Writing Focus: Biographical Writing

Everybody has a life story full of ups and downs that they want to tell the world. Celebrities around the globe have released their life tales written by themselves or with the help of another writer. This week, we’re going to be looking at the ins and outs of biographical writing.

What Is a Biography?

A biography is the tale of someone’s life to that date, written by someone other than the subject of the book. These tales have been around for what seems like ever, with some of the earliest biographical books detailing the lives of great philosophers of the early years. They are often non-fiction and discuss not only the facts of a person’s life, but the way they reacted to certain events and more personal details about things.

On Mibba, you can publish shorter works of biographical writing to the Articles section or longer works of multiple chapters to the Stories section.

Tips

As mentioned above, a biography is not simply a regurgitation of well-known facts about a person. If you are writing a non-fiction biography, ensure that you can relate the facts back to a reaction from the person themselves or discuss how their personalities had affected any decisions that they made. This will make the story more dynamic and personal for the reader, giving it more of a pull for readers and not seeming too ‘boring’.

Biographical works can be fictional too! If you have a character with a particularly interesting back story that you want to show to the world, then you can also write this in the style of biographical works using the same techniques and styles as you would for a biography about a real-life person.

It is important to remember when writing that a biography is written about someone other than yourself — in other words, you are not the subject matter of the book. If you would like to write something about your own experiences and life events, then this would be classed as an autobiography and should be labeled as such.

Prompts

Looking to strengthen your biographical writing skills? Check out these prompts for some ideas!

1. In the style of a biography, take the main character from one of your favourite stories, either your own or one written by another author, and write their biography, paying careful attention to main events in their life.
2. Look at a famous figure in your country (be it political or otherwise). Using a mix of the facts and emotional response, write a biographical article on them.

Biographical works are all around us and are used in everyday learning in schools, colleges and universities. However, they can be fun to read, too! If you’re interested in writing biographical works, then sink your teeth in and go for it!

Special thanks to losing control. and cleopatra. for editing!