How to Write a Biography

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Laura from youngwrittersworkshop.com and I'm going to talk about how to write a biography. A good biography should be not listing of a person's life events but telling that story of the person's life in a way that will really capture the person's essence and interest readers. A lot of research has to go in to gathering information that will paint a picture, tell the story of this person's life. So begin with research. Research the person that you're going to be writing the biography of by reading other material that's available on the person. You may do interviews if there are people who have known the person or are experts on this person's life. Interviews can be a great way of gathering, getting that incite that you need. You'll also want to find out if there are illustrations that help tell your story. If there's art or photographs available that will be part of the biography. The next step is to begin to write a draft. Now you might want to do an outline first knowing that your outline will change as you write but putting together sort of the key events or the story that you're going to tell to write this person's biography. When you write your draft, again, it may change. You may move things around. You may find that the order doesn't flow quite right. So that's the purpose of the draft process. You'll want to get some feed back on your first draft from trusted people who can give you open, honest comments without holding back. Really will tell you honestly and then incorporate that back on a feed back in to your next draft. So those are some ideas about how to write a biography."