Pitfalls to Avoid in Writing Biographies

When you undertake writing a biography, actually writing it is in some ways the easiest part of your task. What you’re attempting to do is to collect as much information as possible about your subject from as many sources as possible and then organize it (usually in chronological order), take out the least relevant bits, add in the color to give your subject vitality, and there you have it. This, of course, is an extremely simplistic view of writing a biography, but it more or less encapsulates the actuality.

Situations to Avoid When Writing a Biography

If you are a first-time biographer, you have some wonderful experiences in store, but situations can arise that will throw you off balance, or even up-end you completely, if you’re not made of fairly stoic material. However, if you are prepared, you can overcome these situations, or at least manage them in such a way that they do not interfere too much in the process of writing a biography.

Pitfalls for Biographers

Some of the situations you might encounter while writing a biography include the following:

1. Another biographer turns up who has already put some work into the research, and perhaps even writing, of a biography on the same subject you have chosen.

Get around this problem by first getting ‘permission’ to write the biography from the executors of the estate if your subject is dead, or from the subject themselves, if they are still incarnate.

2. You are refused information or access to information which will assist you to paint a much clearer picture of your subject – typically this happens with deceased subjects.

Depending on how critical the information is, you may have to find other ways to pick up the information. If that hasn’t been possible by the time you publish your work, make a statement in your introduction to the effect that access to certain information was denied but that the material as presented is as close to as true a picture as was possible and that information would be welcomed (which you can incorporate into your second edition).

3. Some contributors may try to use your request for information as a bargaining point for sex.

Under no circumstance acquiesce to such a request or demand. Once they see it isn’t possible, most of this type will offer up the information you seek. By not falling for this trick, you also keep your reputation clean and professional. Presumably you’d like to write more biographies in the future.

4. Someone doesn’t want you to write the book. This can be for a number of reasons ranging from straight out jealousy, to fear that you will not throw an accurate light on your subject, to fear that you might uncover something that implicates others. All sorts of reasons for this can occur and someone who is adamant that they don’t want you writing the biography can be quite capable of contacting likely contributors and requesting that they do not contribute – it can be nasty, and it’s not at all uncommon.

Do not let this stop you. Behave as though it is not occurring. If you don’t give it any energy, you’ll have plenty left to chase the real work which is finding contributors who can further your research. Biography writing is an all-consuming business and to take notice of someone who wants to put a spoke in your wheel will interfere with your capacity to creatively get around such people.

Considerations for Biographers

• Who will type your transcripts? If it isn’t going to be you, then get a written and signed agreement of confidentiality with your typist. Contributors must be protected if they are to feel safe speaking to you about what may be sensitive issues.
• Contributors who attempt to control what you write and how you write it, perhaps an expert in a field who believes you don’t have sufficient credentials to authoritatively write about your subject. This type may even argue about the way you use a word. In all circumstances offer polite understanding. Listen to what these people have to say, and take on board what they say, and thank them for their assistance. Ultimately how you write your book for which you are doing the research and which is a product of your creativity, is up to you. It’s useful to hear everyone – they may have valid points so listen, but you write your own book. That’s important. It’s also important to treat each contributor with utmost respect…you simply don’t know when you might need them again – and you usually do – to sell your book to them!
• Contributors who seek to serve their own purposes, mostly by trying to get a spot for themselves in the book as someone of importance. Self-serving contributors can be a pain in the royal behind. They’ll offer images of your subject with them prominent, or tell you tales of how much they assisted your subject. They are very clearly seeking to be written in. Treat these people with a great deal of deference. It’s ultimately what they need to feel good about themselves, and sometimes they do actually have a lot of information for you. If you get a lot of what appears to be useful information from one of these types, please be urged to verify it with others wherever you can. Again, you don’t know what you don’t know, so don’t get off-side with any potential contributor.
• Funding – have you got some? Good for you if you have. If you haven’t, it takes months, sometimes years to attract funding. You’ll have just missed a round which won’t come up for another year again, or there’s a round coming up but not for four months, and your book doesn’t quite fit into the category, but might. Funding from non-private sources is fraught, mainly with time constraints. Decide if you absolutely need funding immediately or whether you can make a good start without it. It is a recommendation that you decide whether you’re writing a biography or applying for funding. They quite often take equal time.
• Don’t make the mistake of assuming that your subject’s own words, whether recorded, written, videoed, etc., are totally accurate.There is no law which says that the subjects of biographies always tell the truth, or remember the facts as they occurred, and record them that way. Verify everything that is likely to constitute a challenge before your biography is published, not after.

©Theresa Sjoquist