What is a biography?
It is a detailed description or account of a person's life.
It entails more than basic facts (education, work, relationships, and death) -
a biography also portrays a subject's experience of these events. Unlike a
profile or curriculum vitae a biography presents a subject's life story,
highlighting various aspects of his or her life, including intimate details of
experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.
A bio is useful for a host
of reasons such as applying for a job, publishing an article or general
networking etc. It’s basically a great vehicle for quickly communicating who
you are and what you do. I am asking you to “Write your Biography” simply to
allow you to see who you are and to recognise your vast array of achievements.
Most of us only ever see the negative; we rarely celebrate the things we have
achieved.
So in this blog I will post the
steps necessary to writing your biography. I can guarantee you that you will be
pleasantly surprised at the successes which have gone unappreciated in your
life.
Step 1: Identify your Purpose for
writing it
The purpose is practical in that you will need to list
in chronological order all the things you have done in your life, from birth to
present day. The essential ingredient is YOU, it maybe necessary to consult with
friends and family on when events occurred, this in a way is like you creating
your family tree but a personal tree of things that happened to you from
choices you made along the way.
Step 2: Third Person Perspective
Your bio should sound as though
it were objectively written, although it is obviously anything but. If you look
at any book cover, the bio will be in the narrative mode even though the author
has probably written it themselves. So instead of writing “I have lived in Wales
and I speak 3 languages”, try “John has lived in Switzerland and he speaks 3
languages”.
Step 3: Length of your Bio
Feel free to write as much as you
want, but keep it to the point, wandering off into a long story of a particular
part of your life will take from its impact and bore the reader. Remember this
bio is essentially a list with embellishments from you on you.
Step 4: State your name and
current age
It may seem glaringly obvious but
this sets the tone, remember those childhood primary school stories who wrote,
e.g. “My name is Michelle I am 12 years old I went to see Granny & Granddad
on Sunday…..”
Step 5: State your business
(essentially what you do currently in life)
“I am a mother, a father, I am a
business owner………” this is important, in how you see yourself in this moment. Say
how long you have been doing this and what it currently involves.
Step 6: Put your Personality in
the Bio
Give the reader an understanding
of you the person to your bio this can be a bit of humour or just curious
information that you think people will be interested in, such as you being a
keen painter or people watcher. Or using
the humour to write “and in his spare time, he really enjoys writing about
himself in the third person”. A little witty twist at the end can tell a lot
about your personality.
Step 7: Close your Bio with your
contact details, email etc., then read it and re-write it if necessary.
Over to you, remember this is NOT
a CV, this is your biography, (your story) look inside the cover of your
favourite book and see how the author writes about the author. This Bio is
being created by you for you, if you choose the only person reading it will be
you. If you want to CELEBRATE YOU, then post it on your website or Facebook
page, or email to me and I will post it on my blog or/and website.
In truth the most important thing
is that you WRITE YOUR BIOGRAPHY, it will empower you to see all of the
positive things you have achieved and all of the negative things you have
survived.
Step 8: Give your Biography a title!
If your Biography were to be turned into a book, what would
the best title be to sum up your journey?
email your Biography's to info@descanning.com and they will be posted on www.descanning.com
