Book Review: How to Do Biography, A Primer

Nigel Hamilton’s tome is much more entertaining than I expected it to be. I mean, 400 pages! How could that be, well, fun?

Weighty topic. Weighty in weight. So it was a delightful surprise to find myself enjoying, as much as I did, the sections I read.

Full disclosure. I did not read the entire book. Yet. There were sections I’m not interested in even a tad. Autobiography and memoir? Meh. I don’t ever want to write those. And this exploration was about improving what I write.

Even the sections I am interested in, I didn’t get all the way through. I’ll be dipping into this book as I continue my quest to learn about writing better biographies.

How to Do Biography, a Primer is, as I told you last week, one of the few available texts on biography writing how-tos. So what sections did I find helpful thus far?

First, let me tell you what’s here. The book is divided into three sections comprising sixteen chapters. Chapter titles are:

The Task of Biography

What Is Your Agenda?

Defining Your Audience

Researching Your Subject

The Shape of a Life

The Starting Point

Birthing Your Subject

Childhood and Youth

Love Stories

Life’s Work

The Twilight Years

Ending Your Story

Autobiography and Memoirs

Memoir

Truth—and Its Consequences

The Afterlife

Now tell me you didn’t find some of those chapters intriguing! I dipped in and out of sections and chapters, letting my interests lead me.

He begins the first chapter with this:

You wish to write or produce a “life”, but wisely pause to think about the task. I have no wish to hold you up; but no would-be biographer, in my view, should embark on the depiction of a real life without bothering to know something about how—and why—previous biographies have addressed the real individual in the past—and with what results.

He goes on in the following chapters to talk about successful and unsuccessful biographies, and what made them that way. In the chapter, Researching Your Subject, Hamilton makes a clear case for understanding historical methodology and biographical research. The bottom line for him is ethical. You cannot exclude information that doesn’t fit your bias, nor accept iffy research that does. You cannot partially use quotes to fit your bias. In this chapter he also discusses research sources, and he makes it interesting.

In “The Starting Point,” he shows myriad ways biographers open their books. He compares writing biography to writing a musical composition. Both have notes that must be arranged in pleasing, satisfying, cohesive, and coherent ways. When successful, they both sing.

At the end, there is a chapter, “Truth---and Its Consequences”, that is very informative. We don’t always consider the impact of truth-telling, or in some cases the word choices we make to tell truth, and how our work can hurt feelings or harm reputations. Telling the truth isn’t always admirable. He raises some very interesting points with his examples. I am not an apologist for his perspective, but what he wrote should be considered by every biographer.

There is much more for me to garner, so I’ll probably be writing again about Hamilton’s book. But why wait for me? If you are writing biography, buy your own copy of How to Do Biography, A Primer.

If you enjoy what I write, consider liking my Caroline Adams page on Facebook.

Facebook: Need to know more about how to write biographies? This book, described by Caroline Adams Writer, can help http://bit.ly/2DAqQr9

Twitter: Need to know more about how to write biographies? This book, described by @CarolineAdams_9 can help http://bit.ly/2DAqQr9

10 Tips for How to Write Biographies

Now this was interesting to learn about!

Last summer I wrote the first draft of a biography for middle grade readers. I was passionate about my Intrepid Woman, filled with enthusiasm for the project, eager to share the bits I knew, and then, BOOM!

My writing group, bless their honest and insightful hearts, told me, essentially, “Umm. That’s not it. Try again.”

Well, okay, then. I get it. I challenged myself with two new-to-me writing tasks. Writing biography (when I been noveling for many years) and writing for middle graders (when I have written for adults for many years). To use the vernacular, I guess I sucked!

I am grateful to them for helping me identify what my heart knew wasn’t working. So what’s a passionate, enthusiastic, eager wannabe biographer to do? What I always do. I hunt for resources to help me. I can learn anything. I know that about myself. I taught me to write plays, and I can teach me to write biography.

So I made a couple of trips to America’s Book Store (aka Amazon) using different descriptors to find book on how to write biographies. I found two. There were beaucoup books on writing memoir, but only three for how to write bios and two about writing bios.

One of the how-to books, 24 pages, had one review and it was one-star. Another book is 166 pages from the University of Nebraska press with no reviews and almost 15 years old. Also, at $45, I’d be paying almost 30¢ a page to read it. The last book is a 400 page reprint edition from the Harvard University Press, but it does have four and a half stars.

Does it surprise you, too, given the popularity of biographies, that there are so few resources on how to write them?

Two! So what’s a wannabe biographer to do? Of course, I ordered the 400-page How to Do Biography, a Primer by Nigel Hamilton, and then I went searching for classes and other online resources.

My initial search was more than disappointing. There were few resources out there. Some YouTube vids and a few articles, but not what I expected. There is a dearth of resources on how to write biographies. There are tons on other forms, like writing comedy or horror, but surprisingly few for bios.

From combing the Internet, I did identify some common principles, some of which are “duhs” like “do research.” Umm. Okay. I guess that’s a good idea.

Biographies are about people who stories reveal struggles, conflicts, and accomplishments. The biography elements that I came up with and others I found in my search on biography writing are these:

1)   Identify in a page or two, why this person caught your attention and what is important about the person’s life. From this identify the overarching theme you will use in your biography.

2)   Write an engaging opening with quotes or anecdote to hook the reader just as fiction does. Like stories, bios have a beginning, middle, and end.

3)   Make a timeline of everything you can from the person’s life and then circle the ones you will use. But put them all out there for consideration. All bios give demographic info (birth, death, locale).

4)   Create a biography outline by taking the circled events from #3 and make headers and detailed notes on each.

5)   Get creative with your research by contacting authors of books or articles you read to see if they will share some of their resources so you are not just reading their summaries.

6)   Identify the point of view and text structure you will use: chronological, cause-effect, description, comparison, or problem-solution.

7)   Develop an understanding of the era and location of the person through the biography.

8)   Create a tone appropriate to the material. Find a voice that will engage readers.

9)   Keep incidents, dialogue, and historical personages as accurate as possible by using primary sources where available. When not, use secondary sources that help you understand the times, events, and locales for accurate re-creation.

10)  Avoid stereotyping. Don’t create a hagiography. Rather let the real person show through the biography.

Next week, I’ll share insights from Hamilton’s book as well as from my secret strategy—mentor texts.

I will learn how to write biographies. I love to read them, so I can learn to write them.

Was this interesting? Then please share with others via the copy/paste posts below.

Facebook: Do you want to write biographies? There is surprisingly little help available to learn how. Caroline Adams’ 10 tips on writing biography might help. http://bit.ly/2Bbw1M3

Twitter: #Writers, do you want to write #biographies? There is surprisingly little help available to learn how. @Caroline_Adams9 10 tips on writing biography might help. http://bit.ly/2Bbw1M3

Dita Kraus--Intrepid Woman

Cindy Nord, a Facebook friend, shared information about an Intrepid Woman I had never “met.” Dita Kraus was the children’s librarian at Auschwitz. Just that identifier signals that she was intrepid to have survived the horror of a Nazi death camp.

Her story is one I had never heard. In fact, I have only vague recall of a fake camp the Nazis ran to influence world opinion. In fact, I believe my most recent (still years ago) knowledge came from the movie, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.

I read about the fictionalized biography, The Librarian of Auschwitz (Antonio Iturbe), and bought it for my librarian son. I thought he’d appreciate it. I’m sure he’ll pass it back to me when he finishes the book. Right?

Little information is available to me in my first research foray. I can see that locating resources in English is going to be challenging for me. But, the destination is worth the journey.

In Auschwitz-Birkenau, Block 31, the Nazis created a special camp for families and the children’s section was overseen by Fredy Hirsch, who despite his best efforts to protect them, couldn’t save almost 3800 from execution.

In this special camp, Dita Poláchová, who was the secret children’s librarian there, hid books from the Nazis so children could have literature, an important part of maintaining their humanity, she believed.

“If human beings aren’t deeply moved by beauty, if they don’t close their eyes and activate their imaginations, if they are capable of asking themselves questions and discerning the limits of their ignorance,” Iturbe writes, “then they are men or women, but they are not complete persons: Nothing significant distinguishes them from a salmon or a zebra or a musk ox.”

In 1942, when she was thirteen, Dita and her family had to move into a Jewish ghetto from their home in Prague. They stayed there until December, 1943, when they were shipped to Auschwitz-Birkenau, along with Fredy Hirsch, a Zionist, and others.

Hirsch told the counselors to make sure the children were clean and educated in order to retain some semblance of normality and to ensure they could have a better life when they were released. Dita was put in charge of the small numbers of books they had, keeping them hidden while still encouraging children to read and enjoy them. Keep in mind, she was a young teen when given this responsibility. How brave she must have been.

Word came that there was to be a mass execution and resistance leaders wanted Hirsch to help organize and uprising. His death from an overdose of Luminal was suspicious. Suicide? Many thought not, but we’ll never know.

Somehow, Dita and her mother escaped the mass execution on March 8, 1944 and instead were transported to Bergen-Belsen, the camp made famous by Anne Frank. Dita’s mother died there, but Dita was liberated in April, 1945.

By the end of the war, she had lost parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. All alone now, her family all dead, Dita had to navigate the post-war years on her own. She returned to Prague and later married Otto Kraus, a man she knew from Block 31. They emigrated to Israel and reared their three children there. They taught English, interestingly.

Dita’s formal schooling stopped in fifth grade because the Nazi’s came to power when she was only ten. She felt the gaps in her education her whole life but she loved books and reading and learned what she could from them. She still lives in Israel.

Please share this post with others. I thank you!

Facebook: Cindy Nord first shared Dita Kraus, secret children’s librarian at Auschwitz, with me. I want her to be one of my Intrepid Women for the middle grades bio series. Here’s my blog post about her. http://bit.ly/2CIYlat

Twitter: #Holocaust survivor Dita Kraus was the secret children’s librarian at #Auschwitz. She will be one of @Caroline_Adams9’s Intrepid Women in bio series for middle graders. http://bit.ly/2CIYlat

Guest Post: An Unlikely Friendship--Fiction Meets Reality

Welcome to the new year and to our first guest post by historical fiction writer, Lynn Bryant who has two series going. She became fascinated with one historical personage and tells us more about him in this post. We’re so happy you are here to share with us today, Lynn.

One of the challenges of writing historical fiction is combining fictional characters with real personalities in a way that is believable.  Although the main characters of the Peninsular War Saga are fictional, a secondary character is Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington.  Over time, Wellesley has developed a life of his own and I’ve grown very attached to him.

When Wellesley is introduced to Lieutenant Paul van Daan in 1802 he is a relatively young and inexperienced general in India.  He had not yet married Kitty Pakenham and his first great victory at Assaye was a year away. He was ambitious and single minded, a moderate drinker and a man who enjoyed the company of women. Even then, he struggled to delegate, and was suspicious of initiative in his officers.

As I began to read more about Wellington’s character it became obvious that I had accidentally stumbled on the perfect foil for the flamboyant, unpredictable bad boy of the 110th infantry, Lieutenant Paul van Daan.  Superficially, Paul is everything Wellington likes to see in a young officer; he’s dedicated, intelligent and courageous. In reality, Wellington the control-freak is about meet his worst nightmare and their disagreements are frequent and explosive.

Wellesley was born into an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family as The Hon. Arthur Wesley, the third son of the Earl of Mornington – the family changed the name to Wellesley in the 1790s.  Arthur was not a promising child, and his mother described him as her ‘awkward son Arthur’. It was only at military school, that he began to show signs of improvement.

Wellesley joined the army in 1787.  His promotion, through purchase, was fairly rapid and he held a series of posts in Ireland and was elected as an MP.  During this time, he courted Kitty Pakenham, the daughter of Baron Longford and asked for her hand in marriage but was turned down by her family due to his poor prospects.  Wellesley took it badly but put his energy into a serious military career.  He purchased up to lieutenant-colonel in the 33rd at the age of 26 and fought in Europe and then in India. When war broke out against the Maratha, he was a major-general and won a significant victory at Assaye in 1803.

It was in India that Wellesley first encountered the young Paul van Daan, an officer already unpopular with the establishment because of his friendly relations with his enlisted men and his casual attitude to army regulations.  Wellesley was a traditionalist and never shared Paul’s egalitarian views, but he did recognise his talent. Through the Peninsula to the bloody field of Waterloo, Wellington and his unorthodox young officer fought the French and argued ferociously about Paul’s flexible interpretation of orders and Wellington’s need for control. 

The real Wellington did not have a close relationship with his staff or his officers and often appeared sarcastic and condescending. He was a stern disciplinarian who was respected rather than loved by both officers and men. Isolated and worn down by lack of money, men, resources and talented officers, he became more and more autocratic and his friendship with Paul van Daan has to endure the storms of war and the vicissitudes of army politics.

Originally, Lord Wellington was supposed to be a subsidiary character with little to do apart from to issue orders and look grumpy.  As so often happens with minor characters, he developed a mind of his own and began to intrude into the action in the most unsuitable manner. As he is a general, I thought it best to let him have his way.

Want to share Lynn’s insights into the Duke of Wellington with others?

Facebook: The Duke of Wellington of the Napoleonic era decided to play a bigger role in Lynn Bryant’s historical fiction book, AN UNCONVENTIONAL OFFICER, than she had planned. Read her post to find out more about a character most of us know little of. http://bit.ly/2lCsTD5

Twitter: @LynnBry29527024 shares insights in the Napoleonic-era Duke of Wellington and how he took a bigger role than she intended in AN UNCONVENTIONAL OFFICER. http://bit.ly/2lCsTD5

Lynn Bryant was born and raised in London's East End. She studied History at University and had dreams of being a writer from a young age. Since this was clearly not something a working-class girl made good could aspire to, she had a variety of careers including a librarian, NHS administrator, relationship counsellor and manager of an art gallery before realising that most of these were just as unlikely as being a writer and took the step of publishing her first book.

She now lives in the Isle of Man and is married to a man who understands technology, which saves her a job, and has two teenage children and two Labradors. History is still a passion, especially the Napoleonic era and the sixteenth century. When not writing she reads anything that's put in front of her and makes periodic and unsuccessful attempts to keep a tidy house.

Social Media Links

https://www.facebook.com/historyfiction1803/

www.lynnbryant.co.uk

http://amzn.to/2BZBqeD

https://www.facebook.com/pg/historyfiction1803/shop/?ref=page_internal

https://twitter.com/LynnBry29527024/status/946000279127953408