B … is for biography

On By TomIn Achievement, Competitions, General, Insight, Novel, Poetry, Review, Short Stories

B[1]is for biography, or bio for short. Okay, so we’ll assume that we all know about the idea of the biography, but do we all know what should be in it?

If you’re a writer of whatever level, you may or may not have some history of qualification or success. These are referred to as ‘credits’. Readers are not normally interested in your shoe size, or what colour scheme your bedroom is; they want to know about your credits with regard to your writing, or the topic you are writing about.

1. Your bio should be written in third person point of view.

2. It can be done in a few sentences.

3. You should mention any credits you have.

The best way to deal with this situation is to use myself as an example. I started writing at the age of 55, give or take a few months, and having no writing qualifications, my bio was a bit weak. No it wasn’t; it was non-existent.

Here we are, seven years later.

*

Tom is an ex-Serviceman, and ex-Retail Manager. He has taken up Creative Writing as his third career.

Since 2007 he has written 700+ poems, won two short story competitions, had four short stories included in anthologies, written three novels and compiled two anthologies of short stories.

Tom has also produced two websites: www.tombensonauthor.com

and www.tom-benson.co.uk 

He is presently working on another novel, and an anthology of military short stories.

*

Thank you for dropping by. I’ll be back tomorrow with my post for C … Ciao.

 ***

*Author’s note: This blog entry was updated on 6th October 2014 prior to being linked to other websites.

15 thoughts on “B … is for biography”

  1. A great follow-up to your ‘abbreviations’ post. Regarding the ‘followers’ glitch, have you checked your stats page, bottom right hand corner under where it says “Totals, Followers & Shares” – it may be that your twitter followers and FB friends are being added to the total if your settings have somehow been set to publicize somewhere along the way..

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    1. Who’s a clever boy then! That was a rhetorical question if you hadn’t guessed. Too many changes being done when tired methinks. Thanks Paul.

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      2. I would love to, but I cut out that particular ‘stream’ of pleasure some time ago. In one of my next books my ‘fictional’ character goes through a lot of what I went through, with the result that I still feel lucky to have survived. So far, overdoing it on coffee has never dropped me in it … .

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    1. I’m not a great believer in luck, so as long as you have ambition, drive and confidence; it’s yours for the taking.

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  6. Tom, great post. I also think you need a post on where to send your stories for competitions (c is for competitions?). I always feel like I’m never sure where my ‘style’ fits. I always think my writing style doesn’t generally fit any kind of genre… Anyway, well done on the two competition successes, though I have to say, I am NOT SURPRISED! x

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    1. Hi Sal. Thank you for dropping by. It probably won’t surprise you to know that I’ve already written my post for the next letter. I did start work on ‘C’ for competitions, but then this evening while I was preparing it (for tomorrow), I changed it. Well, I’m not going to tell you what I changed it to, but I’ve made a note just for you, and I might just squeeze in competitions under another letter. Now that will be a challenge for me.
      I hope you’re doing well. I watch for your antics on Facebook.

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  7. Some great simple advice that I wish more people would follow! I’m an editor at a small press, and so many authors have trouble with coming up with bios (and following the “in third person” rule even after I tell them it should be in third person).

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  9. I have a Bio page on my official website and Author Central, but I haven’t yet added one to my blog. Will have to take a look now and see if it stands up to scrutiny. 😉

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