What’s your story? How to write your bio
As I was typing that headline, I remembered having seen on Twitter something about young people writing their memoirs on Instagram but seriously. Let’s stay focused here on helping people who can actually be helped, since the other way beckons to madness and drinking straight gin out of a water bottle as dawn breaks and generally unhelpful social behaviors.
Anyhoo, I frequently have people say to me,” Carlota, I have to write a bio for my website…HELP! What do I say and really can you do it, take this credit card and please please please write it for me!” Because I, strongly, believe in capitalism and credit and not being broke, that’s fine, I’ll help you write your bio. But let’s say that you, Dear Reader, at home, would like some idea on how, exactly, you can start the process of divining your own bio. Isn’t that process akin, on some levels, to figuring your own story out….to perhaps figuring yourself out?
Certainly, a great way to get started is to actually listen to your instrument and start paying attention to the multiplicity of activity going on inside of you. That’s difficult nowadays because we humans have created billions of ways to distract ourselves, and thus block out all the pain thoughts inside of us, but we have to know what we’re thinking, in order to communicate it with anyone, even, if not especially, ourselves. Thus, one way to get started is to actually GET STARTED. Create a quiet space, turn off your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TV, family members, set the egg timer for 15 minutes and be present with your piece or paper or Word document. (Pause.) Now, you understand why writers are, generally, such lonely, embittered, miserable humans. Listening to your thoughts all day ain’t easy, Kid!
So, before you decide to give up, here’s another idea: if you’re “just” writing a professional bio for your business website, take some time and research the bios of other people in your industry, whom you admire. What did they write? What types of endeavors did they focus on? So much of a “successful” bio is that it fits your brand and your industry. An author is necessarily going to have a different bio than a hedge fund manager or an actor. A solid bio for most people should demonstrate their intelligence, experience, education and, above all, relevancy to their industry.
Think of the bios that intrigue you: what makes them “pop?” Putting aside awards or fancy schools, what information do they present, and in what tone, that makes their bios such compelling reading? Think about your ideal reader: what information does he or she need to know about you, as per your profession? What information do you personally find relevant when you’re looking at people’s bios? (I, for example, am personally fascinated by people who take the time, in professional bios, to mention their pets but not their spouses or children, because that’s such a hot look. Oy.)
A great way to start this process, is to spend some significant time reading other people’s bios, and take notes, even bullet points for your own nascent bio: your education, your experience, significant projects you’ve either led from the start, or saved; industry appreciation awards, and the like. Talk about certifications achieved and papers written, speeches presented at big industry events.
Crucially, a great bio reveals something of your personality. In my opinion, a well-written bio makes me want to meet the person in question. I read a lot of bios and when they slide into empty buzz phrases, I tend to tune out. The person in question might have discovered the cure for cancer, but if she’s packed her bio with meaningless buzz, I probably won’t even bother reading it long enough to understand how important she is.
A great bio is all killer, no filler. Remember, Hemingway was able to write haunting short stories of 6 words. How much verbiage do you need to figure yourself out?
“We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the “ideas” with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience.”- Joan Didion
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