
Cinnamon Bear
Moderators: mikeedwards, glorybee
This is an excellent question. You shouldn't put yourself into the narrative in any way ("I think Gerturde Gork was the greatest inventor of her time...") However, biographies will definitely reflect the opinions of their writers. Imagine a biography of President Obama, for example, written by someone who is an ardent Republican, and one written by an equally ardent Democrat. The books will be very different, because the writers will choose what events to feature and which ones to downplay, They will also differ in their interpretation of those events and on Obama's influence on history and on contemporary American life.Milly Born wrote:One more question that came up. Can the author of a biography explicitly express his own opinion about his MC? Or should he write as neutral as possible?
You can certainly use the words of your biographical subject, if they are known, and those would go in quotation marks. Otherwise, you can recreate dialogue. Just beware of slipping into a tone that sounds more like storytelling.Cinnamon Bear wrote:Just two final questions:
1) Can a biography have any dialogue? Or is it best to rewrite any dialogue I intended to use, as narrative?
2) Does the material need to be footnoted within the body of the entry. Or is it okay to just list the sources in the author's notes?
Many thanks.
Cinnamon Bear