How to Write a Interesting Biography

But why are biographies of less famous people, even ordinary people, fascinating? Part of the answer must be the "soap opera" factor: the way we enjoy seeing how the dramas that happen to others play out. Take a good mix of elation and despair, stir in a helping of glamour and treachery, and you have the average plot line.

But while each of our lives is thrilling to ourselves, few of us have stories that will attract and hold the interest of others. I was chatting recently with the owner of a publishing house in İstanbul and learned that they received many manuscripts of personal memoirs of "My time in Turkey," or biographies of loved ones. The majority were dull, over-long, full of irrelevant details that were considered vitally important by the author and, in short, unpublishable. Where a manuscript might have been considered, the author was so close to the subject of the work that they expressly refused any editing be done. Result: unpublishable, again.

To read a review of a great biography of an ordinary man, written by his widow, click here: http://www.sundayszaman.com/sunday/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=...