Kinky Friedman biographer Melita Granger shares her biography-writing experiences and secrets.

The popularity and cultural cachet of biography is only increasing with the rise of celebrity obsession. Even so biography is the least studied and understood of the major literary genres.[i]  

I’ve written a biography on an American writer/singer/songwriter/politician/man-about-town, Kinky Friedman; it is a trade book written for publication, and is titled In Search of Everything Kinky. I would have liked to have read an article like this before I started.   

First thought: Who will be your subject?  

Who you choose is incredibly important! As Dale Salwak writes, “Biography is a major commitment and to immerse oneself so totally…means merging on several levels with that person’s life.”[ii] Brian Roberts argues that in studying the lives of others we are also researching and constructing ourselves.[iii]  

How close do you want to become to your subject? If your subject is alive there are no clear boundaries on friendship. While you must welcome confidences, a biographer does not want to later be viewed as a betrayer, or a voyeur. It is imperative that you remain feeling professional. There is obviously a fine line between being too close and not close enough. Leon Edel writes, “Biographers must be warm, yet aloof, involved yet uninvolved. To be cool as ice in appraisal, yet warm and human and understanding, this is the biographer’s dilemma.”[iv] This dilemma is due to the two personas of the biographer. Stage one: the biographer is playing the part of empathetic researcher. Stage two: the biographer plays the part of hard-hearted (if need be) writer. Think about what happens to the biographer’s relationship with his subject at this shift.  

You may put your subject on a pedestal but think objectively here: are they suitable for a biography? Have they made a significant contribution to popular culture? Have they done something inspiring or out-of-the-ordinary? Is a biography of them timely? Will there be public interest?  

Do market research. What else has been written about them? Has the subject been “done to death” or will you be writing their story a critical vacuum? Are they willing to have their life documented? (You can proceed without permission but it can become tricky.) 

Do you want the subject to be dead or alive? When the subject is alive, issues of contradictions, authorisation, libel, invasion of privacy and access to private papers become critical. But there is a major advantage to the biographer if the subject is alive because it gives the biographer a chance to research gaps in the historical record. Plus, the biographer has the time and opportunity to know for oneself.  

If your subject is alive, keeping up with the media’s constant flow of information (especially the Internet) is challenging. Your subject really needs to die for your biography to be truly finished. The deathbed scene is the ornament of traditional biography: closure only really occurs here! 

Second thought: How much money and time have you got?  

Can you afford to do this? It took me more than three years to research and write In Search of Everything Kinky! Biographers commonly take many years to finish their biography because firstly you need to get to a certain place in the research before you can even start conceptualising the kind of book it might be.  

How much money have you got? I didn’t have enough money to hire a transcriber to transcribe all my interviews. And will you have to go overseas? Can you get an advance from a publisher? 

Third thought: Is there a STORY?  

You need a story to hang the biography on. Think about patterns and themes in your subject’s life. Does their story follow any familiar narrative pattern, such as rise–peak–bomb–comeback-against-the-odds? 

Biographer Victoria Glendinning poses the important question: “Is the story of your life what happens to you, or what you feel happens to you, or what observers see happening to you?”[v]  

What sort of biography do you want this to be? Focus on the kind of book you want to see. Intelligent? Literary? Analytical? Quote-driven? Well-researched? Full of pictures? For readers who like to think and feel?  

Do you wish to state the relationship between your subject’s work and life? Should you write a “life” or a “life and times”? Can the biographer reveal larger issues through the life of one individual without turning him into a mere label? I hoped to. 

Fourth thought: What’s your biography’s style?  

Nowadays, the biographical function of explaining an exemplary or singular life has dovetailed with other forms of celebrity culture. Biographers have more choices now. It’s my belief the subject should get the biography that they deserve, and in similar vein I wanted to infuse the personality of Kinky into my biography’s style.  

Most biographies are written in straight cradle-to-grave narrative style. From the 1960s, some biographies have been bucking tradition and have opted for a self-reflexivity, fragmentation and questioning of any essentialist quest for truth. In more recent years, biographical writing has been infected with the discourse of the fanzine, the blog and chat-room. Biography as a literary form has been deformed and reformed by these participatory and interactive vehicles for talking about personality, lifestyle and creative character. Within the academy, the single-voiced, linear account (still the most popular biographical form) has been subjected to much critique. 

Remember though, whatever style you choose, chronology is vital in a biography. 

Read and read biographies. Consider which ones can assist you as models.

Fifth thought: Does the subject suit an ‘oral biography’? 

“The best information about me may come from others. I really mean that,” Kinky told me, and he was right. 

Oral biography, which allows many ‘truths’, is a recent form, and an emerging trend, especially within the sub-genres of music, sport, political and literary biographies. To define, oral biography consists of quotes and narrative stitched/assembled/edited together to form a (hopefully) seamless story. Obviously, a good oral biography is more than placing on paper the literal recording of the spoken answers of interviewees. Without my editorial work of organising anecdotes, remembrances and opinions from a wide range of people into a coherent narrative that leads the reader through Kinky’s life, it would not be biography. The attraction of the oral biography is that the reader goes along for the journey, eavesdropping on the subject’s various friends, enemies, acquaintances and detractors. It adds credibility that the reader hears Kinky’s voice rather than my second-hand paraphrase. Kinky and the people in his life have access to a fund of stories and what one takes away from an oral biography are the stories.  

I assert that the self is a fragmentation of identity or multiple identities, and is a work in progress, seen differently by different people and ourselves with the passing of time and mood. There is no one Kinky Friedman. I am creating the fictional subject of Kinky, making my biography of a fiction-writer fiction; which like a novel can tell the truth, or aspects of the truth, but which is obviously not the life itself. I disagree with the common practice of biographers who assume that their biography is the true account of a life and that the subject is ‘there’ to be delivered to the reader. Acclaimed (non-oral) biographer Peter Ackroyd admits, “I often imply more certainty and assume more authority than in fact I possess. … I might be half-wrong…but of course that did not stop me from interpreting it in a very direct way. … The biographical form seems to demand certainty and clarity. Once you introduce ambiguities and doubts, the whole enterprise starts to collapse.”[vi] This is not a problem in oral biography! Oral biographer George Plimpton states, “[In oral biography] many different points of view are offered: contradictions, refutations, and so on. It is also one of the pleasures of oral biography, in that the reader, rather than editor, is jury.”[vii]  

Sixth thought: How much authorial voice do you want to have? 

The biographer’s interests never go away. Who the biographer is – their personality, gender, background, education, beliefs, biases, religion, politics, points of view – determines what sort of information about the subject is given, and how it is given. Kinky’s biography is based on what people revealed to me during interviews, or from my own observations. My voice is unashamedly subjective. With a different researcher Kinky may have shared more or less. With a difference in personality, value system, gender, age, looks, traits, rapport, language-knowledge, theoretical orientations and research plans, length of time working in the field of biography or even feature journalism, someone else would look differently at Kinky Friedman and his work and culture.  

You may wish to place yourself in the biography. Many biographers have done so, including myself. Your emotions and reactions will be documented when it contributes to the knowledge of your subject. But in most biographies the biographer within the biography is a silent player, despite the biographer’s research journey providing the information about the subject. As Brian Roberts argues, “In traditional research, feelings and emotions are not seen as acceptable and should be prevented [my italics].[viii]  

Seventh thought: How to start researching? 

You must write down your initial research questions. Ask:
1. Why am I writing? Beware your motivations: To muckrake? To psychoanalyse? Defame? Scandalise? Expose? Canonise? Memorialise?
2. What is the life story here?
3. What is the personality? What makes them interesting? What are their ideological stances and personal ethics? How do they relate to people and how do people relate to them?
4. How much of them is a PR construct?
5. When will you stop researching and writing the subject’s life?  

Start Googling. Do a timeline of your subject’s life. What world events happened simultaneously? If your subject is alive you must hang out with them in the flesh. First-hand observation cannot be underrated in biography writing. It takes time for a subject to trust a biographer. Seeing Kinky in his home environment was important in order to see where and how he lives, to ascertain his mannerisms, habits, speech patterns, behaviour towards others, and his attitude to himself. It was also necessary to gain access to primary documents and sources unattainable in Australia, including Kinky’s important private papers, like book drafts, newspaper cuttings, letters, poems, and photos. In America I took many photos for the biography, saw more of his concerts and began to know Texas, especially Austin and the Hill Country. I went to the university in which he studied and researched his yearbooks. I went to New York and visited the home he had lived in for a decade, visiting the places in New York that he frequented. I found clipping services on him in local libraries and met the people who I had interviewed, and did even more phone interviews.  

When interviewing your subject and those close to them be aware of faulty memories and the truth being all angles and no shape. Moreover, some people consciously or unconsciously block out or conceal certain awful incidents in their past. Inconsistency and ambiguities in stories have, in my experience so far, been more common than one story that everyone agrees on. People contradict themselves merrily so you will have to fact-check with other people’s flawed memories too. Remember interviewees may deliberately distort, evade, conceal or emote – just to sound more glorified.

Eighth thought: Cultural criticism 

As a biographer do you want to delve into the world of the critic? Arts criticism is a controversial method in biographical research as it has been argued that no one’s life should be judged by his work and vice versa.[ix] But since artistic criticism often looks at the artist in order to increase awareness of the work, I believe the reverse is also true – that to understand the subject’s work sheds light on the subject. So I looked at Kinky’s songs and books in the biography to shed light on his state of mind.  

Ninth thought: The research is all over. – Now what?  

Vast quantities of raw data are needed before the overall context can be adequately determined. A life is a very broad subject: it’s not neat and tidy research! To reduce the huge volume of data I needed a clear idea of where and how the material fitted into chapters. I divided my material into logical categories and I came up with sub-headings for each. I tamed the monster by sorting (there is a computer package that can help), categorising, prioritising, interrelating data, looking for repetition (both mine and Kinky’s), redundancy and whether the voices provided substance and vitality. I tried to follow the adage “Show, not tell”. I wanted the quotes to do more than impart information. I wanted them to tell stories and give flavour and insight. Following a distinguished tradition was no comfort! – James Boswell who penned Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) once recorded in his journal, “Sorted till I was stupefied.”[x]  

I can assure you – what makes the final cut will be just the top of the iceberg.  

Tenth thought: Write it up beautifully and ethically 

You will have accumulated a ridiculous number of facts about your subject’s life but facts are not everything, and, as Robert Frost wrote, “All the fun’s in how you say a thing.” The best research in the world – if it’s not conveyed in an intelligent and well-written way – is rendered practically useless. I endeavoured to shape my research material in a way that reflected the spirit of Kinky and his assorted milieu, and that would be an enjoyable and pacy read. 

Remember: the overall effect should be a good read – compelling, engaging, insightful, entertaining. That is the aim: to select the right quotes and stories and edit so it reads well and enlightens the reader about the subject. 

Don’t just write it beautifully – write it ethically. The best a biographer can do is to write with some sensitivity while getting the subject’s story right, out of justice to the readers, to the subject and to themselves. Be kind. Don’t put the heels in just because you can. Biographer Jerome G. Manis strongly believes, as I do, that there should be such statements of ethical standards for biographers. The closest thing to a specific code of ethics for biographers is the code of ethics for journalists, which they are not obliged to follow.[xi] 

Eleventh thought: Editing 

Edit with these questions in mind: Have you dwelt too long on anything, attributed unwarranted significance to casual occurrences, or offered one epiphany or anecdote too many? Does the story flow? Does each chapter have a beginning and conclusion? Does the biography make sense chronologically? Any clichés to remove? Any repetition? Any inconsistencies? Are the quotations chosen excellent illustrations of key points? Any loose ends? 

Twelfth thought: Agents? Publication? Authorised? Unauthorised? Legal complications? 

Last but not least are these curly questions and unfortunately we don’t have room to discuss everything in this twelfth thought. However please ask yourself these questions: Will the subject have any say in the publication of the biography? Will the subject get money in any way from it? Should you draw up a legally binding contract? Do you need an agent?  

Will you be sued? Take note that your subject may not be wishing for an accurate portrayal? Orson Welles once said, “I don’t want any description of me to be accurate; I want it to be flattering. I don’t think people who have to sing for their supper ever like to be described truthfully, not in print anyway.” Just for writing the ‘truth’ biographical subjects have sued. Stanley Booth’s The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones was stopped mid-process by The Stones, after they had put their signatures to a contract stating their full support for the biography to go ahead. The biography was still published, against the odds, and it described the lawsuit. And even if the subject is dead, the biographer is not safe. Relatives and friends are not dead. 

Will the biography be authorised or unauthorised? To write an authorised biography, financial considerations can sway the ethical tide, namely that if the biographer and subject may share the biography’s royalties and so the biographer’s independence may be lost. Additionally, as stated, it is more likely in an authorised biography that the biographer and subject may become friends if they were not already. 

But an authorised biography has the advantage over unauthorised in that the unauthorised biographer may not get close enough and the result is a sense of remoteness for the reader, an empty feeling at the centre. 

*** 

Good luck! You will need stamina and passion. But writing a biography is a deeply rewarding enterprise. You can email me if you have any questions: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .  

Melita is a writer, editor and researcher, and owner/operator of Flair Writing & Editing (see: www.writeandedit.com.au). She has written an authorised biography of best-selling author and country music star, Kinky Friedman, titled "In Search of Everything Kinky" (available to buy for AUS$15 through her website). She has finished a Masters in Applied Communications – Journalism, and is looking forward to embarking on a PhD next year.