BIO MECHANICS

by John M. Floyd

Easy question: when is talking about yourself not fun? Answer: when you’re writing a bio.

What’s a bio? That’s easy too: if you’re an author, it’s a brief summary of you, your background, and your writing credits. It might include a list of previous publications and awards, and (occasionally) a few words about employment or place of residence. Writers are often asked to supply bios to anthologies, magazines, book publishers, conferences, the media, etc.

But how brief, exactly, should it be? How much about you and your background should you include? How many writing credits, and which ones?

Those questions aren’t so easy. (Actually, the questions are; the answers aren’t.)

Avoiding bio hazards

Sometimes the instructions or guidelines will give you a length requirement for the bio of, say, fifty words, or a hundred words, or three lines — that makes the task less difficult. But usually the length is left up to the writer.

Most writers know, and publishers realize that they know, to keep it short and sweet.
I typically provide two or three sentences, which include several previous short-story credits and a mention of awards received and books published.

Look at it this way. If you’re a writer, even of short fiction, you’ve had to create a synopsis at one time or another, right? Well, an author bio is a mini-synopsis of you and your literary career.

Where I go, ego

Most aspiring writers fear bios because they feel they don’t yet have enough information to include. In truth, though, too much information can be worse than too little. I don’t like to read long bios, and I sure don’t like to write them. (What I like and don’t like, of course, doesn’t matter much; what does matter is that I’ve heard editors and publishers and other readers say they don’t like long bios either.)

Have you ever noticed, especially at parties and other social events, that the people who dispense the most advice and the loudest opinions are often the very people who shouldn’t? I think the same is true here. The longer bios seem to be written by those who have accomplished the least. There’s probably a deep and profound lesson there on the human condition, but mostly it’s just an observance of fact.

Controlling your substance

To be fair, I should point out that longwinded bio-writers aren’t necessarily being arrogant or pompous; they might just be trying to overcompensate. Beginning writers, since they as yet have few publications to their credit, tend to include entire paragraphs about their pets and their relatives and their outside interests, none of which have a thing to do with writing. Or they include the fact that they once helped produce their church newsletter or served as recording secretary for meetings of the swim team.

That’s not all bad. Bios, whether they are intended to be seen by an editor, publisher, agent, or one of their employees, should serve as an “introduction” of sorts. My mother, an avid reader of The Upper Room devotionals, says one of the things she enjoys is the sometimes personal information in the author bio section at the back of each book. She says it makes her feel a closer connection to the author who wrote the piece she has just read, or is about to read. But how much information is too much?

Hello, good bio

Here’s what I consider a sensible rule to follow: Like a job resume, an author bio should present your strongest points without stretching the truth.

Consider this example. A writer with three dozen short-story rejections and only two acceptances (a four-line poem in a literary journal and a humorous essay in her city’s newspaper, neither of which were fiction) might include the following bio sentence in her cover letter to accompany a fiction submission: “My previous work has appeared in The Louisiana Review and The Times-Picayune.” In doing this, she would be making a true statement while putting the best possible spin on what she has to work with.

NOTE 1: I’ve often heard that (for short story writers) it’s a good idea to include three to five previous publications, if you have them. If you don’t, don’t point it out; just say something like “I was raised in northern Michigan and enjoy writing about that area and its history.”

NOTE 2: For the past few years, I’ve been writing my bios in third person. It seems to make it easier for the publication you’re submitting to — or the conference organizers, if that’s the case — to lift it out and use it exactly as written.

Closing questions/arguments

What are your thoughts? What do you think should be included in an author bio? What should be left out? Do you enjoy reading about a person’s cats or hamsters, or does it put you off? Do you care whether he takes pharmacy courses by day and drives a taxi by night? Is it important to you that she has two children and four grandchildren?

I’m not being sarcastic, here. Again, some folks do care about hearing personal details in an author bio, and in fact some had rather hear that than a lot of literary background info. The fact that I’m usually not interested in someone’s home life and extracurricular activities doesn’t mean others aren’t interested. I admit that the mention of pets and outside interests does make the writer seem more like a real person than merely a writing machine, and sometimes a writer’s day job or hobby has an effect on what he writes. (If I’m reading a mystery story and the writer is an assistant D.A., or FBI agent, or retired cop, I like knowing about that.) I also like a little humor now and then, in a bio, although that can sometimes backfire. What works for some authors might not work for others.

But whatever kind of information you choose to include, I still think less is better.

Which might’ve been good advice to follow myself, when writing this column . . .