My first two books—Clive
Caldwell Air Ace and Jack Davenport Beaufighter Leader—were
biography, Australian Eagles is a
collection of biographical essays and my current work in progress, fondly known
as The Opus (with a working title of Australia’s Few. An Intimate History of
the Battle of Britain) has a strong biographical focus.
A
few years ago, Allen & Unwin asked me to muse on my experiences of
biography for their Writing Centre and I thought you might be interested in my
thoughts...
Writing biography
is a challenge. The intimacy is engrossing and the responsibility to accurately
record a person’s life within the historical context is overwhelming. But it is
so fulfilling. I have no background in historical writing and I fell into
biography by accident but I learned much which might make biographical writing
easier for other novices.
I recently read
of an author who, before putting keystroke to sceen, was advised to read other
biographies to see what worked and what didn’t. The author ignored that advice
and it is obvious. My first suggestion, then, is read constantly: biography,
memoir, history and literary fiction. Absorb and analyse. Deconstruct,
criticise and appreciate. Develop an appreciation of structure and ‘flow’. Target
your reading to the ‘life and times’ of your subject to gain a sense of the
environment in which he or she lived as well as the social influences on his or
her actions.
Personal primary
source material—interviews, letters, diaries—will always be at the heart of a
biography, as will the recollections and writings of contemporaries. When I first started work on Clive Caldwell
Air Ace I took my primary sources at face value but before I made too many
blunders I read something which has continued to influence my research.
Tom Harrisson was one of the co-founders of
Mass-Observation which collected first-hand accounts of how Britons reacted to
the Second World War. Thirty years after the Mass-Observation accounts were
written Harrisson decided to compare the 1970’s recollection of life in the
Blitz with the 1940’s first-hand account. In all cases, including one of his
own treasured recollections, there were considerable differences. For the first
time, I realised that memory was fallible so decided to treat it as a starting
point, rather than an established fact.
This stood me in good stead as both
Caldwell and Davenport, without any intention to deceive, had made memory slips
and their accounts often did not stand up to the official record. Wherever
possible, I checked each recollection against official and other recorded
accounts. Occasionally, I could not sort out a discrepancy, so I just
acknowledged it. That is what end notes are for! And this leads me another
important point: biography is history and future readers will want to know your
sources. So include end notes and a detailed bibliography.
My final
suggestions relate to ‘readability’. I was always conscious that the technical
aspects of military aviation should be accessible to the ‘ordinary’ reader so
non-aviation friends read through my manuscripts and highlighted areas which
went over their heads. An aviation expert also read them to correct my
technical errors. For the Davenport manuscript I engaged a professional editor
to work with me before I submitted it to Allen & Unwin: friends are usually
too kind to point out literary and structural flaws. I cannot recommend these
strategies enough because, believe me, if you have no background in your
subject’s area of expertise, you will make mistakes and, we might as well admit
it, we never see flaws in our own work!
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