Choose a subject to write about. A biography can be written about anyone from presidents, actors, athletes or other famous personalities to relatives, ancestors, friends or obscure figures. As long as you can find an interesting story, anyone can be an appropriate subject of a narrative biography.
Gather as much documentation as possible on your subject. Primary sources can take the form of letters, newspaper articles, journals or photographs. Secondary sources include any documents about the figure written by others who have researched her.
Conduct interviews with the subject or anyone who knew the subject, to gather further information.
Consider what makes your subject noteworthy and decide what type of information you would like to share about your subject. This will help you filter the relevant information that will be added to your finished product.
Select the format you will use for the biography. Decide whether the writing will focus on a single event in the person's life, a general time frame of the person's life or the person's contribution to a wider area, such as their importance to a particular historical era, profession or field of interest.
Organize your information into a concise outline of how you will write your biography. Note in your outline where you will use each fact you discovered and when you will reference your sources.
Write a preliminary draft of your biography following the format of the outline. Include relevant facts you discovered in your research.
Edit your writing. First read your biography as a whole to make sure it flows and that information is not repeated. Next edit for specific grammatical and spelling errors. Reading your writing aloud can help with this task.