biography is non fiction

Definition of Biography

Common examples of biographical subjects.

As a literary device, biography is important because it allows readers to learn about someone’s story and history. This can be enlightening, inspiring, and meaningful in creating connections. Here are some common examples of biographical subjects:

Famous Examples of Biographical Works

Difference between biography, autobiography, and memoir, examples of biography in literature, example 1:  savage beauty: the life of edna st. vincent millay  (nancy milford).

One of the first things Vincent explained to Norma was that there was a certain freedom of language in the Village that mustn’t shock her. It wasn’t vulgar. ‘So we sat darning socks on Waverly Place and practiced the use of profanity as we stitched. Needle in, . Needle out, piss. Needle in, . Needle out, c. Until we were easy with the words.’

This passage reflects the way in which Milford is able to characterize St. Vincent Millay as a person interacting with her sister. Even avid readers of a writer’s work are often unaware of the artist’s private and personal natures, separate from their literature and art. Milford reflects the balance required on the part of a literary biographer of telling the writer’s life story without undermining or interfering with the meaning and understanding of the literature produced by the writer. Though biographical information can provide some influence and context for a writer’s literary subjects, style, and choices , there is a distinction between the fictional world created by a writer and the writer’s “real” world. However, a literary biographer can illuminate the writer’s story so that the reader of both the biography and the biographical subject’s literature finds greater meaning and significance.

Example 2:  The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens  (Claire Tomalin)

The season of domestic goodwill and festivity must have posed a problem to all good Victorian family men with more than one family to take care of, particularly when there were two lots of children to receive the demonstrations of paternal love.

Example 3:  Virginia Woolf  (Hermione Lee)

‘A self that goes on changing is a self that goes on living’: so too with the biography of that self. And just as lives don’t stay still, so life-writing can’t be fixed and finalised. Our ideas are shifting about what can be said, our knowledge of human character is changing. The biographer has to pioneer, going ‘ahead of the rest of us, like the miner’s canary, testing the atmosphere , detecting falsity, unreality, and the presence of obsolete conventions’. So, ‘There are some stories which have to be retold by each generation’. She is talking about the story of Shelley, but she could be talking about her own life-story.

In this passage, Lee is able to demonstrate what her biographical subject, Virginia Woolf, felt about biography and a person telling their own or another person’s story. Literary biographies of well-known writers can be especially difficult to navigate in that both the author and biographical subject are writers, but completely separate and different people. As referenced in this passage by Lee, Woolf was aware of the subtleties and fluidity present in a person’s life which can be difficult to judiciously and effectively relay to a reader on the part of a biographer. In addition, Woolf offers insight into the fact that biographers must make choices in terms of what information is presented to the reader and the context in which it is offered, making them a “miner’s canary” as to how history will view and remember the biographical subject.

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Home » Writing » Autobiography vs. Biography vs. Memoir

What is a Biography?

A biography, also called a bio, is a non-fiction piece of work giving an objective account of a person’s life. The main difference between a biography vs. an autobiography is that the author of a biography is not the subject. A biography could be someone still living today, or it could be the subject of a person who lived years ago.

Biographies include details of key events that shaped the subject’s life, and information about their birthplace, education, work, and relationships. Biographers use a number of research sources, including interviews, letters, diaries, photographs, essays, reference books, and newspapers. While a biography is usually in the written form, it can be produced in other formats such as music composition or film.

If the target person of the biography is not alive, then the storytelling requires an immense amount of research. Interviews might be required to collect information from historical experts, people who knew the person (e.g., friends and family), or reading other older accounts from other people who wrote about the person in previous years. In biographies where the person is still alive, the writer can conduct several interviews with the target person to gain insight on their life.

The goal of a biography is to take the reader through the life story of the person, including their childhood into adolescence and teenage years, and then their early adult life into the rest of their years. The biography tells a story of how the person learned life’s lessons and the ways the person navigated the world. It should give the reader a clear picture of the person’s personality, traits, and their interaction in the world.

Biographies can also be focused on groups of people and not just one person. For example, a biography can be a historical account of a group of people from hundreds of years ago. This group could have the main person who was a part of the group, and the author writes about the group to tell a story of how they shaped the world.

Fictional biographies mix some true historical accounts with events to help improve the story. Think of fictional biographies as movies that display a warning that the story is made of real characters, but some events are fictional to add to the storyline and entertainment value. A lot of research still goes into a fictional biography, but the author has more room to create a storyline instead of sticking to factual events.

Examples of famous biographies include:

• His Excellency: George Washington  by Joseph J. Ellis
• Einstein: The Life and Times  by Ronald William Clark
• Princess Diana – A Biography of The Princess of Wales  by Drew L. Crichton

What is an Autobiography?

An autobiography is the story of a person’s life written by that person. Because the author is also the main character of the story, autobiographies are written in the first person. Usually, an autobiography is written by the person who is the subject of the book, but sometimes the autobiography is written by another person. Because an autobiography is usually a life story for the author, the theme can be anything from religious to a personal account to pass on to children.

The purpose of an autobiography is to portray the life experiences and achievements of the author. Therefore, most autobiographies are typically written later in the subject’s life. It’s written from the point of view of the author, so it typically uses first person accounts to describe the story.

An autobiography often begins during early childhood and chronologically details key events throughout the author’s life. Autobiographies usually include information about where a person was born and brought up, their education, career, life experiences, the challenges they faced, and their key achievements.

On rare occasions, an autobiography is created from a person’s diary or memoirs. When diaries are used, the author must organize them to create a chronological and cohesive story. The story might have flashbacks or flashforwards to describe a specific event, but the main storyline should follow chronological order from the author’s early life to their current events.

One of the main differences between an autobiography vs. a biography is that autobiographies tend to be more subjective. That’s because they are written by the subject, and present the facts based on their own memories of a specific situation, which can be biased. The story covers the author’s opinions on specific subjects and provides an account of their feelings as they navigate certain situations. These stories are also very personal because it’s a personal account of the author’s life rather than a biography where a third party writes about a specific person.

Examples of famous autobiographies include:

• The Story of My Life  by Helen Keller
• The Diary of a Young Girl  by Anne Frank
• Losing My Virginity  by Richard Branson

What is a Memoir?

Memoir comes from the French word  mémoire , meaning memory or reminiscence. Similar to an autobiography, a memoir is the story of a person’s life written by that person. These life stories are often from diary entries either from a first-person account or from a close family member or friend with access to personal diaries.

The difference between a memoir vs. an autobiography is that a memoir focuses on reflection and establishing an emotional connection, rather than simply presenting the facts about their life. The author uses their personal knowledge to tell an intimate and emotional story about the private or public happenings in their life. The author could be the person in the story, or it can be written by a close family member or friend who knew the subject person intimately. The topic is intentionally focused and does not include biographical or chronological aspects of the author’s life unless they are meaningful and relevant to the story.

Memoirs come in several types, all of which are written as an emotional account of the target person. They usually tell a story of a person who went through great struggles or faced challenges in a unique way. They can also cover confessionals where the memoir tells the story of the author’s account that contradicts another’s account.

This genre of writing is often stories covering famous people’s lives, such as celebrities. In many memoir projects, the celebrity or person of interest needs help with organization, writing the story, and fleshing out ideas from the person’s diaries. It might take several interviews before the story can be fully outlined and written, so it’s not uncommon for a memoir project to last several months.

Memoirs do not usually require as much research as biographies and autobiographies, because you have the personal accounts in diary entries and documents with the person’s thoughts. It might require several interviews, however, before the diary entries can be organized to give an accurate account on the person’s thoughts and emotions. The story does not necessarily need to be in chronological order compared to an autobiography, but it might be to tell a better story.

Examples of famous memoirs include:

• Angela’s Ashes  by Frank McCourt
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings  by Maya Angelou
• Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S.  Grant by Ulysses S. Grant

Autobiography vs. Biography vs. Memoir Comparison Chart

Check out some of our blogs to learn more about memoirs:

• What is a memoir?
• 5 tips for writing a memoir
• Your memoir is your legacy

Ready to get started on your own memoir, autobiography, or biography? Download our free desktop book-making software, BookWright .

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Memoir, Biography, Narrative Nonfiction—How Are They Different?

Posted by Lisa Dale Norton | Feb 1, 2019 | Writing Insights | 0 |

Here we are in February, the time of year when we throw ourselves back into writing the story of our life. The end of the year, with its deepening dark and circle of celebrations, distracts. But now, we begin again, clawing our way through the relentlessness of the information cycle to a quiet rhythm of shaping words, and asking fundamental questions: What is a memoir? How is it different from biography, and how are both related to that thing called narrative nonfiction?           

Here’s my take on it:

Memoir is a story based on your life experience and what you have learned from it.

It is a winnowing of all that has happened into a tight view of a slim section of experience: the coming of age years; the head-spinning start of a career; early motherhood. But always, it is a winnowing of the vast, complicated arc of events that has constituted your life. Narrow, narrow, narrow. Find one series of events that linked together explores some vulnerable and pressing universality of life.

Biography is all about you, too—and all is the correct word. This is where you get to write about where you were born, and what went on during your young years, leaving home, setting out to make your way in the world, love, relationship, work, loss—the whole canvas.

See how biography is different from memoir?

Of course, we hope a biography will show us mistakes made and lessons learned—the vicissitudes that brought a woman to be who she is, pimples and all. We hope for some readers’ transformation as we witness the arc of that person’s life, but this is different from the expectations of the reader of memoir.

 The reader of memoir dives in for the short version, the lens of the camera zooming in to show the close up of just the years from 6 to 18, or just that summer your husband died, or just the college years that led to a Rhodes Scholarship, or just the years when you, through sheer fortitude, worked your way out of poverty, of just those events that came together to make you the vocal activist you are today. Slim focus. And from that slim focus a nugget of wisdom.

 Narrative nonfiction is a similar but slightly different beast.

This is a form where you might write about yourself and your experience a good deal, but you will also be teaching us something about the world. Maybe it’s the world of a dwindling tribe of the last subsistence whalers in the world (“The Last Whalers: Three Years in the Far Pacific with a Courageous Tribe and a Vanishing Way of Life” by Doug Bock Clark, recently published by Little, Brown and Company), so that the story ends up being about the writer’s experience getting the story, and about the nonfiction information itself.

We could say narrative nonfiction is the wedding of journalism and memoir, and while you may not be a journalist, you can do the same thing with your story by finding a topic that is central to your manuscript and making it an equal and parallel part of the story you write about yourself. Here’s a book where a writer did just that: “Don’t Make Me Pull Over: An Informal History of the Family Road Trip” (Simon & Schuster, 2018), which combined author Richard Ratay’s personal experiences with road trips, and the history of the American road trip from post-WWII to the 1970s.

See what I mean?

If you take the time to peruse the shelves of current nonfiction in your local book shop, you will see a lot of nonfiction with the author as player in the story. Why? Because we are a culture obsessed with the personal, the “I” of everything. Neither good nor bad, just ‘tis. And so, many contemporary nonfiction books give us the writer as a character and that character’s experience. But, they also give us information: the biologist who writes about his early days in the Galapagos, and Charles Darwin; the violinist who writes about becoming first chair of an orchestra, and the violin; the dog lover who writes about her dogs, and the industry of dog shows—two parallel stories that dip into and weave around each other giving us something fresh.

The name narrative nonfiction tells you everything you need to know: narrative, which means a story, and nonfiction, which refers to a topic from our world.

Can you find your project in this spectrum? Doing so now in February will make your writing year more productive, and make you more savvy about the marketplace.

About The Columnist

Lisa Dale Norton

Lisa Dale Norton is an author, developmental book editor, and a dynamic public speaker. She is passionate about layered writing structures in narrative nonfiction that reflect the complexity of life experience, and about the transformative power of writing a memoir. She is a gifted teacher, clear communicator, and a pro at creating an environment were learning can happen. Lisa wrote America’s go-to memoir writing guide, Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir (Macmillan), and the literary nonfiction story Hawk Flies Above: Journey to the Heart of the Sandhills (Picador USA), which won comparisons to the writing of Annie Dillard. https://lisadalenorton.com/

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Biographies: The Stories of Humanity

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

A biography is a story of a person's life, written by another author. The writer of a biography is called a biographer while the person written about is known as the subject or biographee.

Biographies usually take the form of a narrative , proceeding chronologically through the stages of a person's life. American author Cynthia Ozick notes in her essay "Justice (Again) to Edith Wharton" that a good biography is like a novel, wherein it believes in the idea of a life as "a triumphal or tragic story with a shape, a story that begins at birth, moves on to a middle part, and ends with the death of the protagonist."

A biographical essay is a comparatively short work of nonfiction  about certain aspects of a person's life. By necessity, this sort of essay  is much more selective than a full-length biography, usually focusing only on key experiences and events in the subject's life.

Between History and Fiction

Perhaps because of this novel-like form, biographies fit squarely between written history and fiction, wherein the author often uses personal flairs and must invent details "filling in the gaps" of the story of a person's life that can't be gleaned from first-hand or available documentation like home movies, photographs, and written accounts.

Some critics of the form argue it does a disservice to both history and fiction, going so far as to call them "unwanted offspring, which has brought a great embarrassment to them both," as Michael Holroyd puts it in his book "Works on Paper: The Craft of Biography and Autobiography." Nabokov even called biographers "psycho-plagiarists," meaning that they steal the psychology of a person and transcribe it to the written form.

Biographies are distinct from creative non-fiction such as memoir in that biographies are specifically about one person's full life story -- from birth to death -- while creative non-fiction is allowed to focus on a variety of subjects, or in the case of memoirs certain aspects of an individual's life.

Writing a Biography

For writers who want to pen another person's life story, there are a few ways to spot potential weaknesses, starting with making sure proper and ample research has been conducted -- pulling resources such as newspaper clippings, other academic publications, and recovered documents and found footage.  

First and foremost, it is the duty of biographers to avoid misrepresenting the subject as well as acknowledging the research sources they used. Writers should, therefore, avoid presenting a personal bias for or against the subject as being objective is key to conveying the person's life story in full detail.

Perhaps because of this, John F. Parker observes in his essay "Writing: Process to Product" that some people find writing a biographical essay "easier than writing an  autobiographical  essay. Often it takes less effort to write about others than to reveal ourselves." In other words, in order to tell the full story, even the bad decisions and scandals have to make the page in order to truly be authentic.

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What is a biography?

An account of someone's life written by another person., the story of someone's life: understanding biography in a creative sense.

Biography is a literary genre that focuses on the story of someone's life, written by another person. This type of writing often involves research, interviews, and a deep understanding of the subject's personality, experiences, and motivations.

In a creative writing context, biography can be a powerful tool for developing characters and understanding the arc of a story. By exploring the lives of others, we gain insight into the human experience and can use this knowledge to enrich our own work.

Furthermore, biography can be an excellent way to improve our grammar and language skills. As we research and write about historical figures, we are exposed to a rich vocabulary and must hone our ability to describe complex events and emotions. In this sense, biography can be both a literary and a linguistic exercise.

Biography is a genre that has been used widely throughout literary history, both in non-fiction and fictional works. Here are two examples of how biography is used in literature to add depth and nuance to the storytelling.

In her autobiography Becoming, Michelle Obama reflects on her life journey and how she came to be the woman that the world knows today. Through candid and personal anecdotes, she shares her experiences, struggles, and triumphs, providing a valuable insight into her character and the events that have shaped her.

Colm Tóibín's The Master is a fictionalized account of the life of Henry James - a renowned American-British writer. In it, Tóibín explores James's quirky personality, his social anxieties, and his literary ambitions, providing a fascinating glimpse into the mind of this literary giant.

Types of Nonfiction Books

Nonfiction books appeal to everyone. No matter your interests, you’ll be able to find a subject that fits your taste. Just like fiction, nonfiction, too, has a lot of different genres to choose from.

Examples of popular nonfiction genres:

• Autobiography
• Cultural Criticism/Responses
• History/Law/Political
• True Crime/Investigative
• Self-help/Motivational
• Coloring Books

Out of these types of nonfiction books, people often mix up memoir, autobiography, and biography. Why do they mix them up, though? Keep reading!

What is a Memoir?

Defining a memoir can be tricky. It can take a lot of shapes, and different authors will have different approaches when writing one. derived from the French word for “memory,” memoirs find roots in memory.

Differentiating between a memoir and an autobiography can be a bit tricky. Memoirs and autobiographies are often mixed up, and it’s not surprising why: both are about the life of the author. However, the main difference between the two is that memoirs do not span the entire life of the author. Usually connected by some sort of unifying theme, idea, or incident, memoirs tell stories and lessons learned from the author’s life without covering everything that happened from the writer’s birth until old age.

Some common themes you’ll encounter when reading memoirs:

• Strength and overcoming obstacles
• The power of faith/religion in the author’s life
• Friendship and love

What is an Autobiography?

We’ve already covered that a memoir is comprised of stories or experiences from the life of the author that are tied together with an overarching theme or idea. An autobiography, however, usually tells the author’s life story, whether there’s a unifying theme or not.

Autobiographies are chronological, too. While memoirs can bounce around in time, autobiographies follow a strict timeline.

The terms autobiography and memoir are used so interchangeably that they’ve begun to lose distinction. Calling a book an autobiography when it is actually a memoir isn’t, at the end of the day, wrong . Memoirs are autobiographical. However, the next nonfiction genre we’re discussing cannot and should not be used interchangeably with these terms.

What is a Biography?

A biography is not the same thing as an autobiography, despite how often people attempt to use the terms interchangeably. They’re two entirely different genres, and the distinction is made in who is writing the story.

While an autobiography is a true story about the author’s own life, a biography is the story of an influential figure’s life written by another person. Most biographies are about well-known or famous influential figures. Popular biographies are written about presidents, movie stars, rock stars, political leaders, revolutionaries, etc.

What About Ghostwriters?

The whole autobiography/memoir vs. biography distinction gets a little hazy when a ghostwriter is involved. A ghostwriter is someone who is tasked with writing a book (or article or speech) while credit is given to another. Not just limited to nonfiction books, ghostwriters can help with any genre of writing. Many celebrities and other public figures use ghostwriters when publishing their autobiographies and memoirs, if they feel their writing isn’t strong enough but they nonetheless have a story to tell.

Ghostwriters do the actual writing, but they don’t get credit. Ghostwriters assist with the craft. Writing a book is hard, and not everyone can do it, even though many feel they have a story to tell. Despite the author not writing the book themselves (or writing it with assistance), they are the author, so the book would be considered an autobiography or memoir.

You may be asking yourself why anyone would want to ghostwrite a book if they do not receive credit for the work. The reason behind each ghostwriter’s decision to accept the job will vary.  For some, the pay rate makes ghostwriting worthwhile. For others, it may be because of their relationship with the author.

Self-Publishing Nonfiction Books

At DiggyPOD, we print all types of nonfiction books. From cookbooks to memoirs, our multiple binding options, paper types, and cover styles make your nonfiction book endlessly customizable. You can self-publish any of the above types of nonfiction books with DiggyPOD. Our Print on Demand technology transforms your book from a PDF file on your computer to a beautiful book. You’ll be proud to sell, gift, or display that book on your bookshelf for all to see.

Our spiral bound printing is perfect for all types of nonfiction books that need to lay flat when open. This includes coloring books,  cookbooks, and training manuals.

DiggyPOD’s paperback and hardcover binding styles make nonfiction books look beautiful. Perfect for any and all genres, check out our paperback and hardcover book printing.

Whatever your project, no matter the genre, DiggyPOD prints beautiful books. You’ll be so happy with the final product. Everything from paper type to margin size to cover design is entirely up to you, the author.

Is Autobiography Fiction Or Nonfiction? (Detailed Comparison)

Last Updated on July 20, 2022 by Dr Sharon Baisil MD

Publishers often consider novels when contemplating the publishing of a book. Yet, nonfiction books account for a significant portion of bestselling novels, such as mystery, romance, fantasy, historical, or science fiction.

Nonfiction, like fiction, includes a wide range of books and genres. True stories are what connect all nonfiction works. Fiction is entire of an author’s imagination (with some input from reality). As a result, nonfiction cannot be fabricated.

In this blog, we’ll look at if autobiography is fiction or nonfiction. Is there anything called fictional autobiography? So, let’s clear all your doubts ahead without any further delay!

Fiction vs. Nonfiction: Defining the Differences in Detail

“Fiction” is a term that refers to works written from the imagination. Fiction genres include mysteries, science fiction, romance, fantasy, chick-lit, and crime thrillers. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, 1984 by George Orwell, and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen are all examples of classic literature.

“Literature-based in fact” is referred to as “nonfiction.” It encompasses most types of literature. For example, biography, business, cooking, health and fitness, pets, crafts, home décorating, languages, travel, home improvement, religion, and art are a few categories covered in the Nonfiction Department.

Different Types of Non-Fiction Books

Everyone is drawn to nonfiction books. There is a topic that suits your interests, regardless of what it is. Nonfiction, like fiction, has a wide range of genres to pick from.

Examples of popular nonfiction genres:

Autobiography

• Cultural Criticism/Responses
• History/Law/Political
• True Crime/Investigative
• Self-help/Motivational
• Coloring Books

What is Creative Nonfiction?

It cannot be easy to write a nonfiction tale of any kind. You are in charge of telling an accurate tale and presenting the facts as accurately as possible while also making the reading experience enjoyable for the reader.

The genres of memoir , autobiography, and biography are the three primary styles for conveying a creative nonfiction narrative. Knowing the distinctions between them is vital to ensure you’re writing within the proper scope. Each has its unique traits.

A memoir is a compilation of individual recollections about specific periods or occurrences in the author’s life. Memoirs are written in the first-person point of view , and they’re told from the author’s perspective.

The scope of a memoir distinguishes it from autobiographies and biographies . Memoirs are structured around one aspect of a person’s life, such as addiction, parenting, adolescence, disease, or religion. The other genres focus on the whole lifespan of that person.

An autobiography is a story told in the first-person point of view, with the author serving as the main character. It is similar to a memoir in that it is a retelling of one’s life.

Autobiographies are usually written in the first-person point of view like: “I was a Southern California high school student when I decided to run for Student Body President. My life changed forever.”

The autobiography is about own life and is made by own soul, so it has little interest compared with other genres, but that is not always true because some are very interesting than others. Many autobiographies have been sold well and become best-sellers, such as JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

Autobiographies, unlike memoirs, are more concerned with facts than feelings. As a result, a collaborator frequently joins the project to assist the author in creating the most realistic, unbiased tale possible. The short stories in autobiography fiction mix real life with fantasy and fiction.

A biography is written by another individual other than the person about the events and conditions of that person’s life. People often write biographies of historical or public figures, and with or without the subject’s permission, they may be written.

Unlike both memoirs and autobiographies, biographies are usually written in the third person point of view and have a more professional and objective tone than both.

What is called a fictional autobiography?

The term “fictional autobiography” has a variety of connotations that overlap with “autobiographical novel” or “autofiction,” which are used interchangeably. A fictional autobiography is a story that portrays an autobiographical discourse without any suggestion of identity between the protagonist/narrator and the author of the work in a restricted sense.

Autofiction approaches, or the merging of autobiographical and fictitious aspects, are used in an autobiographical book. However, the stipulation of being fiction distinguishes a literary technique from an autobiography or memoir.

Whereas, in the fictional autobiography, the autobiographical character of the text refers to its representational frame of it.

Final Words

In this blog, we discussed the difference between autobiography fiction and nonfiction and the various types of creative fiction. We also looked at some FAQs that can help better understand the difference between these two genres. Do you have any questions that you would like to ask about this topic? Please feel free to leave a comment below, and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

What are the benefits of writing an autobiography, fiction, or nonfiction?

Answer: Writing an autobiography, fiction or nonfiction, may be the perfect career if you have a story to tell. Both genres offer a unique opportunity to share your story with the world, and both can be extremely rewarding. As a memoirist, you will have the chance to explore your past and share your experiences with the reader. This can be a cathartic experience, and it can inspire others who may be struggling in their own lives. As a fiction writer, you will be able to create a story based on your own life experiences. This can be a thrilling experience, and it can be enriching to see your story come to life on the page. Both genres offer opportunities for book signings, media appearances, and more. However, autobiography fiction or nonfiction is particularly rich in opportunities for advertising and marketing.

How do you choose a good topic for your autobiography, fiction, or nonfiction book?

Answer: When writing a book, it is essential to choose a topic you are passionate about. This will give your book a personal touch to make it more exciting and engaging for your readers. Once you have identified a topic, the next step is to develop a compelling and interesting story that will capture your readers’ attention. This story should be based on your chosen topic, and it should be easy to follow. Once you have your story lined up, it is important to research to ensure that your book’s information is accurate.

Is it okay to use copyrighted material in your autobiography fiction or nonfiction book, such as quotes from people who have written books on similar topics as yours, new articles that relate to topics, etc.?

Answer: You can use copyrighted material in your autobiography, fiction, or nonfiction book, as long as you do not use the entire quote or article. Instead, you are permitted to use a small excerpt, and you must attribute the quote or article to the source. You can also include a link to the webpage or article if you would like the reader to be able to find the source material.

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nonfictional prose , any literary work that is based mainly on fact, even though it may contain fictional elements. Examples are the essay and biography.

Defining nonfictional prose literature is an immensely challenging task. This type of literature differs from bald statements of fact, such as those recorded in an old chronicle or inserted in a business letter or in an impersonal message of mere information. As used in a broad sense, the term nonfictional prose literature here designates writing intended to instruct (but does not include highly scientific and erudite writings in which no aesthetic concern is evinced), to persuade, to convert, or to convey experience or reality through “factual” or spiritual revelation. Separate articles cover biography and literary criticism .

Nonfictional prose genres cover an almost infinite variety of themes, and they assume many shapes. In quantitative terms, if such could ever be valid in such nonmeasurable matters, they probably include more than half of all that has been written in countries having a literature of their own. Nonfictional prose genres have flourished in nearly all countries with advanced literatures. The genres include political and polemical writings, biographical and autobiographical literature, religious writings, and philosophical, and moral or religious writings.

After the Renaissance, from the 16th century onward in Europe, a personal manner of writing grew in importance. The author strove for more or less disguised self-revelation and introspective analysis, often in the form of letters, private diaries, and confessions. Also of increasing importance were aphorisms after the style of the ancient Roman philosophers Seneca and Epictetus, imaginary dialogues , and historical narratives, and later, journalistic articles and extremely diverse essays. From the 19th century, writers in Romance and Slavic languages especially, and to a far lesser extent British and American writers, developed the attitude that a literature is most truly modern when it acquires a marked degree of self-awareness and obstinately reflects on its purpose and technique. Such writers were not content with imaginative creation alone: they also explained their work and defined their method in prefaces, reflections, essays, self-portraits, and critical articles. The 19th-century French poet Charles Baudelaire asserted that no great poet could ever quite resist the temptation to become also a critic : a critic of others and of himself. Indeed, most modern writers, in lands other than the United States , whether they be poets, novelists, or dramatists, have composed more nonfictional prose than poetry, fiction , or drama. In the instances of such monumental figures of 20th-century literature as the poets Ezra Pound , T.S. Eliot , and William Butler Yeats , or the novelists Thomas Mann and André Gide , that part of their output may well be considered by posterity to be equal in importance to their more imaginative writing.

It is virtually impossible to attempt a unitary characterization of nonfictional prose. The concern that any definition is a limitation, and perhaps an exclusion of the essential, is nowhere more apposite than to this inordinately vast and variegated literature. Ever since the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers devised literary genres , some critics have found it convenient to arrange literary production into kinds or to refer it to modes.

Obviously, a realm as boundless and diverse as nonfictional prose literature cannot be characterized as having any unity of intent, of technique, or of style. It can be defined, very loosely, only by what it is not. Many exceptions, in such a mass of writings, can always be brought up to contradict any rule or generalization. No prescriptive treatment is acceptable for the writing of essays, of aphorisms, of literary journalism , of polemical controversy, of travel literature, of memoirs and intimate diaries. No norms are recognized to determine whether a dialogue , a confession, a piece of religious or of scientific writing, is excellent, mediocre , or outright bad, and each author has to be relished, and appraised, chiefly in his own right. “The only technique,” the English critic F.R. Leavis wrote in 1957, “is that which compels words to express an intensively personal way of feeling.” Intensity is probably useful as a standard; yet it is a variable, and often elusive , quality, possessed by polemicists and by ardent essayists to a greater extent than by others who are equally great. “Loving, and taking the liberties of a lover” was Virginia Woolf ’s characterization of the 19th-century critic William Hazlitt ’s style: it instilled passion into his critical essays. But other equally significant English essayists of the same century, such as Charles Lamb or Walter Pater , or the French critic Hippolyte Taine , under an impassive mask, loved too, but differently. Still other nonfictional writers have been detached, seemingly aloof, or, like the 17th-century French epigrammatist La Rochefoucauld, sarcastic. Their intensity is of another sort.

Prose that is nonfictional is generally supposed to cling to reality more closely than that which invents stories, or frames imaginary plots. Calling it “realistic,” however, would be a gross distortion. Since nonfictional prose does not stress inventiveness of themes and of characters independent of the author’s self, it appears in the eyes of some moderns to be inferior to works of imagination. In the middle of the 20th century an immensely high evaluation was placed on the imagination, and the adjective “imaginative” became a grossly abused cliché. Many modern novels and plays, however, were woefully deficient in imaginative force, and the word may have been bandied about so much out of a desire for what was least possessed. Many readers are engrossed by travel books, by descriptions of exotic animal life, by essays on the psychology of other nations, by Rilke’s notebooks or by Samuel Pepys’s diary far more than by poetry or by novels that fail to impose any suspension of disbelief. There is much truth in Oscar Wilde ’s remark that “the highest criticism is more creative than creation and the primary aim of the critic is to see the object as in itself it really is not.” A good deal of imagination has gone not only into criticism but also into the writing of history , of essays, of travel books, and even of the biographies or the confessions that purport to be true to life as it really happened, as it was really experienced.

The imagination at work in nonfictional prose, however, would hardly deserve the august name of “primary imagination” reserved by the 19th-century English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge to creators who come close to possessing semidivine powers. Rather, imagination is displayed in nonfictional prose in the fanciful invention of decorative details, in digressions practiced as an art and assuming a character of pleasant nonchalance, in establishing a familiar contact with the reader through wit and humour. The variety of themes that may be touched upon in that prose is almost infinite. The treatment of issues may be ponderously didactic and still belong within the literary domain. For centuries, in many nations, in Asiatic languages, in medieval Latin, in the writings of the humanists of the Renaissance, and in those of the Enlightenment, a considerable part of literature has been didactic . The concept of art for art’s sake is a late and rather artificial development in the history of culture , and it did not reign supreme even in the few countries in which it was expounded in the 19th century. The ease with which digressions may be inserted in that type of prose affords nonfictional literature a freedom denied to writing falling within other genres. The drawback of such a nondescript literature lies in judging it against any standard of perfection, since perfection implies some conformity with implicit rules and the presence, however vague, of standards such as have been formulated for comedy, tragedy, the ode, the short story and even (in this case, more honoured in the breach than the observance) the novel . The compensating grace is that in much nonfictional literature that repudiates or ignores structure the reader is often delighted with an air of ease and of nonchalance and with that rarest of all virtues in the art of writing: naturalness.

Biography & Autobiography: What’s The Difference?

Since the beginning of time, people have loved telling stories. Most favourably? Stories about themselves. You may well remember learning about genre and book type in your English lessons at school, but, for many of us, this knowledge fades out with algebra and times tables as we grow older.

Despite differences between types and genres being one of the first things we are taught about books, many readers still get confused between categories like fiction and non-fiction — and, especially, biography and autobiography.

If you’re still stumped by the subtle variations between these two classification types, we’ve got you covered. Read on for a comprehensive guide to biography, autobiography, and the differences between them.

What is biography?

If you’ve ever used social media, you’ll likely have had to set up a profile at some point. Many platforms prompt their users to fill out a “bio” when setting up an account, giving core information about themselves, their core interests, or personal lives. This is usually short but can include quotes, dates, relationship statuses, and even important achievements. If you haven’t guessed yet, “bio” is short for “biography”. Applying this to a literary context, then, a biography is a non-ficton (factual) piece of writing about a person. Like when setting up a social media account, a biography can contain everything from accounts of childhood, to birthplace, education, and work. However, unlike an Instagram or Twitter ‘bio’, a biography about someone doesn’t have to be written by the person it’s about. Unlike autobiography, in a biography the author is not the subject of the work. A biography is a work of literature written by someone about someone else — famous or family, living or someone who lived years ago.

Key features of biographies

Since biographies are written by an author about someone else, they are usually highly factual, using sources and information from any one of the following:

• Family or friend testimonials 
• Photographs 
• Newspaper clippings
• Documentaries
• Interviews (if the person is living).

Biographies also usually follow a chronological order, taking readers on a journey from the start of the subject’s life until either the end or the point at which the biography is being written. As such, it is common for the chapters in biography books to relate to two time periods.

Biographies you may know

A few famous examples of biographies you may well have encountered:

• Alan Turing: The Enigma, Andrew Hodges (1983)
• Churchill: A Life , Martin Gilbert (1991)
• E=mc²: A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation , David Bodanis (2000)
• Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson (2011)
• Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow (2004)
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks , Rebecca Skloot (2010)
• Mad Girl’s Love Song: Sylvia Plath and Life Before Ted ,  Andrew Wilson (2013)

To learn more about biography as a genre, explore the different subgenres of biography, and read our reviews for this genre, head over to our main Biography page .

What is an autobiography?

Different to biography – but only in authorship, really – autobiography refers to the genre in which individuals chronicle their own lives. 

Unique in its first-person narrative perspective, rare in non-fiction aside from essays, autobiography is a great opportunity for individuals to offer wider insight into their personal lives, achievements, and thoughts. While anyone can write an autobiography, mostly they are written by celebrities or individuals who are well-renowned in a certain area to inform and entertain others.

When it comes to the amplification of marginalised voices, autobiography has been an influential genre, allowing individuals who otherwise may not have had the space to do so to write about their experiences at length. As a form of literature, the term ‘autobiography’ was first used in 1797 by William Taylor. If we break down the term, using latin derivatives, we can gain an even clearer understanding:

Auto (self) bio (life) graph (writing)

Core features of autobiographies

Aside from the chronological approach also seen in biography, due to the self-authored nature of autobiographies, the most common literary feature in them is the use of the first-person singular, “I”. Readers of autobiography will also encounter a lot of “me” and “my” too.

Another common feature is the use of time connectives such as “while”, “when”, “whilst”, “before”, “after”, and “during”. These are used to place readers at specific moments in the subject’s life.

You can expect to come across a great deal of sentimentality in autobiographical works, often with a nostalgic or melancholic tone — especially when discussing childhood. Why? Because, although the reading of an autobiography is a journey for the reader, it is also an exercise in self-reflection for the writer too, and this can be quite heavy.

Lastly, autobiographies – if not published posthumously (that is, after an individual has died) – often end with a look towards the future as the author anticipates where they will go next.

Autobiographies you may know

Some of the most famous autobiographies you may have come across – old and new – are as follows: 

• Spare , Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (2023)
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X , Malcolm X and Alex Haley (1965)
• I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban , Malala Yousafzai (2013)
• The Diary of a Young Girl , Anne Frank (1947)
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin , Benjamin Franklin, (1791)
• I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jenette McCurdy (2022)
• The Illustrated Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela (1994)
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , an American Slave , Frederick Douglass (1845)

The differences between biography & autobiography

Simply put, then, while biography is a factual account of someone’s life written by a separate author, autobiography is a telling of someone’s own life in their own words. Got that?

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Literary Non-Fiction

Literary non-fiction is a type of writing that has similar characteristics to fictional texts. Like fictional texts , literary non-fiction often has a main purpose to entertain but is an entertaining piece of writing about real events rather than imaginary ones. They inform and provide factual information as well as entertaining their reader. Types of literary non-fiction include:

• Autobiographies and biographies
• Accounts of famous/historical events
• Feature articles
• Travel writing

Autobiographies and biographies are forms of writing that are based on real people. An autobiography is where the writer writes about themselves whereas a biography is where the writer writes about someone else. Often, autobiographies and biographies are whole books that focus on someone’s entire life; however, they can also focus on a specific period of someone’s life, a particular event that occurred in their life, or their family and friends. They can even sometimes be shorter than a whole book. Usually, celebrities and other famous individuals have autobiographies or biographies written about them but less well known and even completely unknown individuals can also be interesting, informative or entertaining due to a particular experience they have had.

The opening paragraph of Chapter 1 of David Rigg’s biography The World of Christopher Marlowe has been provided below.

David Rigg’s biography of Christopher Marlowe begins with introducing Marlowe’s father John Marlowe. As you can see from the extract, creative writing is included along with the factual information being provided. This makes the text not only factual but also interesting. Autobiographies and biographies are normally written both to inform and to entertain their reader. To fulfil both of these purposes, most autobiographies and biographies are normally made up of a mix of factual information and creative writing.

Accounts of famous/historical events are a type of literary non-fiction that can seem similar to an autobiography or biography, however, instead of being written about actual people, they will be written about famous/historical events. Similar to autobiographies and biographies, literary non-fiction about famous/historical events will often be to both inform and entertain a reader; this means that it will include a mix of factual information and creative writing. Sometimes, a fictional character may be included in the text to help illustrate the event taking place. This can be seen in the film Suffragette (2015). The audience follows the protagonist Maud Watt’s through her life during the early years of the 20 th century. Maud Watt’s is a fictional character that is used to help illustrate some of the common problems of the time. She is surrounded by other characters, for example, Emily Wilding Davison who was an actual woman that played a significant part in the suffragette movement.  

Blogs are a common form of literary non-fiction that are written all over the world. Blogs are regularly updated websites or web pages and they can be written by anyone who has access to the internet. Blogs can be run by small groups of people or by an individual. Blogs are similar to diary entries as they tend to contain a more informal, conversational style but, unlike diary entries, they can be written for many different purposes. Examples of different types of blogs are:

• A book/film review blog
• A travel log for people visiting different destinations

There are many different types of blogs on the internet than just the ones mentioned above. Some common features of blogs are listed below:

• The language is often informal and conversational
• They may not always have a clear audience; it may be aimed at anyone who might be interested
• They can vary in appearance to create different effects; for example, in size, font colour
• They often include a lot of images to help grab the reader’s attention
• They can sometimes include video clips if necessary
• They often use links to other web pages that include relevant information
• They are usually written in first person and are often quite personal

There are a numerous number of blogs to look up on the internet if you are interested in reading some for yourself. A lot of companies and organisations also have blogs so they can communicate informally with their audience; this is often a younger audience.

Essays are a creative form of literary non-fiction that are usually written by students or by someone who is considered an expert in their field. University lecturers commonly write essays to express their different ideas and opinions about a certain topic, to make an argument or to compare something; for example, to compare two literary texts. There are many different types of essays but some common features of most essays are:

• They have a clear structure with an introduction that introduces their idea, a number of paragraphs outlining different points that develop their idea, and a conclusion used to summarise the essay
• They are written using formal, Standard English and normally include a specialised vocabulary that is normally specific to a certain field of study
• They develop a line of argument
• They often include literary devices that are used throughout

An extract taken from Virginia Woolf’s essay How It Strikes a Contemporary (1925) has been provided for you below:

The extract above is just the first two paragraphs of Woolf’s essay. The essay as a whole deals with Woolf exploring the issues that contemporary writers and readers faced during the modernist period. Essays like the one provided can sometimes be difficult to read and it can take two, three or sometimes four readings of an essay before you can properly grasp its content and analyse it successfully. If you are presented with any essays in the exam, then they will normally be a little easier to understand than the one provided. Reading a range of essays from other writers can help to develop your ability in reading essays and also your ability in your own essay writing, which can greatly help you when writing your own essays in the exam.

Feature articles are a form of literary non-fiction that are a type of newspaper or magazine article but rather than appearing as formal and informative, they are usually written in an individual style and have a personal slant. We will discuss the features of feature articles when we go into detail about magazine and newspaper articles in a later chapter.

Travel writing can be a form of literary non-fiction about visiting different places. It can be written as a narrative that is telling a story about a journey or place or it can be written as a blog. Alternatively, travel writing can also appear as a magazine/newspaper article that informs readers about journeys and destinations. Travel writing in magazine/newspaper articles will be much more detailed and formal compared to travel blogs. Some features of travel writing are:

• It has a purpose to entertain as well as to inform
• It is usually written using first person narration
• It is often descriptive and uses a lot of descriptive writing (we will go into detail about descriptive writing in Unit 4 of this course)

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Fiction vs. Nonfiction: Literature Types (Compared)

• by Team Experts
• July 2, 2023 July 3, 2023

Discover the surprising differences between fiction and nonfiction literature types in this eye-opening comparison.

In conclusion, literature types are an essential aspect of written works that help readers understand the content, style, and purpose of a particular piece. Fiction and nonfiction are two major literature types that differ in their narrative style and content. Fiction includes imaginary stories and creative writing, while nonfiction includes fact-based writing and informational texts. Understanding these literature types and their differences can help readers choose the right book for their needs.

What are the Different Literary Types?

Narrative style in fiction and nonfiction writing, real-life events in nonfiction vs creative writing in fiction, informational texts: understanding their role in literature, common mistakes and misconceptions.

Overall, understanding the differences in narrative style between fiction and nonfiction writing is crucial for effective storytelling . While some elements may overlap, such as plot structure and conflict, the use of characterization, dialogue, imagery, tone, mood, setting, theme, foreshadowing, flashback, symbolism, irony, and climax differ greatly between the two styles . It is important to consider these elements when choosing a narrative style and to use them effectively to engage and captivate the reader.

Overall, the key difference between real-life events in nonfiction and creative writing in fiction is the purpose of the writing and the level of fictionalization. Nonfiction aims to inform and educate readers about real-life events, while fiction aims to entertain and engage readers through creative writing. Nonfiction requires accurate and reliable information about real-life events, while fiction requires creative ideas and imaginative storytelling. Nonfiction should be based on real-life events and should not be overly fictionalized, while fiction can be completely made up or based on real-life events with varying degrees of fictionalization. Both nonfiction and fiction require editing and revision to improve the clarity, coherence, and effectiveness of the writing.

Overall, understanding the role of informational texts in literature can provide readers with valuable knowledge and insights on various topics. However, it is important to approach these texts with a critical eye and consider the potential risks of biased or false information. By analyzing the purpose, type, structure, credibility , audience, and impact of informational texts, readers can gain a deeper understanding of the world around them.

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Is Biography a Fiction or Nonfiction? Let’s Find Out!

Biographies have been in the book-writing arena for as long as ever. We, as writers have been looking to tell people stories about individuals who’ve changed the world, or have played a part in influencing society for a very long time. Memoirs, Biographies, and Autobiographies all have nearly the same characteristics, but they differ still. In the blog, we’ll try to find out What is biography and whether it is biography fiction or nonfiction. 

Can a Biography be fiction?

Biographies are usually the stories of individuals and people who’ve created an impact on the larger society and have influenced the masses with their work in different fields such as sports, science, politics, and more. These sorts of books tend to inspire a generation with the content written in them through their struggles, life stories, and successful ventures. By the soul of it, Biography is a nonfiction text about the life of a person who has affected the masses. So yes, for the most part, Biographies are a nonfiction text. The question is, why do still people think of biographies as fictional texts?

Fictional Biographies, The Myth, and The Truth

The concept of fictional biographies seems to be absurd at the core because when you pick your pen to write about someone who is an inspiration for you, you won’t be writing about someone who is not a person who never existed. So, why does the question pop up inside our heads “Are biographies nonfiction only?” The notion, of ‘Fictional Biographies’ has been put into words by many authors. You know, that we live in a strange world that is mixed with realities and a whole lot of fictional delusions, or imaginations of people. “Memoirs of Geisha’ by Arthur Golden is an example of a fictional biography. Arthur wrote down the fictional flick with the ambition to highlight the life of Geisha who were around in Japan during the World War II era, shedding light on their identity and how they managed to survive in Japanese society during the war era. 

Fiction and Nonfiction, a debate?

Fiction and Nonfiction have been around in the book publishing and writing scene since the inception of storytelling, book writing, and story writing. Fictional stories are best when you are writing about something that is pure imagination, something that comes straight out of your head. Stan Lee is an example of a writer who not only wrote his fictional stories with great precision, the likes of which can not be repeated easily, but also lived long enough to see them become “Reel-Life” characters. But nonfiction is something different. Nonfiction is based on facts, truth involved in a person’s life, struggles, and success stories of people. Fictional Biography is like writing an autobiography of Spider-Man, where you describe how a spider bit him and transformed into the “spiedie” we all know and love today. It doesn’t sound interesting to people looking to find inspiration, but it may intrude on a person looking to read books for fun or enjoy a good cup of coffee on long winter nights. That person, whose sole purpose is to find pleasure while reading books, doesn’t seem to care about “Is a biography nonfiction?”

Is it necessary to call a book “Biography” if it’s not Nonfiction?

The literal meaning of the word Biography is a person writing about another person’s life, his/her experiences, and story overall. The way you look at it, You may seem to answer the question of whether is biography fiction or nonfiction, because for a writer to write about someone’s life he has to exist in the flesh and blood, right? Turns out, people take another aspect of the meaning of the word Biography, They seem to look at the literal meaning of the word, that is writing about a person, and perceive it by declaring that nowhere does it say to write about a person who has lived. An example is William Shakespeare’s writing about a moneylender in his fictional world, “Merchant Of Venice”, despite the concrete evidence suggesting that he’s never been outside of England in his lifetime. Although this book might not qualify as a Nonfiction Biography, it surely suggests that people and writers can travel to places to write flicks that are not even remotely close to reality.

So, What is the purpose of Fictional Biography?

There are several reasons why a person would take the route of writing a fictional biography, usually when you pick a book to read, you can make a general perception of whether a biography is nonfiction, But writers take the way of writing a fictional biography because of the following reasons, let’s look into some of them:

Entertainment: The sole purpose of people who are willing to a book that is a Fictional biography is Entertainment. The writer solely writes these stories about a personality who exists to entertain people, and this means, that if a writer decides to write a book about Spider-man’s life, that is purely for fictional purposes, and to entertain people. 

Commentary: This type of writing can also be very helpful for writers to pose the commentary on anything they want to highlight in society, or as Arthur Golden wrote in the book “ Memoirs of Geisha” where he wanted to write about Geisha, is a biography fiction or nonfiction, people may acquire this, the query is often easy to resolve with the book.

Character Study:  People write this type of fictional story to make a somewhat inspiring character, writers tend to develop characters that have an inspiring story, struggles that match real life, and success that may sound a bit unrealistic but make you work through that.

Exploring Themes: These books can be a very important way for writers to explore their variety and range of writing themes, in terms of exploring their characteristics, the story, the developments, and all other things that are involved in the exploration of themes.

The Famous Fictional and Nonfictional Biographies You Would Want To Try!

We’ve read and written a lot about what is a nonfictional and fiction biography, their differences, their purposes of writing and all that includes. It would’ve been a bit odd to leave you there blank and not suggest something from any of the two categories. So here’s the writer’s pick of each book from both the categories, fiction, and nonfiction biographies, which decide and stamp the answer to the question is biography fiction or nonfiction?  

Nonfiction Biography

Name: Steve Jobs

Writer: Walter Isaacson

The name suggests what masterpiece this biography would be for one to read. The writer beautifully explains the life story of perhaps the greatest inventor, innovator, or tech-giant the modern world has seen, Steve Jobs. We all owe him the technology we use, and to know what his struggle during his lifetime to reach where he got to, you must take a look into the book. 

Fictional Biography  

Name: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Writer: James Thurber 

This book is a historical legend, where the writer, James Thurber, tries to explain the adventures, and escapism he tries to form inside his head to add some spice to his dull life. This biography resembles many people around in today’s world as well, despite it being written around 85 years ago. 

What should you read?

You have to choose between the biggest genres, or subtypes of writing and reading, as a reader, you have to find your niche, where your heart and mind will find the peace, or information it needs to get better or maybe relax. The whole point is, that the reader will only find the satisfaction in reading the stuff he wants. As per the suggestions of the writer, I’d recommend a person reading biographies that are nonfictional, that’ll improve the chance of you learning stuff and knowing about inspirational personalities.

This blog was a small attempt to establish and answer your question” Is a biography nonfiction” or “Are biographies nonfiction”, We helped you way through that, and established that Yes, most of the time they are nonfiction, but to a writer’s imagination and thinking process, they can turn to be fiction as well. We went through the best books, why you’re hearing the seemingly absurd concept of fictional biographies and lastly, what should you read. This blog will clear your thoughts about the question, and will hopefully stamp the answer in one line “Biographies are dou-natured, One is fiction, other is not”. Follow BWO on Facebook, and Twitter for more blogs.

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[ non- fik -sh uh n ]

• the branch of literature comprising works of narrative prose dealing with or offering opinions or conjectures upon facts and reality, including biography, history, and the essay ( fiction and poetry and drama ).

She had read all of his novels but none of his nonfiction.

• (especially in cataloging books, as in a library or bookstore) all writing or books not fiction , poetry, or drama, including nonfictive narrative prose and reference works; the broadest category of written works.

/ ˌnɒnˈfɪkʃən /

• writing dealing with facts and events rather than imaginative narration
• modifier relating to or denoting nonfiction

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Derived forms.

• nonˈfictionally , adverb
• nonˈfictional , adjective

Other Words From

• non·fiction·al adjective
• non·fiction·al·ly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of nonfiction 1

Example Sentences

Her nonfiction has been published in “Tin House,” “Essay Daily” and other publications.

From serious social commentary to truffle-hunting dogs, nonfiction movies are as vibrant and vital as ever.

This nonfiction doorstop from the ’80s might be languishing in the back of your local used bookstore.

This is actually not a self-help or nonfiction book, but the book that resonates for me is The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

Her previous book, Cure, hit the New York Times best-seller hardcover nonfiction and science lists.

I was writing Lorrie Moore knock-off short stories before I switched to nonfiction.

Excerpted from The Getaway Car: A Donald Westlake Nonfiction Miscellany.

Ten more nonfiction books, including the stunning memoir Leaving Birmingham (1993), followed it.

Countless essays, works of journalism, and touchstones of narrative nonfiction have shown us otherwise.

But what I find most compelling about Cole is not the ways he escapes the novel, but the ways he escapes nonfiction.

He read nonfiction almost entirely and mainly historical works.

In addition, a large library of books on fiction and nonfiction subjects is maintained.

A chemical compound of highly impressionistic autobiographic nonfiction and highly romantic fiction and folk tales.

Whether fiction or nonfiction, as claimed by the author, this book realizes the relationships between Plains Indian and buffalo.

In the best of her fiction she is truer to life than he is in a good part of his nonfiction.

Biography vs Nonfiction - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between biography and nonfiction, as a verb biography, derived terms, related terms, alternative forms.

NewsMatch Challenge: Support investigative reporting from LPM, and your gift is doubled.

Here are the nonfiction books NPR staffers have loved so far this year

We asked around the newsroom to find favorite nonfiction from the first half of 2024. We've got biography and memoir, health and science, history, sports and much more.

We see you, hard-core NPR readers — just because it's summer doesn't mean it's all fiction, all the time. So we asked around the newsroom to find our staffers' favorite nonfiction from the first half of 2024. We've got biography and memoir, health and science, history, sports and more. (And, sure, if you only want to take fiction to the beach, we've got you: Click here. )

Burn Book: A Tech Love Story by Kara Swisher Kara Swisher pulls off a magic trick here, delivering several sharply written books in one. There’s her story of becoming media’s most influential tech analyst, chronicling the rise of Facebook, Amazon, Google and, of course, X/Twitter — psychoanalyzing all the driven, flawed (mostly) dudebros who turned them into world-shaking platforms. There’s also an affecting personal memoir, charting her journey as a gay woman, spouse, mother, entrepreneurial journalist and advocate. And there’s a passionate critique of toxic technology, slamming self-centered tech CEOs who pursue engagement through enragement, unleashing social division. It’s all knit together with nimble-yet-effective prose, outlining how Silicon Valley works, how journalism works and how society works in one neat package . — Eric Deggans, TV critic

Cloistered: My Years as a Nun by Catherine Coldstream Nuns have captured our imaginations as characters in fiction and on film over the years, but it’s rare to hear from one firsthand. This compelling memoir provides a glimpse into the life of a cloistered nun as the author shares her journey into — and ultimately out of — an order of Carmelite nuns in England. Coldstream seamlessly weaves her own personal motivations for seeking a life of solitude, contemplation and service alongside an exploration of the challenges, reforms and purpose of such orders at the turn of the 21st century. This book will push you to reflect on faith, power and personal agency in your own communities as you consider Coldstream’s experience. — Tayla Burney, director, Network Programming & Production

Grief is for People by Sloane Crosley I spent most of the last year mourning my mother and found few books that even got close to capturing my altered mental state. My brain kept rehashing the past and finding significance in the oddest things, and I so wanted to share that experience with the very person I was missing. In a slim 191 pages, Sloane Crosley nails it precisely as she details mourning her best friend, who died suddenly by suicide. While poignant and vulnerable, her memoir is also insightful and funny, especially as she recounts adventures with Russell and her attempts to track down and reclaim jewelry that was stolen from her apartment about a month before he died: a caper he would have enjoyed in the telling. I finished it feeling grateful for her friend’s life and even more appreciative of my mom’s. — Melissa Gray, senior producer, Weekend Edition

Grown Woman Talk: Your Guide to Getting and Staying Healthy by Sharon Malone M.D. If you want to be more proactive in managing your health, Dr. Sharon Malone can help. Grown Woman Talk is a playbook for navigating a fragmented and flawed health care system, written by a doctor who has spent more than 30 years practicing as an OB/GYN and is a certified menopause practitioner. She weaves in insights from her childhood in Mobile, Ala., when doctor visits were rare for her family. She recalls the first time she saw a doctor, entering the hospital through the “colored” door for an emergency tonsillectomy — and describes her mother as a “Jedi master” of managing injuries and illnesses with home remedies. Her deep sense of loss and anger at the death of her mom from cancer when she was 12 inspired her to be the kind of doctor and caretaker we need more of. — Allison Aubrey, health correspondent

Here After: A Memoir by Amy Lin In this memoir, the past and the present bleed together, as short wisps of chapters build the case for Kurtis and Amy as soul mates, while also telling the story of Kurtis' sudden and unexplained death. Poetic, visceral and stark, this beautifully crafted book is a gift, pulling back the curtain on the intimate processes of love and grief. Steeped in the greatest of personal losses, Amy Lin allows us to witness her plod against the cascading losses that follow and behold the life raft that is memory. — Beck Harlan, visuals editor, Life Kit

Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality by Renée DiResta At a time when our screens are clogged with viral lies and conspiracy theories, Invisible Rulers takes a long view toward explaining media manipulation and how we got to this moment. The book skillfully weaves together history and technology to explain the changing iterations of political propaganda over the past century. Renée DiResta, a disinformation researcher at Stanford University, shares her own experiences on the front lines of the struggle to define objective reality, including entering the field after confronting anti-vaccine sentiment when she became a parent. In the years since, DiResta has found herself a focal point for conspiracy theories, as powerful politicians have sought to discredit her work and that of other researchers in the field. — Brett Neely, supervising editor, Disinformation Reporting

Life After Power: Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House by Jared Cohen The American presidency is viewed as the most powerful position in the world. What happens when the job ends? History is often surprising. Not everyone found the role to be the most fulfilling one they ever had. Jared Cohen looks at some fascinating case studies that back that up. John Quincy Adams and William Howard Taft found greater joy in other branches of government: Congress and the Supreme Court. George Bush enjoys his private life and art studio. Life after power CAN be much more rewarding. — Edith Chapin, senior vice president and editor in chief

The Mango Tree: A Memoir of Fruit, Florida, and Felony by Annabelle Tometich This family memoir begins with a courtroom scene like no other. After a night in jail, Annabelle Tometich’s mom is charged with firing at a man who, she says, was stealing mangoes from the tree in her front yard. Tometich then hits rewind, taking readers back through her Fort Myers, Fla., childhood — with her Filipino American mom and white dad, a couple whose personality differences do not make them stronger together. The writing is both jewel-like and effortless, and Tometich’s memories — some mundane, some extraordinary — are mesmerizing. — Shannon Rhoades, senior editor, Weekend Edition

Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie Not the End of the World sifts through the evidence on pollution, extinction threats and deforestation. Once the numbers are clinically separated from emotion, a surprising guidebook to an eco-friendly life emerges. Food miles: not likely to affect climate change much. Meatless Mondays: helpful, especially if eschewing beef. Not everyone will interpret the world’s chances of staying within 2 degrees Celsius of warming with the same cautious optimism as Hannah Ritchie (“I’m confident we can keep moving closer”). But Ritchie’s data-first perspective makes this book an invaluable chaser to climate doomscrolling. — Darian Woods, co-host, The Indicator from Planet Money

Relinquished: The Politics of Adoption and the Privilege of American Motherhood by Gretchen Sisson Gretchen Sisson's research and careful retelling of first/birth mothers' experiences sheds light on the people who are too often ignored, dehumanized and erased within the institution of adoption. This book deepened my understanding of how adoption, while typically viewed as a noble, feel-good form of family building, actually hinges on the trauma of family separation. Relinquished reveals the structural forces behind this loss, commonly blamed on the individual failures of a mother or birth parents. These are interviews that broadened my understanding of reproductive justice and myself as an adopted person. It’s essential reading in this era of reproductive rights under threat, for anyone who has thought of adoption as "a simple alternative" to abortion, and anyone considering adoption as a family plan. — Schuyler Swenson, content development producer

Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout by Cal Newport If you’re the typical knowledge worker, your life is overwhelmed by a dizzying flurry of emails and Slack messages breaking your focus every few minutes. You breathlessly ricochet from task to task yet never get enough real work done. Stop. Take a deep breath. Then read Slow Productivity, which expounds on productivity expert Cal Newport’s tripartite philosophy of 1) do fewer things 2) work at a natural pace and 3) obsess over quality. He provides practical hacks to implement these principles into your life, while weaving in examples of how deep thinkers such as Jane Austen embodied slow productivity. Newport writes, “The way we’re working no longer works.” But if enough knowledge workers embrace slow productivity, we can revolutionize the world of work. — Preeti Aroon, copy editor, NPR.org

Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories by Amitav Ghosh This is a gripping tale of how the British became history's first narco state, curiously, to help pay for the tea its people so loved to drink. Amitav Ghosh narrates how the British forced opium into China, creating a market by creating addicts. But opium did so much more. Ghosh investigates how it created many of the modern merchant families of India and the United States, including the fortunes of the Delanos (Roosevelt’s maternal grandfather) and the Forbeses. But perhaps the most important part of this book is how Ghosh looks at the history of opium through the prism of what we know now about opioid addiction, and the relatively newfound sympathy we have toward addicts — white addicts. — Diaa Hadid, international correspondent

Thank You Please Come Again: How Gas Stations Feed & Fuel the American South by Kate Medley As someone who travels Southern backroads reporting for NPR, I’ve long noticed how gas stations tend to serve as hubs in rural communities. And I have certainly sampled my share of convenience store fried chicken and sweet tea. Now, photojournalist Kate Medley, a native of Mississippi, takes us on a picturesque road trip across 11 states to document the food cultures you find at service stations. It’s a lovely coffee table book that puts a fascinating lens on a changing American South. There’s a little bit of everything — live bait and ammunition, hot tamales, catfish plates, Cajun banh mi, boiled peanuts, chicken tikka masala and hand-cut steaks. Writer Kiese Laymon’s forward sets the table with a story from his Mississippi youth as he recalls “my favorite restaurant served gas.” — Debbie Elliott, national correspondent

There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib I don’t even watch basketball all that much. And yet, there’s something alluring about Hanif Abdurraqib’s meditation on the sport. Because, sure, it’s about hoops and LeBron James and Cleveland and the funny way time works when you’re watching a Game 7. But it’s also about losing loved ones. Fans of Abdurraqib’s work will recognize his rhythms and stylistic flairs that hardly ever fail to draw a reader in, and his talent at making you see the beauty in the things he finds beautiful. — Andrew Limbong, correspondent, Culture Desk, and host, NPR's Book of the Day

The Showman: Inside the Invasion That Shook the World and Made a Leader of Volodymyr Zelensky by Simon Shuster In this cinematic page-turner, Time correspondent Simon Shuster paints a vivid portrait of the Ukrainian president, who honed his powerful communication skills during decades as one of Ukraine’s most popular comedians. Shuster charts the rise from naïve political novice to steely — and unforgiving — wartime president. Deeply reported and deftly written, this book is a feat not only because it sheds light on one of today’s most consequential political figures, but also the history that shaped him and the tectonic shift in geopolitics that he’s now forced to navigate. — Joanna Kakissis, Ukraine correspondent

The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism by Marjorie N. Feld The world is a very confusing place right now — at least, that's how it feels to me — so I'm always looking for books that can help me better understand where we are as a society and how we got here. The Threshold of Dissent is one of those books. In clear, careful language, the author illustrates some of the major moments over the past century that have shaped Jewish beliefs about Zionism, anti-Zionism and non-Zionism. It's a history told with both rigor and compassion — two qualities that seem especially essential when embarking in conversation on such a fraught and contentious subject. — Leah Donnella, senior editor, Code Switch

A Very Private School: A Memoir by Charles Spencer Charles Spencer — younger brother of Diana, Princess of Wales — turns his considerable talents as a writer and historian on his own childhood. A Very Private School details what, he says, happened to him and his classmates — physical, sexual, emotional abuse — at one of Britain’s most elite boarding schools. Undergirding all is a culture of privilege, yes, but also silence and tradition rooted in the British Empire, sending 8-year-olds away from home as “the done thing.” Spencer’s quote from author Hilary Mantel in the book’s epigraph is telling, “I am writing in order to take charge of my childhood.” — Shannon Rhoades, senior editor, Weekend Edition

Vision: A Memoir of Blindness and Justice by David S. Tatel David Tatel has written the book that his friends and admirers always hoped he would write, but expected he would not. One that deals candidly with his “vision” — his blindness, and his years of treating it as an asterisk, all while becoming one of the most prominent and thoughtful judges in the country. This book is both novelistic and introspective in its treatment of his lack of sight — from his love affair with his wife and children, to his “cane lessons,” to his later-in-life affection for his guide dog, Vixen. Along the way, it is also a book about the law, the art of judging and today's Supreme Court. And it’s fascinating. —  Nina Totenberg, legal affairs correspondent

Who's Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler Judith Butler's groundbreaking 1990 book Gender Trouble revolutionized gender studies by arguing that gender is socially constructed, almost mythlike, but that myth can create reality. In this book, Butler leans into the titular question: Why has gender become such a “phantasm" in American life, and what does it tell us about how we’re approaching some of the biggest problems facing us, like climate change and far-right extremism? Butler has a clear perspective — and spells out the dangers of an ascendant “anti-gender ideology.” But it’s also an invitation to consider how we think about gender — and what that might tell us about who we are. —  Tinbete Ermyas, editor, All Things Considered

You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World by Ada Limón This anthology of 50 never-before-published poems about nature was edited by the 24th poet laureate of the United States, Ada Limón. The collection is both achingly beautiful and terrifyingly urgent. From a humorous take on getting drenched in a rainstorm to a beloved tree on its last day of existence to a woman processing the bleak reality of the world her grandchildren will inherit, these poems encouraged a heightened noticing in me and (bonus!) introduced me to the work of many new-to-me poets I’m eager to explore. — Beck Harlan, visuals editor, Life Kit

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