While the initial writing is necessary, and accepting its imperfection is the first step, this is not the best-writer face that we want to share with the world. The next part of the process is arranging that mess into prepared parts, ready for assembly and development into what will eventually become the final piece.
Most of us struggle less with editing our most comfortable genres for the simple reasons that we’re more practiced and we’re a little more ready to enjoy the process. On the other hand, most of us don’t like writing about ourselves in the first place. Since we’re also not as focused on getting good at that genre, we’re going to spend a lot more time mired in the muck–so it’s a great place to look for mess that’s a little too visible to the discerning consumer who wishes to remain blissfully unaware of all the preparation that goes into their plate.
A quick perusal of Kindle Exclusive author bios show a full gamut. Take this one, where the writer seems to have almost nothing to say about himself. In just four short sentences of vague descriptors, I learn very little about who this person is–and, since he writes biographies, I’m not much motivated to hear what he has to say about others’ lives. I would suggest to this writer that he give himself a bit more time to make some mess: I don’t see many promising ingredients to work with yet.
This one, on the other hand, has tons of details that leave me wanting to skim and get to the point already. Most of these don’t tell me anything about the book or the author’s likely tone. I don’t know why I should trust this person’s perspective more than another, or why I should get excited to read her work. There are some potential tastemakers in here, but they’re hard to see for all the crowding.
I can’t do much for the first writer without an interview aimed at finding the details necessary to flesh his biography out into something relatable and inspiring. For the second, it’s more a matter of trimming the excess; we’d aim for a mix of personal and professional details, maintaining her familiar tone so help bond with a potential reader. Maybe something like this:
It takes practice, lots of reading, and careful genre analysis to know just how much mess to keep in front of you while you work. Too little, and you never spark interest. Too much, and you lose that spark before it can catch.
Something Polished 