Writing biography, as writing any historical account, "involves the use of literary techniques and is subject to aesthetic requirements in both style and structure." Narrative, common to both historical and fictional writing, is the central theoretical concept; and understanding the nature of narrative in biography--a hybrid genre that is grounded in history but shares many of the characteristics of fiction--is fundamental when considering the aesthetics of composition that underpin a poetics. The educational implications for writing and reading in the arts and humanities that follow from such an exploration of narrative are, as the body of this article seeks to show, to alert teachers and students to the similarities and differences between historical and fictional writing, to the handling of time in storytelling, and to the idiosyncrasies of language and style that writers adopt. (Contains 78 notes.)