About biographies

What's in a Vivlore biography?

A Vivlore biography grows with you. Brief, Full, and Definitive, three honest stages of the same record.

✦

Brief biography

A real foundation.

One chapter, written carefully. Enough to feel like a record, a quote that captures their voice, a highlight that anchors a decade, and five memories that together tell the shape of one period of their life.

  • 1 chapter complete (any decade)
  • 1 quote that captures their voice
  • 1 highlight, the anchor moment of that decade
  • 5 memories, the texture around it
  • 7 entries in total

A Brief biography reads in about three minutes. It's not the whole life, it's a single chapter, told well. A good place to start.

✦✦

Full biography

The biography is filling out.

Three chapters complete, and every chapter has at least one entry. The biography spans more of the life now, not just one moment but the shape of a decade that grew into another, and another. Pull-quotes start to recur. Highlights begin to feel like a pattern.

  • 3 chapters complete
  • every chapter has at least 1 entry
  • 3 quotes (one per chapter)
  • 3 highlights (one per chapter)
  • 15 memories minimum
  • 21+ entries in total

A Full biography reads more like a story arc. Family members reading it for the first time start to recognise the person on the page.

✦✦✦

Definitive biography

A lasting record of a life.

Five chapters or more, every chapter complete. This is what we'd print and put on a shelf, a real biography of someone, written across the decades that made them. Quotes recur, highlights anchor every era, and the memories around them give weight to the whole arc.

  • 5 chapters complete (or more)
  • 5+ quotes
  • 5+ highlights
  • 25+ memories
  • 35+ entries in total

A Definitive biography is the version we put on the shelf. It will outlast the people who wrote it.

Why keep going past Brief?

A Brief biography is a real record. It can be read, kept, printed, and shared. Plenty of people stop there, and that's a good place to stop.

But the people who keep going do it for a reason: each new chapter adds another decade, another era, another version of the person to the book. A Full biography feels like a story arc. A Definitive biography feels like a life remembered, every chapter has the same care, the same shape, the same standard.

It's the difference between "here's a chapter from his life" and "here is his biography."

What makes a chapter complete?

Every Vivlore biography is built chapter by chapter, usually one per decade of the person's life. A complete chapter has the same shape across all three tiers:

1

Quote

Something they said, or that someone said about them. Italic serif. The voice of the chapter.

1

Highlight

The anchor moment of the decade, the wedding, the move, the first job, the diagnosis.

5

Memories

The texture around the highlight. Sundays, holidays, small things that add up to a life.

The tier formula

Each complete chapter holds 1 quote · 1 highlight · 5 memories, 7 entries. Then:

  • Brief biography ✦ · 1 ready chapter
  • Full biography ✦✦ · 3 ready chapters AND every chapter has at least 1 entry
  • Definitive biography ✦✦✦ · 5+ ready chapters AND every chapter has at least 1 entry

Thresholds, not caps. These are the minimums for a chapter to count as complete, the moment when the chapter has the shape we'd print. You can keep adding more: a chapter with 3 quotes, 5 highlights, or 12 memories is welcome. They don't move the tier beyond Definitive, but they enrich the chapter.

Start a biography

For yourself or someone you love. You can start with a single chapter and grow it over time, with family contributing memories alongside you.

Start a biography

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