If you are looking for writing models, consider reading obituaries -- believe it or not.
There are professional journalists whose job is to "pre-write" most of what will eventually be printed when someone well-known dies. Then the writer can focus on more timely quotes and details when the celebrity actually passes away.
There is an art to creating a quick biography, but some of that art lies in interviewing people in search of interesting anecdotes and memorable moments... not all that different from writing a memoir.
Here's a great paragraph from the New York Times obit for Cicily Tyson, who died at age 96 last week:
"Tyson had a remarkable physical presence, someone sculpted as much as born. Her body was dancer lithe. She seemed delicate. But only ‘seemed.’ She was delicate the way a ribbon of steel holds up its part of a bridge. The deceptive nature of her fineness was right there in the name. Cicely Tyson. Poise and punch."
The boldface is from me. What an amazing image. It's a comparison that is close to a metaphor, but it's the contrast between "ribbon" and "steel" that carries the weight here. The writer's point was that Ms. Tyson was anything but delicate.
Please also note the rhythm of this graf, with lots of short sentences, or "not even sentences." "Poise and punch" is not a "complete sentence, for instance, but the writer is using language to reinforce the major points. That "punch" plays with the accident of her last name being shared with a famous boxer, and seeing that is an assumption the writer made -- that most readers would "get it."
A good writer can break the rules, clearly, but the reason for breaking those rules has to serve the images and the readers.
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