Before a memoir has a shape it has a first conversation. It happens in the client's home or their office or, once, on a bench outside a hospital. It lasts about ninety minutes. It sets the tone for every conversation that follows.
What I am trying to do
The first interview is not for gathering material. It is for calibration. I am listening for the client's voice, their comfort with silence, the topics they warm to, the topics they change subject on. I write down words they use twice. I write down the year they mention without being asked.
The ten questions
- Tell me about the room you grew up in.
- What did your father do for work? Not his job title, what he actually did in the day.
- What is the first argument you remember your parents having?
- Who taught you to cook?
- What year did you feel most like yourself?
- What is the story your family tells about you that you find slightly annoying?
- What is a story about you that your family does not know?
- What did you want to be when you were fourteen?
- Who was the first person to take you seriously?
- If we finish this book, what will you want the last sentence to be?
Why these
Notice that only three of them are chronological. The rest are calibrated to open specific doors. Question two, about the father, always yields more than a job description. Question five, about the year of most yourself, reveals the emotional spine of the book more reliably than any question about achievement. Question ten, the last sentence question, tells me whether the client has already been writing this book in their head. Most have.
What I do with the answers
Nothing that first day. I go back to the hotel or the office and I write down every phrase they used that I have not heard from another client. I write down the pauses. I write down the questions they asked me. Then I plan the next four interviews around what I heard.
The best memoirs are calibrated in the first ninety minutes and delivered over the following ten months. The calibration is the harder part.
Comments (6)
This should be required reading for anyone starting a memoir.
Bookmarking this for the next client call. Thank you.
I use a variation of question five. The year you felt most like yourself. It reveals the arc every time.
Naomi it is my favourite question. Almost nobody names a year of achievement. They name a year of belonging.
Question two, about the father, is exactly right. Job title tells you nothing. What he did in the day tells you the family.
Question ten is genius. I have been trying to articulate that instinct for years. I will steal it, credited.