When I was 13, my best friend’s father, the pastor of my church, came out as gay. Years later, I decided to write about the experience.
I had this memory of my best friend being harassed by members of our church congregation as she walked home from school, but when I asked my mom about this, she reminded me I couldn’t have been walking home from school with my friend since we didn’t attend the same school. I had created that memory out of stories I’d been told.
Photo by Guwashi999
Suddenly, this new insight gave me a fresh angle on the story and about the way I had created it’s importance in my memory. Now the essay became something more powerful—the story of how I had come to own my friend’s pain when she could not do so. A little quick research with my mom totally changed my writing and made it better.
Why You Should Interview Someone For Your Memoir
When most of us think about research, images of libraries and archives, books and papers dance in our heads like dusty sugarplums. But research doesn’t have to mean reams of paper and hours of squinty eyes. Instead, it can simply be a matter of a cup of coffee with another person.
Interviews are profoundly valuable ways of conducting research for any type of creative nonfiction, including memoir. Think about your project–who could you find who might be an expert on the topic? A professor at a local college, an author’s whose work you admire, a friend who just knows a lot about it? What if you just sent an email or Facebook message and asked if you could interview them for a few minutes? I bet you’d be surprised at how many people take you up on the offer; after all, we all love to talk about our passions, right?
Or if you’re wondering how to write a memoir, what if you interviewed people–friends, family, community members–about the events on which you’re writing? Could you ask your mom about that time when you were six? Or might the mayor of the town in which you were living be willing to talk about that big event from your 9th grade year?
Our memories are not whole things; they limit us to our perspective, but one cup of coffee can both clarify and deepen our writing.
Back to How to Conduct an Interview Like A Journalist.
PRACTICE
Practice deepening your writing by doing an actual interview (just by email though—very easy).
Step One: Look at your current project and see where a little “research over coffee” might help fill in some gaps or deepen your story.
Step Two: If it will, make a list of three people you could interview to get more information.
Step Three: Then, write out two questions you’d like to ask those people.
Step Four: Email them you're questions, and grab a cup of coffee while you wait for their response.
Post your questions here in the comments section as proof that's you've done it.
Great job, Andi. I recently had lunch with a friend who just so happens to know everything about the city and the time period in which my project is set. We had a great time just being friends, but I fear he did not have time to eat as I doused him with questions like a firehose! Good advice here, my friend.
What a good example. Thanks Jennifer.
Great job, Andi. I recently had lunch with a friend who just so happens to know everything about the city and the time period in which my project is set. We had a great time just being friends, but I fear he did not have time to eat as I doused him with questions like a firehose! Good advice here, my friend.
What a good example. Thanks Jennifer.
I will take any excuse for a cup of coffee with a friend, but this is such a good point for me as a writer, too. In a similar vein, my mother is extremely ill, and being at her bedside has prompted me to ask her questions about her memories of me and my brothers, about her marriage to my father, about her life when she was my age. It’s also prompted a lot of unexpected conversations with my brothers and father about their experiences with her and with another. There is nothing I value more now than what THEY think of our family and our past and our future – my perspective seems so two-dimensional in retrospect, knowing what I know now about her and the rest of my family.
What a great testimony for us writers who tend to think we see reality the clearest. I need to remember this for my own work, to always be asking questions of the people around me so that I can see the world in 3d, not 2. Thanks Bethany.
I will take any excuse for a cup of coffee with a friend, but this is such a good point for me as a writer, too. In a similar vein, my mother is extremely ill, and being at her bedside has prompted me to ask her questions about her memories of me and my brothers, about her marriage to my father, about her life when she was my age. It’s also prompted a lot of unexpected conversations with my brothers and father about their experiences with her and with another. There is nothing I value more now than what THEY think of our family and our past and our future – my perspective seems so two-dimensional in retrospect, knowing what I know now about her and the rest of my family.
What a great testimony for us writers who tend to think we see reality the clearest. I need to remember this for my own work, to always be asking questions of the people around me so that I can see the world in 3d, not 2. Thanks Bethany.
Great point, Andi. Sometimes those kinds of conversations can also inspire entirely new ideas or take your project in an unexpected direction.
Very true. Thanks for your comment 🙂
Great point, Andi. Sometimes those kinds of conversations can also inspire entirely new ideas or take your project in an unexpected direction.
Very true. Thanks for your comment 🙂
Enjoyed your thoughts here. It’s amazing to me how a group of people will go through the same event but will take away completely different memories and feelings. It’s like we each captured a different snapshot and the story is lacking something without those different angles and perspectives.
You guys are challenging me here. Now I feel like my previous writing is so flat.
Hardly, Joe!
Enjoyed your thoughts here. It’s amazing to me how a group of people will go through the same event but will take away completely different memories and feelings. It’s like we each captured a different snapshot and the story is lacking something without those different angles and perspectives.
You guys are challenging me here. Now I feel like my previous writing is so flat.
Hardly, Joe!
loved this. great work, Andi!
loved this. great work, Andi!
Such a good post, Andi. I’ve learned so much from talking to my sisters after the fact about our very different experiences being parented by the same two people. I’m also waiting for the proper time to ask my mom to share with me some very personal past events that (kind of literally) informed my life… I can’t wait until that time comes.
Oh family. Full of all its stories. I need to have more of these talks with my dad, too.
Such a good post, Andi. I’ve learned so much from talking to my sisters after the fact about our very different experiences being parented by the same two people. I’m also waiting for the proper time to ask my mom to share with me some very personal past events that (kind of literally) informed my life… I can’t wait until that time comes.
Oh family. Full of all its stories. I need to have more of these talks with my dad, too.
I am doing research about my family’s war-time experience, and about the family that saved them. Hopefully, it will end in a published book. These are the questions I have for the family that saved them.
Questions for L’ubka, Jozef and Nast’ia:
1) What do you remember of the time my family spent with
you?
2) Do you remember the day they walked in? What was your first impression? How did they look?
3) My uncle remembers a grandmother who was with you. Whose mother was it?
4)Where did you all sleep?
5) What was your daily routine?
6) Do you know if growing up, your parents knew any
Jews?
7) Were there any Jews in Stare Hory before the war?
Questions for Martin and or Jozef:
1) What kinds of trees grow in the forest of Stare Hory? What other vegetation? Would there be any food that they could have
found to eat in the forest between October and April?
2) Besides the bears, are there any other animals in the forest? From October through April, what are the
animals that one might come across in the forest?
Simona
1) Does your uncle Anton have any children? Would they remember any stories their father told them of his time as
a partisan in the forest?
2) Do you have anyone I can question about the Slovak National
Uprising or about life in the forests during that time?
I am doing research about my family’s war-time experience, and about the family that saved them. Hopefully, it will end in a published book. These are the questions I have for the family that saved them.
Questions for L’ubka, Jozef and Nast’ia:
1) What do you remember of the time my family spent with
you?
2) Do you remember the day they walked in? What was your first impression? How did they look?
3) My uncle remembers a grandmother who was with you. Whose mother was it?
4)Where did you all sleep?
5) What was your daily routine?
6) Do you know if growing up, your parents knew any
Jews?
7) Were there any Jews in Stare Hory before the war?
Questions for Martin and or Jozef:
1) What kinds of trees grow in the forest of Stare Hory? What other vegetation? Would there be any food that they could have
found to eat in the forest between October and April?
2) Besides the bears, are there any other animals in the forest? From October through April, what are the
animals that one might come across in the forest?
Simona
1) Does your uncle Anton have any children? Would they remember any stories their father told them of his time as
a partisan in the forest?
2) Do you have anyone I can question about the Slovak National
Uprising or about life in the forests during that time?