How they speak

The way someone talks is the first thing to go, and almost nobody thinks to record it.

9 questions. There is no order you have to follow.

• How do you typically open a conversation with someone you don't know?
• Tell me a joke or something that made you laugh recently — something that happened or was said.
• Are there filler words or phrases you repeat a lot in conversation? For example 'you know', 'like', 'basically'.
• When you're angry — what do you say? What does your voice sound like?
• Tell me a small story from what happened to you this week — exactly as you would tell a friend.
• When you give advice to one of your children — how do you speak? Tell me about advice you gave recently.
• Are there topics you speak about in a different language? What causes the switch?
• When you don't know what to say — what do you do? Go silent? Change the subject?
• How do you compliment people you love? Tell me what you said recently.

Using these

This is the theme most interviews skip entirely. You are not collecting facts here; you are collecting a manner: the opener, the filler word, what the voice did when they were angry or delighted. Ask these while they are mid-story and relaxed, not at the start.

Asking about someone, rather than asking them

If the person is not here to answer, the same question has to change shape. “Where did you grow up?” is a cruel thing to ask about someone who has died, so each question also has a second wording, for asking someone who knew them.

• How did they typically open a conversation with someone they didn't know?
• Share a joke or something that made them laugh — something that happened or was said.
• Were there filler words or phrases they repeated a lot in conversation? For example 'you know', 'like', 'basically'.
• When they were angry — what would they say? What did their voice sound like?
• Share a story they loved telling — as best you can remember their telling of it.
• When they gave advice to their children — how did they speak? Share advice they gave.
• Were there topics they spoke about in a different language? What caused the switch?
• When they didn't know what to say — what would they do? Go silent? Change the subject?
• How did they compliment people they loved? Share something they said.

The other themes

• Who they are: The questions that get past what someone did for a living.
• Memories: Specific moments, not summaries of a decade.
• Personality: How they handle change, order, other people, and themselves.
• Relationships: The people who shaped them, and how they talked about them.
• Values and beliefs: What they thought was worth doing, and why.
• The harder questions: Failure, contradiction, regret. Ask these late, and only if you have earned them.
• Objects, songs and places: A photograph, a piece of music, a room — the fastest routes into a story.
• Everyday life: What an ordinary day actually looks like. The detail that vanishes first.