Objects, songs and places

A photograph, a piece of music, a room. The fastest routes into a story.

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

• Is there one photo that you think captures a big part of who you are? Tell me about it.
• Was there an object that was very important to you? Why?
• What song or piece of music takes you back to a specific moment?
• Describe a place that if you could go back to right now — you would.
• Food that brings you home — what is it and what's the story behind it?
• A scent that immediately takes you back to a certain time?
• If you were writing a letter to yourself at age 20 — what would you write?
• What story did you tell most often in your life? What is the version you tell?
• Is there a book or film that influenced you in a way you never forgot? What was in it?

Using these

The most reliable questions on the whole list. An object gives someone something to hold while they talk, and a song does the remembering for them. Use these when a conversation has stalled.

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.

• Is there one photo that captures a big part of who they were? Tell me about it.
• Was there an object that was very important to them? Why?
• What song or piece of music would take them back to a specific moment?
• Describe a place they loved — one they would have gone back to in a heartbeat.
• Food that brought them home — what was it and what's the story behind it?
• A scent that immediately brings them to mind?
• If they had written a letter to themselves at age 20 — what do you think they would have written?
• What story did they tell most often? What was the version they always told?
• Was there a book or film that influenced them in a way they never forgot? What was in it?

The other themes

• Who they are: The questions that get past what someone did for a living.
• How they speak: Turns of phrase, filler words, how they open a conversation — the texture most interviews never ask about.
• 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.
• Everyday life: What an ordinary day actually looks like. The detail that vanishes first.