How to interview a parent before it is too late

How to record a parent's story while you still can: the questions to ask, and how to keep the answers.

In short

Record now, because the memory and the chance both fade. Start with one session.
Ask for the scenes and the senses: the house, the smell of it, the day something changed.
Let silences sit, and follow feeling rather than your list of questions.
Capture it: record the audio, and write up the story while it is fresh.

There is a particular regret that arrives too late, the questions you meant to ask a parent and never did. The cure is simple and a little uncomfortable. Sit down, turn on a recorder, and ask. You do not need a plan for the whole life. You need one good session, and then another.

Start with one session

Do not wait until you have designed the perfect project. Pick an afternoon, choose one period or one theme, childhood, say, or how they met, and begin. An hour is plenty. A short, real conversation you actually have beats the thorough one you keep meaning to arrange.

Ask for scenes and senses

Dates and names are easy to get later. What you cannot get later is the texture, the house they grew up in, the smell of their grandmother's kitchen, the exact morning everything changed. So ask for moments: where they were standing, what they could see, what he said. The senses unlock memory, and they are what makes the story worth keeping.

Follow the feeling

Your list of questions is a safety net, and you should be ready to drop it. When a parent's voice changes, when they slow down or look away, that is the story arriving. Stay there. Ask the small follow-up, and then wait. Silence does more work than another question, and people will often fill it with the thing they had not planned to say.

Capture it properly

Record the audio, always, even on a phone, because you will want the actual voice later, and because you cannot write fast enough to keep up. Tell them it is recording and why. Soon after, while it is fresh, write up what stood out, the strongest scenes and the lines you do not want to lose, since a recording you never listen to again is a box in the attic. Keep the audio, the notes and any photos together, named and dated.

Handle the hard parts gently

Some questions open old wounds, and you are their child before you are their biographer. Go gently, let them decide what stays off the record, and stop when you need to. A story told with their consent is worth more than one taken. You can always return another day, and returning is its own gift.

From conversation to book

When you are ready to turn these conversations into a book, Incipit helps. It reads your recordings and notes into a source map, suggests the questions still worth asking from the gaps, and shapes each session into story notes while it is fresh, so nothing is lost between the talking and the writing.

Request early access

Common questions

What if my parent does not want to talk?

Start small and sideways. Ask about a photograph, an object or a recipe, rather than asking them to tell you their life. The story usually comes once the pressure is off.

Should I record video or audio?

Audio is enough, and it is less daunting, so people relax and say more. Add video only if it does not make the room stiff.

How do I turn the recordings into a book?

Transcribe them, sort what is there into themes, and map it to a structure before you draft. See how to write your family history for shaping it into a book, and a tool can do the sorting and the mapping for you.