Free question lists
Questions that get a story, not a one-word answer.
649 free lists for every person and every subject, in the order a good interviewer would ask: easy first, tender last. Each question comes with a line on why it works.
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The lists people use most.
Every list
Find the person. Then the subject.
No list matches that yet. Try "parent", "grandmother" or "friend", or tell us who you are asking.
Parents and grandparents
Husband, wife, brother, sister
Friends, mentors and neighbours
Children and teenagers
Yourself
How to ask them
Four habits of a good interviewer.
Easy first, tender last
Start with the house, the street, the school. Leave loss and regret for later visits, and let them decline.
Ask for the day, not the summary
"What was your father like?" gets a sentence. "What did he do on Sunday mornings?" gets a story.
Ask the second question
Who else was there? What did she say, exactly? What happened the next morning? That is where the book is.
Record it
Notes lose the voice. A phone on the table keeps the laugh, the pause and the saying nobody else uses.
A few from the lists
- What did your mother call you? And what did she call you when she was angry?Names are voice. Nobody forgets the angry name.
- What kind of parent did you decide to be, and what kind did you turn out to be?The gap between intention and result is where the honesty lives.
- Was there a recipe written down anywhere, or was it all in someone's head? Whose head?A recipe is an object with a story and an owner. Ask where it is now.
- Who were the neighbours on either side, and which one did your mother not speak to?A street has a cast too.
- When did you leave school, and whose decision was it?The leaving date explains the next twenty years.
Or let someone else ask
Don't just ask the questions. Keep the answers.
Tellforth asks them by voice, follows up like a good listener, remembers every answer, and writes the book.