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Home › Questions to ask › Questions to ask the coach who shaped you

Questions to ask the coach who shaped you

17 questions to ask the coach who shaped you about their school days

School is the first place a person is seen by strangers. These questions get the teacher who was feared, the one who noticed, the game in the playground, the day they left and whose decision it was. Ask about their own coach. Everything they did with you was a reply to that person.

How to use this list. Ask by voice and record it. One or two questions a visit is plenty; the follow-up ("Who else was there?" "What did she say?" "What happened the day after?") matters more than the next question. The 1 marked tender come last: ask them once, late, in person, with "or would you rather leave that?" in the question.

  1. What did school smell like, sound like? Which teacher do you still think about?
  2. How did you get to school each morning, and how long did it take?
  3. What did you eat at school at midday, and who did you sit with?Who they sat with at eleven is the first friendship chapter.
  4. Which teacher was feared, and what did they do to earn it?A feared teacher is a villain the reader will enjoy.
  5. Which teacher noticed you? What did they say that you still remember?One adult who saw them is often the hinge of the early chapters.
  6. What was the subject you were known for at school?
  7. What could you not do at school, no matter how hard you tried?The thing they could not do is often the thing they spent a life making up for.
  8. What was the punishment at your school, and did you ever get it?
  9. What did you wear to school? Who made it, and who had worn it before you?Hand-me-downs are a family economy in one garment.
  10. Tell me about a day you skipped school. Where did you go instead?The first truancy is the first choice they made alone.
  11. What was the playground game everyone played, and were you any good at it?
  12. When did you leave school, and whose decision was it?The leaving date explains the next twenty years.
  13. Did you ever win something at school? What did your parents say when you told them?The parents' reaction is the real answer.
  14. What did you do in the last week of the summer holidays, before school started again?
  15. Did anyone from your class become famous, rich or notorious? What were they like at twelve?
  16. What did you learn by heart at school that you can still say?Ask them to say it. Recorded, it is a page by itself.
  17. Who was the bully, and who stood up to them?tender

Don't just ask the questions. Keep the answers.

Tellforth asks these questions by voice, one visit at a time, remembers every answer, asks the next question a good listener would, and writes a real book from what was said. A memoir in their own words, or a novel built on the true story. You own every recording.

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What these questions are for

A good book about a person needs more than facts. It needs the person on the page: how they talked, what they wanted, what they did when it mattered, the story that shows them. These questions cover 12 of the things a writer needs about the coach who shaped you: key relationships, where they came from, habits, routines and work, how others saw them, the story that shows them, contradictions, wants, fears and wounds, their place in history, objects, places, food, music, temperament and humour, loves and tastes, their voice and sayings.

More questions to ask the coach who shaped you

Or see questions for everyone else, and how to interview a parent about their life.

Updated · Plain-text version of this page: /questions/coach-school.md