Questions to ask your father

22 questions to ask your father about love and marriage

Ask for the day, not the summary. "How did you meet" is the beginning; "what went wrong at the wedding" is where the book is. Work and tools open fathers up faster than anything. "What was the first truck you drove?" gets you further than "What was your childhood like?"

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 4 marked tender come last: ask them once, late, in person, with "or would you rather leave that?" in the question.

1. How did you meet, and when did you know? Tell me the actual day.A scene, not a summary.
2. What was the first fight about, and who gave in?
3. What did your parents think of them at first?
4. What did you wear on your wedding day, and what went wrong?Something always goes wrong. That is the story.
5. What did you call each other? Was there a name nobody else used?
6. What did they do that showed they loved you, without saying it?
7. What do you remember about the day your first child was born?
8. What did you worry about for us that we never knew?
9. Which house did you bring your first baby home to, and what did it still need doing?
10. Where did you go dancing, and what night of the week was it?The dance hall is where most of the love chapters begin.
11. What was the song at your wedding, and who chose it?Who chose it is the answer.
12. Where did you spend your honeymoon, and what did it cost?
13. What did you do on the first proper date, and what did it cost?The cost and the venue date the scene exactly.
14. Where did you live in the first year you were married, and what was wrong with it?What was wrong with the first home is the first shared story.
15. What is a habit of theirs that you have caught without meaning to?
16. What did you argue about in the twentieth year that you never argued about in the first?A marriage changes subject. The subjects are the chapters.
17. What did you learn about them from their family the first time you visited?
18. Who proposed, where, and what were the exact words?The exact words are a line of dialogue the book can quote.
19. Was there a time you nearly left, or nearly lost them?tender
20. Who did you love before that, and what happened?tender
21. Did you ever keep something from your husband or wife to protect them? Did it work?tender
22. Was there a child, a marriage or a love that the family does not know about?tenderAsk it only when you have earned it, and accept the first answer.

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 11 of the things a writer needs about your father: key relationships, the story that shows them, their voice and sayings, how others saw them, objects, places, food, music, wants, fears and wounds, habits, routines and work, loves and tastes, their place in history, contradictions, loss and fate.

When people ask these. Father's Day; retirement; his 75th or 80th birthday; a move into care.

More questions to ask your father

• All questions to ask your father
• Questions to ask your father about his childhood
• Questions to ask your father about family history
• Questions to ask your father about his work
• Questions to ask your father about the war
• Questions to ask your father about faith and beliefs
• Questions to ask your father about food and the kitchen table
• Questions to ask your father that are funny
• Questions to ask your father about hard times

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