Questions to ask an old friend

41 questions to ask an old friend about their childhood

Childhood is where every memoir starts and where most interviews stay too long. These questions get the particulars (the house, the rules, the trouble, the best friend) and then move on. Ask "what did you think of them the first time?" Friends remember that more honestly than spouses do.

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. Where were you born, and what was the house like that you first remember?A place the reader can stand in.
2. Who was in the house when you were small? Who was in charge, and who did you run to?The cast, and the power in the room.
3. What is your very first memory? Not the earliest you were told about, the earliest you actually remember.
4. What did your mother call you? And what did she call you when she was angry?Names are voice. Nobody forgets the angry name.
5. What did your father do for work, and what did you understand about it as a child?
6. What did a normal Saturday look like when you were ten?Routine is where a life actually happens.
7. What was the rule in your house that you thought was unfair?
8. What did you get in trouble for, and what did trouble look like in your family?
9. Who was your best friend when you were a child, and what did the two of you do that nobody else knew about?
10. What was the first thing you ever earned money for?
11. What did your family eat on an ordinary weeknight, and what did you eat when there was something to celebrate?
12. Which of your grandparents did you know best, and what did their house smell like?
13. What was the story your family always told about you when you were little?The signature story. Ask for the whole thing: what happened, who said what, what came of it.
14. What were you afraid of as a child?
15. What did you want to be when you grew up, and when did that change?
16. What did school smell like, sound like? Which teacher do you still think about?
17. What did your mother keep in her handbag, or your father in his pockets?Small inventory, enormous recall.
18. What did Sunday, or the Sabbath, look like in your house growing up? Who insisted, and who slipped out?
19. Who taught you to cook, and what was the first thing you made on your own?
20. What was in the pantry, always? And what was a treat?
21. What did your mother or father tell you about their war, and what did they never say?
22. How many houses did you live in before you were eighteen? Name them by street.The list is the map of the book's first chapters.
23. Which room in the house you grew up in was yours, and who did you share it with?Who shared the room is who shared the childhood.
24. Was there a room you were not allowed into? What was in it?
25. What was on the walls of your childhood home? A picture, a calendar, a clock that was always wrong?
26. Where did you hide things as a child, and did anyone ever find them?The hiding place tells you what they valued and who they feared.
27. How did you get to school each morning, and how long did it take?
28. What was the playground game everyone played, and were you any good at it?
29. What did you do in the last week of the summer holidays, before school started again?
30. What was the first thing you saved up for, and how long did it take?A long wait for a small thing sets the scale of a childhood.
31. Was there a song your mother sang while she worked? Sing a line of it.A recorded line of a parent singing is worth a chapter.
32. When did you first see the sea, and who took you?
33. What was the first animal that was yours? What was it called, and who named it?Who named it is who was in charge.
34. Was there a dog or a cat in the house when you were growing up, and whose bed did it sleep on?Where the dog slept is a map of the family's affections.
35. Were you ever bitten, kicked or stung badly enough to remember? What were you doing at the time?
36. What animal were you afraid of as a child, and did you ever get over it?A childhood fear and its ending is a complete small story.
37. Who was your first friend outside the family, and how did the two of you meet?The first friend is the first choice they ever made.
38. What did the grown-ups talk about in the 1950s when they thought you were not listening?The overheard adult world is how a child learns what the decade was afraid of.
39. What did you get for Christmas, or the holiday that mattered, the year you remember best? Who gave it to you?
40. What did you do for a birthday when you were a child? Was there a cake, and who made it?
41. Is there something you were told to keep quiet about as a child? Who told you, and why?tender

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 13 of the things a writer needs about an old friend: where they came from, objects, places, food, music, key relationships, their voice and sayings, habits, routines and work, beliefs and values, temperament and humour, the story that shows them, wants, fears and wounds, loves and tastes, how they look and move, their place in history, how others saw them.

More questions to ask an old friend

• All questions to ask an old friend
• Questions to ask an old friend about family history
• Questions to ask an old friend about love and marriage
• Questions to ask an old friend about their work
• Questions to ask an old friend about food and the kitchen table
• Questions to ask an old friend that are funny
• Questions to ask an old friend for their advice
• Questions to ask an old friend that go deep
• Questions to ask an old friend for a quick conversation

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