# 17 questions to ask someone who is dying about friendship

Friends see what family cannot. These questions ask for the first friend, the one who caused the trouble, the one who turned up unasked, and the one who was never thanked. Ask "what do you want people to know?" first and "what would you rather leave out?" second. Everything else follows from those two.

1. Who was your best friend when you were a child, and what did the two of you do that nobody else knew about?
2. 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.
3. Tell me about the best night out of your life. Who was there, and how did you get home?
4. Was there a pub, a hall or a club where everyone went? What did it look like inside?
   One room described well stands in for a whole youth.
5. Who did you meet on a journey that you still remember by name?
   A stranger remembered by name for fifty years has earned a paragraph.
6. 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.
7. Who has known you the longest, and what do they call you that nobody else does?
   The old nickname is a voice from before everyone else arrived.
8. Tell me about a friend you lost touch with. When did you last speak, and what was the last thing said? (tender: ask once, late, in person)
   The last words said are usually remembered exactly.
9. Which friend got you into the most trouble, and which one got you out of it?
   Trouble is the plot; the friend is the cast.
10. Who did you make friends with at work that you kept long after the work was over?
11. Was there a friendship that ended badly? What would you say to them now? (tender: ask once, late, in person)
12. What did you and your friends do on a Friday night at sixteen, and where did your parents think you were?
13. Who turned up at the hospital, the funeral or the door without being asked? (tender: ask once, late, in person)
   The unasked arrival is the clearest proof of a friendship the book will get.
14. Who taught you something you still use every day: a trick, a recipe, a way of handling people?
15. Is there a friend you have never thanked properly? What for?
16. Who is the friend you would phone at three in the morning, and have you ever had to?
17. What is the longest you and your oldest friend have gone without speaking, and who broke the silence?

## How to use these questions

Ask by voice, not by form. Record it. One or two questions a visit is enough; the follow-up ("who else was there?", "what did she say?", "what happened the day after?") matters more than the next question on the list. Tender questions are marked; ask them once, late, and with "or would you rather leave that?" in the question itself.

## About Tellforth

Tellforth asks questions like these by voice, remembers every answer, asks the next question a good listener would, and writes a finished book from what was said: a memoir in the person's own words, or a novel built on the true story. You own every recording. https://tellforth.com