Questions to ask your wife

82 questions to ask your wife that go deep

The questions beneath the facts: what they wanted, what they believed, what changed, what they would do differently. Let her tell the long version. Do not help with names and dates; the way she searches for them is part of the story.

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

1. What is your very first memory? Not the earliest you were told about, the earliest you actually remember.
2. What did your grandparents tell you about their own childhoods?Family stories reach two generations further back than any record.
3. What were you afraid of as a child?
4. Was there a year when everything changed? What was the first sign?Turning points are the spine of any book. Ask how it started, not just what happened.
5. What was the first thing you did that your parents would have hated, and did they ever find out?
6. How did you leave home? Was it a decision or did it just happen?
7. Who was the first person outside your family who really saw you?
8. What did you believe at twenty that you don't believe now?A self that changes is what makes a memoir readable.
9. What did they do that showed they loved you, without saying it?
10. What were you good at that nobody noticed?
11. 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.
12. What did you most want to give your children that you never had?
13. Where were you when the big news of your lifetime came? What did people around you do?History is only worth a page if it touched this person. Ask what it did to them.
14. What did you think of the war at the time, and has that changed?
15. When did you first vote, and for whom? Would you now?
16. What did people get wrong about where you came from?
17. Is there a place you still think of as home, even if you can never go back?
18. What did you believe about God as a child, and what do you believe now?
19. What rule did you live by that you never said out loud?Ask for it in their words. That sentence may be the book's epigraph.
20. Is there an object in your house that you would run back in for? What's its story?
21. What song could you not get through without crying, and why?
22. What did your family's kitchen table hear over the years?
23. What do people get wrong about you?
24. When you were angry, what did that look like? Would we have known?
25. What are three words your best friend would use for you? And three your sister would?
26. What is something you did that was completely out of character?
27. What are you proudest of, that nobody would guess?
28. If your life were a film, where would it start?Their answer tells you where the book starts too.
29. What is a thing I do that drives you mad and you've never said?
30. Was there a minister, rabbi, priest or teacher who actually mattered to you? What did they say?
31. Did you ever stop going, or start again? What happened?A belief that changed is a chapter. A belief that never did is a sentence.
32. Who helped you in the first year, and did you ever get to thank them?
33. What did you change about yourself to fit in: your name, your clothes, your accent, your food?Every arrival is also a loss. Ask for both.
34. Which house do you dream about? What are you doing in the dream?The house the mind returns to is usually the one the book should start in.
35. 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.
36. 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.
37. When did you leave school, and whose decision was it?The leaving date explains the next twenty years.
38. Did you play an instrument, or wish you had? What happened to it?
39. What music do you put on when the house is empty?
40. Is there a place you went once and have thought about ever since?The place they never went back to is usually hiding a want.
41. Is there a place you always meant to go and never did? What stopped you?
42. What was the longest you were ever away from home, and what had changed when you got back?
43. 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.
44. If you could have one of them back for an afternoon, which animal, and what would you do?
45. Is there a friend you have never thanked properly? What for?
46. Who is the friend you would phone at three in the morning, and have you ever had to?
47. What is the longest you and your oldest friend have gone without speaking, and who broke the silence?
48. What did you expect your life to look like in 1959? How much of it came true?The expected life and the lived one, side by side, is the memoir's engine.
49. Did the 1960s reach your town, or did you only read about them? What actually changed on your street?Most people lived next door to the decade, not in it. That is the honest chapter.
50. What did you argue with your parents about in the 1960s that you would now side with them on?
51. What did you believe the world was about to become in 1968? What did it become instead?
52. What was the news story of the 1970s that you followed every night? Who did you argue about it with?
53. Who were you in 1979, and what did you think the 1980s would do for you?
54. Which holiday did you spend away from the family, and where were you?
55. 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.
56. What is a mistake you made twice before you learned from it?The second time is the story; the first was just bad luck.
57. How do you know when it is time to leave: a job, a house, a person?The answer arrives with the time they did, or did not.
58. Was there a time you nearly left, or nearly lost them?tender
59. Who did you love before that, and what happened?tender
60. What do you pray for, or hope for, when it's late and nobody is listening?tender
61. What was the hardest year of your life, and what got you through it?tender
62. Who showed up for you when it mattered? Who didn't?tender
63. Is there a loss you still carry?tender
64. What did you learn about yourself from the worst thing that happened to you?tender
65. Was there a time you were truly afraid?tender
66. Is there something you've never told anyone that you would like someone to know?tenderAsk only once, late, and with the door open: "or would you rather leave that?"
67. What do you regret, and would you do it differently?tender
68. What do you think happens after? Has that answer changed?tender
69. Is there a story from that time you have never told, that you would be willing to tell once? Or would you rather leave it?tender
70. Did you ever go back? What was the same and what was gone?tender
71. Did you ever have to leave a house you loved? What was the last thing you did before you shut the door?tender
72. Did you ever lend money to someone who never paid it back? Did you ever say anything?tender
73. Was there ever money you were ashamed of: owed, lost, taken, or more than anyone knew?tender
74. Which journey did you take because you had to, not because you wanted to?tender
75. Which animal did you lose that you still think about?tenderGrief for an animal is often the first grief, and the safest to tell.
76. Tell me about a friend you lost touch with. When did you last speak, and what was the last thing said?tenderThe last words said are usually remembered exactly.
77. Was there a friendship that ended badly? What would you say to them now?tender
78. Who turned up at the hospital, the funeral or the door without being asked?tenderThe unasked arrival is the clearest proof of a friendship the book will get.
79. What did your parents never explain, that you worked out for yourself years later?tenderWhat a child worked out alone is often the truest thing in the book.
80. What did you find out about a parent after they died that changed how you saw them?tenderThe late discovery rewrites the earlier chapters; the book needs both versions.
81. What were you most ashamed of at the time, that you can see differently now?tender
82. What do you wish you had said no to sooner?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 15 of the things a writer needs about your wife: where they came from, their place in history, wants, fears and wounds, the story that shows them, temperament and humour, contradictions, key relationships, beliefs and values, their voice and sayings, habits, routines and work, how others saw them, objects, places, food, music, loves and tastes, loss and fate, what they want said.

More questions to ask your wife

• All questions to ask your wife
• Questions to ask your wife about her childhood
• Questions to ask your wife about family history
• Questions to ask your wife about love and marriage
• Questions to ask your wife about her work
• Questions to ask your wife about food and the kitchen table
• Questions to ask your wife that are funny
• Questions to ask your wife about hard times
• Questions to ask your wife for her advice

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