How to write someone's life story

Collect by voice, in short visits

Sit with them, or call them, for fifteen to twenty minutes at a time, and record it. Ask one question and then follow it: who was there, what did he say, what happened next. Twenty-five to forty such conversations is what a real book needs. Fewer gives you a booklet.

Use a question list as a map, not a script. Our lists are arranged easy to tender for a reason: the tender questions (loss, regret, the things never spoken of) are asked once, late, and with permission to decline.

Know what you are missing

After every few visits, check: which people in their life are still just names? Which stories stop halfway? Which years has nobody mentioned? The next visit goes there. This is what a professional interviewer does and what an email prompt a week never can.

Find the shape

Read everything you have and look for the question the life answers. "She spent forty years making a home she was never sure was hers." "He kept choosing the harder road and never once explained why." That sentence becomes the organising idea; chapters follow it rather than the calendar.

Write in their voice

Use their words, including the odd ones. Keep the sayings. Mark hearsay as hearsay. If you are tempted to improve a sentence, ask whether the improvement sounds like them. If not, put it back.

Proof, approve, print

Let the person read it, or hear it read, before anyone else. Anything they want out comes out. Then print: a 200-page hardcover costs well under a hundred dollars from any print-on-demand service, and the keepsake box matters more than the paper weight.