Entries tagged as ‘Interviewing’
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You can be a first class interviewer but if you don’t ensure a good interview environment, your chances of getting the best from your client are minimized. Here are four things you can do to create a supportive milieu.
- Choose a room with lots of “padding”. This is particularly important if you’re producing audio or video personal histories. Audio sounds terrible when it’s recorded in a room that’s all hard surfaces. Stay away from kitchens! Living rooms usually work well because they are filled with drapes, rugs, and upholstered furniture. Try this sound recordist’s trick. Clap your hands and if you don’t hear any reverberation, the space is good for your recording.
- Find a “best” time for your client. You want to interview your clients at a time that works for them. Some are morning people and are most animated and alert in the morning. Others find evening a time when they’re open to reflection. For others a busy weekly schedule may mean weekends work the best. Be flexible and ensure that you arrange a time that fits your clients’ needs rather than your own.
- Avoid an audience. You don’t want people sitting in on your interview. Ban wives, husbands, kids, friends, long lost relatives, and the neighbor next door. Be firm! Having someone present during your interview is very distracting for both you and your client. There are exceptions to this rule that I’ll cover in a future post.
- Turn off everything that hums, whirs, ticks, or rings. Picture this. You’re leading up to very dramatic, emotional point in your interview when suddenly the telephone rings. Kiss that moment goodbye. No matter how hard you try to recapture it, you’ll never get that special moment back. Unplug the telephones. Turn off the refrigerator. Stop the air conditioner or furnace. Silence loud ticking clocks. Just remember to turn everything back on before you leave!
Photo by John Davey
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Categories: How to · Interviewing · Life stories · Personal historian · Tips
Tagged: How to, Interviewing, Life stories, Personal historian, supportive environment, Tips
Previously I have written here about interviewing people who are living with a terminal illness. There are benefits for patients in capturing the stories of their lives and conveying special messages to loved ones, but a word of caution. It can also be a time when traumatic incidents from a person’s past can resurface. These could involve physical or sexual abuse, loss of a child, and so on. You’re not likely to encounter such stories but it does happen. It’s happened to me. What should you do if such a situation arises? Here are my suggestions.
- Stop recording. People can forget that their words are being recorded and will eventually be heard or read by family members. You must ask your subjects if this is information they want others to hear. If it is, then when you begin recording again you need to say on the recording that you have spoken to you subjects and they have expressed a wish to continue with this aspect of the story. If on the other hand they say no, then you will want to ensure that all references to the incident are removed from the recording.
- Remember you’re not a therapist. It’s important to remind yourself that your role is not to help people mend. You’re there to facilitate the recording of a life story. However, it’s wise to have the names of several trusted counselors that you can refer people to should the need arise. If your subjects are clearly distressed by past events, you can suggest that they might want to talk to a counselor.
- Bear witness. It’s possible that your subjects don’t need or want any therapeutic intervention. And they don’t want this part of the story recorded. They may only want to relieve themselves of a terrible burden that perhaps no one knows about. Telling you, in confidence, is a way to bring some closure to a difficult episode in their lives. Listen and bear witness. Do not explore, suggest, or otherwise engage in any therapeutic activity. If you sense you’re getting in well over your head, it’s time to suggest to your subjects that they talk to a counselor.
Chances are you’re never going to encounter such a situation. But you want to be prepared in those rare cases where your interview unlocks some traumatic event.
Photo by Kevin Rosseel
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Categories: End of life · Interviewing · Life stories · Palliative care · Personal historian · Tips
Tagged: bearing witness, caution, End of life, How to, Interviewing, Life stories, Palliative care
December 2, 2009 · 1 Comment
A good interview is at the heart of any personal history. I train and mentor Hospice volunteers in Victoria on the art of life story interviewing. It’s part of a program being offered by Victoria Hospice. I’ve found several interviewing pitfalls that I suspect are universal to those new to the craft. Here’s a look at three:
1. Losing control of the interview. This pitfall is particularly evident with very talkative subjects. Novices let their subjects ramble without knowing how to interrupt and pull the interview back on track.
Solution. Before the interview even starts, you need to be clear in your own mind on what you want to get from the interview. When you begin, say something like: “Mary, today we’re going to be covering your early school days. I’d like to start by asking you….”
You must be fearless. Step in when your subject strays off topic. Some meandering can be useful. But if it becomes a regular occurrence and it consists of “fluff”, you’ve got to interrupt. Some of you may be concerned about seeming insensitive. However, you can interrupt with a smile on your face. You might say something like, “I’m sorry to interrupt Mary, but I feel we’ve kind of strayed off topic. Your stories about your next door neighbor are interesting but I’d like to bring you back to your early childhood, especially your remembrance of school days.” From my experience, people are okay with this. You owe it to you client not to waste their time and money with a lot of extraneous material.
2. Lost in minutia. Your subject may get caught up in details that have nothing to do with illuminating or advancing the story. For example, it can be useful to know the layout and look of a childhood home. This can help evoke memories, especially if the details are around a favorite room. What’s of less interest is what color rooms were painted or whether some had wallpaper and some had carpets. Unless of course there’s some interesting story to do with the color or wallpaper or carpets.
Solution. Avoid going down the rabbit hole of trivia. Stop yourself from asking questions that elicit more useless bits of information. And how will you know if it’s useless? Ask yourself, “Does this information explain or describe some activity or mechanism that would be of interest to someone in the future? Is this detail helping to paint a fuller picture of my subject? Can I use this information to draw out a story from my subject? ” If your answer to these questions is NO, then it’s time to pull the plug and refocus the interview.
3. Failing to get below the surface. I find most subjects have stock responses to stock questions. It’s not that the interviewee is being facile. It’s more that no one has ever asked the person a really thought-provoking question. So if we skip along the surface, we may learn for example that “Mary” had a loving family and happy childhood, went to school, and then got married. And really that’s about it, except for a lot of filler. This doesn’t make for a rich and satisfying life story.
Solution. I teach my students to be always listening for what’s not being said. So for example, if Mary waxes on about how her childhood was charming, at some point you want to say, “Mary, it sounds like you had a wonderful childhood. What were some of the hard times?” Or let’s say Mary has been painting a gloomy picture of her childhood, you’ll want to say, “Mary, it sounds like you had a tough childhood. What were some of the good things that happened?” or “How did this difficult childhood make you the person you are today?”
Powerful questions are the ones that stop people in their tracks and make them think. You’ll know when you’ve asked such a question. Your interviewee will stop, take a deep breath, look at you in silence, and then give her answer. And don’t be surprised if she says, “That’s a great question! I never thought of that before.”
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Categories: How to · Interviewing · Life stories · Tips
Tagged: avoiding pitfalls, How to, Interviewing, interviewing mistakes, Personal historian, solutions
Sometimes I encounter an adult son or daughter who’s had no success in convincing a parent to record a life story.
My experience has been that if people are really reluctant, it may be very hard to nudge them into documenting their lives. I hope these tips may be of help.
- Don’t make it sound daunting. You don’t want to create the impression that your parents have to toil away writing down every detail of their lives from birth to the present. You might say something like, “Mom, you’ve told me some great stories over the years. I’d really like to capture some of them so that your grandchildren will know more about your life. It would be a wonderful gift for them.”
- Explain that you’ll help. You can say something like, “ I can bring over a recorder and we could just sit and chat about some of your favorite memories. What do you think?”
- Suggest some different approaches. As I explained in a previous post, there’s more than one way to tell a life story. You can do it chronologically or thematically. Or you can focus on major turning points.
- Counter the myth. One of the favorite reasons for not documenting a life story is the one that goes, “Oh my life isn’t all that interesting.” Sound familiar? Explain to your parent that you’re not looking for interesting. What you treasure are the stories that illuminate a different time. What you want to know is what it was like living before the advent of television, computers, supermarkets, and so on. What you value is the wisdom accumulated along the way – the life lessons. What you want to hear are the things that made mom or dad proud, happy, and sometimes sad.
In a previous post, 6 Reasons Why Writing Your Life Story Matters, you’ll find some other good arguments to help convince your parent to record a life story. Good luck!
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Categories: How to · Life stories · Memoirs · Personal historian · Tips
Tagged: How to, Interviewing, life story, parent's life story, Tips
