Avoid These Three Interviewing Pitfalls.

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 put the interview back on track.

Solution. Before the interview even starts,  you need to be clear in your own mind 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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