Not everyone tells a story easily. One deflects with a joke, another gives you three words and waits for the next question, and a third says quite sincerely that there is nothing worth telling. That almost never means there is nothing there. Usually it means the question was too large, or that talking about yourself was simply never done in that house.
What you'll find here:
- Why short answers are rarely about unwillingness.
- Questions that are easy to answer and still open something.
- What to do with deflection, a painful subject, and a failing memory.
- How to stop without it feeling like a failure.
Why it usually is not unwillingness
Many people of that generation were taught that you do not talk about yourself. Describing what you had been through felt like boasting or complaining, so you did not. That is a habit of seventy years, and it does not disappear because someone suddenly turns up with questions.
On top of that, "tell me about your childhood" is unanswerable. Nobody knows where to begin. A question about one thing, at one moment, is not.
How to open
- Pick one small, concrete question, not a subject.
- Say you are simply curious, not that you want to record something.
- Record if you may, so you can listen instead of taking notes.
Questions that almost always get an answer
These are short, factual and easy. They ask nothing about feelings, and for exactly that reason the feelings tend to follow on their own.
- What did the house you grew up in look like?
- What did you eat on a Sunday?
- How did you get to school?
What helps when someone deflects
Ask about things, not feelings
"How did you feel about that?" is hard. "What did it look like?" is easy. Describing is safe; judging and feeling is not. The rest comes later.
Use something physical
A photograph, a toolbox, an old coat, a box of papers. With someone who will not start on their own, an object does more than any question.
Ask about someone else
"What was your father actually like?" goes down more easily than "what were you like then?". Talking about others, people describe themselves without noticing.
Say nothing after the answer
A short silence after a short answer is the most powerful tool you have. Most people fill it themselves, and that second half is almost always the real answer.
Do something else at the same time
Side by side in the car, washing up together, a walk. Without eye contact the talking loosens. Sitting formally opposite each other works against you with a private person.
Questions for someone who answers briefly
- Who else lived in that house?
- What could you see from your bedroom window?
- What was the street called, and who lived further along?
- What did your father do for work, and did you know what it involved?
- Who did the shopping, and where?
- What was the first money you earned yourself?
- Which song did you keep hearing back then?
- What did you have at home that the neighbours did not, or the other way round?
Questions for once it starts flowing
- Who in the family was most like you?
- What was never talked about in your house?
- What would you have liked to ask your own parents?
- Is there something you held against yourself for a long time?
- When were you most afraid?
- What helped you through a time when things went against you?
- What would you want us to know about you?
When the subject itself is the problem
Sometimes it is not the teller but the subject: a war, a death, a rift in the family.
Announce it, and offer a way out
"Can I also ask about that time, or would you rather not?" An announced question with an exit gets answered far more often than one that lands out of nowhere.
Accept no as an answer
A subject that is closed today may be open in six months. Pressing closes it for good.
Stay with facts if the emotion gets too big
"How old were you then?" or "where were you living?" gives someone something to hold on to, without you having to end the conversation.
When memory starts to falter
With forgetfulness, asking about long ago usually works better than asking about yesterday. Old memories last longest.
Do not correct
Whether the year is right does not matter. How someone lived and remembered it is what you are capturing.
Work in short conversations
Ten minutes at a good moment produces more than an hour in which someone tires. Our page with questions for when you have little time is built for that.
Record it, even when it is messy
With a faltering memory the voice is the most valuable part of all. Our guide on recording family interviews covers doing it simply.
How to stop without it feeling like a failure
Never end on a question that went unanswered. Move to something easy, thank them for what they did tell you, and say you will come back to it. That keeps the door open, and with a difficult teller that is worth more than one good conversation.
We build a question plan around the person you are actually sitting with, and after each conversation we write new questions based on what was really said. See how it works, or read our guide on interviewing your parents.