Before the first session, before the first question, here's what to know. None of this is technical. All of it is what changes a recording into something worth keeping.
Most people never tell their full story. Not because they don't want to. Because nobody ever sat down and asked. You're the one asking. These five techniques are what experienced interviewers wish they'd known on the first day.
Call it a visit. A specific invitation lands better than a general one. "I've always wanted to hear about the summer you lived in New York" will get a richer response than "I want to record your life story." The narrower the door, the easier it is to walk through.
Email or print the question list a few days before. Tell them they don't need to write anything. Just let the questions sit. The answers are richer when someone has had a few days to remember, especially for the parts of life they haven't put into words in decades.
Get the questions →The pause is where the real answer lives. Most people need a few seconds to get from the surface memory to the one that actually matters. If you fill the silence, you'll never hear what was about to come out.
Count to ten in your head before you say anything. It feels like forever. It isn't.
"And then what happened?" When a story trails off, this restarts it nine times out of ten. It signals genuine interest, not just waiting for them to finish. Use it whenever you sense there's more underneath what they just said.
Save this for last: "If you could say one thing to someone who will read this long after you're gone, what would it be?" Give them real time with it. Don't rush the answer. This is the line that gets quoted at weddings, funerals, and family dinners for the next forty years.
Almost everyone does at first. There's a script for that. Five common kinds of pushback and what to say back.