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The power of a follow-up question
Whether you’re interviewing your parents about their childhood or gathering family history info from your grandparents, good follow-up questions are key.
Want a sign that your follow-up questions are working? If your interview subject is engaged—nodding, smiling, or showing other signs of acknowledgement in response to your questions—then chances are their story sharing will go deeper in the best possible way!
There are numerous options out there for memory-keeping journals or email-a-week life story prompts, and they make for sentimental gifts for our loved ones. And when the gift recipient is a motivated self-starter, these gifts can yield amazing stories that can be passed on for generations. More often than not, though, these gifts don’t get much beyond the ‘good idea’ stage
I’ve certainly written about this before, but today I wanted to hone in on one simple aspect of why I think these well-meaning gifts do not always ‘work’: There’s no one listening—and no one, therefore, to ask a follow-up question.
Recently I was conducting a personal history interview with a client named Madeleine. She offhandedly mentioned that her granddaughter had gifted her a popular prompt-a-week story gathering service, and that she had only answered about two questions so far. How long had she been getting the prompts?, I wondered. “I guess about a year and a half,” she replied.
Huh?! “Why?,” I asked her.
“The questions are silly or stupid,” she said bluntly.
I pushed her to share a few of the prompts if she could recall them. Some were indeed silly when considered in the context of the service’s goals of preserving family history, but some were, in my opinion, just poorly phrased, or in need of some probing beyond the initial ask.
One question Madeleine ridiculed was, “What do you like to do to relax?” This nonagenarian rolled her eyes as she repeated it. “Can you imagine—who cares how I relax?” she said.
But when I followed up that “silly” prompt with my own related questions based on my knowledge of Madeleine’s life—Were there things you could do to decompress during the years you were working three jobs? Were there hobbies you wish you had more time for over the course of your life? What replenishes your energy when you are feeling low?—she had story after story. And the more I heard, the more I asked, the more it became clear that there were lessons buried in her stories.
These were stories that would not have come out—in fact, that Madeleine probably would not have even recalled—had I not been present as a curious listener. She initially dismissed the prompt out of hand when it did not immediately resonate for her. But when my follow-up questions helped her see the prompt in a new way—in a way that directly related to her lived experiences—her memories flowed.
Sometimes, a simple “tell me more” or “how did that make you feel?” can unlock a treasure trove of details that elevate a story from good to great. Follow-up questions help an interview subject move beyond one-sentence answers and delve into the details that make a story come alive. They encourage the interviewee to paint a picture with words, describe emotions, and share sensory experiences.
Beyond that, follow-up questions show your subject that you are interested. That you care about what they are saying. That’s so much more powerful than a one-sentence question posed in an email…with no one there to listen to an answer.
Life Story Links: October 1, 2024
Dawn’s curated roundup for the week of October 1, 2024, includes an array of stories of interest to personal historians, family history lovers, and memoirists.
“Memory arrives in fragments. Truth erupts; it finds us.”
—Beth Kephart
Vintage postcard depicting an illustration of the lake in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, postmarked 1909, Vicksburg, Mississippi; from the personal ephemera collection of Dawn Roode.
Personal history miscellany
WORDS FROM BEYOND
Sarah Leavitt says that years after her partner died, a final voice memo her partner left—called “for my beautiful companion”—helped her heal. “I lost my breath: That was the day before Donimo died. How was this happening?”
WHAT WOULD YOU DECIDE?
I recently published a brief 3-part series about choices I wish my clients hadn’t made, in hopes that sharing a few of these differences of opinion might be instructive for those waffling over similar decisions. In part three, a look at the importance (or not?) of photo captions.
OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW
A new study explores “how mental clutter—the stuff we can't seem to forget—affects our memory as we get older.” Two Boston University professors break down the science and explain how age impacts working memory.
IMMIGRANT LANGUAGE INHERITANCE
“Why is it...that some families manage to successfully pass their heritage language onto the next generation while other families struggle to do so?”
ONE-WORD TITLE: ‘DIARY’
“As the Nazis performed executions deep in the Lithuanian woods, one local man took detailed, dispassionate notes. He was unwittingly creating one of the most unusual documents in history.”
COLLECTIVE MEMORY
“Zoomed out, the Internet Archive is one of the most important historical-preservation organizations in the world. The Wayback Machine has assumed a default position as a safety valve against digital oblivion.” Why this digital library is in danger.
World food heritage
STORIES FROM INDIAN KITCHENS
In these cookbooks, Indian food “becomes a portal to memories, emotions, and nostalgia. These authors delve deep into their culinary roots, preserving not just recipes, but the stories and heritage that surround them.”
EGYPT’S FOOD LEGACY
In this episode of The Storied Recipe, Dr. Mennat-Allah Al Dorry discusses the role of food in daily life for ancient Egyptians, why food traditions are disappearing for today’s Egyptians, and her own deep commitment to unearthing Egypt’s ancient food heritage and preserving today’s:
...and a few more links
Short takes
“We all know who’s in the pictures”—a poor excuse for skipping captions
Here’s one time I gave in to my client’s preferences that still haunts me: Why we did not identify people in any of the photos in their family history book.
This is a three-part series about choices I wish my clients hadn’t made during their personal history book projects. (For what it’s worth: in my first draft of this post, I referred to “mistakes” I wish my clients hadn’t made—and then I remembered, memoir is, by definition, a personal accounting of one’s life, and far be it for me to dictate a writer’s personal preferences.) That said, clients come to me not only for help finishing the projects they envision, but for my expertise in elevating their projects to be the best they can be. So, I thought sharing a few of these differences of opinion might be instructive for those waffling over similar decisions.
Challenge 1: Should I include “the hard stuff” from my life in my memoir?
Challenge 2: Should I include a family tree in my life story?
Challenge 3: Should I include captions in my memorial tribute book?
If you’ve ever discovered a box of old family photos and wished you knew who was in them, perhaps you’ll understand my disappointment with one client’s decision not to include captions in her tribute book. This spread is from another client’s heirloom book—see how unobtrusive a caption can be?
“Please stop asking me about captions.”
First, let’s sketch out the type of book I was working on: My client—let’s call her Maria—came to me wanting to create a memorial tribute book honoring her mother, who had recently died. I interviewed Maria and her sister to capture their memories of their mom.
The stories they shared included anecdotes about their four other siblings, their father, and a smattering of aunts and uncles who lived in the small village where her mother lived all her life. Maria and her sister had moved out of the country where they were born decades before, and their own young kids knew their grandparents only from the annual trips the family would take—and didn’t really know the rest of the extended family at all.
Maria’s intentions with creating this tribute book were twofold: She wanted a book the family could pull out and read from on the anniversary of their mother’s death, a tradition they hoped to begin on that first-year anniversary; and they wanted an heirloom they could pass to their children so they could remember the grandmother they lost too soon. “I want my kids and their kids to know my Mami,” she told me.
In the earliest manuscript phase, I asked Maria to identify all the people she mentioned in her stories—to create a list of names and how they were related to her mother. I intended to use this both within the text and in captions for clarity. Each time she submitted corrections to the manuscript, it seemed like she forgot to answer this one query from me, so I would ask again. And again. Finally she told me, “I don’t think any of that is necessary.”
Hmm, okay. I decided to wait and ask for details in the layout phase.
The book was written, edited, and designed, and a first-draft proof was sent to Maria along with questions from me as the editor. My comments included things such as:
[PAGE 8, CAPTION: There are 24 people in this beautiful wedding photo. I think we should identify them, from left to right, so the next generation knows who is in the photo and how they are related. Please provide names in order of appearance in the photo.]
Maria’s response was firm: “We don’t need that, because we all know who the people in the picture are.”
So, I would again begin to probe:
Me: “Who are you ultimately creating this book for?”
Maria: “My son and daughter, and my sister’s children. And, God-willing, their children.”
Me: “Do you think they will know who these people are?”
Maria: “No, but I can always tell them if they are curious.”
Me: “But why not make it foolproof? Why not document their names, so generations from now there will never be questions about their family history?”
Maria: “I REALLY don’t want to.”
We had a few circular conversations like this, before I finally gave in.
Maria’s book is a gorgeous, heartfelt tribute to her mother. I have no doubt she and her siblings will read from the book on the anniversary of her mother’s death and feel closer to her. And I know from our conversations that the process of creating the book—of sharing her memories, and giving herself space to sit with them intentionally—was healing for Maria; she told me so numerous times.
But I can’t help but regret that, as I imagine it, one day her grown grandkids will flip through the book and wonder, Who is that next to our great-grandmother?
Life Story Links: September 17, 2024
Modern Heirloom Books’ Dawn Roode curates a bimonthly roundup of stories of interest to memoirists, personal and family historians, and memory-keepers.
“Telling is how we cement details, preserve continuity, stay sane. We say ourselves into being every day, or else.”
—J. R. Moehringer
Vintage postcard with an illustration of a romantic couple in a small boat on a spring day, postmarked 1906; from the personal ephemera collection of Dawn Roode..
History made personal
BABYLONIAN RECIPE TABLETS
“Even though these people are talking to us from 4,000 years ago, there’s a continuity of civilization in this region that’s connected to living culture and the communities that are there today.” What researchers learned from the world’s oldest cookbook.
BRINGING WAR TESTIMONIES TO LIFE
A Japanese software company is using AI to “capture people’s real emotions and likenesses to pass on the history of the war and the experiences of A-bomb survivors”:
Click to watch a news report about how the new technology is being implemented with survivors who share their stories through oral history interviews.
Visuals help enliven written stories
WHEN IT COMES TO DESIGN…
Your life story book is yours, of course, but it’s one piece of a broader family history, too. Adding this one thing will give your descendants an easy way to map the supporting “characters” in your stories.
WHAT A PICTURE’S WORTH
As a professional book designer, Susan Hood has used her skills to preserve her family’s history in a variety of ways using little or no original text. Here she shares some ideas for telling your life story through images.
A RICHLY VISUAL STORY
Of his graphic novel The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, John Hendrix says, “I am really using a dual biography as an avatar for telling a deeper story about the origins of fairy tales, the meaning of myth in the history of the human story.”
FROM MESS TO ORGANIZED ARCHIVE
Avoid overwhelm when preserving research materials: These five easy steps from Family Tree magazine will guide you through a manageable, organized digitization plan.
VOICES FROM THE PAST
Storycorps curated some stories in honor of back-to-school season, including this one they animated below, as well as a collection of history-themed short interviews appropriate for classrooms.
More on memoir & life writing
GETTING PAST GO
“The fear that I won’t find an ending often prevents me from beginning,” Megan Febuary tells a reader who calls themself “Stuck Before I Start.” Here Febuary offers up some tactics and writing exercises to get unblocked.
CONTEMPLATING ANY KIND OF DIY LEGACY BOOK?
“I realized I was the missing link between the past and the future. My connection to her story will help future family members see their connection.” Lisa L. Duncan turned her godmother’s poetry collection into a legacy book, then crafted a thorough and helpful blog post outlining decisions she made along the way.
QUESTIONS, ANSWERS…NOW WHAT?
Inspired by questions from class participants, Rachel Trotter of Utah–based Evalogue Life shares ideas with what to do with personal history recordings once your interviews are complete.
LOOKING BACK ON AN IMMIGRANT CHILDHOOD
“Every memoir has an unseen twin—a book that, if it were written, would chronicle the people, places, and books that made the pages of the memoir possible.”
Short takes
Friendly reminder: Your personal story is part of a broader family history
While your memoir is telling your stories in your words, a family tree chart outlining your relationships has a real place in that book—here’s why.
This is a three-part series about choices I wish my clients hadn’t made during their personal history book projects. (For what it’s worth: in my first draft of this post, I referred to “mistakes” I wish my clients hadn’t made—and then I remembered, memoir is, by definition, a personal accounting of one’s life, and far be it for me to dictate a writer’s personal preferences.) That said, clients come to me not only for help finishing the projects they envision, but for my expertise in elevating their projects to be the best they can be. So, I thought sharing a few of these differences of opinion might be instructive for those waffling over similar decisions.
CHALLENGE 1: SHOULD I INCLUDE “THE HARD STUFF” FROM MY LIFE IN MY MEMOIR?
CHALLENGE 2: SHOULD I INCLUDE A FAMILY TREE IN MY LIFE STORY?
CHALLENGE 3: SHOULD I INCLUDE CAPTIONS IN MY MEMORIAL TRIBUTE BOOK?
Why include a family tree in a book focusing on just your stories? Well, because it will give your descendants an easy way to map the supporting “characters” in your stories—and because your personal history is one piece of a broader family history, too.
“We don’t need a family tree—it’s my story, and mine alone.”
I work on all types of legacy books with my clients—from heavily-researched family histories spanning multiple generations to short autobiographical sketches of just one person, from tribute books memorializing a loved one who has passed away to heritage cookbooks. One thing remains constant in all of these projects, though, and that’s how I view each of them as an heirloom to be passed on.
Recently I finished up a memoir with a client—let’s call him Tom. He came to me with some memories jotted down in a notebook and a vague idea of how he wanted to write about his life. I coached Tom over a two-year period, and when his final manuscript was being copyedited, he decided he wanted to print books for his family members. So our journey of photo gathering and book design began.
Tom’s stories spanned his school years to his days as a grandfather, and his many cousins played supporting roles throughout his book. He told vibrant and funny stories about his own grandfather, who lived next door to him when he was a child, and affectionate tales about his maternal uncle, in whose footsteps Tom followed in becoming a teacher.
So when I suggested we create a family tree to serve as a graphic cheat sheet for his readers, I was surprised when Tom said no. It wasn’t a matter of cost, and at first I couldn’t get to the bottom of why my client was so vehemently opposed to charting his family in this way.
Eventually Tom shared that he always felt overshadowed by his older sibling, and he wanted this book to be his, and his alone. He was already the star—it was his memoir, after all. I tried reassuring him that he would be at the root of the family tree, and that we’d be using it to show all those people who were related to him. But he held fast, and I got it.
Tom’s memoir is a wonderfully crafted narrative, a quilt of memories that are woven together to shed light on how his experiences shaped the person he became. He gained insights from writing about his life, he told me, and was grateful to have taken the time to find new perspective on some of his decisions.
The irony, to me, is that he printed enough copies to distribute to his children, his grandchildren, and his cousins, and that they will in turn pass them on to their own descendants—making Tom’s personal history one piece of a broader family history. Who knows, maybe one day one of them will piece together a family tree that will make following the family history (and, dare I say it, Tom’s memoir) easier to follow.
Life Story Links: September 3, 2024
This week’s curated roundup includes insightful interviews with personal historians, new memoirs of note, legacy preservation tips & more memory-keeping ideas.
“A family history is not complete until it considers the time and place in which each individual lived. Our ancestors were affected by the events around them, just as people are now; their relationship to their environment is an important part of the family’s story.”
—Carmen J. Finley
Vintage postcard from a German American Novelty Art Series depicting an illustration of a sailboat, postmarked 1907; from the personal ephemera collection of Dawn Roode.
Interviewers get interviewed!
CREATING LEGACIES
New York–based personal biographer Alan Bergman was profiled in the Scarsdale Insider (as it happens, by one of my former Parenting magazine colleagues 😉).
PERSONAL HISTORIANS IN THE SPOTLIGHT
It’s good for the personal history industry as a whole when one (or in this case, two) of us has a spotlight shone on their business. In this episode of Smart Money, Julie McDonald Zander and Gloria Nussbaum, personal historians based in the Northwest United States, spread the good word. Two of my favorite quotes: “It’s amazing what people will tell you when you ask a question and then shut up and listen.” AND: “We need someone to receive the story.”
Miscellaneous memoir & memory-keeping
FROM DAILY RITUALS TO HISTORIC MOMENTS
“10,000 days, 10,000 photos, 10,000 stories, 10,000 memories,” Michael Deering says of his photo collection. He has taken a photo a day for 27 years, and he’s still at it.
TO CUT OR NOT TO CUT?
“The first draft of your life story is likely to include some stuff you decide to cut later—but should none of your challenges make it into your final book?” Last week I wrote about a time a client and I disagreed on final edits.
THE POWER OF PURPOSEFUL REFLECTION
“Life review arose in the 1960s to help people at the end of their lives articulate and make peace with their legacies. But new research suggests that the process of reflecting on previous experiences has value for people at all ages.”
LEGACIES OF TRAUMA…AND HEALING
Research suggests that engaging with your family history “can boost mental health and act as a powerful tool in helping heal generational trauma.”
INTERCONNECTION OF PHOTOS AND FILM
For people who “can’t decide whether to start with organizing their vast collection of images or focus on recording the rich stories behind those memories,” Texas–based video biographer Whitney Myers has some sage advice.
FOR YOUR MEMOIR TBR PILE
“I feel rich knowing I have all of those memoirs to try out,” Patricia Charpentier says in this video review of the podcast Let’s Talk Memoir, hosted by Ronit Plank:
...and a few more links
How to convert a live photo into a video clip in iOS: a step-by-step guide
When designing books, Claire Huss is unafraid of bold crops and unexpected color combinations
Samantha Dion Baker shares some of her favorite books for creative inspiration
Rejecting denial and embracing sorrow: on writing the story of a husband’s suicide
Using generative AI to perform life reviews at any stage of life
Short takes
What to cut from your memoir—when an editor and writer disagree
The first draft of your life story is likely to include some stuff you decide to cut later—but should none of your challenges make it into your final book?
This is a three-part series about choices I wish my clients hadn’t made during their personal history book projects. (For what it’s worth: in my first draft of this post, I referred to “mistakes” I wish my clients hadn’t made—and then I remembered, memoir is, by definition, a personal accounting of one’s life, and far be it for me to dictate a writer’s personal preferences.) That said, clients come to me not only for help finishing the projects they envision, but for my expertise in elevating their projects to be the best they can be. So, I thought sharing a few of these differences of opinion might be instructive for those waffling over similar decisions.
Challenge 1: Should I include “the hard stuff” from my life in my memoir?
Challenge 2: Should I include a family tree in my life story?
Challenge 3: Should I include captions in my memorial tribute book?
Always remember that what ultimately makes it into print in your memoir is 100-percent YOUR decision—so while I (and other personal historians or editors) may encourage you not to skip over your challenges, you are the one who gets to make that call.
“Let’s cut all ‘the hard stuff.’”
I conducted a series of in-depth, thoughtful interviews in which my client—let’s call him John—allowed himself to be vulnerable. He was a vivid storyteller and was comfortable going deep, talking about personal failures in addition to successes. He told of paths not taken that he now regretted; of teenage exploits that were, shall we say, less than innocent; and of a red-hot temper that caused him some problems in his twenties. Through our probing conversations, John spoke of lessons learned through his experiences, and of newfound meaning he was able to make from revisiting his earlier years. “This has been a profoundly rewarding experience,” John told me.
Then, when it came time to review the final manuscript of his life story, he made a decision I did not agree with: He wanted to cut all “the hard stuff” from his book.
Let me say that we had taken great pains to write these stories in a way that made them both compelling and, if not exactly didactic, at least revelatory. We wove in lessons learned, and nuggets of “John’s wisdom” throughout. He was at first “all in,” as was his wife, who had been an early reader. And then, he wasn’t.
When I asked him why he did not want to include stories of his challenges, he said that his descendants would think less of him. There was one granddaughter in particular, then a mere toddler, who he fervently “did not want to disappoint.” Arguments from me and his wife that those were the very stories that showed his humanity, that provided lessons for the next generation, that felt universal…well, all those arguments fell on deaf ears. “I would not want to know these things about my own grandfather,” he said plainly.
Because I am here to help my clients create the books they want—to help them define their legacies in the way they see fit—of course I ultimately followed his lead. His book was overflowing with funny anecdotes and light-hearted memories from his youth, for sure. It will undoubtedly be a treasure to his grandchildren.
But I did feel it was a lost opportunity to have passed down a book not also overflowing with wisdom; it was a Hallmark version of his life.
I find solace in the fact that his personal history interviews, while not fully reflected in his book, did help him ascribe new meaning to his life. (As I tell many people, the time spent allowing introspection in the interview phase is as much a gift to oneself as the book will be to one’s family; Mark Yaconelli calls this “feeling the grace of one’s own life.”)
If you are ever on the fence about including tough times—anything from small failures to serious trauma—consider these words from Tristine Rainer (from her book Your Life As Story):
“Yours may be the words that relieve another’s isolation, that open a door to understanding, that influence the course of another’s path. If you write an autobiography for a great-great-grandniece not yet born, perhaps she will find it in her mother’s drawer, and she will be altered, perhaps even saved, through the wisdom you have sent her.”
And if you are ever reluctant to “go deep” in your writing, ALWAYS remember that it is your prerogative, and your prerogative alone, what to keep and what to cut. You are always your final editor.
Life Story Links: August 20, 2024
A shorter-than-usual roundup of stories (summer break?) with a few gems about memoir, personal history branding, preservation, and the craft of life writing.
“There’s something about a quiet morning with my notepad and pen that opens doors and windows to the ways of my heart.”
—Joanna Gaines
Vintage postcard of Ellis Island, New York, postmarked 1913, from the personal ephemera collection of Dawn Roode.
Miscellaneous stories for family historians, memoirists, and memory-keepers
FAMILY HISTORY STORYTELLING
In a recent episode of the Family Tree Magazine Podcast, Utah–based personal biographer Rhonda Lauritzen offers tips for writing your ancestors in an engaging way, including developing them as characters in your family stories.
REMEMBRANCE AND LOSS
Fifty years ago, the Central Intelligence Agency unveiled a memorial to CIA members killed in service to the country. Today, the memorial has become hallowed ground. “Every star is a life.”
A LITERARY SELF-PORTRAIT
“I really hope that even if my experience isn’t exactly like somebody else’s, that they can see aspects of themself in it,” Anna Marie Tendler says of her new memoir, Men Have Called Her Crazy. “In a sea of mental health memoirs, this stands out,” reads the starred review in Publishers Weekly.
PLEASED TO MEET YOU
A few years ago I had an Aha! Moment: If someone is going to share their stories via interviews, they darn well want to know who they’ll be sitting across from, right? Last week I wrote about how my business branding evolved to include, well…me.
SENIOR STORIES
“I’ve been doing personal writing for so long that I need to remember how brave it is for someone in their 70s or 80s or 90s to take a memoir writing class.” Kate Walter on helping older writers find their voices. (If you like to discover random life writing prompts, there are a few good ones here, too!)
Short takes