So you want to write a book? The risks and rewards of memoir

Create a mission statement for your interview. My friend and former colleague Roy Peter Clark, a senior scholar at The Poynter Institute, encourages writers to draft mission statements for their stories. I adapted that to write mission statements for family interviews. That helps me to establish a focus for the interviews and stay focused on what I’m trying to achieve. Examples of an interview mission statement could be: “I want to ask the hard questions, even if it makes me and my family members uncomfortable. Having answers to these questions will help me connect some important dots in my story.” Or, “I want to get at a deeper level of detail, with an eye toward the five senses. I want to know how my sister felt, what she saw, what she heard, what she was wearing, when we learned that our mother had died. These details will enrich my writing and help transport readers back to that moment in time.”