Chapter II

60 life story questions a biographer would ask you

Sixty life story questions grouped by era, from your earliest memories to what you’d pass on, with tips for asking seniors and for care settings.

By Yosuke Sakurai · · · 9 min read

A biographer doesn’t sit you down and say “tell me about your life.” They ask small, specific questions, and they listen for the detail that opens the next one. These sixty questions work the same way. Use them to write your own story, or to interview a parent or grandparent before the details are lost.

They’re grouped by era, but don’t feel you have to go in order. Start wherever your memory is warmest. One good answer a day is plenty.

How to get good answers

  • One question at a time. Answer it fully before moving on.
  • Scenes, not summaries. Instead of “we were poor,” describe the winter the heating broke.
  • Names and places. The name of the street, the teacher, the dog. Specifics are what make it yours.
  • Skip freely. If a question doesn’t land, or lands too hard, move on.
  • Say it out loud. If writing feels stiff, record your answer and tidy the transcript later.

Beginnings

  1. When and where were you born, and what do you know about the day itself?
  2. Who chose your name, and why?
  3. What is your very earliest memory?
  4. What could you see from the window of the room you slept in as a small child?
  5. What did your home smell like?
  6. What was a normal weekday like before you started school?
  7. What were you scared of when you were little?
  8. What’s a story your family always told about you as a baby or toddler?

The best questions often come from the last answer. If you mention a house on a hill, the natural next question isn’t about school. It’s about the house.

Family and home

  1. Who raised you, and what were they like when you were young?
  2. What did your parents or guardians do for work?
  3. What were mealtimes like in your house?
  4. What rules did you have, and which ones did you break?
  5. Which grandparent, aunt or uncle did you know best, and what do you remember about them?
  6. What did your family do on holidays or special days?
  7. What was something your family never talked about?
  8. If you had brothers or sisters, what was your place among them?

School and growing up

  1. What do you remember about your first day of school?
  2. Which teacher do you still think about, and why?
  3. Who was your best friend as a child, and what did you do together?
  4. What did you want to be when you grew up?
  5. What did you do after school and in the summer holidays?
  6. What music, books or shows did you love as a teenager?
  7. When did you first feel like you were growing up?
  8. What got you into trouble?

Becoming an adult

  1. When did you leave home, and where did you go?
  2. What was your first place of your own like?
  3. What was the first big decision you made on your own?
  4. Who helped you most in your late teens and twenties?
  5. What did you believe at twenty that you don’t believe now?
  6. What was the hardest thing about those years?
  7. What were you most proud of?
  8. Where were you when you heard about a big news event of the time, and what did it mean to you?

Work

  1. What was your first paid job?
  2. How did you end up doing the work you did for most of your life?
  3. Who was the best person you ever worked with?
  4. What did a typical working day look like?
  5. What was the hardest moment of your working life?
  6. What are you proudest of from your work?
  7. If you could have done any other job, what would it have been?

Love and friendship

  1. How did you meet the people who became your closest friends?
  2. Who was your first love, and what do you remember about them?
  3. How did you meet your partner, if you have one?
  4. What’s a moment when someone showed you real kindness?
  5. Which friendship ended that you still think about?
  6. What has love taught you?
  7. If you have children, what do you remember about the day each one arrived?

Places

  1. Which place have you lived that felt most like home?
  2. What’s a journey you’ll never forget?
  3. Describe a room from your past in as much detail as you can.
  4. Where do you go, in your mind, when you want to feel calm?
  5. Which place have you never been back to, and why?
  6. What has changed most about the town where you grew up?

Turning points

  1. What’s a day that divided your life into before and after?
  2. What’s a decision you’re glad you made?
  3. What’s a loss that changed you?
  4. When did your life go in a direction you never expected?

Looking back

  1. What are you most grateful for?
  2. What would you tell yourself at twenty?
  3. What do you hope people remember about you?
  4. What’s something you’ve never told anyone, and are you ready to?

Using these with a parent or grandparent

If you’re interviewing someone else, a few habits make a big difference:

  • Record the conversation. You’ll want their exact words later, and their voice.
  • Follow the thread. “What happened next?” and “What did that feel like?” get you further than the next question on the list.
  • Bring props. Old photos, a map of their hometown, a recipe card. Objects unlock memories.
  • Stop while it’s good. Thirty or forty minutes is plenty. Come back another day.
  • Write down what they don’t know. Gaps are worth noting, so you can ask a sibling or cousin later.

For a full guide, from asking them the first time to what to do with the recording, read how to interview your parents.

Life story questions for seniors and care settings

All sixty questions work at any age. But if you’re asking someone in their eighties or nineties, or running life story sessions in a care home or day program, a few changes help. If they’d rather write their story themselves, our 52 memoir prompts include a set for older writers.

Start with their teens and twenties

Psychologists call it the reminiscence bump. For older adults, the years from about 10 to 30 give up the most memories, the most vivid ones and the ones they count as most important. When David Rubin and Matthew Schulkind asked 70-year-olds for the five most important memories of their lives, most came from a single decade: their twenties. It’s also the period people’s favorite films, music and books come from.

So with an older person, don’t always begin at the beginning. The questions under Becoming an adult, Work, and Love and friendship are often where the stories are richest. Earliest childhood can come later, once the conversation is warm.

Ten easy openers

These are concrete, which makes them easy to answer even on a tired day:

  • What song takes you straight back to being eighteen?
  • What did you do on a Saturday night when you were young?
  • What did you spend your first paycheck on?
  • What did you wear to a dance, or on your wedding day?
  • Which shop on your street do you remember best, and who ran it?
  • How did you get around: by bus, by bicycle, on foot?
  • What did your mother or father cook that nobody makes anymore?
  • What did you use every day that young people have never seen?
  • What did a Sunday look like when you were raising your family?
  • What’s the best advice anyone ever gave you?

Bring music and photos

Music is one of the strongest prompts there is. In a 2012 study in France, people with Alzheimer’s disease, along with healthy younger and older adults, recalled memories in two conditions: after listening to music they had chosen themselves, and in silence. The memories that came with music were more specific, more emotional and quicker to arrive. Ask what they listened to at eighteen, play it, and then ask where it takes them.

Photos work the same way, especially ones from their teens and twenties. Ask what happened just before the picture was taken, and who isn’t in it.

When memory is fading

  • One question at a time, and wait. The Alzheimer’s Association’s advice for the middle stage of dementia starts with “Ask one question at a time” and suggests yes-or-no questions, like “Would you like some coffee?” rather than “What would you like to drink?” The same works for stories: “Was the dairy your first job?” is easier than “What was your first job?”
  • Offer what you know. “Mom said you met Dad at a dance” gives them something to hold onto. Avoid “Do you remember…?”, which can feel like a test.
  • Don’t correct. The Association’s advice is to “avoid criticizing or correcting. Instead, listen and try to find the meaning in what the person says.” A story told twice, or a little differently, is still theirs.
  • Follow the feeling. If a question brings up sadness, stay with it gently or move on. The emotion often matters more than the facts.

In a care home or day program

  • Keep sessions short. Twenty to thirty minutes, at the time of day they’re most alert, in a quiet room where they can see your face.
  • Mix one-to-one and group sessions. A 2018 Cochrane review of 22 studies of reminiscence work with people living with dementia found the effects small overall, but no evidence of harm. One-to-one sessions were probably linked with slightly better mood and thinking, and groups with slightly better communication.
  • Give groups one theme. School days, first jobs, weddings. Pass around an object from the time, like a school photo, a record sleeve or an old tin, and let everyone answer in turn.
  • Write down their exact words, or record them with permission, and give the family a copy. Families treasure the phrasing as much as the facts.
  • Pass on what you learn. The Alzheimer’s Society’s free “This is me” leaflet is a ready-made place to record a person’s background, the people, places and events that matter to them, and their routines and preferences, so that everyone caring for them can get to know who they are.

Letting Eve ask

Working through sixty questions on your own takes patience, and the best follow-up questions depend on what you’ve already said. That’s what Eve, the AI biographer in Ever Journal, is for. She drafts your first chapter from a few basics, notices the biggest gap in your story, and asks about that, one question at a time. You answer by typing, speaking or adding a photo, and she weaves the answer into your book and shows you exactly what changed.

If you’d rather start with a pen, this list will get you a long way. If you’d like someone to keep asking, Eve is ready when you are. For the bigger picture, read our guide on how to write your life story.

Sources

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