Interviews revisited

Interviews have always been a big challenge for me.  The experience I gained from conducting them and writing them on the last course has meant that I am much more confident and enthusiastic about them this time around.

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed my Mum over the phone about learning to knit, and then I wrote it up as a 350 word piece.  I surprised myself by enjoying the whole process.  The feedback I was given gave me another boost of confidence and I wanted to go right out and do another one - making it even better this time.

The feature I am writing for the final legacy publication is based around an interview with the committee of the Eton Mission Rowing Club in Hackney Wick.  I went down there to interview them on Monday evening.  This was my first face-to-face interview, rather than over the phone, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Having Ian, the photographer, with me was a big help - it felt like we were all having a good chat rather than anything stiff and formal.

So I'm an interview convert...right up to the point where I have to type up the transcript.  I still hate this part - I sound like such an idiot when I hear myself back.  I type as quickly as I can, and reward myself with a big slice of cake when I'm finished.

My voice recorder - useful and mortifying in equal measure

Interviews

I've been interviewing this week, and finding it outrageously difficult.  I have to fight my natural shyness and my somewhat phobic attitude to telephones. There's no point trying to interview someone if you're too shy to speak to them.  But there's no point being a writer if you can't interview people.  So I gritted my teeth and did it anyway.

Photo from smiling-da-vinci on Flickr

For my Mapping the Change assignment I had to do a 15 minute interview with someone I know, and then write up the transcript and turn it into a 350 word article.  I decided to interview my brother-in-law about his experiences as a troop commander in the British Army, serving in Iraq.

I was shy about asking him if he would be interviewed - and I needn't have been because he was very happy to do it.  I was nervous about speaking to him on the phone - and I needn't have been because we've known each other for years and he's very easy to chat to.  So the lesson there is to not be so ridiculous about using the telephone and just do it anyway.

The preparation for interviews can be quite lengthy, because you need to think up more questions than you'll need and plan a little how you want the conversation to go.  This preparation really paid off when I was talking to my brother-in-law.  I had enough questions, and I found out what I wanted to know, but I also learned some things that I wasn't expecting (annual appraisals must still happen, even when you're serving in Iraq!) and the conversation went off in unexpected directions which I felt I managed to respond to well.

I was very pleased with how the interview had gone, until I came to write up the transcript.  I quickly learned all the phrases I constantly repeat: "Oh, that's so interesting!" "So, in some way..." and "Okay...so..." (this last one all the time).  I also talk far too much for an interviewer - so perhaps I should use my shyness to my advantage and just try and shut up a bit more?


Once I had finished squirming at the transcript I started to write the article.  This was even more frustrating as I had such a low word count so couldn't possibly include everything I wanted to.  It was a very good lesson in restraint and editing.  I ended up going with a topic we talked about that was perhaps not the most interesting one, but the one that I thought had the best quotes and the best story with which to frame it. 

Thoroughly bad-tempered after all this word-wrestling, I emailed the article off to our tutor with mixed feelings. The darn thing was done and dusted, but I was frustrated that I had probably not submitted one of my better pieces of writing.

Picture from tlg_interviews on Flickr

Yesterday I went to the LOCOG offices at Canary Wharf with the rest of the Mapping the Change groups to talk to Jonathan Edwards.  It was an interview in a press conference format.  We each went with some questions to ask him, but only had time to ask about one each.  I loved this, and really enjoyed hearing other people's questions, but found it hard to pick which one of my fifteen-or-so questions to ask Jonathan. 

In the end I asked him how he personally would judge if the London 2012 Olympics had been a success.  He gave a full, but rather standard, answer and I wished I had pushed him further to narrow down his response and be more precise.  So that made me think again about that balance between polite and pushy.  It will be difficult for me to find a balance I am comfortable with.