sample of notes taken during pre-interview. Before we sit down to interview, it's important that I am familiar with the story details. I will set up a 30-minute phone interview with the subject and give them open time to talk through their story. Taking notes throughout not only helps me internalize important details, but it also helps me backtrack and ask follow up questions while we are chatting. The longest pre-interview lasted over 2 hours. That would have been a very difficult and excessive amount of raw footage to process had the same questions taken the same length of time to ask. The pre-interview also gives the subject an idea of what the interview process will be like.

sample of interview questions. 

after the interview is complete, I will usually transcribe the entire interview. Then, with the details fresh in my head, I turn over the transcript and write up the story as I remember it - the most interesting parts and just off the top of my head story arc. This creates what I call the spine of the story. From there, I go back through the transcript and highlight sections that match up with the 'spine'.