Six Common Mistakes in Community Interviews and How to Avoid Them

Arriving with a script instead of curiosity

The most frequent mistake we see in a community interview is a list of questions treated like a form to be filled in. A person sits down at their own kitchen table, and the interviewer reads from a page, ticking boxes. The answers come out short and polite, because the guest senses that the real conversation has not begun.

Our interviews are built from a few open starting points, not a fixed sequence. We might ask how someone came to live on their street, or what a normal Tuesday looks like. Then we follow what they say. When a resident mentions a closed bakery in passing, that is often the door to the best twenty minutes of the recording.

Preparation still matters. We read about the town, learn how to pronounce street and family names, and bring a notebook. But the notes stay in the bag until the guest is comfortable, and we put them away again whenever the talk turns somewhere better.

• Start with an easy, concrete question about daily life
• Keep three or four prompts, not thirty
• Follow the guest's tangents before returning to your list

Choosing a setting that does not suit the guest

Where a conversation takes place shapes what is said. A noisy cafe produces guarded answers and a poor recording. A formal office can make a retired farmer sound like he is giving a statement. Many interviews are weakened before the first question because nobody thought about the room.

We ask guests where they would like to talk and, whenever possible, go to them: a living room, a workshop, a back porch in these cooler autumn weeks. Familiar surroundings loosen people, and they also give Margaret something to photograph for the portrait that accompanies the story.

Sound is the practical side of this. A fridge hum, a ticking clock or an open window onto a road can ruin a transcript. We check the room quietly, ask permission to move a chair or close a door, and place the recorder close to the guest rather than between us.

Hurrying the pauses

Silence frightens new interviewers. A guest stops mid-thought, and the instinct is to rescue them with another question. That instinct costs you the most honest part of the conversation, because people often say the thing they did not plan to say after a pause of several seconds.

Samuel Okafor, who edits our interview series, tells every new contributor the same thing: count slowly to five before speaking. It feels long at first. Then a woman describing her late husband's fishing boat adds a sentence she had never told anyone outside the family.

Slowing down also signals respect. The guest learns that we are not racing toward a quotation. They are allowed to think, to correct themselves, and to change their mind about what matters. That patience is audible in the final piece, which reads as a person speaking and not as a set of answers.

Editing a person into someone else

Turning a long recording into a readable first-person story requires cuts, and cuts can distort. The common mistake is to tidy too much: smoothing every hesitation, replacing the guest's words with the editor's, or rearranging events so the story sounds neater than the life it describes.

Our rule is that the story should still sound like the person who told it. We remove repetition and false starts, keep their turns of phrase, and leave in the regional expressions and dry jokes. If a sentence has to move for clarity, the meaning must not change.

Before anything is published, the guest reads the edited text and can ask for changes. This step takes time, and some guests trim far more than we would. We accept that. A story the person recognizes as their own is worth more than a polished one they would not have written.

• Keep the guest's vocabulary and rhythm
• Never merge two separate remarks into one quote
• Send the draft back for approval before it runs

Skipping consent and clear expectations

Many problems arise from a conversation that began without a clear understanding. A guest who did not know the recording would be published, or who assumed their full address might appear, can feel uneasy later. That discomfort is avoidable with a plain conversation at the start.

We explain what the interview is for, where it will appear, how long it will be, and that the guest may stop at any point or ask us to leave something out. Names, workplaces and street details are discussed openly, and some guests prefer to be identified by first name only.

Written confirmation follows. It is short, in ordinary language, and states how the story and portrait may be used. Nothing about it is meant to intimidate. It simply means that nobody is surprised when the piece appears, and that the guest stays in control of their own account.

Treating the portrait as an afterthought

Because the interview is the heart of the work, the photograph is sometimes added at the end in a hurry: a quick snap on the doorstep as the recorder is packed away. The result is a stiff image that sits oddly beside a warm, unguarded story.

We plan the portrait as part of the visit. Margaret arrives with the recorder, watches how the guest moves around their space, and chooses natural light and a spot that means something to them, a workbench, a garden gate, a favourite chair. Often the best frame comes while the conversation is still going and the guest has forgotten the camera.

The picture and the words should agree. If a woman speaks about quiet mornings with her dog, a portrait of her squinting at a lens in the driveway would contradict the story. Pairing them carefully is what makes the finished page feel like one piece of work.