Sunday, January 01, 2006
Interviewing
In a comment to my post about 'Kickstarting the Writing Process' David Corking said...
Interviews? : do you transcribe your interview tapes and add them to your pile, or FF through them and transcribe only the interesting quotes, or rely solely on notes made at the time?
The answer is - it depends. Some interviews are crucial to what I'm writing and will get the full treatment whilst others will simply add confirmation to my arguments in the form of quotes. I take notes during the interview - sometimes these are comprehensive and other times the interest in what the interviewee is saying means that I have few, very sketchy notes.
By using a digital machine (currently out of action, sadly), I am able to transfer the interview as a sound file to my PC. I've not yet come across voice recognition software that can handle multiple voices. Dragon Naturally Speaking works well for me when I'm dictating but is useless for interviews. So it is a question of transcribing crucial interviews.
I've looked at using various services to do the transcription for me, but so far, I've found none that provide me with a service I need at a price I'm prepared to pay. When you think that four or five interviews will form the basis for a piece that a magazine will pay between £300 and £600 for, you can see that there is little margin for expense items like transcription - so I trade my time, instead.
I was taught that I should never ask a question to which I didn't know the answer. That isn't always possible but these days, with Google at my elbow, I can do a huge amount of research before interview.
That's not to say, though, that I'll always ask the important question. I'm the interviewer who, when talking to Fiona Richmond in the 80s, asked her about her marriage, the fashion show she was sponsoring for Live Aid but didn't ask a single question about her past as a writer (and alleged sex tester) for the Paul Raymond publication 'Men Only' or about her relationship with Raymond. I hope that I would, these days, ask those questions.
More on writing later....
Interviews? : do you transcribe your interview tapes and add them to your pile, or FF through them and transcribe only the interesting quotes, or rely solely on notes made at the time?
The answer is - it depends. Some interviews are crucial to what I'm writing and will get the full treatment whilst others will simply add confirmation to my arguments in the form of quotes. I take notes during the interview - sometimes these are comprehensive and other times the interest in what the interviewee is saying means that I have few, very sketchy notes.
By using a digital machine (currently out of action, sadly), I am able to transfer the interview as a sound file to my PC. I've not yet come across voice recognition software that can handle multiple voices. Dragon Naturally Speaking works well for me when I'm dictating but is useless for interviews. So it is a question of transcribing crucial interviews.
I've looked at using various services to do the transcription for me, but so far, I've found none that provide me with a service I need at a price I'm prepared to pay. When you think that four or five interviews will form the basis for a piece that a magazine will pay between £300 and £600 for, you can see that there is little margin for expense items like transcription - so I trade my time, instead.
I was taught that I should never ask a question to which I didn't know the answer. That isn't always possible but these days, with Google at my elbow, I can do a huge amount of research before interview.
That's not to say, though, that I'll always ask the important question. I'm the interviewer who, when talking to Fiona Richmond in the 80s, asked her about her marriage, the fashion show she was sponsoring for Live Aid but didn't ask a single question about her past as a writer (and alleged sex tester) for the Paul Raymond publication 'Men Only' or about her relationship with Raymond. I hope that I would, these days, ask those questions.
More on writing later....
