Contemporary Notes: Jane Ratcliffe

how to take notes for a stellar interview

Quick Update: I’ve got several exciting contemporary “Noted” interviews lined up, and I’m learning that I don’t have the time to write them along with a fully-researched historical post each week. So, I’m going to experiment with interspersing contemporary interviews on Mondays with my usual historical write-ups. This week will focus on award-winning author and interviewer (and fellow-Substacker), Jane Ratcliffe. Next week will feature Octavia Butler.

Here’s why I’m excited to include more contemporary voices:

• There’s still so much to explore about how we take notes in the 21st century

• I’m so curious about all the new note-taking software out there

• I also wonder how people decide which notes belong in the digital world and which notes are better written by hand

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section! What do you think about including more contemporary note-takers? What would you like to learn from them?

With that, let’s turn to

Jane Ratcliffe

. I’m still learning how to conduct interviews (thank you to my gracious guinea pigs Amanda Watson, Mark Dykeman, and Anne Kadet), and I’ve learned so much from Jane! She’s been interviewing musicians (from Sinéad O’Connor to Tony Bennett to Radiohead to Metallica to Mary J. Blige) for decades and has developed some brilliant preparation methods. Now, she’s focused on writers. It’s truly humbling to see just how much time and thought goes into each of her interviews. No wonder her interviewees love the experience!

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Jane Ratcliffe’s newsletter,

Beyond

, features interviews with some of our best contemporary writers. Recent favorites include interviews with Cheryl Strayed, Katherine May, Alexander Chee, and Lidia Yuknavitch. Jane has a genius for getting her subjects to open up as they explore life’s deep questions.

Jane also has an impressive resume. Her short stories have appeared in New England Review, The Sun, Michigan Quarterly Review, NER Digital, Literary Orphans, The Intima, ROAR, and Knee-Jerk Magazine. “You Can’t Be Too Careful” was selected as a Best American Short Stories Notables 2013. Her non-fiction work has appeared in magazines and websites like O, The Oprah Magazine, Narratively, Vogue, The Huffington Post, Guernica, and The Rumpus. You can learn more about her writing on her personal website.

In what follows, Jane shares her process with us: how she prepares for interviews and writes the posts we’ve come to love.

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It Starts with Writing in a Book

There was a time when Jane would have never written in a book. Perhaps that’s because she used to interview musicians. Now that she interviews authors, it’s necessary—although, Jane tells me, “at first, it felt like sacrilege.”

I’ve always been a voracious reader and have never (ever!) made a single mark in a book or folded down a page corner. My heart probably raced and my palms sweated the first time I took this approach! But without it, I need to keep a notebook nearby whenever I’m reading, which I’m not always good at remembering. Plus, writing in a notepad breaks my connection with the text in the book.

Jane developed a system of note-taking within the pages of a book to support the notes she’ll take later.

I jot down questions in the margins as they arise. I also put checkmarks next to sentences or concepts that pique my interest, but a question hasn’t yet formed. Two checkmarks mean my interest is really piqued, three checkmarks mean my interest is off the charts. A star indicates this is key to the interview even if the question isn’t yet there. Two or three stars mean YES! YES! YES!

Here, Jane prepares for her interview with Lidia Yuknavitch by reading Thrust.

Jane’s reading notes and her checkmark system

Jane then sorts through her notes and transfers her favorite passages and questions into a Word document.

After I finish reading the book, I review my questions, checkmarks, and stars and type the keepers into a Word document on my computer. I’m often surprised by how many starred (even three stars!) passages don’t make it. Sometimes I still struggle to form the question, so I’ll note the page number in the document to circle back when all the questions are loaded in.

You can read Jane’s interview with Lidia Yuknavitch here:

Lidia Yuknavitch

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Spiral Notepads

As Jane prepares for her interviews, she’ll refresh her memory by listening to books she’s already read using audio-books.

When questions arise, I’ll jot them down on a notepad with the time codes beside them in case I need to pull a specific quote.

Jane notes thoughts and questions along with time-stamps to locate the corresponding audio-book section

These notes turned into Jane’s post about Esmé Weijun Wang:

Esmé Weijun Wang

In addition to audio-books, Jane also listens to “various radio, podcast, and video interviews.” She uses the same notepad to jot down her thoughts. In particular, Jane doesn’t want to repeat the same tired questions her authors have been asked over and over again.

Finally, questions often randomly pop into my head during the day, so if I’m home, where the notepad lives, I’ll jot those down, as well.

As with her marginal notes in printed books, she’ll transfer the important questions and ideas to her Word document.

Once Jane has finished an interview, she tears out the notes and (*gasp*) throws them out.

I tend to tear out the pages of the previous interviewee before starting a fresh one, otherwise it can get awfully confusing. Especially because mixed in there are grocery and general to-do lists. As I’m writing this, I’m realizing I should start a notebook devoted entirely to interview notes!

Yes, Jane! I wish you had kept a notebook so I could see all the notes you took decades ago when you were interviewing musicians in the East Village.

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Texts to Self

It wasn’t all that long ago that writers carried small pocket-notebooks to record ideas that occurred when out of the house. Now, of course, we walk around with little computers in our pockets. So, Jane will text thoughts to herself while walking her dog.

Twice a day, I walk my beloved dog, Delilah and her best pal Cookie. Often on these walks questions come to me. I learned the hard way that if I wait until I’m home, the questions are gone. So I’ve taken to texting them to myself. Because I’m speaking the texts and often forget to double-check them before sending, they don’t always make sense. But usually the gist of it is there. The same is true if a question comes to me waiting to see my chiropractor or having lunch with a friend, et cetera.

Jane’s texts to herself with questions for Cheryl Strayed

You can read Strayed’s responses to these questions here:

Cheryl Strayed

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The Word Document

Jane’s texts to herself also find their way into the Word document. Then, the great sifting commences, as she “whittles” her document down to the most salient questions. She always has more questions than she can possibly ask.

I then begin the often arduous, often sad task of whittling the questions down to a manageable amount. I routinely start with forty, fifty, sixty, sometimes more. Depending upon how long the subject’s answers are, I have time for twelve to twenty questions. Coming up with all the questions is fun! My curiosity is happy and alive! Cutting questions is tough. Inevitably, there are always questions that I want to include that I can’t. Sigh. I move many of the cut questions down to the bottom of the page in case I want to circle back.

I then arrange them into what I hope is a flow—the subject’s answers can, of course, affect this. I make sure the questions are fleshed out, include quotes as needed, and polish everything up. It can take several passes to get this right. I’m often doing a final pass moments before the interview starts.

Here is a screenshot of the first questions Jane compiled before her interview with Dani Shapiro.

Jane’s Word document of questions for Dani Shapiro

You can read Shapiro’s answers to these questions on Jane’s Substack:

Dani Shapiro

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The Interview

Jane conducts her interviews over Zoom and finds that she drops or adds questions depending on the conversation’s flow. As for recording the interview, she uses Zoom as well as her phone for back up.

Then I use Otter for transcription…which is a bit dodgy but gets the basic footprint in place. Then a round of editing cleaning up Otter and making rough cuts. Then another round of tightening things. Possibly another round after that. Then the final edit. After which all that beauty and wisdom goes out into the world. We’re in such hard times; I believe these interviews can help people. I feel deeply lucky to be the conduit! 

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Notes on Jane’s Notes

Here’s what I learned from Jane’s process:

• Maintain a central storage space. Jane sifts through her hand-written notes and text messages and stores the best ideas in a Word document.

• Use audio notes. It never occurs to me to speak my notes. In part, it’s because I think more clearly in writing. But, when running around, leaving myself a voice text for Apple’s software to transcribe sounds like a great idea.

• Find transcription software: this is something I learned in the comments section of my post on Anne Kadet. Journalists record conversations and then use software like Otter to make a typed copy.

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I hope you learned as much as I did from Jane’s notes! Let me know by hitting the heart below. You can also support “Noted” by commenting, sharing, or subscribing!

Till next week,

Jillian