Ask Interesting Questions

Suppose you were interviewing somebody famous. Let's say it was the lead singer of a world-famous band. Anyone so popular has done countless interviews and has answered every question under the sun. They've said how and why the band formed, where they get their inspiration from, and how much they love playing live shows. Now that it's your turn, what are you going to do?

If you want to be safe and basic, you can ask the same safe and boring questions that they can answer in their sleep. If you want to be interesting, then ask some interesting questions. Instead of asking them about things they've done, ask them about the things they haven't done. Ask what they would have done without music. Ask why they don't play different kinds of music. If you want to be really daring, you can ask them what their favorite flower is, or if they could be any kind of tree, what tree they would be.

When you write, you're conducting an interview. If you're writing a biography, you're interviewing a person. You ask them all the questions about their lives, how things happened and why. If it's an autobiography, you're interviewing yourself. If it's an essay, you're interviewing your subject. If you're writing fiction, you're interviewing your characters.

Remember the number one rule when you're interviewing: what is interesting is relative to what you know.

To go back to the lead singer, we don't ask the basic questions because we already know the answers to them. We could go to Wikipedia and find out basic information about famous people. We already know where they were born, what schooling they've had, who their influences are, and everything else. That's why you have to start asking the stranger questions.

But suppose you're interviewing a brand-new band that nobody knows about. This is not the time to be asking them about flowers or regrets. We need to know the basic information of these people. You have to ask them the boring questions, which are not boring if you don't know the answer to them.

Writing stories will be the same way. When a new character is introduced, the audience needs to learn all the basic background questions that make us understand who this person is and what they do. But if you have a character whose background is either common or generally unimpressive, then you start asking other questions. You start asking what they think about, what they dream of, what they regret, what they suppress.

An interview is a tool to gather information for a story. This is true for a news article and it is true for a novel. Once you have conducted your interview, you turn that raw information into a story.