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Before you can write out good questions to ask someone who you are interviewing for an article, podcast, or another medium, you need to gather all the information you can.  Knowing who this person is, accomplishments, failures, and personality will allow you to formulate solid questions that can get you the best results. Search for your interviewee online and see if there are other articles about this person. Write down a bio about your interviewee. Highlight specific milestones that you want to talk about. Once you know who this person you’re interviewing is, it’s a good idea to write down what you want from the interview.  Your objective will help you create questions before the interview that can steer the conversation in the right direction. Your objective will also help you stay on track if the conversation goes in a different direction than your questions. Your objective should be a declarative statement which is concise. It could be as simple as “I want [name of interviewee] to walk me through his process for writing his latest novel, and learn the challenges he faced.” When writing out your questions, you want to create ones that allow the conversation or interview to flow naturally.   A “softball question” will help the interviewee become relaxed and open up. This type of question should be simple and not controversial in any way. This question shouldn’t be challenging and let the person brag a little about the work. Throw it away. Your first question should be something that you can throw away and not have it affect the information you need from your interview. You’re interviewing a person to gain knowledge on a subject. Whether you’re reporting or doing an informational interview with someone who works somewhere you want to. You want to create a dialogue, this means questions that don’t let the interviewee simply answer “yes” or “no” will help you.  You can ask questions like “What was your favorite part of …” asking what this person person liked or didn’t like about the subject you’re interviewing for will give you insightful information to go on. Depending on the context of the interview, you may want to press this person a bit. You don’t have to be mean, but if you are interviewing for an article, you want to know all you can. When writing your questions, find a quote from the interviewee. Then create a question that lets you ask “You said [quote]. Why do you believe this to be true?” You’ll want to learn how this person thinks and what this person values. Parrot your subject and repeat phrases.  Questions that make your interviewee look back and share a story or example are great to keep things going and give you useful information.  When writing your questions, see if you can find any information on your interviewees career path. You can use what you find to steer the conversation during the interview and then ask “What were some of the unexpected hurdles? What about benefits?” You can also ask a question that has the person looking back. “Looking back at where you started this journey, where did you think you would end up?” Write down a few questions you want your subject to answer, and that you know the answer to. Then answer these questions before your interview.  You should know which questions you will need to gather the most information. If you know the answer to certain questions, you might not need to ask these specific ones during an interview. When writing your interview questions, consider forming a few that are similar to ones you can answer but might earn a different response based on the phrasing. You may then want to ask your subject one or two of these to compare answers. Just like open ended questions, you’ll want to come up with a few that will get you an emotional response.  When writing your interview questions, see if you can find anything about your subject that you can use to get a feeling-based response. Did this person publish a book that didn’t sell well? Did your subject face constant rejection and setbacks before succeeding? If you can’t find anything, be prepared to formulate a question on the spot during the interview. Use what’s been discussed in the interview and write down this new question quickly so you don’t forget. Make sure to ask “why” and “how”. ”Why did you feel like you would never reach your goal?” “What motivated you to keep trying when you hit speed bumps?” “How do you feel about that experience now?” Look at the questions you plan to ask. How many are the same or too similar? If you notice that you’re writing a lot of the same questions, you may want to search for one that’s different. Your curve ball question doesn’t have to be an attacking question on your subject. It can be as simple as a fun unrelated question like “What’s your favorite indulgence food to eat when you’ve had a bad day?” Look over all of your questions and rephrase ones that still need a little work, or that don’t help you reach your objective. During an actual interview rely on these questions to guide you, but don’t feel like you have to ask each one word for word. Let the flow of the conversation help you form your questions. Use the ones you’ve written as much as you can, but be prepared to ignore some that become irrelevant.
Do your research on the person. Write down your objective for the interview. Lead with a “softball question”. Ask open-ended questions. Ask a reflection question. Write down questions you know the answer to. Ask questions that elicit an emotional response. Include a curve ball. Rephrase your questions.