In honor of our fuzzy bear's birthday, we bring you a guest blog by none other than Gregory L. Hall.
December's Contributor
Gregory L Hall is a decades old veteran of comedy and theatre. He’s a national Telly Award winner and was featured in the award winning documentary Non-Player Character. Greg has created/produced such critically acclaimed and successful projects as the live serial Charm City Dreams, his long running improv troupe the Early Monday Morning Showand the annual Baltimore Comedy Fest in which proceeds go to support Autism Awareness. He currently teaches at various colleges and theaters around the PA, MD and DC areas.
As a horror writer, Greg’s work has appeared in such publications as Shroud, Alien Skin, Necrotic Tissue, Graveside Tales, and The Devil’s Food. His short story ‘Mintas and Frankie’ (from Screaming Dreams) finished # 6 in the Preditors and Editors ‘08 readers poll.
He’s waited a long time for his novel, At the End of Church Street, to find a home. And now he can finally sleep.
Greg can be found on his popular horror playground Choate Road and as host of his live internet radio show The Funky Werepig. More than likely you will see him wandering around any number of horror/sci-fi conventions. He’ll be the big bearded dude bragging that he was once hugged by Pat Morita.
Greg’s novel, At The End of Church Street, is Belfire Press’ launch project releasing on May 1st, 2010.
Greg Hall
INTERVIEWING IS THE QUESTION
By Gregory L Hall
Being an interviewer is something I’ve loved since I could talk to folks. So that’s been about three years. I’ve done talk shows, radio shows, print interviews and actually reached a point where I’ve taught seminars on the fine art of pulling information from a hopefully willing participant.
In the most basic game plan it comes down to one thing: the questions. Nothing is more boring than the old Q&A format. Going down your list is like tagging some poor shopper in a bad mall survey. Yuck. When you approach a guest or other interviewee that way, you’ll get exactly what you’re putting into it. Formatted answers whose sole purpose is to move on to Question #5 as quickly as possible.
So what do you do? I mean how the hell do you do an interview if you can’t ask questions?
Well, boys and girls, the trick is to ask your questions without looking like you’re asking questions. Have a conversation not an interrogation. Let it flow. After midnight, we’re gonna let it all hang out.
This starts in your early planning. First is to actually research your guest. I’ve seen and heard so many talk shows where the host or hostess pulls standard questions from a manual of some sorts and so each and every guest gets ‘How did you get into writing?’ and ‘Who are your influences?’ and ‘What projects do you have next?’. How lazy is that? If you don’t want to do the interview with that individual, why do it at all? And how disrespectful to someone who takes the time to be your guest.
I once did an interview where in 20 minutes the host basically asked me two questions. ‘Why did you get into horror?’ and ‘What do you like about horror?’ It was exhausting trying to keep the interview interesting and to be blunt, it wasn’t my job. I was the guest! I’ve had three shows ask me ‘Boxers or briefs?’ in an attempt to add some wacky curveball to the interview. Three different shows. All reading the same interview book.
Know your interviewee so you can talk about them. Make it personal. Yes, they all have a book or movie or appearance to sell. But this goes for everything from doing research on a particular subject to holding job interviews. Ask a rigid unoriginal question and you’ll get a rigid repetitive answer. It’s all in how you phrase it.
One trick I’ve learned is when I research an interview, I never write down questions I want to ask. I write down topics. It forces you to ask it in a far more casual style.
Let’s say you’re interviewing someone like Brian Keene. If you have ‘Why did you write about zombies in your first books?’ as one of your questions, you’ll probably get ‘Because I thought it would be scary. And then the first one sold so I wrote more. But I don’t like writing about zombies much now.’
And that’s the end of that. On to Question #2.
Now if you researched Brian at all you’d already know those answers. And you’d know 100 other interviewers put that boring question on their note pads.
BUT what if you just wrote ‘Zombies’ down on your note pad?
Now you’re forced to dance and segue into the TOPIC and you have no choice but to come up with something far more conversational.
‘Man, zombies are everywhere now. Seems almost every horror book that comes out or magazine has something to do with zombies. All the movies. They’re extremely popular and you had a lot to do with that with your early books. But that was a different time when you wrote The Rising, right?’
And Brian Keene is going to give you some beautiful insight into his start in the business, his writing style and one helluva commentary on zombies overall. More importantly, you’ll probably get an answer somewhere in there he has never given anyone else.
Basically from the same damn question, but can you see the difference?
You’re having a conversation.
(Quick note- you’d actually get a great answer from Brian Keene either way because he’s a true pro and a veteran. Unfortunately most guests don’t have the comfort or experience to carry an interview no matter how bad it is.)
Listing topics also allows you to switch from one to another much easier. Nothing is more damaging to the flow of an interview as when the guest brings up a topic on their own and the interviewer says ‘Oh yes. I have that down as Question #7. But getting back to my other questions first…’ When you use a conversational style you don’t so much do and interview as guide it.
If you have your research done and you have your topics listed, when your guest jumps from talking about his first novel to his childhood, it’s easy for you to scan your notes and introduce, ‘And you spent most of your youth in Catholic school. How did that play into your future choices?’
If they naturally segue into their Uncle Bernie or how much they enjoyed a recent convention or their favorite TV show, you should be able to look at your topics and match up with an easy flow in that direction. Remember, if you still have things you would like to touch on in a particular topic, you can always come back to it. Most times the interviewee will lead you back to it themselves.
Here’s another tip. Most questions are naturally set up in a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ format. You can hear it in the answers…it’s a positive response, a negative or the dreaded ‘I don’t know.’ As an interviewer you want to ask any question as open-ended as possible. If you give an interviewee an easy out, they will take it every time. It’s human nature.
‘Do you like ice cream?’
‘Yes. I do.’
And there ya go. You want more information, you better have more questions ready.
‘What is your favorite flavor of ice cream?’
‘Chocolate.’
‘Okay. Any others?’
‘Not really. Sometimes vanilla.’
‘Do you ever get anything on it like making a sundae?’
‘Sure. Hot fudge. The usual.’
Oh boy. Even though this is a great subject and the guest obviously loves ice cream, you’re pulling teeth now. Human nature. People will only answer what they are asked.
But what if we did it open ended in a conversational format?
‘I’m going to take you out for ice cream one day. For me, it’s always a triple scoop of Rocky Road with sprinkles and whipped cream. What’s your poison?”
They can’t say ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Even if they say ‘I don’t know’ they’ve had to put thought into it…and you can get a conversation out of that. A good rule of thumb is to ask what you really want to talk about, not pigeonhole yourself with a cheap lead-in question. If you want to talk about a new project, simply say ‘Tell me about the movie you just released.’ If you dance around with specifics like ‘When did your latest movie come out?’ they’ll only answer what you asked. ‘Last Thursday.’ And you’ll have to ask yet another question to move the interview forward.
Asking question after question is boring for the audience and draining for the interviewee. They feel like they’re on trial. To be honest it’s grueling for the interviewer, too. The ideal interview is when simple questions get paragraph long answers. Stay away from ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
Here is the final fact to always keep in your brainpan. Nobody does an interview if they don’t want to. Nobody comes onto a talk show because they have nothing to say. They WANT to be asked questions and discuss whatever it is they come to the interview with because for that time they have everyone’s attention.
This always gives you the advantage. You want fans to buy your books, talk. You want that job, better give some answers. You’ve agreed to help someone with the topic of ancient Egyptian art, you agreed because you wish to share your expertise.
As an interviewer, it’s our job to make these nice people comfortable. Smile. Pay attention to their answers. Know what you want to ask before you even get there. Relax.
Conversation instead of interrogation.
Any questions?
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Don't forget to listen to The Funky Werepig tonight! Greg's weekly blog talk radio show. This evening's guest is Mr. Harry Shannon!