Lesson Three: Crafting Questions
So you’re finally ready to start your interview! Well, not quite. Before starting your interview it is important to have a rough guide of what you want to ask. This is where you need to start thinking about the type of questions you want to ask. Questions can be grouped into different categories: open questions, closed questions, direct questions & indirect questions.
OPEN QUESTIONS
In feature writing, profiles and Q&A’s, open questions will make up the majority of your interview questions. These are the big questions that allow your interviewee to tell you an anecdote or reveal information about themselves.
Eg. Tell me about your first shift as a sex worker?
The issue with open questions is sometimes they can be TOO open and overwhelm the interviewee.
Eg. What’s it like to be a sex worker?
That is a super open question and probably one we’d all struggle to answer in any sort of cohesive manner. So, when you’re writing your open ended question think of them more as prompts than anything else. Choose your words carefully. Use words like “describe” or “explain” as these will elicit a more descriptive response.
Eg. What does your club look like? Vs. Describe what you see when you walk through your strip club?
The second question is far more likely to get a rich and descriptive quote than the first. Basically, open questions are very important and we want to be asking them but be careful how you phrase them and try not to overwhelm your interviewee.
CLOSED QUESTIONS
Closed questions are the exact opposite of open questions, they are generally single word answers and won’t result in long anecdotes however, they can still be very useful for getting facts or statistics you may need. An example of a closed question is:
Eg. How long have you been working in the sex industry?
It can be tempting sometimes to compound a closed question and an open question but try to avoid that. When you ask two questions at once the interviewee will usually only answer the last question or won’t answer one of the questions fully.
Eg. Rather than asking: How long have you worked in the sex industry and how did you get started?
Those two questions should be broken up into two separate questions even if one of the questions only has a short answer.
DIRECT VS. INDIRECT QUESTIONS
In writing that is not news reporting or political reporting it isn’t (in my opinion) ever necessary to ask blunt/ direct questions. These can come across combative and aren’t conducive to getting an interviewee to open-up to you. Indirect questions are generally the way to go, but just because you aren’t being blunt doesn’t mean you should make your questions convoluted by talking around the question.