Features desk: In their own words
FEATURES DESK
Conducting strong interviews and presenting them in the best way possible are essential skills for non-fiction writers of all kinds. Tina Jackson talks you through the options
Good journalists need more than writing skills, particularly when it comes to interviews. People skills are essential too: talking, and listening. At the heart of all good journalism is the ability to engage with a stranger and persuade them to communicate.
Whatever kind of interview you’re conducting, you are after one thing: quotes. These are more than the meat on the bones of your story: in many cases – a profile interview, for instance– they are the story itself. The stranger who will provide the material for your feature article may come in many guises – celebrity, expert, case study, to name just three possibilities – but in each instance, the success of your piece is totally dependent on your ability to get them to provide you with good quotes.
Then, of course, you have to shape your material into a feature. But first let’s look at how to make sure you get the good stuff.
What kind of interview are you doing?
Are you doing an in-depth piece about a particular person? If so, why are you doing it (the hook) and is there any particular focus to it (the angle)? For instance, look at WM’s star interview this month with prize-winning author Kei Miller. The hook is his new novel, Augustown. The focus, for a specialist magazine with a readership of writers, is his writing life (the angle).
Are you writing a human interest story where you are speaking to a case study? That’s a clinical phrase, isn’t it – case study? Very often it actually means a human being with a set of possibly difficult experiences that you need them to reveal. Are you writing about people’s hobbies, or interests? Do you need to get factual quotes to reinforce a story? Human interest quotes to add colour?