Good Questions to Ask Authors
Questions to ask a writer at a signing, a festival panel, a book club visit or a recorded interview. They cover where the book started, what got cut, how the drafting and editing actually went, what the publishing side looks like from inside, and what readers get wrong.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Where did this book start: a scene, a line, an argument you wanted to make?
Why ask it
Giving three options gets a real answer where asking about inspiration gets the anecdote they have told forty times. Novelists often start from an image and non-fiction writers from an irritation, and both are more interesting than an origin story.
How long was it from the first notes to the finished manuscript?
Why ask it
The number is usually longer than readers assume, and the gap between drafting and publication is often another year or two on top. Ask which part of that span was actual writing, since that is where the surprise usually is.
What is the oldest sentence in the book?
Why ask it
A specific, answerable question that most writers enjoy, and the answer is rarely on the first page. It tends to lead straight into what the book was originally about before it became this.
How much did you plan before you started writing?
Why ask it
Expect a spectrum from a full chapter outline to a single ending. The useful follow-up is whether the plan survived, because most writers will admit the middle went somewhere they had not mapped.
What did an earlier draft look like that this one no longer does?
Why ask it
Almost every book lost a character, a timeline, a whole opening section or a second narrator. Hearing what was removed tells you what the final book is deliberately not, which is the part reviews never cover.
What did you cut that you still miss?
Why ask it
Writers usually have one specific answer here and it comes with real feeling. It also reveals who made the call, which opens the question of how much the editor shaped the book.
Which section gave you the most trouble?
Why ask it
Almost always a transition, a technical explanation or a scene the writer did not want to write. If they name a passage readers praise, that mismatch is worth asking about directly.
Did the ending change?
Why ask it
Short, easy to answer, and it opens the most interesting territory in the book. Note whether the change came from the writer's own dissatisfaction or from an editor's note, since those produce different kinds of ending.
What did you have to research, and what did you get wrong at first?
Why ask it
The second half is where the good material is. Writers remember the correction they got from a reader with actual expertise, and those stories say more about the book's subject than a list of sources would.
Whose voice was hardest to get right?
Why ask it
For fiction this is often a character unlike the author; for memoir it is usually a family member. Either way, ask what they did about it, because the fix is usually a concrete technique rather than inspiration.
Where and when do you actually write?
Why ask it
Prosaic, and readers ask it because the answer is genuinely useful if they write too. Listen for whether writing sits around another job, since it reframes how the book got finished at all.
What counts as a good day for you?
Why ask it
Word counts vary from two hundred to five thousand and neither is better, but the number tells you what kind of drafting they do: careful sentence by sentence, or fast and fixed later.
What did your editor push you hardest on?
Why ask it
One of the few questions that gets at the invisible labour behind a book. Answers are usually structural: cut the first three chapters, move this to the front, choose one of these two books you are trying to write.
Was the title yours?
Why ask it
Often it was not, and writers are usually candid about it once asked. The original title, when it exists, tells you what the writer thought the book was before marketing had a view.
How much say did you have over the cover?
Why ask it
Most authors have less than readers imagine, sometimes none. It is a small question that opens up how much of a published book is decided by the publisher rather than the writer.
What do readers ask about that you did not expect?
Why ask it
Books acquire a second life once people read them, and the recurring question is often about a minor character or a two-line detail. This tends to be the answer an author has not yet worn smooth.
Is there anything in the book people consistently misread?
Why ask it
Gives them permission to correct a misreading they have been quietly enduring on tour. Watch whether they defend the reading or accept it, since some writers conclude the misreading is the book's fault.
Does the writing pay for itself?
Why ask it
Ask plainly and without embarrassment. Most books do not support a living, and the honest answer, teaching, journalism, a day job, a partner's salary, is more useful to an aspiring writer than any advice about persistence.
What have you learned to stop doing?
Why ask it
Better than asking for advice, because it produces one specific habit abandoned rather than encouragement. Common answers involve research as procrastination, or showing drafts to people too early.
What are you working on now, and how is it different?
Why ask it
Standard closing question, and the comparison is what makes it worth asking. If they are deliberately writing against the last book, that tells you what they think its limitation was.
Talking to a writer about their book
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
How much you can ask depends on where you are
A signing queue
You have perhaps twenty seconds and there are sixty people behind you. One short question, and something specific about the book rather than about writing in general. Say your name clearly if you want it in the inscription.
The audience microphone at an event
Keep it to one sentence and make it a question rather than a statement about yourself. The whole room is waiting, and the moderator will cut off anything that turns into a speech.
A book club visit, in person or by video
The best setting for the harder questions about cuts, drafts and endings, because there is time and the group has all read it. Agree in advance who asks what so eight people do not ask about inspiration in turn.
A recorded interview
Send two or three questions ahead, keep the rest live, and read the whole book. Authors can tell within a minute whether you have, and the interview changes accordingly.
What gets a good answer
- Point at something specific. A page number, a line, a chapter break. It is the single biggest difference between a question a writer has answered a hundred times and one they have not.
- Ask about decisions rather than meanings. Why the present tense, why start there, why leave that unexplained. Writers can answer craft questions precisely and find interpretation questions awkward.
- Ask about the process backwards: what was removed, what came last, what nearly did not survive. Forward-looking questions about inspiration get the standard answer.
- If they mention a difficulty, ask what they did about it. The technique is the interesting part and they will usually be pleased to be asked.
- Say what the book did for you in one sentence, then ask your question. Brief and genuine works; a five-minute appreciation does not.
Common pitfalls
- 'Where do you get your ideas?' It is the question every writer dreads and it produces nothing.
- Pitching your own manuscript, or asking them to read it, or asking for an introduction to their agent. It puts them in an impossible position in public.
- Asking how many copies it has sold, or what the advance was. Fine between writers, not at a public event.
- Assuming the novel is autobiography and asking about the real person you have decided a character is.
- Asking about a plot point in a way that spoils it for the rest of the room. Signal the spoiler or ask afterwards.
- Telling them what you would have done differently with the ending. There is a version of this that works between friends, and a signing table is not it.
- Asking about a book they wrote fifteen years ago all evening when they are touring a new one.
Follow-ups worth having ready
- 'Was that always the case, or did it change in revision?' after almost any answer about structure.
- 'Who told you that?' when they mention a piece of advice or criticism.
- 'What would you have needed to make that work?' when they describe something they abandoned.
- 'Did you read anything to solve that?' when they describe a technical problem in the writing.
- 'What did you think the book was about while you were writing it?' late on, when there is time for a real answer.