Questions to Ask an Author About Their Book
For a book club that has the author on the call or in the room. The questions stay on the book rather than the writing life: the ending, the character everybody judged, the passages the group split over, and the readings the author thinks are wrong. Each one can be asked by anyone who finished the book, with no craft vocabulary required. If you want to talk about how the writing actually got done, a set built around process will suit you better.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Where were you when the idea arrived, and what was the first thing you wrote down?
Why ask it
Asking where they were, rather than what inspired them, gets a scene instead of a summary. The first note is usually nothing like the finished book, which is the interesting part: a line of dialogue, an image, a question they could not answer.
What did you hope a group like ours would end up arguing about?
Why ask it
It tells the room where the author thinks the fault lines are, which saves ten minutes of polite circling. If your group argued about something else entirely, say so and watch what happens.
Which character do readers judge most harshly, and do you think they are right?
Why ask it
Book club talk organises itself around one disliked character, and the author has heard every version of that verdict. The second half of the question is what makes the answer honest.
Who in the book do you have the most sympathy for, and does it show?
Why ask it
Writers are often fonder of a minor figure than readers realise, and hearing it changes how the group reads them. Asking whether it shows invites a real answer rather than a diplomatic one.
Is there a moment in the book you expect us to disagree about?
Why ask it
It lets the author name the ambiguity instead of defending it, which gives everyone permission to keep a different reading. The passage they name is usually worth reading aloud.
How much of the ending is settled, and how much is left open on purpose?
Why ask it
Most groups are still arguing about this when the author arrives, and it is a fair thing to ask directly. Writers will usually tell you where they deliberately stopped short.
Which scene were you most nervous about?
Why ask it
Nerves point at sex, violence, grief, a real event, a community they do not belong to, or a relative who would certainly read it. This gets at what the book risked, which is more revealing than asking about its themes.
Which part of the book do you think most of us skimmed?
Why ask it
A self-deprecating question that authors enjoy, and the answer often points at the section the group underrated. Expect the middle of the book, and expect to be told why it earns its place.
Where did you deliberately depart from the facts?
Why ask it
Books built on real events involve considered divergence rather than carelessness. Asking about it this way signals that you know the difference between an error and a decision, which tends to get you a much fuller answer.
If somebody in the group had given up, where do you think they stopped?
Why ask it
Every book has a place where readers fall away, and authors know theirs. It is a kinder way of raising a slow stretch than announcing that half the group struggled.
What did you leave in that you expected to be told to take out?
Why ask it
It gets at the risk the author took without turning the evening into a discussion of the publishing process. Whatever survived the argument tends to be the part they care about most.
Was the title yours?
Why ask it
Titles are frequently changed by publishers, and authors are often ambivalent about the result. A small question that reliably opens up the larger subject of what the writer controlled and what they did not.
Did you know the ending before you wrote it?
Why ask it
Separates writers who plan from writers who discover, and both have specifics to offer. If they did know, ask whether it survived, because endings settled in advance change more often than people expect.
What has a reader said about this book that you have never forgotten?
Why ask it
Invites a specific story rather than a general reflection, and those stories are what a group remembers afterwards. It also moves the conversation to what the book has done in the world.
Has anyone read it in a way you disagree with?
Why ask it
Better than asking whether readers understood it, because it lets them describe a reading they think is wrong without dismissing readers generally. The most interesting answers concede that the misreading was earned by the text.
Was there a sentence or a scene that opened up the rest of it?
Why ask it
Books often turn on one small solved problem: a line that established the voice, a scene moved to the front, a change of tense. Writers recall these exactly, and it is usually the most useful thing another writer in the room could hear.
How do you feel about it now, reading it back?
Why ask it
An author's relationship with their own book shifts over time, and this gives them permission to be unromantic. Answers range from being unable to open it at all to finding it better than they remembered.
Is there a line you would point us to if we only had time for one?
Why ask it
Ends the discussion on the text itself, which is where a book club is happiest. Ask someone to read it out before the author explains why they chose it.
Is there a book you would want us to read next because of this one?
Why ask it
Book clubs need a next title, and an author who has just spent an hour with your group will give a better recommendation than a list will. It also shows what they think their book is in conversation with.
What should we ask you that book clubs never do?
Why ask it
Authors visit a lot of book clubs and hear a lot of the same questions. Handing them the floor at the end usually produces the part of the evening people quote later.
Running the conversation
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
For a book club
Send two or three questions ahead if the author is joining
A visiting author has limited time and no idea what your group found interesting. Questions in advance mean they arrive prepared for your reading of the book rather than delivering the same talk they gave last week.
Ask about a page, not about the whole book
Naming a chapter or quoting a line changes the register of the answer immediately. It shows the book was actually read, and it gives the author something concrete to think with instead of a theme to summarise.
Let disagreement into the room
The best sessions include readers who disliked something. Put it as a question about a decision, for instance why the second half changes narrator, rather than as a verdict, and most authors will engage with it willingly.
Nominate who speaks first
One person with a prepared opening question prevents the silence that leaves an author filling twenty minutes unprompted. After the first exchange the conversation almost always finds its own footing.
At a public event or signing
In the audience question queue
You get one question and the room has limited patience. One sentence, no preamble about your own writing, and something specific to this book rather than to writing in general.
In the signing line
Thirty seconds, and they have been talking for an hour. A short observation about one moment in the book is more welcome than a question that needs a considered answer with forty people waiting.
If you are hosting or moderating
Your job is to open a space, not to display your reading. Prepare six questions, use three, keep your own comments under fifteen seconds, and step in when an audience member starts summarising the plot.
If you are interviewing them for something published
Read the previous three interviews first so you do not spend your slot on questions already in print. Ask for one new thing rather than a full account of the book, and confirm names and titles in the room.
What not to ask
- Do not reveal a twist in a room where anyone may not have finished. Ask the author whether spoilers are allowed before you start.
- Avoid asking whether the narrator is really them, especially with a first novel. Ask how close they let the narrator get instead.
- Do not ask about the advance, the sales figures, the review scores or the prize they did not win.
- Avoid asking a novelist to explain what the book means. Ask about a decision and let the meaning arrive inside the answer.
- Do not pitch your own manuscript or ask them to read it. It is the request they receive most often, and in public it is impossible to refuse gracefully.
- Do not compare the book unfavourably to their earlier one as an opening move. If the comparison is your real question, ask what they were trying to do differently.