I’ve been doing musician, artist, and celebrity interviews over phone (and now Skype) off and on for over probably six months now, and I have to say, I think I’m finally getting the hang of making it a conversational interview rather than straight-up questions.
Part of it is that I try to write the questions so they flow more organically. I try to gauge how the interview will go, how some questions will be answered, and arrange my questions to that sequence. Part of it is just practice, I guess.
But my one big hang-up (no pun intended) is still how to end the interview. So far, I just say “Well, thanks for talking with us today” if I’ve come to the end of my questions and there’s not really any opening left for continued conversation. That, to me, feels cold and impersonal, but after all this time I have not figured out a better way.
I’ve asked the other writers for the website for advice because it’s a very supportive team, but I feel like I’ve failed by not figuring it out myself. I guess it goes back to when I was a kid and school came easily to me for the most part; if I ever had problems understanding something, I was frustrated beyond belief. This problem doesn’t quite have me at that level of frustration, but it’s getting close.
One day soon I’ll know the answer. But for now, it’s a question for another day. (See? I don’t even know how to end a blog post properly lol)