How to interview for an article to get stories

Ann Wylie — Sun, 13 Nov 2022 17:31:22 +0000

How to find the aha! moment and other tools

Call it an aha! moment:

Better than a recording device To get great stories in the interview, find the desk-pounding, or aha!, moment. Image by Dmytro Ostapenko

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Better than a recording device To get great stories in the interview, find the desk-pounding, or aha!, moment. Image by Dmytro Ostapenko

Alone in his laboratory on a snowy evening the week before Christmas, Dr. John Monnier observed unexpected peaks on the readout of his gas chromatograph. “I thought the equipment was broken,” he recalls. Instead, the Illinois farm boy was seeing evidence of the discovery of a lifetime. He had found a low-cost route to epoxybutene, a building block for scores of industrial, specialty, and fine chemicals.

Aha! moments — aka moments of truth or desk-pounding moments — like this one, from an Eastman Chemical Company annual report, form the core of every corporate story.

Here are four ways to find the aha! moment that’s the gateway to compelling stories.

1. Find the ‘desk-pounding moment.’

When you’re looking for stories, ask the interview subject for the “desk-pounding moment.”

That, according to David Murray, executive director of the Professional Speechwriters Association, “is the moment when somebody pounded on his or her desk and said, ‘Damn it, we’ve got to do something about this.’”

That’s the secret to corporate storytelling.

“That moment is the origin of every corporate program,” Murray says. “The closer you as a reporter get to the very moment the idea was hatched by a human being, the better your story is going to be.”

The moment of invention often makes for a great story. Nike, for instance, began, according to Nikebiz.com …

… when Nike co-founder, Bill Bowerman, poured liquid rubber into his wife’s waffle iron in an effort to provide a shoe sole that would give runners more traction. He created the famous ‘waffle’ sole that is still used on running shoes today.

Looking for a brand story that sells your product or service better than facts and figures? Include in your list of questions when the company began, the sole was invented, the theory discovered. The moment of inception illustrates your organization’s creativity, innovation and vision.

And it can make a terrific — and telling — desk-pounding moment.

2. Ask When questions.

Good stories cover one moment in time. So if you’re looking for a story that connects, ask when questions.

When questions take content experts back to a specific time, a specific place — and, often, a specific story. So try asking “when” questions.

Include interview questions that focus on:

Moments of pain
Moments of change
Moments of crisis
Moments of decision

These key moments are times that caused your subject matter expert to change course. That’s where the stories are.

A writer once asked Kansas City architect Cary Goodman when he knew he would join his profession. He told her about the time he built a fabulous tree house at the age of 9. His construction was so great that the local paper sent a photographer to shoot it. The photo made the front page.

“It was my first published building,” Goodman said. “That’s when I knew I wanted to be an architect.”

No doubt about it: When questions are good questions. Whether you’re interviewing on the phone or face-to-face, a successful interview starts with prepared questions that get to stories.

3. Pass the 30-second test.

How do you know whether yours is a moment of truth or just something that happened?

Pass the 30-second test: When you research a moment of truth, make sure the original event didn’t take more than 30 seconds.

In an Esquire profile of Robert Redford, the writer tells about being frustrated by the actor’s incredible need for privacy. In the interviews, he was guarded and wouldn’t share any personal information.

To sum up this attribute, the writer ends with an anecdote about two fans who see the movie star at a New York City intersection:

As the traffic stopped, one of the women darted toward him.

‘Are you Robert Redford?’ she asked, breathlessly.

’Only when I’m alone,’ Robert Redford answered.

Light changes; woman sprints over to Redford; asks if it’s really him; he replies.

Thirty seconds. That’s a good anecdote.

So while you’ll ask open-ended questions to elicit quotes and ideas, a good interview also includes questions to get to stories.

4. Make sure it’s a moment.

Self magazine asks for moments of truth in a series of stories about readers who shed pounds and shaped up. Here’s one of them:

A friend emailed me a picture from a birthday party — I had two chins! I quickly deleted it, but I couldn’t get the image out of my mind.

Open email, see second chin, sign up for Noom. Thirty seconds. Good anecdote.

But what about this one?

When my kids asked me to push them on the swing, I used to think, ‘I’m too beat.’ I had to get moving!

That’s not a moment of truth, it’s a state of mind. The key phrase here is “I used to think.” This is something that happened over time, not once.

However, sometimes you can transform a state of mind into a moment of truth. If it happened several times, I always say, it also happened once. So choose on of those times and focus on that:

One day, my kids asked me to push them on the swing, I thought, ‘I’m too beat.’ I had to get moving!

Kids ask Mom to push them in the swing; she thinks, “I can’t!”; realizes she’s got to make a lifestyle change.

Make it a story.

Storytelling has the power to engage, influence and inspire, according to the Harvard Business Review. If you want to move readers to act in the business world, create content and marketing campaigns that share your organization’s aha! moments.

How long should your message be?

Would your message be twice as good if it were half as long?

Yes, the research says. The shorter your message, the more likely readers are to read it, understand it and make good decisions based on it.So how long is too long? What’s the right length for your piece? Your paragraphs? Your sentences? Your words?

Find out at Rev Up Readability — our clear-writing workshop.

There, you’ll use a cool (free!) tool to analyze your message for 33 readability metrics. You’ll leave with quantifiable targets, tips and techniques for measurably boosting readability.

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