The bad interview mistakes

It never ceases to amaze me how many interviews I see around xfire or indeed other sites come with presentation left wanting, relatively boring subject material or indeed awkward technique. Especially when the path to making a good interview is for all intensive purposes an easy one to follow.

The brief for this tutorial is to address some of the recurring errors people lull into making and to provide a template for publishing your interview. Let there be no qualms, Crossfire thrives and relies on community contribution, but bear the following in mind and before long you will be writing articles like the pros.

[img|left]http://upload.voetsjoeba.com/foonr/picz/tut/yestext.gif[/img]The first thing that anyone will notice about an interview before a single word is read is how the article is presented. This ranges from the way in which the author has placed the text, to the amount of text on view.

Getting a decent amount of material out of your interviewee should be a priority - except for special cases like FlyingDJ's multiple question quizzes - as articles with the minimum amount of content not only give a bad impression, they also usually do not contain interesting answers, especially if the answers are consistantly short. Do not be afraid to push your subject for more, remember your job is to carve the block of wood to your own liking.
You do not also have to copy/paste answers verbatim, similar replies can be condensed into one to give a fuller body.

The way you lay out these answers and questions is also very important. What is not needed is a load of flags and names. Once, perhaps. Establish the country and name if you have to, although this can perhaps more skillfully be done in the title and introductory paragraph of the interview. Too many times I have seen the name and flag repeated and repeated down the margin. This is not good; once you have stated the information, people know it. Many interviewers do not even provide a name label next to their interview beyond the first line, as the use of formatting more easily mimicks it in a less clunky way.

For instance, instead of writing:

Quote

foonr: ...

taLa ...

try

Quote

initials only-
f:
t:

or even better,

Quote

Question goes in bold and clearly stands out from the answer

Answer comes in normal formatting one line space below, and repeat

Another important inclusion is well sourced questions. An interview which reacts to the response of the interviewee and well as showing clear research is infinitely better than the "Who is your favourite player" or "Hotdogs or Girls?" interview. Show that you know your subject: think more debate than conversation.

Also, never think you are confined to the standard 'question, answer' template.
Some of the most engaging articles are more towards a narrative, with descriptions and opinion mixing in quotes and interaction to form a plot of all of its own. You will see this a lot in style magazines: "As we settled down at ... I could not help but be struck by the way in which ..." etcetera etcetera.

Give your subject well ranging questions: if you give a fish an ocean, it will swim it. Don't restrict the potential response by asking narrow questions that cannot be said much to. For instance, if I asked you, "What is your favourite map?", ok so you might be able to discuss the various options, but after three or so sentences, you'd be struggling. Open out the avenues for people to explore, and they will go down them.

[img|left]http://upload.voetsjoeba.com/foonr/picz/tut/yesnames.gif[/img]
Finally, be consistant. This includes basics like putting a space after images like flags, but also if you format one question in a certain way, do it for the rest. The only exception I can think if is if you are trying to draw attention to a particular section of text. Otherwise, keep it all the same, else the viewer begins to get lost and annoyed. The image to the left shows not how to do it.


Follow the rough points in this guide, and before long, xfire will be rid of the flagviews containing 1 line answers and questions, which is good news for all :)