10 Questions to Ask an Author at a Book Festival (and 3 to Avoid)

The best hour of a book festival is rarely the reading. It is the twenty minutes afterwards, when the chair opens the floor and the room decides what kind of event it is going to be. A good question gives an author somewhere to go: a specific scene to defend, a decision to explain, a memory they had half-forgotten. A poor one turns three hundred people into an audience watching somebody flounder politely.

If you are queuing for the microphone at Hay or Edinburgh, chairing a panel at a smaller festival, or running a Q&A in a library, here is what tends to work — and the handful of questions most of us regret.

What makes a question worth asking

Good questions are specific, answerable and generous. Specific means they could only be asked about this book rather than any book. Answerable means the author can do them justice in a couple of minutes without writing an essay in public. Generous means they invite a story instead of a verdict.

Three tests before you raise your hand: can I point to a scene, a character or a line? Can I say this in one sentence? Would I still want to hear the answer if somebody else had asked it? If you have read the book, name the part you mean. If you have not, be honest about it and ask about the writing rather than the plot — nobody minds a reader who came in curious.

Ten questions worth asking

Start with the book itself

1. Which scene in this book was hardest to write? It invites a story about the work rather than a summary of the plot, and most authors have a clear answer ready.
2. What did you cut that you still miss? Editing is where books are really made. This question gets at the ruthless part of the process that readers rarely see.
3. Where did this book begin — an image, a voice, a place, a sentence? Origins are more interesting than themes, and the answer is usually vivid.
4. The book moves between [two periods, two voices, two places]. How did you decide what to leave off the page? Adapt the bracket to the book in front of you. It shows you read it closely.

Then move to craft

1. Did you know the ending before you began, or did you find it? A reliable way into structure, and a question authors enjoy arguing with themselves about.
2. What were you reading while you were writing it? Generous, easy to answer, and it often sends half the room home with a new recommendation.
3. Is there a book you go back to when the writing isn't going well? Better than asking for advice, which puts an author in the position of handing out rules they probably don't follow.

Then the person behind it

1. Is the first line you wrote still the first line of the book? Small, concrete, and it opens up the whole business of redrafting.
2. What are you proudest of in this book that readers rarely mention? A gift of a question. Authors almost always light up, because you have handed them the chance to talk about something they care about.
3. What's next, and what can you tell us about it? Predictable, but it closes an event well and gives the festival bookshop something to sell afterwards.

Three questions to avoid

• "Where do you get your ideas?" Every author has answered it a hundred times, and the honest answer — everywhere, nowhere, it varies — helps nobody in the room. Ask about one idea instead: the seed of one book, and how long it took to grow.
• "Is [the main character] really you?" It reduces fiction to autobiography and puts the author on the defensive, particularly when the character is unpleasant. Try: "What does this character let you do that you couldn't do with anyone else?"
• Anything that is really a pitch, a complaint or a speech. "I loved it, but I hated the ending — why did you ruin it?" is a verdict, not a question. Nor is the floor the place for your own opening chapter. And if your question reveals a plot twist, save it for the signing queue.

How to ask well once you're in the room

Write your question down before the event starts. Festival panels run to time and the microphone rarely reaches everyone, so having it on paper in the back of your copy means you can deliver it cleanly if your turn comes.

One question, one sentence, one microphone.

Drop the preamble. "I've read everything you've written, I came from Leeds, my book club adored chapter nine, and I wondered…" costs the room ninety seconds and leaves the author forty-five to answer. Keep the question under about twenty-five words if you can.

If the microphone is being passed around, hold it close to your mouth and speak up; if you are in a large tent, check that the people behind you can hear. Ask one thing, then stop. A follow-up dressed as a new question is still two questions, and the chair will usually have to cut you off.

Listen to the answer, even when it isn't the one you wanted, and resist the urge to correct it. Silence is useful here: authors often add the best part of an answer after a pause, if nobody rushes to fill it.

Chairs and interviewers can use the same principles. Prepare more questions than you need, note down the author's own phrasing and hand it back to them later, and keep a few warm, simple ones in reserve for the end of a long day. The aim is a conversation, not an interrogation.

A last look before you queue

Before you leave the house: one question written in the back of the book, plus a fallback in case somebody beats you to it. Before you raise your hand: have you checked the question is specific, answerable and kind? After the event: buy the book from the festival bookshop if you can, and if you didn't get your turn at the microphone, say a quick hello in the signing queue and ask it there.

Authors remember good questions. They also remember the hour when nobody asked any, which is a shame for everyone. So go on — ask the one about the scene that was hardest to write. It is almost always a better conversation than the reading that came before it.

Photo: JulieMc44 / Pixabay