Building a Question From the Last Answer
Launch library · evergreen read
A prepared list of questions is a scaffold, not a script, and the most alive interviews depart from it constantly. Building the next question out of the words the subject just used, rather than the next item on the page, keeps the conversation feeling like a conversation rather than a survey being read aloud. This does not mean abandoning preparation entirely, only holding it more loosely than a fixed script allows.
This approach demands more attention than working through a fixed list, since the interviewer has to hold the prepared questions loosely while genuinely tracking what is being said. It also produces material that could not have been anticipated in advance, which is usually the most valuable part of any long sitting. The resulting material often surprises the interviewer as much as the reader who encounters it later.
The skill improves with practice: learning to hear the one phrase in an answer worth returning to, while still keeping the broader shape of the interview in mind so the conversation does not drift entirely away from its purpose. With experience, the shift between prepared and improvised questions becomes almost invisible within the conversation itself.