How do ghostwriting interviews work?
For a full-length book I record twenty or more interviews with you, most of them around two hours long, and by the time much of the writing happens we’ve usually spent somewhere between thirty and ninety hours talking. Every interview is recorded and transcribed. I’ll often talk to your family, friends or colleagues as well, with your agreement, and the interviews run in rounds across the first months of the project, with each round aimed at whatever the book still needs.
A book is only as good as its interviews, so most of what I do as a ghostwriter happens in these conversations, well before the writing starts.
The first interview
Everyone lies in their first interview. Nobody does it maliciously. People arrive with the polished version of their story, the one they’ve told at dinners and in speeches, with the rough edges sanded off and the order tidied up, and it’s a perfectly reasonable place to start.
By the second coffee or the third anecdote, most people let something slip, perhaps a contradiction, a pause, or a name they hadn’t meant to mention, and I come back to it in the next interview, because those are the stories a book is built on. Wait long enough and someone will say, a little sheepishly, “I’ve never told anyone this part.”
I tell clients that writing a memoir starts with learning to forget the dinner-party version and the urge to come out of every story as the hero. Once that happens, people start remembering small things without being asked: a phrase their father used, or the sound of gravel under tyres on a particular day. One client remembered, partway through an interview, the pattern on the curtains in the room where he did his first million-dollar deal. He said it wasn’t important. I used it in the first line of the book.
Interviews happen in rounds
The early interviews are about the overview. I’m getting the chronology straight, working out who the main people in your story are and what part each of them played, and getting to know how you talk.
After that I write a rough outline and often some draft chapters, which shows me where the gaps are. I’ll know the story by then without having the detail, so the later interviews are targeted at filling those gaps, which makes them faster and more useful than going over everything again.
The questions I ask
Big questions get rehearsed answers. “What’s your leadership philosophy?” tends to produce a keynote, so I ask instead for specific moments that show the philosophy at work: a particular day, a particular decision, what was said and who said it.
Detail is the hardest thing to get out of anyone. A typical exchange goes something like this:
“Can you describe your father for me? What did he look like, what did he wear, what set him apart?”
“Huh. I don’t know. Average height, I guess.”
“Hair? Eyes?”
“Blue eyes, I think. Just normal clothes. You know.”
I still can’t picture him, so I keep asking. Photographs help a great deal, although they don’t show how someone moved or filled a room, so we’ll come back to the same people from different angles until they’re on the page.
Somewhere between the origin story and what’s next, I ask everyone the same question: what’s the one word that sums up how you see the world? It’s never a motto or a brand slogan. People usually blurt it out, then pause, a little surprised by their own answer, and it tells me more about them than an hour of questions about strategy.
Some of my questions will be uncomfortable. They’re part of getting an honest book, and you always choose whether to answer, and whether what you say goes into the finished book.
Talking to the people around you
Most books need other voices, such as a sibling who remembers the house differently or a business partner who was in the room. Many of them have nothing to gain from talking to me and are giving their time out of goodwill, so I prepare carefully and go in curious about them as people, because who someone is shapes what they saw.
You can tell a lot about people from what they offer when you arrive. Some answer the questions and see you out. Others put the kettle on, find the scones and, on one memorable occasion, serve chicken pie for lunch, and the people who sit you down with a cup of tea usually tell you far more and come across far better in the book. In-person interviews are worth the travel when they’re possible.
From transcripts to your voice
Every interview is recorded and transcribed, and ten hours of conversation comes to roughly 70,000 words of transcript once my questions are taken out. Some of it won’t be used. Most of it is useful, and I sort it into the parts of your life it belongs to before I start writing.
The transcripts are also how I learn your voice: the words you reach for, the way you build a story, where you make a joke and where you go quiet. If you swear, we’ll talk about whether you want that on the page, because I won’t assume either way. Before I write the bulk of the book I send you a sample of around 5,000 words so you can tell me whether it sounds like you. How long does it take to write a memoir? covers that stage and the rest of the timeline.
Trust and confidentiality
You’ll tell me things you haven’t told many people, so you need to be comfortable with the person you’re telling, and the first conversation matters for both of us. Ghostwriting work normally sits under a confidentiality agreement, nothing you say goes into the book without your approval, and you see every draft.
Many people find the process more personal than they expected. I’ve had clients arrive wanting to talk about their business philosophy and end up in tears halfway through a story about their mother, and others walk out of an interview lighter than they came in. My PhD is in life writing, which means I’ve spent years studying how people tell their own stories.
How to prepare
You don’t need to rehearse anything. These help:
- Photographs. Old albums, framed prints, anything with faces and places in it, because they prompt memories and help me describe people.
- Documents. Letters, diaries, certificates, newspaper clippings, and for a business, early records and correspondence.
- A rough timeline. The years you moved, changed jobs, married, started something or lost someone, so we have a framework to hang the stories on.
- A list of people. Who else should I talk to, and how do I reach them?
Frequently asked questions
How many interviews does a ghostwriter need?
For a full-length book I record twenty or more interviews with you, plus conversations with others where the book needs them. A company history usually involves many more people.
How long is each interview?
Most run for around two hours. That’s long enough to settle in, and short enough that nobody runs out of energy, although I’ve done the occasional six-hour session when a client wanted to push on.
Are the interviews recorded?
Yes, every one is recorded and transcribed, and the recordings and transcripts are kept confidential.
Do the interviews have to be in person?
Not all of them. Some of the best material comes from sitting in someone’s kitchen, so I travel when the book needs it, and other interviews work well over a video call.
What if I don’t want something in the book?
Then it stays out. You choose what to answer, and you approve every draft before the book goes anywhere.
Read next: Ghostwriting · How long does it take to write a memoir? · What’s involved in a company history book · Get in touch
