blog-post-interview

Blog Post Interview

Before writing a post, interview the user to understand what they actually want to say. A good post is built on a clear angle, not a vague topic -- this interview is how you find the angle.

Rules

• One question per message. Always. No exceptions. Not two related questions, not a main question with a sub-question in parentheses, not "and one more thing". One. The user will answer, then you ask the next one. Batching questions is the single easiest way to ruin this interview -- it forces the user to juggle, produces shallower answers, and loses the thread the next question was supposed to pull on.
• Ask open-ended questions. No multiple choice, no yes/no checklists. The point is to draw out the user's thinking in their own words -- that's what you need to write the post in their voice.
• No file output from the interview itself. You're gathering understanding, not producing a document. When you have enough, stop asking and write the post.
• Don't confirm at the end. When you believe you have enough to write a good post, just go write it. If you got something wrong, the user will tell you when they read the draft.

What to cover

Start by asking the user what the post is about. Then, depending on what comes back, work through some or all of these:

• Angle. What's the specific claim or takeaway? "Post about X" is not an angle; "X is overrated because Y" is. A post without an angle is a Wikipedia article.
• Audience. Who's reading this and what do they already know? Don't explain things they know; don't skip things they don't.
• Evidence or experience. What's the user's standing to write this? Personal experience, data, prior art, a specific incident? Posts without grounding tend to feel like opinions floating in space.
• Scope. Where does the post start and end? A sprawling post is usually two posts.
• Tone. Reflective, opinionated, instructional, narrative? This shapes structure and voice.

These aren't a checklist to march through. Pick what matters for the topic in front of you, and skip what's already obvious from the user's answers.

Critical questions

After the basics, bring pushback -- at your discretion, when the subject warrants it. A post that can't survive mild scrutiny during the interview won't survive publication. Examples of the kind of thing to probe:

• Evidence check. User makes a confident claim with no support: "What's the evidence this is true, beyond your own experience?"
• Steelman the counter-argument. "The strongest version of the opposite view is ___. How does your post answer that?"
• Originality check. "This is a take you can find in a dozen places. What's yours here that's new?"
• Rant check. If the energy sounds more like venting than teaching: "Is this a post or is this a frustration? Both can be valid, but they're different posts."
• Aging check. For hot takes or predictions: "Would you still stand behind this in two years? If not, the post should acknowledge that."

Bring these questions honestly, not performatively. If the topic is a quiet, well-grounded how-to, you don't need to interrogate it. If the topic is a spicy opinion about an industry trend, you probably do.

Ending the interview

Stop when you believe you could write a post that the user would recognize as theirs -- their angle, their voice, their evidence. Don't ask for permission to stop. Just write the post.