interview questions i ‘feel interested in answering’/’feel less interested in answering’
(moved from here to [this tumblr] for [various reasons])
questions i feel interested in answering/”reading other people’s answers to’ in the context of an interview
_ what person’s thoughts do you feel interested in knowing via what [specific venue, for example ‘youtube’/’new york times book review’/’extrasensory perception’] re [specific book/person/thing]?
_ by what writer do you feel interested in reading a book in the style/tone of [specific book by that writer] but containing the concrete details & scenes of what [specific book by different writer]?
_ if there could be 100 more books by [number from 1-100] writer(s) suddenly in existence what writers in what configuration (for example ‘50 by kafka, 50 by jean rhys’) would you choose?
_ what do you think [specific character] was thinking during [specific moment in specific book where the character’s thoughts are not revealed]?
_ what do you think [specific character] was doing during [specific moment in specific book where the sentence was focused on a specific other character or abstraction]?
_ by what writer do you currently feel most interested in reading a review of what book for what venue?
_ what are some memorable moments you had while editing [specific book]?
_ what are some things that were deleted from [specific book]?
_ what two books, by you or by someone else, would you rewrite as 500,000-word books, in scenarios of ‘without adding anything concrete’/’without adding anything abstract,’ if ‘forced’ to, and why?
_ what are five writers that you like and by what [number from 1-10] [dead or living] writer(s) would you feel interested in reading 800-page biographies of those five writers?
_ what [page or 1st 50-pages] in [specific book] as [specific character/thing] would you choose to experience ‘in real life’ one hour after answering this question if ‘forced’ to choose, and why?
_ [questions with concrete/specific answers, for example ‘what did you eat the past ten hours?’ or ‘what were the last ten things you bought?’ or ‘ideally what would you exactly eat the next 48 hours?’]
_ [questions that ask me to choose between two things that i probably wouldn’t otherwise think about, for example ‘would you rather not sleep for 50 hours or not eat for 50 hours and why?’ or ‘would you rather write a biography of haley joel osment or dakota fanning and why?’ or ‘would you rather be “forced” to rewrite “the easter parade” in a manner that every character was a millionaire, had the ability to fly, or had the ability to time-travel, and why?’]
_ [questions that allow for a ‘creative’ answer, to some degree, for example ‘what would the next three sentences after the last sentence of “richard yates” be if you were “forced” to extend “richard yates” by three sentences in the next ten minutes?’ or ‘what “five cities” or “one-year-range age of people” on earth would you choose to be “forced” to read what three books within the next four weeks?’]
_ how much of [specific book] can you type from memory, in the next ten minutes, as your answer to this question?
_ by what writer do you feel interested in reading an autobiography in the style/tone of which of their books?
_ by what writer do you feel interested in reading an essay about [specific topic]?
_ if you could ‘force’ one writer to write one 5000-word profile of [anyone] once a year for the next 20 years, what writer would you choose to have this power over?
_ [questions 6-year-olds might ask, for example ‘if you had to be a dog that lived forever or a person who had to eat ten giant carrots a day which would you rather be and why?’]
questions i feel less interested in answering/’reading other people’s answers to’ in the context of an interview
_ [questions already answered]
_ [questions that would yield a similar answer if a robot programmed with my publicly-known thoughts/worldview, but not concrete experiences, answered the question]
_ [questions that contain qualitative abstractions and do not cite something concrete/specific; questions where it can be anticipated that my answer will be something like ‘to answer that question i would first want to know a context/goal/perspective’ or ‘it depends on the context/goal/perspective’]
_ [questions whose answers can be deduced by a robot or ‘motivated person’ by reading my previous interviews/books or by googling my name]
_ [questions where there isn’t a question mark in the question]
_ [questions longer than 200 words with multiple question marks]
_ [questions asking if something i’ve written was ‘deliberate’/’conscious’/’on purpose’]
_ [questions ‘forcing’ me (unless i ‘rephrase’ the question before answering) to have a ‘good or bad’ view of art, for example ‘what is the best writer working today?’ or ‘what was the best book you read in 2010?’]
_ [questions in which my answer (unless i ‘rephrase’ the question before answering) would imply that i have consistent, specific, ‘active’ definitions of certain abstractions/terms, for example ‘what books do you think are great?’ or ‘when do you feel bored?’ or ‘what is your view of postmodernism?’ or ‘are you political?’ or ‘how do you function within anxiety of influence?’ or ‘are you depressed?’]
if people think of interview questions that they feel interested, or not interested, in having people ask other people comment them here and if i feel similarly, and it is not already listed, i will add it to an above list; if someone has asked me (or asks me in the future) a question in the 2nd list i do not feel (or foresee feeling) negatively toward you or your question (if i do feel negatively toward you i foresee resisting the feeling successfully via ‘continuously being “in rational opposition” to the feeling’), as i know that my interests are not the same as other people’s interests and that different people want to know different things about different people at different times in their lives, in a manner equally legitimate to any other person, in my view, ideally, and that when someone interviews someone else it is, in most instances, to a certain degree, because they want to learn certain things about the other person, not because they want to allow the other person to be in a situation where they feel interested in their own answers; thank you for your time/consideration
