How To Write An Interview Essay – Not Boring, Interesting, And Unconventional?

Editorial Team

Write An Interview Essay

An interview is a story. The journalist must reveal another person from the other side and talk so that we get information that no one has ever heard before. So, how to write an interview so that it is interesting to the reader and not so that it is a bland question-answer format?

1) Preparation

An interview does not begin with the first question but several days or weeks in advance. The journalist should collect all relevant information about the person who will answer the interview. The reaction of society, the first ten links of Google search, and questions in social networks are all exactly what is needed for the interview, but such questions have no answers. Writing an essay can take a lot of time and effort, especially if you don’t calculate your time and capabilities well. Of course, we often dream, ‘I wish someone would write my essay for me,’ but it is possible to do it already if you find a good service. 

2) Psychology

Of course, you need to make a good impression on a person to make them feel at ease immediately. You need to be friendly and smile (a smile is the key to success) and thank them for interviewing you (do not say it is an honor for you because the reader should think that it is an ordinary conversation on equal terms). Balance must be present. From this moment, psychology begins. This is where the journalist turns on the psychologist. It is necessary to inspire trust, to understand any answer, and to ask carefully so as not to frighten our hero.

3) Text

Exciting text and excellent and accurate statements are essential for the reader. The journalist must learn something that no one has ever heard from the interviewee. There must be sensation and intrigue. We must evoke emotions and a specific reaction in the reader, so it does not hurt to write with what feeling the person speaks, whether he laughs or what he does.

After the conversation: how to prepare the material

This is a separate genre. Here you are left alone with your talent. You should direct the text and how you put the questions or remove them altogether. Interpretation is a bad word in the profession of journalism, but in this case, it is instead the story of the hero, which you have told deliciously. However, you cannot add facts yourself. It will be fiction and a lie.

The finished material is not just a decrypted conversation. Once I was told that an interview was to be it down from the recorder and immediately given for publication. This can be the case when your hero is an incredibly clear interlocutor or, as they say, a synchronous person. In such characters, every sentence is a ready-made headline. However, this is a sporadic case. Sometimes a journalist should be able to speak for a person. This does not mean you need to rewrite the hero’s words. We need to know where we can say the same thing as the hero but more readable. People are rarely so eloquent to give their quotes in the material in plain text.

The hero’s direct speech can be preserved if it has flavor. A person’s speech must be radically different from what we have heard before, leaving it in the finished material. In this case, you can warn the reader that the text is presented in the original dialect, as it is part of the character’s image. However, you should not keep parasitic words such as “well” or “uh-uh” in the text. 

I never send interviews for proofreading. If you give the text to the hero for publication, he will likely throw out everything you find interesting. After proofreading, only general phrases remain in the interview. For example, you have a quote in the text about eight bottles of beer that the hero drinks one after another, and he asks you to write that he and his friends spend time culturally in the evenings. No one will read an interview that does not show a living person.

What should you do before writing an essay? 

After choosing a topic, be sure to make a plan. Usually, the essay consists of three main parts:

  • Introduction. It can be a question or a thesis that will be developed further in the text. The introduction should clearly define the problem of the essay.
  • Arguments. One of the essential recommendations on how to write an essay correctly is the use of reliable opinions. They should confirm or refute the thesis and demonstrate your position on a particular issue. Remember that there should be at least three arguments. 
  • Conclusion. It can be banal, like: “So, in the text, we were able to prove that…”. Or it can demonstrate your creativity (rhetorical questions or calls to action).

Writing an essay

Now go directly to the creation of the text. To do this, carefully read the rules of essay writing and try to keep all the components of the essay. 

Remember that the structure of the work is a recommendation for how to write an essay, not an obligation. And you can experiment by starting not with the introduction but with the arguments or even the conclusion. The main thing is to make such a move appropriate and reasonable. If possible, try to make the text more concise – an extensive essay becomes closer to an article than an essay.

A full stop does not mean the end of the work.

Do not think that you are free from work by writing the last sentence and can hand in the essay. A good text must stand for a specific time, like a good wine. Close the document and forget about it for 1-2 weeks. Try to distract from the topic of the essay at this time, rest, and gain strength.

Of course, the text, unlike wine, does not improve with time – it needs help. So in a week, re-read everything again, and remember how to write an essay. You may see some mistakes and violations of logic. Or maybe you will remember a thought that would improve the article.