Austin Kleon just wrote a post thinking through if there was a set of questions for creative people that are always interesting? It’s a great idea.
There was a time I had to figure out something similar. When I used to do house shows I would always perform an hour-long show with only 30 minutes of prepared material. The other half was always made up of stories I’d pull out of the audience.
At a house show, you are in the most intimate setting possible: someone’s living room. There are (hopefully) 20 to 30 people sitting right in front of you, the comedian, and so it’s the perfect environment to turn your audience into performers.
But how do you get people talking? At first, I thought if I told a funny story I could then just open the floor so anyone else could throw out a story on a similar theme. I’d tell my first kiss story and then say “does anyone else have a good one?” But that NEVER worked. No one wanted to offer up a story. Or at least no one thought their experience was a strong enough story to deserve the spotlight. People would come up to me after shows and tell me these stories and I’d get so frustrated. Why didn’t you say anything when I asked?!
So then I had to start tricking people.
I wouldn’t tell people I was going to get them to tell stories. I’d say I wanted to get to know them as an audience. “Raise your hand if any of these are true about you.” And then I’d ask a series of “has anyone here ever…” type questions. If someone raised their hand, I’d ask them to elaborate.
Boom. Got em! People didn’t have time to evaluate if their story was good enough. They didn’t even know they’d have to share the story. They were just raising their hand. But once I called on them, they couldn’t back down. They admitted there’s a story! Now they have to share.
I started to keep a list of questions I could ask any audience, knowing it would most likely lead to at least one good story.
Here are my most reliable questions:
Have you ever been on TV?
Have you ever left a job without quitting?
Have you ever had a near-death experience?
Have you ever bought something off tv?
What’s the last thing that made you cry?
If you’re in a group of at least 20 people and you need to get them to know each other, don’t have them go around the room telling fun facts about themselves. No one knows how to answer that. No one can judge the fun-ness of their own facts. Instead, ask questions like these. Call on people. If there’s a weird detail in their story that catches you off guard, ask another question about that.
You will be surprised by the answers. I promise.