The most frustrating kind of ghostwriting clients are not the ones you think. Usually they are the nicest people who have been brought up on the adage, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” What this means in interviews is that nearly everything these people say is likely to be boring, because “nice” has got to be the most yawn-producing word on the planet. Almost anything other than bland will offend somebody, and nice people try never to offend. So they stay nice or else – you guessed it – they don’t say anything at all.

Trying to winkle out interesting details from these taciturn folks can be quite a challenge. Here is one trick that I’ve found to be effective: I sometimes make up my own details. This is how this goes:

Ghostwriter: “So tell me more about Joe Smith so the readers can get to know him. You said he was ‘funny’ – so what kind of jokes did he tell? Can you remember any?”
Client: “Oh, you know, he was just funny. He could tell all sorts of jokes.”
Ghostwriter: “Like what?”
Client: “Funny ones, you know.”
Ghostwriter: “Did his jokes make fun of himself, or of other people? Or did he make puns, or plays on words?”
Client: “Um…”

And so on. This can take a long time. Instead of making both the client and myself frustrated, instead I’ll move on to something else and I’ll write a paragraph describing Joe Smith, expanding on a situation about Joe, making up details and jokes that I think are funny. Then I’ll show this to my client.

One of two things will happen. Either my client will say, “Oh, that sounds just like Joe!” (This makes me feel so intuitive, even psychic.) Or my client will say, “Oh, it didn’t happen like that – this is what happened, and this is the joke Joe told,” and they’ll proceed to tell me the specifics.

Either way, I’ll get the details that will make Joe Smith come alive on the page.