Have you ever read a question that made you stop and think?
I’m not talking about the kind of questions where you quickly nod yes or shake no, and read on.
Nope, I’m talking about questions that make you curious—but not in a clickbaity or gossipy way.
I mean questions that make you want to learn more, read more, think more. Perhaps a question that’s so fascinating you wonder whether a good answer even exists …
Good questions fuel curiosity
I recently read the book Amateur: A True Story About What Makes a Man by Thomas Page McBee, and I was struck by the incisive questions he asked at the start of the second chapter:
Why do men fight? What makes some of us want to get hit in the face? What makes others show up to watch? What makes a man?
While reading these questions, I remembered Olivia Laing using the same tactic in her book The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone. Here’s her key question on page 5:
What does it mean to be lonely?
And she adds the following questions:
How do we live, if we’re not intimately engaged with another human being? How do we connect with other people, particularly if we don’t find speaking easy? Is sex a cure for loneliness, and if it is, what happens if our body or sexuality is considered deviant or damaged, if we are ill or unblessed with beauty? And is technology helping with these things? Does it draw us closer together, or trap us behind screens?
These big questions provide a strong focus for both books—they give direction to the authors’ explorations and give readers an incentive to keep reading to get a multifaceted and more insightful answer.
Months after reading Laing’s book, I still remember her question about loneliness and how she told her own and other people’s stories as part of her answer. Her focus on answering a profound question seems to make her book more memorable.
I was reminded of the importance of asking good questions.
Are we natural questioners?
In his book A Beautiful Question, Warren Berger suggests asking questions often seems so natural to us that we forget to develop the skill of asking good questions. Aren’t we born as incessant questioners?
As we grow up, most of us become more hesitant to ask questions. We wonder whether we shouldn’t know the answers already. We’re afraid to be seen as dumb. Or perhaps we’re too tired to remain curious.
Yet, as Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Hackett Fischer suggests (as quoted by Berger):
[Questions] are the engines of intellect—cerebral machines that convert curiosity into controlled inquiry.
Questions form the engine of your blog, too
The easiest way to come up with blog post topics is to think about tiny questions you can answer. For instance, a blog post could answer questions like:
- How do you use adverbs correctly?
- How can you become a copywriter?
- What are the best books on writing?
Often, one blog post answers a series of related tiny questions, such as:
- What is personification in writing?
- Why does it matter?
- What are examples of personification?
Answering questions in your blog posts is a smart strategy because if you know your audience well, you know what questions they’re asking, and it’s exactly these questions they’ll type into Google to look for an answer.
So, if you answer their questions in your blog posts, the chance of your audience finding your website increases. That’s the simple foundation of a good search engine optimization strategy.
What’s the big question of your blog?
The key questions posed by Laing (What does it mean to be lonely?) and McBee (What makes a man?) are big, fascinating questions.
Such questions are so profound and thought provoking you can’t answer them in a single blog post.
But what about your blog as a whole? What big question does your blog aim to answer?
I imagine that blogs with a strong focus are fueled by both a blogger’s willingness to help their readers and their own curiosity to answer a big question. For instance:
- David Cain on Raptitude: How can we be get better at being human?
- Shane Parrish on Farnam Street: How can we make better decisions?
- Maria Popova on Brainpickings: What does it mean to live a rewarding life?
- Carol Tice on Make a Living Writing: How can you make a living writing?
Your blog content strategy
Standard practice in blogging is to define your blog content strategy by thinking of your audience. Who are your readers? And which problems are they struggling with?
But especially if you’re a solo-blogger, you also have to consider your own interest. Which question fascinates you so much that you can keep blogging about it year in year out?
Your blog content strategy lies at the sweetspot of what your audience wants to learn and what you yourself are interested in.
When I started blogging, I wanted to understand what good writing is. What makes writing persuasive (or not)? When is writing engaging and when is it boring?
Over time, I became more interested in how we express ourselves. What is creativity? How do we find our writing voice? When and why do we feel blocked? Perhaps my big question is shifting or perhaps these additional questions are simply a wider interpretation of what good writing is.
A blog strategy is rarely fixed for a long time. It meanders and evolves, as your expertise grows and your curiosity guides you in different directions.
So, if you don’t have clarity on your big question yet, don’t let it stop you from writing. You can explore questions in your blog posts and discover what really piques your curiosity over time.
Which questions fascinate you most?
A strange tension exists in blogging
As bloggers, we’re told to position ourselves as experts.
Yet, as Berger suggests, experts are often poor questioners. When experts focus on sharing their expertise, they may become uncomfortable with ignorance, and questions may seem to signal ignorance.
Experts risk losing their beginner’s mind—a mind that’s open to fresh possibilities, a mind that’s willing to ask fundamental questions, an elastic mind jumping to make new connections, unbound by familiar pathways.
Even when we share our knowledge as bloggers or experts, we need to stay humble, nurture a childlike curiosity, and keep asking questions.
Books mentioned in this post:
- Amateur: A Reckoning with Gender, Identity, and Masculinity
by Thomas Page McBee
- The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone
by Olivia Laing
- A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas
by Warren Berger
by Thomas Page McBee
by Olivia Laing
by Warren BergerRecommended reading on blog content strategy:
Your blog mission: How to attract more clients to your blog
19 blog post ideas to spark your creativity
Why most of us get blogging wrong
” A strange tension exists in blogging.
As bloggers , we are told to position ourselves as experts”
These lines touches on a sensitive point often taken lightly as an advice.
How do one transition from being a novice to an expert?
This is what puzzle me the most and even paralyses my steps to begin seeking knowledge as an aspiring blogger.
If I think about being an expert or someone keen to learn and share what have learned. which position should I settle for ?
I enjoy the content you share on your blog…it is insightful and I’m learning a lot from you. Thank you.
When I started blogging, I wrote about what I was learning. Over time, I built my expertise.
So, just start with what you know (and what you’re learning) and write for the people who are a little behind you.
I think asking questions in conversation is the keything.
Yes, in conversations it’s important, too.
The benefits of asking questions: increased innovation, improvement in confidence and competence. Thanks for sharing such a nice blog.
Yes, so true. The benefits are huge! 🙂
Thanks for this essential post.
Thank you, Andrea. Happy blogging!
Asking question to others or self always improves knowledge of a person and gives a lot of ideas to think about. Thanks, Henneke.
I’m glad you enjoyed it, Shailendra. Happy writing!
Hi Henneke, This is a thought proving blog post. Throughly enjoyed reading it. Asking right questions is the key to discovering the your true self. This should also be used in other parts of life apart from just becoming a better writer. The book “Start With Why” by Simon Sinek is a great book about how great leaders inspire everyone to take action.
Yes, that’s an excellent book recommendation. Thank you for adding that, Sajan. I appreciate it.
Asking questions help you uncover the challenges you’re facing and generate better solutions to solve those problems.
Yep, so true. I like how you put that. Asking the right question is required to understand what problem you’re trying to solve.
Excellent post Henneke. Warren Berger makes an excellent point about experts often being poor questioners.
This is evident in sports where celebrated athletes rarely become top coaches.
Maybe because they are gifted, they can’t relate to the struggles of lesser mortals.
Of course there are exceptions like yourself :).
You are a brilliant writer but you also have the ability and the capacity to teach others about writing. I’ve certainly learned a lot from you.
So maybe, positioning yourself as a serious student as opposed to an expert, won’t be such a bad thing in blogging.
You know, I still feel like a student of writing, too. I still feel like I’m only sharing what I’m learning, and it seems that my writing can keep getting better if I keep reading, learning and writing.
Great point about athletes rarely becoming top coaches, too.
Henneke this is fascinating because just tonight, during our evening walk, my wife and I discussed the great Tony Robbins quote. He said the quality of your life is based on the quality of your questions. I cannot agree more. Sensational post.
Ryan
I love the idea that the quality of your life is based on the quality of your questions. Now, I’m wondering … Am I asking the right questions in my life, too?
Hi Henneke,
You write beautifully, coming across easily and cleanly but with depth and warmth. You read a great combo of smart, kind, and insightful.
Like Urs, I like your letters too.
Melinda
Thank you so much, Melinda, for your warmhearted comment. It’s good to be back!
Henneke, it’s the spiritual season of Advent at the moment, as you may know. As a Christian, I’ve been doing the spiritual preparation for Christmas, meditating on what it means to prepare for the Lord’s return. Kanwar’s point about great athletes seldom becoming great coaches makes perfect sense. Jesus was such a perfect teacher. Like, He knew it all. Yet He could empathise with the struggles of humankind and totally identified with the human struggle, God though He was. I guess you could say He had true humility. Thanks for this amazing post.
Humility is such an important point. I’m glad you raise it. Thank you for stopping by, Maria.
You’ve quickly become my favorite blog! I love asking/answering profound questions in my personal life. I’m always contemplating consciousness, connection, justice and virtue, intuition, dreams, love as the core of our evolution – and, of course, the amazing power of writing.
I’ve been held back by this “must be an expert” mentality. Recently, I read someone’s about page where they confessed they are not an expert – they are merely (and wonderfully) a very curious and resolved individual with a heart for sharing and getting to the bottom of things. I find these rare traits just as valuable, if not more, as expert status.
I’m going to do a little audience persona brainstorming and make a list of questions they have that I love contemplating and studying.
Oh, and this…
“If you don’t have clarity on your big question, don’t let it stop you from writing. You can explore questions in your blog posts and discover what really piques your curiosity over time.
A blog strategy is rarely fixed for a long time. It meanders and evolves, as your expertise grows and your curiosity guides you in different directions.”
Thank you! I’m very hard on myself and have many passions. They are all related to one another, but I know it will take time to refine my messaging and create my unique recipe for special sauce.
Yes, please, please, you don’t need to be an expert to start writing. When I started my blog, I was only learning how to write myself and I simply shared what I had been learning. I wrote for people who were just a little behind me on the same journey.
In a way, being an expert can work against you, as you forget what it is to be a beginner and it becomes harder to teach. Being curious and generous is more important than being expert.
It sounds like you’ve a lot to share with the world!
Thanks Henneke for another inspiring post.
Over the last few days (or was it weeks or even months?), my question was: When is Henneke going to show up again?
I am curious to find more of your inspiring work in my inbox next year.
Have a good holiday season and continue to share your fascinating journey.
Best regards and best wishes from Switzerland,
Urs
Yes, sorry, over the last 5 months, I’ve been blogging very irregularly. I’m hoping to be back to my normal fortnightly schedule now. I’ve missed it!
Thank you for your lovely comment and best wishes for your holiday season, too.
Possess endless desire. Follow curiosity. Ask the questions.
Find the big boulder ideas and mill them into tiny pieces. There will lie the golden nuggets of many stories.
Thank you Henneke. A very enjoyable read.
I love this: “Find the big boulder ideas and mill them into tiny pieces. There will lie the golden nuggets of many stories.” So true!
Thank you for sharing that, Barry.
‘Yet, as Berger suggests, experts are often poor questioners.’
I am thinking about this. I think experts ask more interesting questions, actually. But they need to be able to explain them or their context for beginners. It is in the translation that the magic happens: to help someone else understand something, too.
So true: the translation is where the magic happens as long as the expert is able to defeat the curse of knowledge and communicate in a language that’s understandable for his audience.
Berger’s suggestion is that experts can get stuck in familiar pathways, so they often don’t ask the right questions. I can see this happening. I think it’s also why some blogs lose their soul after a few years as bloggers start to repeat the same message in slightly different ways, without adding any new insights. You can sense that the blogger isn’t fired up any more.
I’m not sure whose questions I find most interesting. Perhaps, it’s the questions from smart people who ask questions outside their field of expertise?
True, that happens > losing being stoked. But that is not to do with being an expert, it is to do with needing a new challenge 😉 All this is may be a matter of character more than of expertise.
I don’t know. It seems to me that when people feel they’ve done it, they know how it works, they’ve written what they’ve had to write, then they need a new challenge and they can find that challenge by following their curiosity and asking good questions. That’s how I see it happening but I have no idea how much character plays a role in it.
well said as usual .
A question is more valuable because it is a necessary condition to finding an answer/solution.
Yep, so true. The key to finding the right solution is often to ask the right question first.
Thank you for giving us lots to unpack and ponder.
Inspired by Chase Jarvis, “Creative Calling,”
Life is about creating, not finding, fulfillment and success.
I guess you could say that blogging can be someone’s creative habit to express their mindset, present questions, offer suggestions, and provide, ” a practical lever to transform lives and deliver vitality.”
Yes, I agree—blogging is a great way to nurture a creative habit. I haven’t been able to keep up recently but when I do blog regularly, I know creativity flows much easier.
I love your point about creating rather than finding fulfillment. It’s so true.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Phil. I appreciate it, as always.
An awesome post! I connected with your statement about your blog post content is your audiences needs that intersects with your own interests. And the writers task is to find the sweet spot. Thank you!
I don’t think I’d been able to keep up blogging for so many years if I hadn’t found my own sweet spot. We can follow our curiosity and still serve our readers (if we write for our own businesses).
I love this article and your writing. It’s very helpful as I’m putting together my editorial calendar for my blog and asking questions is a perfect way to come up with topics.
I’m focused on the tea drinker transitioning from tea bags to specialty loose-leaf tea. It can be very confusing but also very rewarding.
Keeping a beginners mind is so important to my focus.
This sounds a lot like the ancient Chinese Zen saying that asserts to learn you must “first empty your cup.” The story is attributed to a conversation between a student and a Zen master.
The lesson begins with the master pouring tea into the student’s cup. But instead of stopping when the cup was full, he continued to pour as the tea spilled over the top of the teacup and all over the table.
The student shouted “Stop! The cup is full!”
“Exactly,” said the Zen master. “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions. You ask for teaching, but your cup is full. Before I can teach you, first you must empty your cup.”
I try to empty my cup first every time I write a post. It’s not that easy!
That’s such a wonderful anecdote, and so true—not just for students but also for teachers. Thank you for sharing!
I recently transitioned from tea bags to loose-leaf herbal tea. I love my new tea infuser 🙂
Welcome back, you were missed . By me at least
Thank you, Bob. I’ve missed being here, too. It’s like my life isn’t quite complete without blogging. I hope to be back regularly from now on.
Hi Henneke,
I still remember school days when I was afraid of raising my hand to ask a question. When we were in the 4th standard, a school teacher came in and asked who could participate in a drama for the annual convocation. My friend just grabbed my hand and raised it. I had no idea why he did that. I was terrified and sweating, and I tried to pull my hand down, but he won’t let me do it.
Then, I got selected, and I did perform in front of two thousand people like I was a professional and trained actor. Then, from 4th standard to 8th standard, I remained associated with drama and represented the school at the inter-city school drama competition a couple of times.
After school, the fear of asking questions kept on fading out. Perhaps, it was the experience of putting myself out there that made me a little confident. Now, years later, when I went to stage to speak at a freelancing-related event, I was again terrified, but I knew that it’s just the matter of doing it once. And, I did it.
So, to sum this up, I learned whether it’s raising your hand in the class or grabbing a microphone on the stage, going through that first time makes all the difference.
What a wonderful story! Thank you so much for sharing, Hassaan.
As usual, your post makes me “…want to learn more, read more, think more.” And as a Health Literacy Communications Specialist, I wholeheartedly endorse “the importance of asking good questions.” Thank you and best wishes from frigid (-8 C) Rochester, NY (“across the Pond”). ~Susan
That’s a big compliment. Thank you, Susan. I hope you’re keeping warm!
As always, taking your own advice and asking some great questions in this article, which made me think. ❤️ I love the idea of the global question as the umbrella to focus the tiny questions. Thank you!
I think that defining a big question you want your blog to answer is a good alternative to writing a blog’s mission statement. Happy writing, Kathy!
Henneke, you’ve solved my current problem, again!
You must’ve been reading my latest posts, haha. Click-baity, and I couldn’t even see it.
When I first began blogging, a coach friend had a slogan: Questions make the mind go “wonka-wonka”. And I think, to a great extent, that is a good fact to remember. However, no one has ever mentioned deep questions to me, before. As I was reading this post, I was contriving all sorts of solutions to several posts I have in the creation stage.
You are right and your cute drawing is perfectly ME! 😀
Katharine, it makes me happy when you write that this post instantly sparked some solutions to the posts you’re writing. Thank you for putting a smile on my face. And I’m glad you like Henrietta’s drawing 🙂
Hi Henneke,
Thanks for making me think with your post. I just realised that I use lots of questions in my tours to narrate the story and I wasn’t aware of that until now. Questions are key to telling stories, I couldn’t agree more.
Also, thanks for the book recommendations. I didn’t know any of them 🙂
I think it’s amazing that when we start paying attention we see questions everywhere, and once we become aware, it gives us opportunities to sharpen our questions, too.
Olivia Laing’s book on loneliness would be in my top 10 reads of this year.
Hi Henneke, I love your examples of questions. I’ve been working on a post for a client about elderly being lonely around the holidays and I may start it out now with a question. You really gave me some great ideas. I think questions like that will draw readers in. Thank you!
Loneliness among the elderly is such an important topic. I’m glad you’re writing about that!
This is what I’d call nurturing food for thought and action-taking. Your post couldn’t have hit my email at a better time, Henneke.
Thank you so much for sharing this and for sparking so many new ideas and ways to implement a more mindful approach to content creation.
Warmest greetings from Denmark for a wonderful holiday season,
Ralitsa
Thank you so much for your lovely comment, Ralitsa. I’m glad I have helped sparked new ideas and a more mindful approach to your content creation. Happy writing!
Thank you, Henneke. I’m struggling to prepare next week’s lesson in a course I’m teaching and will look for ways to incorporate good questions. You always inspire me.
Thank you, Rachel, and I agree that questions are useful in teaching, too.
Once again Henneke you ask the real questions. I think that your work is not really just about writing but about humanity. Thank you. Your friend across the Pond.
Carol
Thank you, my friend. Being human is probably a big part of good writing, too, and sometimes I explore what it means to be human outside writing, too. I think it’s good to go off topic sometimes. I always appreciate it when you stop by.
I think experts ask more interesting questions, actually. But they need to be able to explain them or their context for beginners
I think it really depends on who the expert is and whether they’ve been trained in asking good questions. Academics often are, but people in the business world less so.
And, sometimes, questions from beginners make me think more deeply than expert questions.