Follow curiosity
Treat the answer as your material. Follow the guest's words, not the question you planned.
Nine listening channels
Each channel has a signal, follow-up, and discipline.
| Channel | Signal in the answer | Follow-up form | Host discipline |
|---|
The follow-up ladder
Seven rungs from smallest intervention to largest. Start low; one echoed word may be enough.
| Move | Question shape | Use when |
|---|
Practice with Thread Spotting and Hold the Silence.
An answer about the lunar surface keeps drifting past the detail Bragg wants.
Bragg“can I just come back to the dust? So what’s in the dust? … But what’s in the dust?”
A marriage question is going around the panel, and Levant’s face has changed before his turn arrives.
Fadiman“the scared look on your face then, Mr Levant”
The Affect channel, caught live — watch (22:46).
Worked example
One guest answer, three planted signals, one followed.
Guest“We moved back in 2019 — well, we had to move back — and by that spring I’d opened the studio, and the rest just sort of happened.”
Three signals: “had to” (Verb), the missing winter (Time), “just sort of happened” (Tempo — over-polish).
Host“You said you ‘had to’ move back.”
The Verb channel — echo the agency word, claim nothing.
Guest“My father’s diagnosis. We got the call on a Tuesday; we were packed by Sunday.”
Host(three seconds)
Guest“He’d never once asked me for anything. That’s what packed the boxes, really.”
Host“What happened in the winter between the call and the studio?”
The Time channel — repair the skipped chapter; that winter is where the story lives.
Try it now
Three rounds of Thread Spotting, right here. Out loud.