Setting Book Club Questions
Preparing Interesting Discussion Material For Readers is Essential.
An important part of running a book club is setting interesting and relevant questions. Good questions and discussion material will help ensure interesting meetings.
Writing book club questions is not difficult to do. While there are numerous sources of ready prepared questions available, sometimes these are not appropriate or suitable, or maybe something more specialized is required.
The task of setting book club questions is an essential part of running a book club however may seem daunting. Following some simple steps and asking some questions will help make this a straightforward and enjoyable task.
Read The Book!
Obviously reading the book is crucial to setting good questions. When reading the book keep a note pad and pen to hand and make a note of any issues that arise. For instance if there is a point in the book which has you spluttering with disbelief, laughter or tears, make a note of the page number. This will help provide an important source of question material. When reading the book make notes of features such as:
- Characters: The characters and personalities in the book make good discussion material. The stronger the character the more there is to talk about. These needn’t be the main characters, often the minor characters can make a meaningful contribution to the plot and warrant exploration further.
- Relationships: How the characters in the book interact is an important part of the book and it is often the forming or breaking down of a relationship that moves the plot on in a book. These form a good basis for discussions, for instance, how did the break down of the relationship between X and Y alter the course of the book.
- Location: Discussing the importance of a particular location to the plot can lead to interesting discussions. Questions might include whether the story would work as well if the book was set in town A instead of city B.
- Writing Style: If the author used a different or unusual writing style then a interesting question would be how this influenced the understanding and enjoyment of the book. For instance. did the fact that the author wrote the book using flashbacks add to your understanding or enjoyment of the book.
- Overall Feelings About the Book: After reading the book how do you feel? Are there any immediate thoughts that come to mind or scenes you keep replaying to yourself? Again, these immediate thoughts at the end of the book will indicate some of the important points in the story and will make interesting discussion. For instance if you are left wondering ‘well how did that happen’ or ‘what happened to…’, the chances are someone else will be thinking the same and interesting discussions can follow.
- General Questions: In addition to specific questions such as those above, some more general questions are useful to encourage discussion. These might include the very basic – what aspect of the book did you enjoy the most / least, or more specific questions such whether a particular event influenced the outcome of the book.
Tips for good questions:
There are a few rules to setting good book club questions. Make sure the questions are:
- Interesting: Boring questions will get boring answers
- Relevant: Questions that are not relevant to the book just cause confusion. This is particularly important with books that are part of a series.
- Accessible: Make sure the questions are easy to understand. People don’t want to feel stupid because they don’t understand what the questioner is alluding to.
