Trivia: “It’s a very tight and controlled art form.”

by James Callan · 0 comments

Ken Jennings in an interview with Grant Barrett on a minicast from A Way With Words:

People think trivia questions must come automatically from a book or a computer. It’s a very tight and controlled art form. It’s like writing haiku or a villanelle or something. It’s this very tight, constrained format that really requires a lot more work than people suspect to get the trivia to work right.

I’ve said that trivia questions land halfway between haiku and jokes on the writing spectrum.

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Will Wright’s Five Second Rule

by James Callan · 1 comment

I was reading Luke Wroblewski’s blog for my day job and came across this idea:

Will Wright, the creator of the Sims & Spore, has a belief that games should allow people to succeed within the first five seconds.

What does this mean for writing trivia? Quizzes and quiz rounds should start with their easiest question and get harder as they go. Given Wright’s “success in the first five seconds” thought, though, inspires me to go further:

The first question of the quiz is one that everyone should get right, right away. Asked, answered, minor victory achieved.

(The trick: making that question both easy and interesting.)

(Also: Anyone have a straight-from-the-source cite for that Wright quote? Let me know.)

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Can you name all six Village People costumes?

by James Callan · 0 comments

I put together a quiz on Sporcle so you can test yourself.

I got 6 out of 6, but given that I put it together, I don’t consider it much of an achievement.

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Win cupcakes for tonight’s quiz at the Old Pequliar

by James Callan · 0 comments

I’m hosting tonight’s quiz* at the Old Pequliar in Ballard. There’s a requested round on John Irving (and I swear you don’t need any knowledge of Irving to do well).

Want to win a batch of cupcakes from Yellow Leaf Cupcakes you can eat at tonight’s quiz? Tell me what these performers have in common:

  • Peter Falk
  • Harvey Fierstein
  • Morgan Freeman
  • Dustin Hoffman
  • Elizabeth Montgomery
  • Douglas Rain
  • Henry Winkler

Email your answer to james at quizquizbangbang dot com by 6pm. You gotta play tonight’s quiz to win the cupcakes.

Haven’t been before? Here’s what you need to know to go:

  1. Quiz starts at 8. Seating gets tight earlier.
  2. $5 for a team of up to 5 players; $7 for a team of 6.
  3. First, second, and third place win cash.

*For posterity’s sake, “tonight” is June 1, 2010. Hello, people of the future.

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How to write a quiz: Anatomy of an audio round

by James Callan · 0 comments

Audio rounds. So simple. Such a pain in the ass.

Now that I’ve gotten all zen on you, have some fun with the audio round I put together for May’s quiz at the Old Pequliar. Then I’ll explain what I mean.

If I Had a Stammer: Each of these songs repeats a word or phrase in its title.
 Can you name the title and performer for each clip?

  1. The clip: 

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    (Answer.)

  2. The clip: 

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    (Answer.)

  3. The clip: 

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    (Answer.)

  4. The clip: 

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    (Answer.)

  5. The clip: 

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    (Answer.)

  6. The clip: 

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    (Answer.)

  7. The clip: 

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    (Answer.)

  8. The clip: 

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    (Answer.)

  9. The clip: 

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    (Answer.)

  10. The clip: 

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    (Answer.)

  11. The clip: 

    Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

    (Answer.)

Keep reading …

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Can you name this song?

24 Mar 10

What do we have here? I scrambled the lyrics (minus any mentions of the title) to a well-known song using Wordle. (Wordle is awesome. Have fun.) Your task: Identify the song. Added March 26: the answer, in handy music-video format. (Which is probably how you know the song anyway.)

Don’t stop now →

Can you name this song?

18 Mar 10

If you’ve been around here for a while, you know the drill. I took the lyrics to a popular song (not necessarily current, mind you), removed any mention of the title, and made them into a word cloud using Wordle. Your task: Identify the song. Added March 19: Tired of staring at it? Here’s the [...]

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Easy, difficult, and challenging: The three kinds of trivia questions

16 Mar 10

It’s easy to write difficult trivia questions. It’s easy to write easy trivia questions. It’s difficult to write challenging trivia questions. So of course, they’re my favorite kind. (What makes a question “challenging”? You can solve it if you think about it. Or at least make a reasonable guess. It isn’t you-know-it-or-you-don’t, at least not [...]

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What makes a good trivia question?

18 Feb 10

Something I posted on Twitter the other day: Good trivia questions are part magic trick and part riddle, seasoned with a little bit of haiku. No spice or puppy dog tails required. Got it? Good. In my next few posts I’ll talk a little about what I mean by that.

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How to write a quiz: Easy questions first, then hard questions

16 Feb 10

After February’s quiz, Mehal chatted with me for a minute. Then he mentioned that his team (Annyong!) had collapsed in the second half. Yeah, I said. The second half was harder than the first — but that’s how I like it. (OK, truth be told I don’t like teams to collapse.) I think a good [...]

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