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This article is composed of excerpts from [[Laurie Brink|my]] emails to the [[Mortal Wombat]] listserver of [[Spring 2004]]. = Guide to Writing On=Guidelines for beginning question-Airs and Matching Songs to Them writing==

From Laurie: <i>(These are excerpts from my emails to the Wombat listserver back in spring 2004.)</i> ===Guidelines for beginning question-writing=== - You do NOT need to have a realm, subrealm, and song match on questions when you initially submit them. If you do, that's just great and peachy and wonderful – but if you don't, we can always add them later. Don't neglect to send a good question just because you can't think of a brilliant subrealm or something. Provide them if you have them, but don't worry about it if you don't. The question is really the point - the rest is just frosting.

- You DO need to check your facts. Seriously. It's very not-cool to get into a contest and find that the reason no one is getting the answer is because the answer is wrong. Generally, checking facts for a question takes roughly 30 seconds, so it's worth the effort.

- And finally, when you get a good on-air idea, write it down, write it down, write it down! People are always having great ideas and then forgetting them before they reach their email. That's sad. Don't do that.

===Guidelines for slightly more advanced question-writing===

I thought I'd help out those of you who haven't written many questions before by providing what I think There are two of the keys to making a good factoid into a good Trivia question, if you're interested:

This one's simple - the most entertaining part of a question should almost always be the answer. Eating 67 squid is hardly more interesting than eating 52 squid or 74 squid, but eating 67 squid *is* more interesting than eating 67 cheeseburgers. ''Think of the answer as the "punchline" to your question, and organize it accordingly. '' After all, if you're going to wait the length of a song to hear an answer, you want it to be worth the wait.

The perfect on-air song was released eight years ago. The perfecton-air song got a lot of radio airplay, and was all over MTV, too. Itpeaked in the Billboard Top 10. It's three minutes and five secondslong. Naturally, it's up-tempo, maybe even dancey. The group thatperforms it never had as big a hit again. If we're lucky, they had noother hits at all. Everybody playing Trivia used to hear the perfecton-air song three times a day, for 6 weeks, eight years ago, buthardly ever since then. The recording artist has a provocative bandname (or else the song title's unusual-- hey, why not both?) which canbe exploited to create a non-linear connection with a trivia question. This his connection ideally involves sex, mayhem, or smug superiority onthe part of the team asking the question.

But, if you keep all the songs in the 2:30-3:40 range (editingmercilessly where required)....

....if you choose an eclectic mix of big bouncy hits, and nagginglyfamiliar obscurities....

....if you emphasize music from the last decade, but make sure to spana wide range of eras....

....if you keep the sound generally peppy, especially your first 10songs and your last 30....

....if you get a lot of teammates involved in nominating songs andmatches, so that the whole contest isn't filtered through one set ofears....

....if you really work hard, free associate, and don't give up lookinguntil you have at least 20 truly witty matches, so that a questionabout doors doesn't always end up paired with a song by the Doors....

....well, then people will STILL complain about the music. But BabyJesus in Heaven will know you did a good job.

Question: According to a recent study, how do herring communicatewith each other underwater?

Answer: Flatulence. Scientists call the fishies' system "FRTS"-- FastRepetitive Tick Sounds.)

Steve Homer, 2004