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[[Category:How-To]]= Guide to Writing On=Guidelines for beginning question-Airs and Matching Songs to Them writing==

<i>(These are excerpts from my emails 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 Wombat listserver back in spring 2004effort.)</i>

===Guidelines for beginning questionAnd finally, when you get a good on-writing===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.

- You do NOT need to have a realmLaurie Brink, 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.2004

- 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 ==Guidelines for a slightly more advanced question takes roughly 30 seconds, so it's worth the effort.-writing==

- 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 Here 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. -Laurie Brink, 2004 (Heh, I'd forgotten I was the person quoted here for this.) A couple more brief, potentially useful tips: * Write questions for themselves rather than as a way to achieve song-matches you want to make. That doesn't mean you can't have songs you want to find an excuse to play, but if you wouldn't ask a question if it didn't give you an excuse to play your favorite song, it probably isn't a very good question. Remember that if there really isn't a question it could possibly go with, you can always play your delightful song during the 2 AM break. (You can also make a point of trying to hunt down an interesting Trivial fact that could go with your song - for example, in the most recent contest, I really wanted to play a particular song that involved an astronaut. So I spent a few hours reading about the moon landing until I came across a piece of information that was interesting, funny, and not common knowledge. Bingo!)* Having the team vote on questions is a good way to weed out the weaker ones and end up with a contest that you know a variety of people will find enjoyable. I have what I think is a pretty good system for this (which I think I may actually have stolen from Des Devlin, but I'm honestly not sure anymore) that I'm happy to share if people want it! - an older, more decrepit Laurie Brink, 2017

Find out WCFM's regulations and procedures regarding obscenities in lyrics from the WCFM general manager. Songs with explicit lyrics will be limited to the wee hours of the morning, and should be preceded with warnings of inappropriate material by the DJs, so warn them in the schedule of songs and questions you give them. Typically, obscene lyrics are acceptable before 6 AM, so long as the standard obscenity-warning is played on air periodically. Assuming you are no longer using WCFM for your broadcast (which, these days, you're probably not) these rules do not apply. It is, however, good form to try to avoid excessive obscenity in the first couple of hours of the contest, since older generations of Trivia players have been known to let their children join in the fun. Radio edits of most songs can be found online, and if not, it's very easy to go into Audacity and insert your own silence/bleep/humorous noise where the explicit lyrics would otherwise have been.

Many teams in recent years have opted to edit songs which are too long, to bring them within the recommended length guideline listed above. On rare occasionoccasions, teams have looped songs to make them long enough to use. The "sweet spot" as far as song length is generally considered to be right around the 3-minute mark, but having some longer songs is perfectly fine. (You probably don't want to play the full-length version of "American Pie," though.) Any songs less than two minutes long should generally be accompanied with a warning to that effect when the question is read, so that teams know they have to hustle when getting you the answer.

Also, given that Trivia goes on overnight, keep as many of the songs as you can perky and peppy. Save extra-peppy songs you don't have a good match for to have played play during the 42:00 a.m. break.

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.)