Tom Baker shares tips on writing a pub quiz at Japan Writers Conference
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JET alum and Jeopardy champion Tom Baker will lead offer tips on how to write trivia questions at the Oct. 15-17 Japan Writers Conference, a free event that is happening online. The official description of his talk appears below.
Tom Baker
Trivia Tips: How to Write a Pub Quiz
Short Lecture with Q&A
“I once attended a pub quiz in Bristol where a dispute over an answer resulted in a wild west-style brawl and the police had to be called,” a woman told the BBC in 2005. “Arrests were made, including the quizmaster.”
Quizzes should be fun. If you wish to host one that doesn’t end in tears – or behind bars – well-written questions are essential.
Drawing on my experience as both a contestant and a quizmaster, I will offer tips on how to write questions that are clear, entertaining, and minimally disputable.
Using examples from quizzes seen on TV and at pubs around Tokyo, I will discuss a variety of question formats, writing with brevity and clarity, ways of organizing categories, anticipating hecklers and nit-pickers, making obscure questions guessable, and the importance of flattering your audience by writing easy questions that sound hard.
Tom Baker appeared on four regular-season episodes of the U.S. quiz show “Jeopardy!” in 2004, before returning for the season-ending Tournament of Champions. He first guest-hosted a round of a Tokyo pub quiz in 2019, and has written and presented more than 20 rounds since then. Topics have included “The FBI 10 Most Wanted List,” “Pigs and Rats,” “Literary Works,” “Officeholders,” “Prime Numbers,” “Traveling Around Japan,” “Body Parts” and “Motorcycle Gangs and Clubs.”
For details, visit http://japanwritersconference.org/
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