If there is another trivia columnist around, I haven’t read that person’s work.
I know plenty of people who write trivia questions and host trivia nights. I’m one of them and many of us are listed on the website trivianights.net, a site that allows groups to promote their trivia nights around the St. Louis region.
Others have written trivia books. I’ve enjoyed reading many of them.
I’ve taken trivia quizzes in newspapers and I’ve perused columns of all sorts in periodicals, but I am not aware of someone else writing a column like mine.
I’ve been writing trivia columns since 1994. I believe my first column was on the Three Stooges, but I don’t have a copy of it anymore. It most likely was the victim of one of my wife’s spring cleaning frenzies.
I started as a professional journalist in 1984 and began writing the column for fun in 1994. I got permission from my editor with the old Suburban Journals chain to give it a whirl. Even when I left the newspaper business for a couple of years in the latter 1990s to work in public relations and marketing, I was asked to continue writing the trivia column.
So, with only a few breaks for various reasons, I’ve churned out a lead-in section to go with 10 trivia questions each week and, since I’ve been at the Leader, an additional five questions that are posted at myleaderpaper.com. If you look for it on the website, go to “Trivia Two Ways.”
Topics come to me from a variety of sources.
A big fan of TV game shows, I sometimes am inspired by categories on them. For instance, I love “Jeopardy!” and will adapt a category to my needs. Let me stress that even if I use a game show category for my column, I write my own questions.
I also get ideas from other newspapers and magazines. The old “Parade” magazine included with Sunday newspapers often would run articles on such subjects as the best Christmas movies or an interview with a celebrity like Tim Allen with a list of his best-known TV shows and films.
“Parade” as we once knew it is history, so that’s a source no longer available.
People I know or run into also offer me ideas. A 1997 column I’d written about dentistry was suggested by a friend who works as a dental hygienist. I somehow mixed together questions about actual dentistry with others about dentistry in fiction.
I try to keep track of my trivia column topics in a folder – a physical folder, not a digital one – of my topics from week to week so I can prevent too much repetition. The lists in the folder I’m looking at right now date back to the first Leader trivia column I wrote in October 2011 on movie quotes. I have found this to be a popular category with readers and trivia night game players. I think it’s an entertaining topic.
You have no idea how often it happens that I think I have chosen a good topic, only to get stuck after eight or nine questions in my pursuit of coming up with 15. Looking at my topics list, I remember that a September 2023 column on candy turned out to be harder to write than I expected.
I consider myself well versed in sports, so I find that to be my easiest subject to come up with questions for. If a holiday gives me a short week in which to write my column along with my news stories, you’re likely going to get a quiz on the Cardinals or hockey enforcers, because I need to do relatively minimal research to come up with questions on those subjects.
I admit to goofing up questions on occasion. I don’t like it, but it happens. I have to fit in writing the trivia columns along with my regular duties as a newspaper reporter. Typically, I write the columns on Friday mornings, briefly researching the information for the questions the night before. So, I do my best to make the information accurate, but I don’t have all the time in the world to verify everything.
I used to completely rely on almanacs and other written sources for my information, but like most of the rest of the world, I’ve turned to the internet more and more. I still prefer to get my info from books that I trust have been edited, as opposed to internet sources with more questionable editing. I still buy a new copy of The World Almanac every year.
For the most part, I’ve received good responses on my trivia column. People often approach me at Leader Senior Expo events and tell me they are faithful readers of the column. Some try to stump me with questions of their own. I’ve also had folks tell me they read my questions to their co-workers during lunch breaks and the participants compete to be the first with correct answers.
My most head-scratching complaint happened around 2006, after I’d written column on music and asked a question concerning Handel’s “Messiah.” I don’t remember how I worded the questions, but for the answer I put “The Messiah.”
After the column was printed, I received a call from a retired high school music teacher who told me it is not “The Messiah,” just “Messiah.” He was nice about it, but I never expected to be corrected for using the word “the.”
Even so, as long as I’m allowed, I’ll keep writing my trivia column. Even though I can struggle with it at times, it’s still fun to write.