28. Project Mercury: A Chronology. Technically a B, it actually starts in 1944 and ends in 1963, but let's face it: Project Mercury is as much a part of the narrow period from 1961 to 1963 as it's possible to be. No. 638.
29. The Sixties, as Reported by the New York Times. No. 1509 and obviously as B as B can be.
30. The Criminal Law Revolution & Its Aftermath. No. 1504 and another B. There were a lot of books on the sixties I found about the same time, include two with the title "The Sixties." I was not in a used bookstore in Haight-Asbury, I swear. The problem with this particular source is that it is based on Supreme Court terms, which start in October, so I have to look up the date opinions were released and toss out really good questions if the release date was the wrong year (in those days, oral argument date and release date were generally so close together I can't use that instead).
31. Dick Clark's The First 25 Year of Rock 'n' Roll. Yet another B. No. 721. A rather difficult source to use. For instance, he has in his 1961 chapter a long piece on the start of Phil Spector's career. He cites material from 1960. He cites material from 1962. He cites no material from 1961. Maybe that's how he looks so ageless, he just skips years.
32. Civil Rights Chronicle. Actually a D, since it starts in 1492. Part of a very good series of chronicles that includes "The Holocaust Chronicle", "The World War II Chronicle" and chronicles of the Sixties and Seventies. No. 1083.
33. The Beatles: The Ultimate Recording Guide. A B, obviously, and the title is a bit misleading since of course the Beatles weren't recording yet in 1961, at least not in the accepted sense. The Beatles are one of those subjects that present a challenge, because there are just tons and tons of Beatles books (I have two unused John Lennon chronologies and I suspect there will be more published around now for the 30th anniversary of his death), I like to read about the Beatles, but the time frame in which they were active was quite narrow. So imagine that the 1966 game willl be "The Beatles and some other topics (some other topics not necessarily included). Thus, I have to burn a source or two for 1961 or I'll be swamped. No. 219.
34. 50 Yahr im Bild, Bundesrepublik Deutschland (50 Years in Pictures, the Federal Republic of Germany). A new source, no. 2177 and a B/C. Not a great thing as a chronology, because you have to search the captions for a year, but German history, particularly modern German history, is poorly covered in my collection, so when I found this book I snapped it up. As the title might indicate, it's half in German and half in English.
35. The Rock 'n' Roll Years. Another B/C. No. 1276. Good source, not a lot more to say.
36. Barbie: Four Decades of Fashion, Fantasy & Fun. Another B/C, no 224. Strangely, to me, the most controversial game I ever wrote was on Barbie, using nothing but this one source. I thought it was a fun game. I seem to remember someone got 10 triples and 17 pats because no one else either knew or cared about the topic. Just for historical purposes, I should point out that two of the three sisters of my next door neighbor with whom I played with her Barbie and Ken (God forbid a guy should own a Ken) are my Facebook friends, but Laurie has not responded.
37. Marilyn Monroe: Unseen Archives. A B, No. 1443. I have to be careful here, because I'm also using an Arthur Miller chronology this game. Maybe there's something about the Kennedys in here . . . .
38. History Makers of Hawaii. A D, no. 1150. The best of my Hawai'i resources, in part because two of them are missing.
39. Television Network Weekend Programming, 1959-1990. Another B/C, no. 664. A really interesting source put together by someone with too much time on his hands, detailing every single change in Saturday and Sunday programming on the three networks over three decades plus. On the other hand, I can remember all these changes in the Sixties as though it was yesterday. We watched them like wall posters in Beijing.
40. The Complete Book of Oscar Fashion. Another B/C. No. 1497 and covered in some kind of fabric that makes it stick to the book next to it. But a true chronology, with pictures. And it makes it clear that for it "1961" is the Oscars telecast on April 17, which of course awarded the 1960 Academy Awards.
41. The Tournament of Roses, a Pictorial History. A C and no. 1274. Only thing to note here is that one of my oldest chronologies is "A Pasadena Chronology," and I have to make sure not to use them both in the same game.
Done with the third page of the Word file. End of Part Four.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Writing the First Game of the Year: Part Three
Continuing . . .
15. Texas: A Chronological & Documentary History, no. 1339. This is one of the state versions of the Oceana books. They are nearly uniformly terrible. They're okay for some states where the state has a lot of real history, the more important Colonial states, for instance, and indeed this Texas volume isn't bad. But for many of the western states in particular, they just suck. For the census years, you get nothing but the census. In many of the formative years, you get nothing but the names of newly formed counties. I have a lot of other state history sources, and the Oceana series will miss stuff that the other books get, important stuff. They were cheap, they don't take up much space, but I looked at all the ones I have (maybe 20) and only two had any entry at all for 1961. The question I am writing here is only interesting in contradistinction to the prior question (and I rarely write follow-ups).
16. Abingdon Church: A Chronology of its History. A D, no. 176. This is an example of what I call the concept of "burning a source." I suspect if I were to read the entire Abingdon Church chronology I might find five or six facts of general interest to triviots. But they are few and far between. I bought the book, witness the book number, quite early in my game-writing career, on eBay if memory serves. It wasn't expensive and I've used it faithfully. It has the advantage of covering most years (it goes from 1650 to 1970) at least with some fact, though it's often "the church roof cost $23 dollars to repair." There are a number of sources like this, and they're like bad tasting medicine, you want to take them quickly. So when I find a fact in one of them, I just burn it, meaning I write the damn question and go on. Do not expect to go, "I've always wondered about that" when the question relates to Abingdon Church. It's in Virginia, btw.
17. Cuba and the United States. This is sort of halfway between a B and a D, which is odd. It actually starts in 1492, but you're on page 8 when you get to the Spanish-American War and page 18 when you get to the Cuban Revolution, which began on January 1, 1959. 1995 ends on page 381, so you can see what I mean. No. 65, great source in the covered time period and of course 1961 is part of the real sweet spot for it.
18. It's a Hit. A solid C, it covers Broadway hits in the 20th century. I have a number of similar books; Broadway is a mixed blessing for Flashback because its season starts in the fall and you have to be careful to make sure you get facts that are in the right year. No. 98, another old reliable. And 1961 is an interesting year on Broadway.
19. UFOs and the National Security State. I have a number of sources where I don't necessarily agree with the point of view of the author. Probably the most obvious of these is one called "The Catastrophe," a history of the establishment of the State of Israel from the non-Zionist point of view. But if the source is historically accurate, or I can work through its bias (not to say I don't have my own), then I use it. "The Catastrophe" is actually a very good source in a lot of ways. This UFO source is actually quite excellent, since it refers to the specifics of what people claimed to see, without being all that judgmental about whether they saw anything. It does sort of go off on the government explanations in places, but what do you expect from something with this title? It's no. 845 and a solid B.
20. Timelines. Sometimes I buy the same book twice. Sometimes it's because it's an updated edition. If I really like the book, I might log the new edition separately. In this case, the book changed its title. The first edition is Timelines and the second is "From Elvis to Email." It's a wonderful, wonderful source, one of the best you'll ever see, covering every year from the end of World War II to, in this case, 1990, in great detail, not only chronologically within the year, but with summaries with titles like "Fads and Trends" and my personal favorite "[the year] in buttons and bumper stickers." Always fun, always good to lighten up a serious year (and 1961 can be pretty damn serious, what with the Bay of Pigs and the space race and the civil rights movement). No. 1598 and a B.
21. Sci-Fi Movies. New book, but we'll give it the second number used by Race Relations in the United States, no. 2074. This is part of a series that breaks down movie genres. I have the "Noir Movies" one, too, but I think this one is better, because it covers a broader time period. It's a D, since the first movie it lists is in 1902. I only have one specific book on 60s movies, so we'll use this one here and keep the other for 1966 most likely.
22. A Chronology of the People's Republic of China. A B, no. 178, and a redoubtable source, covering every year from 1949 to 1984 in some depth, even though it's only 99 pages long. An example of how to write a short, useful chronology. Which is interesting since it was published by the Foreign Language Press in Beijing. The commies learned to do something well, huh?
23. Two Hundred Years of New Zealand History. No. 74, an obvious D. It's the only general history of New Zealand I have. I like to switch off where I use it, sometimes reserving it for a nineteenth century year, because it covers them well, and sometimes using it in a year like this one, because I have no freaking clue what happened in New Zealand between indepedence and the filming of The Lord of the Rings (which, coincidentally, I'm watching as I type this--Boromir just bought it).
24. Encyclopedia of Hit: the 1960s. Guess what: it's a B, no. 575. Not a lot of explanation needed, but this book is good in having short (paragraph long) descriptions of the songs. Something you can hang your hat on if you don't know the songs too well. However, the song that will be in the question was ubiquitous where I was at the time. Which might be a hint, a reward for reading this far.
25. T.S. Eliot: A Chronology of His Life and Works. Between a B and a C, since Eliot is about to die in a couple years. No. 631, and notable for being part of a Macmillan series of author chronologies but not having the same cover as all the other ones (and I have over 20). They range from unbelievably great to just good, but that's in part based on how interesting the author's life was. Eliot's life . . . top notch.
26. Getty Images, The 1960's. An obvious B and another I could burn in 1961 or 1966 and chose 1961. This Getty series is tricky. There is one on each decade of the twentieth century and I have them all. But some of the volumes are better for Flashback than others. The ones on the teens and forties, for instance, focus so much on the appropriate world war that the other years of the decade are only covered cursorily. The Sixties, I suspect, will focus more on the early and the later years and less on the middle. I figure there's gotta be a space shot, a Bay of Pigs shot, an Inauguration shot, something, right?
27. A Dream of Freedom. Another B, it covers the Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968. The Civil Rights Movement really lends itself to chronology and so is chronologized ad infinitum, which is good. The other thing that is chronologized to death is aviation. You can get some good books on automobiles by year, almost none on ships and virtually none on railroads (which is odd, because a really good and comprehensive railroad chronology would be great--there are tons of railroad books but they are nearly all in topical order or are in narrative form if they are chronological). But airplanes? You betcha! This book is no. 1482.
We're at the end of the top row of books, so we'll see you in the next entry.
15. Texas: A Chronological & Documentary History, no. 1339. This is one of the state versions of the Oceana books. They are nearly uniformly terrible. They're okay for some states where the state has a lot of real history, the more important Colonial states, for instance, and indeed this Texas volume isn't bad. But for many of the western states in particular, they just suck. For the census years, you get nothing but the census. In many of the formative years, you get nothing but the names of newly formed counties. I have a lot of other state history sources, and the Oceana series will miss stuff that the other books get, important stuff. They were cheap, they don't take up much space, but I looked at all the ones I have (maybe 20) and only two had any entry at all for 1961. The question I am writing here is only interesting in contradistinction to the prior question (and I rarely write follow-ups).
16. Abingdon Church: A Chronology of its History. A D, no. 176. This is an example of what I call the concept of "burning a source." I suspect if I were to read the entire Abingdon Church chronology I might find five or six facts of general interest to triviots. But they are few and far between. I bought the book, witness the book number, quite early in my game-writing career, on eBay if memory serves. It wasn't expensive and I've used it faithfully. It has the advantage of covering most years (it goes from 1650 to 1970) at least with some fact, though it's often "the church roof cost $23 dollars to repair." There are a number of sources like this, and they're like bad tasting medicine, you want to take them quickly. So when I find a fact in one of them, I just burn it, meaning I write the damn question and go on. Do not expect to go, "I've always wondered about that" when the question relates to Abingdon Church. It's in Virginia, btw.
17. Cuba and the United States. This is sort of halfway between a B and a D, which is odd. It actually starts in 1492, but you're on page 8 when you get to the Spanish-American War and page 18 when you get to the Cuban Revolution, which began on January 1, 1959. 1995 ends on page 381, so you can see what I mean. No. 65, great source in the covered time period and of course 1961 is part of the real sweet spot for it.
18. It's a Hit. A solid C, it covers Broadway hits in the 20th century. I have a number of similar books; Broadway is a mixed blessing for Flashback because its season starts in the fall and you have to be careful to make sure you get facts that are in the right year. No. 98, another old reliable. And 1961 is an interesting year on Broadway.
19. UFOs and the National Security State. I have a number of sources where I don't necessarily agree with the point of view of the author. Probably the most obvious of these is one called "The Catastrophe," a history of the establishment of the State of Israel from the non-Zionist point of view. But if the source is historically accurate, or I can work through its bias (not to say I don't have my own), then I use it. "The Catastrophe" is actually a very good source in a lot of ways. This UFO source is actually quite excellent, since it refers to the specifics of what people claimed to see, without being all that judgmental about whether they saw anything. It does sort of go off on the government explanations in places, but what do you expect from something with this title? It's no. 845 and a solid B.
20. Timelines. Sometimes I buy the same book twice. Sometimes it's because it's an updated edition. If I really like the book, I might log the new edition separately. In this case, the book changed its title. The first edition is Timelines and the second is "From Elvis to Email." It's a wonderful, wonderful source, one of the best you'll ever see, covering every year from the end of World War II to, in this case, 1990, in great detail, not only chronologically within the year, but with summaries with titles like "Fads and Trends" and my personal favorite "[the year] in buttons and bumper stickers." Always fun, always good to lighten up a serious year (and 1961 can be pretty damn serious, what with the Bay of Pigs and the space race and the civil rights movement). No. 1598 and a B.
21. Sci-Fi Movies. New book, but we'll give it the second number used by Race Relations in the United States, no. 2074. This is part of a series that breaks down movie genres. I have the "Noir Movies" one, too, but I think this one is better, because it covers a broader time period. It's a D, since the first movie it lists is in 1902. I only have one specific book on 60s movies, so we'll use this one here and keep the other for 1966 most likely.
22. A Chronology of the People's Republic of China. A B, no. 178, and a redoubtable source, covering every year from 1949 to 1984 in some depth, even though it's only 99 pages long. An example of how to write a short, useful chronology. Which is interesting since it was published by the Foreign Language Press in Beijing. The commies learned to do something well, huh?
23. Two Hundred Years of New Zealand History. No. 74, an obvious D. It's the only general history of New Zealand I have. I like to switch off where I use it, sometimes reserving it for a nineteenth century year, because it covers them well, and sometimes using it in a year like this one, because I have no freaking clue what happened in New Zealand between indepedence and the filming of The Lord of the Rings (which, coincidentally, I'm watching as I type this--Boromir just bought it).
24. Encyclopedia of Hit: the 1960s. Guess what: it's a B, no. 575. Not a lot of explanation needed, but this book is good in having short (paragraph long) descriptions of the songs. Something you can hang your hat on if you don't know the songs too well. However, the song that will be in the question was ubiquitous where I was at the time. Which might be a hint, a reward for reading this far.
25. T.S. Eliot: A Chronology of His Life and Works. Between a B and a C, since Eliot is about to die in a couple years. No. 631, and notable for being part of a Macmillan series of author chronologies but not having the same cover as all the other ones (and I have over 20). They range from unbelievably great to just good, but that's in part based on how interesting the author's life was. Eliot's life . . . top notch.
26. Getty Images, The 1960's. An obvious B and another I could burn in 1961 or 1966 and chose 1961. This Getty series is tricky. There is one on each decade of the twentieth century and I have them all. But some of the volumes are better for Flashback than others. The ones on the teens and forties, for instance, focus so much on the appropriate world war that the other years of the decade are only covered cursorily. The Sixties, I suspect, will focus more on the early and the later years and less on the middle. I figure there's gotta be a space shot, a Bay of Pigs shot, an Inauguration shot, something, right?
27. A Dream of Freedom. Another B, it covers the Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968. The Civil Rights Movement really lends itself to chronology and so is chronologized ad infinitum, which is good. The other thing that is chronologized to death is aviation. You can get some good books on automobiles by year, almost none on ships and virtually none on railroads (which is odd, because a really good and comprehensive railroad chronology would be great--there are tons of railroad books but they are nearly all in topical order or are in narrative form if they are chronological). But airplanes? You betcha! This book is no. 1482.
We're at the end of the top row of books, so we'll see you in the next entry.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Writing the First Game of the Year: Part Two
So I'm starting at the blank Word screen and the "Q:" and I have the first source in hand. As noted, it's a new source, entitled "JFK Day by Day" and since it's a new source, the first thing I do is to enter into into Access. It will autonumber the source, as 2176 (there are a number of blank numbers for sources as I was learning how to use Access; it won't give you back a deleted autonumbered line of data), and fill in the remaining fields: Title, Author (important because a number of sources have the same author and a number of books have different titles for the same text, so you can double-check before buying a duplicate), Earliest Date (in this case, January 20, 1961), Last Date (surprisingly, December 22, 1963, the date of the end of "Official Mourning" for JFK) and Last Used (which will turn out to be 1/5/2011 for all the books in this game for some reason).
Now I open up the book. No, you're not going to see the question here.
I will say why the source is in the game, for each source in this game. Of course, you already know why this source is in this game.
The second source is "100 Best Selling Albums of the 60s", source no. 2006 and, because Access alphabetizes numbers before letters, in fact the second source listed of the now 1398 sources for the year (the first is #1 New York Times Bestseller Lists"). This source is obviously a B (if you remember the classification in the last entry), so I could have used it in this year or held it for 1966. I decided to use it for this year because of the interesting way albums transformed in the sixties. At the start of the decade, the biggest selling albums were original cast albums from hit Broadway musicals and comedy albums. By the end of the decade, that was a distant memory as rock was king.
3. Chronology of Post-War British Politics, sort of between a B and a C (it covers about 40 years). One of my redoubtable sources, it's no. 123. What I like about it is that nearly all the entries are clear and concise and there's a lot of follow-through. To take an example I'm not using, it mentions a Commonwealth meeting where South Africa threatens to leave the Commonwealth and the later actual conversion of South Africa to a Republic.
4. The Black New Yorkers, definitely a D since the subtitle is "400 Year of African-American History." Source no. 90, an old hand. There is a companion volume on Washington, D.C. Picked because there's gotta be something old Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. was up to you, doesn't there?
5. Joel Whitburn's Pop Singles Annual, 1955-1990. A hybrid C/D like no. 3. Source no. 2086 and a rare source likely to be in other trivia hosts' libraries. Gotta use some of the pop music stuff here and I like to know what the singles were like when I was four years old.
6. Annals of Dublin, Fair City. Goes back to the Vikings, definitely a D. I usually use it for earlier games, like 17th century games, but I wanted to know what was happening in Dublin when Quackser Fortune was a boy. Source no. 457.
7. Dangerous Weather, no. 103 (and Nanbert's birthday present to me ages ago). Sort of a D since it goes way back, but more of a C because its annual material really doesn't start until the 20th century.
8,. Billy Wilder: The Complete Films. No. 1498 and a solid B. He won the 1960 Oscar for The Apartment but that's not what I'm interested in. The film he made in 1961 is one of my favorites.
9. 100 Years of the U.S. Open (the golf one). Definitely a C. No. 1219. It's Jack and Arnie time.
10. Race Relations in the United States, 1896-2005, which makes it a C. It appears I have this listed in the database twice, which will necessitate giving its second number to another source and screwing up all those databases that cite it. Oh, well. No need to say why this is relevant to the year.
11. John F. Kennedy. An A, duh. Welcome to the first of the Oceana series. There are four sets in the series, one on Presidents, which is generally an excellent source during the various presidencies and hit and miss before and after terms (obviously the latter inapplicable to this particular President); one one cities which is just wonderful; one on countries which is hit or miss (I have Israel, for instance, and it covers King David and Menachem Begin and not much in between); and one on states which is the bane of my existence. As we'll soon see. This book is no. 482.
12. The Rough Guide to Muhammad Ali (which replaced "The Beetle" because there were no 1960 changes noted to the VW models in the book). A solid B, and a great book to use for this year. No. 1366.
13. Bob Dylan Complete Discography. My database doesn't list this for 1961 (Dylan's first official release was in 1962), but there is a question here. Note: because I had to delete the filter to find that this is No. 2088, when I put the filter back all the sources I've used so far have disappeared. This is because they are filtered for "Last Used < 1/1/2011", and now they've all been used after that date.
14. Aeronautical and Astrophysical Events of 1961. It doesn't get much more A than this. No. 465.
And here we pause. Traditionally, when I write the first full question on page 2 of the Word file, I finally save the file and the Flashback file. The game is provisional until this point; on rare occasions I decide "this game is boring" and dump it, but I can't after this point. For the first game of the year, I have to create a new subfolder in my "Gamedocs" folder called "2011 Games." Both files get saved to it. Thus, the Flashback file in 2010 Games will not go further than the 1911 game. Time goes on.
Now I open up the book. No, you're not going to see the question here.
I will say why the source is in the game, for each source in this game. Of course, you already know why this source is in this game.
The second source is "100 Best Selling Albums of the 60s", source no. 2006 and, because Access alphabetizes numbers before letters, in fact the second source listed of the now 1398 sources for the year (the first is #1 New York Times Bestseller Lists"). This source is obviously a B (if you remember the classification in the last entry), so I could have used it in this year or held it for 1966. I decided to use it for this year because of the interesting way albums transformed in the sixties. At the start of the decade, the biggest selling albums were original cast albums from hit Broadway musicals and comedy albums. By the end of the decade, that was a distant memory as rock was king.
3. Chronology of Post-War British Politics, sort of between a B and a C (it covers about 40 years). One of my redoubtable sources, it's no. 123. What I like about it is that nearly all the entries are clear and concise and there's a lot of follow-through. To take an example I'm not using, it mentions a Commonwealth meeting where South Africa threatens to leave the Commonwealth and the later actual conversion of South Africa to a Republic.
4. The Black New Yorkers, definitely a D since the subtitle is "400 Year of African-American History." Source no. 90, an old hand. There is a companion volume on Washington, D.C. Picked because there's gotta be something old Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. was up to you, doesn't there?
5. Joel Whitburn's Pop Singles Annual, 1955-1990. A hybrid C/D like no. 3. Source no. 2086 and a rare source likely to be in other trivia hosts' libraries. Gotta use some of the pop music stuff here and I like to know what the singles were like when I was four years old.
6. Annals of Dublin, Fair City. Goes back to the Vikings, definitely a D. I usually use it for earlier games, like 17th century games, but I wanted to know what was happening in Dublin when Quackser Fortune was a boy. Source no. 457.
7. Dangerous Weather, no. 103 (and Nanbert's birthday present to me ages ago). Sort of a D since it goes way back, but more of a C because its annual material really doesn't start until the 20th century.
8,. Billy Wilder: The Complete Films. No. 1498 and a solid B. He won the 1960 Oscar for The Apartment but that's not what I'm interested in. The film he made in 1961 is one of my favorites.
9. 100 Years of the U.S. Open (the golf one). Definitely a C. No. 1219. It's Jack and Arnie time.
10. Race Relations in the United States, 1896-2005, which makes it a C. It appears I have this listed in the database twice, which will necessitate giving its second number to another source and screwing up all those databases that cite it. Oh, well. No need to say why this is relevant to the year.
11. John F. Kennedy. An A, duh. Welcome to the first of the Oceana series. There are four sets in the series, one on Presidents, which is generally an excellent source during the various presidencies and hit and miss before and after terms (obviously the latter inapplicable to this particular President); one one cities which is just wonderful; one on countries which is hit or miss (I have Israel, for instance, and it covers King David and Menachem Begin and not much in between); and one on states which is the bane of my existence. As we'll soon see. This book is no. 482.
12. The Rough Guide to Muhammad Ali (which replaced "The Beetle" because there were no 1960 changes noted to the VW models in the book). A solid B, and a great book to use for this year. No. 1366.
13. Bob Dylan Complete Discography. My database doesn't list this for 1961 (Dylan's first official release was in 1962), but there is a question here. Note: because I had to delete the filter to find that this is No. 2088, when I put the filter back all the sources I've used so far have disappeared. This is because they are filtered for "Last Used < 1/1/2011", and now they've all been used after that date.
14. Aeronautical and Astrophysical Events of 1961. It doesn't get much more A than this. No. 465.
And here we pause. Traditionally, when I write the first full question on page 2 of the Word file, I finally save the file and the Flashback file. The game is provisional until this point; on rare occasions I decide "this game is boring" and dump it, but I can't after this point. For the first game of the year, I have to create a new subfolder in my "Gamedocs" folder called "2011 Games." Both files get saved to it. Thus, the Flashback file in 2010 Games will not go further than the 1911 game. Time goes on.
Writing the First Game of the Year: Part One
Okay, this will be technical for a bit. Bare with me.
First thing I do is to go to a Word file called, oddly, "Flashback." It lists (literally it is a Word list) all the games since my old computer crashed in 1998. There are 505 of them. Our 1961 game will be 506. They are sorted by Flashback year. This tells me what years I've done and the date they were written for (not necessarily the date they were run since life intervenes). I go to the list and I type in "January 5, 2011 1961." Autonumbering makes this Game No. 337 and drops the last game, a 2007 game run on September 29, 2010, to No. 506.
I then open an Access table template called "Table 1" and save it as "01/05/2011 1961". Of course, that's not what I type. I type "01/05/2010 1961" and have to go and change it.
We Jews have been writing 5770 on our checks for months now.
I then open a screen called "Relationships" and associate our new table with a table called "Books 14", which allows me then to open a query in Access called "Query3" (because Query, Query 1 and Query 2 didn't work) and add our new table to it, deleting from it the table from the 1911 game. This query is a permanent file that allows me to add the book number each time I write a question, and then immediately gives me the book title (to make sure I got it right). It will be transformed into another query and saved for this particular game at the end.
I then reopen Books 14 and filter it for the game, putting the titles in alphabetical order. Why is it called Books 14? Because Access is about as user friendly as Al-Qaeda. It won't let me add more Relationships after a certain number. So I have to copy the file again and start a new set of Relationships. This has happened 14 times since I started keeping track of the sources. It's a bitch, because it takes so long that I forget how to do that copying and have to learn it all over. I don't use Access for anything else. I learned Access to do this and I hope never to have to use it for anything else. Luckily, my job does not require a lot of data entry.
Now I start a blank Word file, and change it from Microsoft's font du jour to Times New Roman 12. I type "Q:" and hope for the best.
First thing I do is to go to a Word file called, oddly, "Flashback." It lists (literally it is a Word list) all the games since my old computer crashed in 1998. There are 505 of them. Our 1961 game will be 506. They are sorted by Flashback year. This tells me what years I've done and the date they were written for (not necessarily the date they were run since life intervenes). I go to the list and I type in "January 5, 2011 1961." Autonumbering makes this Game No. 337 and drops the last game, a 2007 game run on September 29, 2010, to No. 506.
I then open an Access table template called "Table 1" and save it as "01/05/2011 1961". Of course, that's not what I type. I type "01/05/2010 1961" and have to go and change it.
We Jews have been writing 5770 on our checks for months now.
I then open a screen called "Relationships" and associate our new table with a table called "Books 14", which allows me then to open a query in Access called "Query3" (because Query, Query 1 and Query 2 didn't work) and add our new table to it, deleting from it the table from the 1911 game. This query is a permanent file that allows me to add the book number each time I write a question, and then immediately gives me the book title (to make sure I got it right). It will be transformed into another query and saved for this particular game at the end.
I then reopen Books 14 and filter it for the game, putting the titles in alphabetical order. Why is it called Books 14? Because Access is about as user friendly as Al-Qaeda. It won't let me add more Relationships after a certain number. So I have to copy the file again and start a new set of Relationships. This has happened 14 times since I started keeping track of the sources. It's a bitch, because it takes so long that I forget how to do that copying and have to learn it all over. I don't use Access for anything else. I learned Access to do this and I hope never to have to use it for anything else. Luckily, my job does not require a lot of data entry.
Now I start a blank Word file, and change it from Microsoft's font du jour to Times New Roman 12. I type "Q:" and hope for the best.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Writing the First Game of the Year: Introduction
The first game of the year is in many ways the easiest. There are absolutely no restrictions on what sources I can use, other than not to repeat any in the game itself. I always do the year that is fifty years before, so this will be 1961. I actually remember 1961 pretty well. I remember my mom mooning over JFK during his news conferences, for instance. I remember the first space shots. If you're going to be four and five during a year (my birthday neatly bisects the year), there aren't a lot of years more memorable than 1961.
The challenge, and the reason it's taken me so goddamn long to get around to writing this year, is the strategy involved not in writing this game, but in writing this game recognizing all the other games I'll have to write during the year. One thing to remember is that most games I write in a year will end in either the last digit of the year or that digit plus five, viz., 1961 or 1966. I will cover almost undoubtedly cover all the years that end in 1 or 6 from 1901 to 2006 (I will break the taboo on games on 2001 later this year at the tenth anniversary of 9/11, I suspect; it's time). Then I'll have to find some years in earlier centuries, which may or may not end in 1 or 6.
Let me classify sources in four categories in connection with 1961, a concept that will apply pretty well throughout:
A. Sources that are devoted solely to 1961. I own nearly the entire Facts on File Yearbook series starting in 1943 (I got most of them for $20 + shipping on eBay from a military library that was closing; they wrote me and said "the shipping is going to be $100"--I told them yahoo!). All of those books cover exactly a single year. There are a few others like that, and we'll encounter one this year in fact. Obviously, if you have a source devoted solely to your year, you're going to use it when you write a game on that year.
B. Sources that are centered on the year in some ways. The first source we're going to encounter is a brand new book called, "JFK Day by Day", which chronicles his presidency day by day (published in honor of the 50th anniversary of his inauguration, obviously). Since there will likely be no other game this year during JFK's presidency (which wasn't exactly long), this one is obviously going to be used. Similarly, there are a number of sources I have devoted to the Sixties, the Civil Rights era, Martin Luther King, Jr., Marilyn Monroe and a few others whose careers were in high swing in 1961. To the extent some would also have been active in 1956 or 1966, I keep some of them in reserve, but make sure a number are used this year. Then you have some where this year isn't the really relevant one. "Main Events of the Eisenhower Presidency" ends in 1961, but it covers exactly 20 days of the year. I'll save that for 1956.
C. Sources that are centered in the applicable century or era but not particularly devoted to the year. Here, you want to use up a number of them but keep in mind that there will be 25 games at least on this particular century. Not just "Chronicle of the 20th Century", but "One Hundred Years of Cinema" and "100 Years of Ford."
D. Really general sources. Not just "Timeline History of the World", but "A Chronology of Luxembourg." Here, it's pick and choose to an extent. Sometimes I'll keep Luxembourg in reserve because I have an idea that another year will be one where there's something great going on in Luxembourg (yes, there was). Sometimes I'll say to myself, "I have no freaking clue what happened in Luxembourg in 1961. Let's find out." As you'll see, that's my Luxembourgeois attitude right now.
The goal is to maximize the (currently) 2151 sources, of which 1397 are available for 1961. By a simple filter in Access, I can make sure I don't duplicate any sources until I've reached the point in the year when I can't write a full game without repetition. In 2010, I used all but 72 of the sources, which includes about 30 that are lost or were thrown out after the cat pissed on them. Nearly all of the rest weren't used because they dealt solely with years I didn't write last year. Even though I'll probably add another hundred sources this year (I already have them, but I keep buying more--I know, I'm rather insane), I would like to get that number lower than 72 this year. Who knows if I will.
The challenge, and the reason it's taken me so goddamn long to get around to writing this year, is the strategy involved not in writing this game, but in writing this game recognizing all the other games I'll have to write during the year. One thing to remember is that most games I write in a year will end in either the last digit of the year or that digit plus five, viz., 1961 or 1966. I will cover almost undoubtedly cover all the years that end in 1 or 6 from 1901 to 2006 (I will break the taboo on games on 2001 later this year at the tenth anniversary of 9/11, I suspect; it's time). Then I'll have to find some years in earlier centuries, which may or may not end in 1 or 6.
Let me classify sources in four categories in connection with 1961, a concept that will apply pretty well throughout:
A. Sources that are devoted solely to 1961. I own nearly the entire Facts on File Yearbook series starting in 1943 (I got most of them for $20 + shipping on eBay from a military library that was closing; they wrote me and said "the shipping is going to be $100"--I told them yahoo!). All of those books cover exactly a single year. There are a few others like that, and we'll encounter one this year in fact. Obviously, if you have a source devoted solely to your year, you're going to use it when you write a game on that year.
B. Sources that are centered on the year in some ways. The first source we're going to encounter is a brand new book called, "JFK Day by Day", which chronicles his presidency day by day (published in honor of the 50th anniversary of his inauguration, obviously). Since there will likely be no other game this year during JFK's presidency (which wasn't exactly long), this one is obviously going to be used. Similarly, there are a number of sources I have devoted to the Sixties, the Civil Rights era, Martin Luther King, Jr., Marilyn Monroe and a few others whose careers were in high swing in 1961. To the extent some would also have been active in 1956 or 1966, I keep some of them in reserve, but make sure a number are used this year. Then you have some where this year isn't the really relevant one. "Main Events of the Eisenhower Presidency" ends in 1961, but it covers exactly 20 days of the year. I'll save that for 1956.
C. Sources that are centered in the applicable century or era but not particularly devoted to the year. Here, you want to use up a number of them but keep in mind that there will be 25 games at least on this particular century. Not just "Chronicle of the 20th Century", but "One Hundred Years of Cinema" and "100 Years of Ford."
D. Really general sources. Not just "Timeline History of the World", but "A Chronology of Luxembourg." Here, it's pick and choose to an extent. Sometimes I'll keep Luxembourg in reserve because I have an idea that another year will be one where there's something great going on in Luxembourg (yes, there was). Sometimes I'll say to myself, "I have no freaking clue what happened in Luxembourg in 1961. Let's find out." As you'll see, that's my Luxembourgeois attitude right now.
The goal is to maximize the (currently) 2151 sources, of which 1397 are available for 1961. By a simple filter in Access, I can make sure I don't duplicate any sources until I've reached the point in the year when I can't write a full game without repetition. In 2010, I used all but 72 of the sources, which includes about 30 that are lost or were thrown out after the cat pissed on them. Nearly all of the rest weren't used because they dealt solely with years I didn't write last year. Even though I'll probably add another hundred sources this year (I already have them, but I keep buying more--I know, I'm rather insane), I would like to get that number lower than 72 this year. Who knows if I will.
Monday, November 22, 2010
The Critical Role of Mrs. Jeop
After the game is completed, it needs to be proofed. Traditionally, before our son, Philip a/k/a Lil Jeop, went to college and before he started playing the games, this was done at the dinner table as a family treat. The two of them would compete with one another over the answer. When Phil is home, this still continues, though I write fewer games and I write them more slowly now, so this is not very frequent. Sometimes when Phil realizes he's heard a game he just won't answer when playing.
The key is to read the game aloud, because this helps me find about 90% of the typos and the poorly phrased questions. I mark them and . . . honestly the one thing I hate is then going back and fixing them. There was a long time when I had a pile of edited games sitting on the dining room table and I'd forget to make the corrections in the actual game until almost game time, and then I'd have to hunt around to find the right one (God forbid I should actually title them or anything), a panicky scramble I apparently preferred to, say, simply making the corrections right after I marked them.
The thing about Marjorie is that she doesn't like playing the games online, because she doesn't get into strategy of bagging or anything and hates to have to type under a tight buzzer (though no one could call my buzzers tight these days). But her knowledge of certain things is tremendous (trust me, she'd have killed everyone who played the 1586 game) and her knowledge of other things, like the casts of movies I know she's never seen, is surprisingly good. On the other hand, the first time we heard this line in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,", "I know nothing of these early sixties sitcoms of which you speak," we looked at each other and cracked up. Marjorie grew up without a TV and late night TV in particular was a mystery to her. She saw some afternoon TV at a friend's house, but in the evening no. Popular music past 1975 isn't exactly a high point in her knowledge either. So sometimes I'll just simply say, "there's no way in hell you're getting this" and I'm right about 99% of the time. She can make a pretty damn good educated guess, though, since she's basically heard me read every single game I've ever hosted, and that goes back a ways. As Sherlock Holmes might say, she knows my methods.
The key is to read the game aloud, because this helps me find about 90% of the typos and the poorly phrased questions. I mark them and . . . honestly the one thing I hate is then going back and fixing them. There was a long time when I had a pile of edited games sitting on the dining room table and I'd forget to make the corrections in the actual game until almost game time, and then I'd have to hunt around to find the right one (God forbid I should actually title them or anything), a panicky scramble I apparently preferred to, say, simply making the corrections right after I marked them.
The thing about Marjorie is that she doesn't like playing the games online, because she doesn't get into strategy of bagging or anything and hates to have to type under a tight buzzer (though no one could call my buzzers tight these days). But her knowledge of certain things is tremendous (trust me, she'd have killed everyone who played the 1586 game) and her knowledge of other things, like the casts of movies I know she's never seen, is surprisingly good. On the other hand, the first time we heard this line in "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,", "I know nothing of these early sixties sitcoms of which you speak," we looked at each other and cracked up. Marjorie grew up without a TV and late night TV in particular was a mystery to her. She saw some afternoon TV at a friend's house, but in the evening no. Popular music past 1975 isn't exactly a high point in her knowledge either. So sometimes I'll just simply say, "there's no way in hell you're getting this" and I'm right about 99% of the time. She can make a pretty damn good educated guess, though, since she's basically heard me read every single game I've ever hosted, and that goes back a ways. As Sherlock Holmes might say, she knows my methods.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Writing a Bonus
A bonus in Flashback is not as easy as a bonus in, say, a general trivia game. In a general trivia game, you can find a bonus in the theme; in Flashback the theme is the year and some years have bonuses that are obvious and some do not. The limitations of how I put the sources together can also limit the availability of a bonus. Nearly always I am staring at a single source (a couple of times, most often when dealing with a year before 1700, I will find a new source) and have to find a bonus after writing the first 45+ questions.
In its simplest form, a bonus is two questions tied together. The perfect bonus is a single question with two answers:
Q: WHO WERE THE FIRST TWO MEN ON THE MOON?
A: NEIL ARMSTRONG, BUZZ ALDRIN
Q: WHAT TWO ACTRESSES TIED FOR THE BEST ACTRESS OSCAR?
A: BARBRA STREISAND; KATHARINE HEPBURN
Those are unusual. Sometimes you can combine two related concepts. If you were doing 2010:
Q: WHO BECAME PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM? WHO WAS SELECTED AS THE NEXT SPEAKER OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES?
A: DAVID CAMERON, JOHN BOEHNER
The next kind is the "two variables in a single question" kind.
Q; WHAT WOMAN TOOK WHAT CABINET OFFICE AND BECAME THE SECOND FEMALE EVER IN THE CABINET?
A: OVETA CULP HOBBY; SECRETARY OF HEALTH, EDUCATION AND WELFARE
Finally, there's just two relatively unrelated questions as "one question." You don't need examples; it's anything.
I don't go searching for the perfect bonus; the first one I find in the source is the one I use. For 1911, it is in fact a "two variables in a single question" bonus. The good thing about it is that it's answer is suggested by two questions earlier in the game.
In its simplest form, a bonus is two questions tied together. The perfect bonus is a single question with two answers:
Q: WHO WERE THE FIRST TWO MEN ON THE MOON?
A: NEIL ARMSTRONG, BUZZ ALDRIN
Q: WHAT TWO ACTRESSES TIED FOR THE BEST ACTRESS OSCAR?
A: BARBRA STREISAND; KATHARINE HEPBURN
Those are unusual. Sometimes you can combine two related concepts. If you were doing 2010:
Q: WHO BECAME PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM? WHO WAS SELECTED AS THE NEXT SPEAKER OF THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES?
A: DAVID CAMERON, JOHN BOEHNER
The next kind is the "two variables in a single question" kind.
Q; WHAT WOMAN TOOK WHAT CABINET OFFICE AND BECAME THE SECOND FEMALE EVER IN THE CABINET?
A: OVETA CULP HOBBY; SECRETARY OF HEALTH, EDUCATION AND WELFARE
Finally, there's just two relatively unrelated questions as "one question." You don't need examples; it's anything.
I don't go searching for the perfect bonus; the first one I find in the source is the one I use. For 1911, it is in fact a "two variables in a single question" bonus. The good thing about it is that it's answer is suggested by two questions earlier in the game.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The First Question
A good trivia game begins with a good first question. I probably wrote that in "Secrets of Host Jeop" in 1995 and I really haven't changed my mind.
For 1911, we will begin with a question from the William Howard Taft book. Why? Because that particular chronology series is very reliable in giving a lot of facts from which to select the right first question. Even if it didn't, it would at least be a decent first question. We can guarantee it will be in American History (since nearly all the players are Americans), and, heck, William Howard Taft is funny.
No, I'm not going to tell you the question. You'll have to come on the last Wednesday of the year to see it.
But here are some of the facts I've discarded (since I haven't actually written the game, I'm listing the ones I doubt I'll use from other sources, too, though you never know):
Appointed Joseph R. Lamarto to the Supreme Court. No one's ever heard of Joseph R. Lamarto. I could turn this into this question:
Q: IN JANUARY, PRESIDENT TAFT APPOINTED JOSEPH R. LAMARTO TO WHAT JOB HE HIMSELF HAD TURNED DOWN?
A: ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
In a pinch, i.e., if there were no other questions from the source, I'd use that. It works with Taft because he had in fact turned down the Supreme Court. But unless it's a Supreme Court justice someone has heard of, random appointments like that aren't the source for good questions.
The United States Commerce Court opened. I don't care. You don't care.
Appointed Walter L. Fisher Secretary of the Interior. Probably the most boring thing I've ever read is the endless arguments between Gifford Pinchot (whose acolyte Fisher was) and Richard Ballinger over conservation during the Roosevelt and Taft administrations. I try to avoid it like the plague (but can't always; I have some books with titles like "100 Years of Federal Forestry").
Appointed Commission on Economy and Efficiency to study governmental reorganization. Are you still awake?
President and Mrs. Taft celebrated their silver wedding anniversary in the White House with a night garden party for 5,000 guests. This wouldn't be that bad, you could ask people to estimate the number of their anniversary, or the number of guests. 5,000 guests at the White House is a huge crowd, and do you think you could think of 5,000 people to invite to your party? But there are better facts; pass.
There are about half a dozen others, some just as boring and some of which are the possible bases for questions either now or later in the game.
It is perfectly possible that notwithstanding that the source is called "William Howard Taft", the first question will be not include Taft's name in either answer or question.
For 1911, we will begin with a question from the William Howard Taft book. Why? Because that particular chronology series is very reliable in giving a lot of facts from which to select the right first question. Even if it didn't, it would at least be a decent first question. We can guarantee it will be in American History (since nearly all the players are Americans), and, heck, William Howard Taft is funny.
No, I'm not going to tell you the question. You'll have to come on the last Wednesday of the year to see it.
But here are some of the facts I've discarded (since I haven't actually written the game, I'm listing the ones I doubt I'll use from other sources, too, though you never know):
Appointed Joseph R. Lamarto to the Supreme Court. No one's ever heard of Joseph R. Lamarto. I could turn this into this question:
Q: IN JANUARY, PRESIDENT TAFT APPOINTED JOSEPH R. LAMARTO TO WHAT JOB HE HIMSELF HAD TURNED DOWN?
A: ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT
In a pinch, i.e., if there were no other questions from the source, I'd use that. It works with Taft because he had in fact turned down the Supreme Court. But unless it's a Supreme Court justice someone has heard of, random appointments like that aren't the source for good questions.
The United States Commerce Court opened. I don't care. You don't care.
Appointed Walter L. Fisher Secretary of the Interior. Probably the most boring thing I've ever read is the endless arguments between Gifford Pinchot (whose acolyte Fisher was) and Richard Ballinger over conservation during the Roosevelt and Taft administrations. I try to avoid it like the plague (but can't always; I have some books with titles like "100 Years of Federal Forestry").
Appointed Commission on Economy and Efficiency to study governmental reorganization. Are you still awake?
President and Mrs. Taft celebrated their silver wedding anniversary in the White House with a night garden party for 5,000 guests. This wouldn't be that bad, you could ask people to estimate the number of their anniversary, or the number of guests. 5,000 guests at the White House is a huge crowd, and do you think you could think of 5,000 people to invite to your party? But there are better facts; pass.
There are about half a dozen others, some just as boring and some of which are the possible bases for questions either now or later in the game.
It is perfectly possible that notwithstanding that the source is called "William Howard Taft", the first question will be not include Taft's name in either answer or question.
The Order of the Sources
As I mentioned, there are two racks of books, 46 or more, on a wheeled cart. The higher shelf has smaller books and the lower shelf has larger books. Oversized books are lain on the right of the cart.
One question per source.
One fact is that there are fewer large books than small books. And the small books are thinner. However, there is a wild card: two filing cabinet drawers full of printouts of chronologies printed from the internet. For some games, this will mean far more sources on the lower shelf.
Before I bore you to death . . . .
The books are put together in some sort of order, which isn't exact or scientific, but is intended to allow for some pattern to the questions. I don't like to have sports, music or entertainment questions directly after one another. If the year has a particular fact that dominates it (1963: the Kennedy assassination; 1964: the British invasion) and so it is likely that there will be multiple questions about the year, I like to keep those questions, and thus those sources, separated. And I like to put those questions in something of a chronological order. In an 1815 game, questions about Napoleon and Waterloo will give some sense of the direction of the year: escape from Waterloo, turning of the troops sent to capture him, gathering a force, marching north, fighting the battle, abdication, capture, sailing to St. Helena. You can box yourself in with a source when you don't do this; you can also box yourself in when a later source has nothing but something you've already used (in which case I sometimes cheat and take something from the source I already used).
I honestly can't tell you the "big event" of 1911, however, so as we work on that game in here, there's nothing that will obviously come to mind. Although I am pretty sure that being Emperor of China was not a growth industry.
One question per source.
One fact is that there are fewer large books than small books. And the small books are thinner. However, there is a wild card: two filing cabinet drawers full of printouts of chronologies printed from the internet. For some games, this will mean far more sources on the lower shelf.
Before I bore you to death . . . .
The books are put together in some sort of order, which isn't exact or scientific, but is intended to allow for some pattern to the questions. I don't like to have sports, music or entertainment questions directly after one another. If the year has a particular fact that dominates it (1963: the Kennedy assassination; 1964: the British invasion) and so it is likely that there will be multiple questions about the year, I like to keep those questions, and thus those sources, separated. And I like to put those questions in something of a chronological order. In an 1815 game, questions about Napoleon and Waterloo will give some sense of the direction of the year: escape from Waterloo, turning of the troops sent to capture him, gathering a force, marching north, fighting the battle, abdication, capture, sailing to St. Helena. You can box yourself in with a source when you don't do this; you can also box yourself in when a later source has nothing but something you've already used (in which case I sometimes cheat and take something from the source I already used).
I honestly can't tell you the "big event" of 1911, however, so as we work on that game in here, there's nothing that will obviously come to mind. Although I am pretty sure that being Emperor of China was not a growth industry.
Monday, November 15, 2010
The First Ten Sources
These actually seem to make some sense:
1. The Ty Cobb Scrapbook (mentioned before)
2. The Hundred Years (mentioned before)
3. William Howard Taft (part of the Oceana Presidents series, with a chronology of his administration)
4. The Story of Twenty Five Years (chronology of George V's reign)
5. Arizona, The Territorial Years (autographed copy; got it on eBay)
6. United States Naval Aviation (oddly, rather early in the naval aviation era)
7. Chronology of Tennessee A&I University (which was founded in 1911)
8. A Chronology of the Boston Public Schools (which ends in 1911 because it was published in 1912)
9. Winston Churchill, Young Statesman (mentioned before)
10. The Papal Encyclicals, 1903-1939 (one of five volumes that I got at the library book sale and haven't used yet, even though the book sale was in March)
1. The Ty Cobb Scrapbook (mentioned before)
2. The Hundred Years (mentioned before)
3. William Howard Taft (part of the Oceana Presidents series, with a chronology of his administration)
4. The Story of Twenty Five Years (chronology of George V's reign)
5. Arizona, The Territorial Years (autographed copy; got it on eBay)
6. United States Naval Aviation (oddly, rather early in the naval aviation era)
7. Chronology of Tennessee A&I University (which was founded in 1911)
8. A Chronology of the Boston Public Schools (which ends in 1911 because it was published in 1912)
9. Winston Churchill, Young Statesman (mentioned before)
10. The Papal Encyclicals, 1903-1939 (one of five volumes that I got at the library book sale and haven't used yet, even though the book sale was in March)
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Preliminary Sketches
So it turns out there was one source that didn't work for 1903 that did work for 1911, a Winston Churchill chronology. Churchill apparently did nothing as a "Young Statesman" in 1903, but did in 1911. So hurrah. I'm also going to stretch one source, misleadingly called "The Hundred Years" even though it covers only a very few years in the hundred it claims to encompass. It has an entry for 1910 and I can probably stretch it to make some facts fit 1910. One way I do this is if, say, a building is finished in Year X, I can ask a question that includes the fact that Year X+1 is the first complete year it is open. It's not inaccurate, and it's hard to come up with stuff for some years.
The next thing I do is to sort the available sources for those that start and end in the relevant year. I have four books that end in 1911, either because the subject died or just because that was the publication year. One of my favorites, a book called "American Game Protection", an unbelievably exhaustive chronology of laws protecting birds and game, happens to end in 1911. Unfortunately, sometimes when it's simply the last entry because that's when the book got published, as opposed to some event that naturally ends the book (the end of the Civil War, for instance), the last entries are not particularly interesting.
There are also even more that start that year and far more that start the year before, either because they are based on the decade or because they are based on the start of King George V's reign in Britain. I like to use those because it's more likely they will both have something germane to the period (why start a book in 1911 if you have nothing to say about 1911) and more likely to not be more germane to some other year. Although for this game it doesn't matter.
Here's the secret: one of my rules is that I don't repeat a source during a year until I can no longer write a game that doesn't repeat a source. It doesn't matter if the source uniquely has something for another year, I can't use it until I've used them all up. This year, it took until late September when I could no longer find at least 46 sources that I hadn't used.
The next thing I do is to sort the available sources for those that start and end in the relevant year. I have four books that end in 1911, either because the subject died or just because that was the publication year. One of my favorites, a book called "American Game Protection", an unbelievably exhaustive chronology of laws protecting birds and game, happens to end in 1911. Unfortunately, sometimes when it's simply the last entry because that's when the book got published, as opposed to some event that naturally ends the book (the end of the Civil War, for instance), the last entries are not particularly interesting.
There are also even more that start that year and far more that start the year before, either because they are based on the decade or because they are based on the start of King George V's reign in Britain. I like to use those because it's more likely they will both have something germane to the period (why start a book in 1911 if you have nothing to say about 1911) and more likely to not be more germane to some other year. Although for this game it doesn't matter.
Here's the secret: one of my rules is that I don't repeat a source during a year until I can no longer write a game that doesn't repeat a source. It doesn't matter if the source uniquely has something for another year, I can't use it until I've used them all up. This year, it took until late September when I could no longer find at least 46 sources that I hadn't used.
The Blank Canvas
So, 1911. I usually start out thinking about what I know about the year without looking at any resources. For 1911, there's not an awful lot. I know Taft was President, and Wilson was Governor of New Jersey. I imagine that TR was probably stewing about something Taft was doing or not doing, since he was about to run against his former protégé. I imagine something nasty was going on in the Balkans. Arizona and New Mexico were probably working on state constitutions, since they were going to become states the next year. Ty Cobb was probably doing something interesting, and I know I have a book called "The Ty Cobb Scrapbook", which covers Cobb in amazing detail (but is sort of a hagiography, but heck, I'm a born Tigers fan). That's about it.
The next thing I do is to look at my Chronologies database. This is a database of over 2100 chronologies which are the building blocks for games. I'll discuss the rules of how that works in discussions of the first game of 2011, but for now just assume there are about 90 books I need to check to see if they have entries for 1911 (which isn't hard to check, since all the books are entered by first and last dates, so I only have to look at the ones that show data in between). These are books I haven't used in 2010 yet. It's a small number because it's the end of the year, but also because a lot of these books are on specific years or really narrow ranges, like a book that covers nothing but Stonewall Jackson's service in the Civil War, which is just 1861-63. A number of the others aren't really there, they're lost, but I haven't deleted them from the database because I might find them or I might replace them and I'm anal that way.
My guess is that at most I will have two or three sources I have to use because of this. It might indeed be zero, because the last game I wrote was 1903, and a lot of the sources I had not used yet that cover this general time period were used in that game.
Next, I check the piles of unused sources, which are not in my database but just lying around the office. I like to use about two or three new sources every game. One reason for this is that it keeps the games fresh, particularly when there's a great new source, either covering a new topic or covering a topic in an unusual way. Another is that based on the rules for how I write the games, it's bad to have a lot of narrow sources, either by topic or time, used in the same game. Again, I'll elaborate more on that for the first game of 2011.
If I've written a game on the year before, I'll probably re-read that game. I certainly have written on 1911 before, because I've done every year of the 20th century at least once, and many of them five or six times, and I have all the games in my files. I re-read both to remind myself of the big events of the year and to make sure I don't inadvertently write the same question. So, just to pull something out of the air, if Ty Cobb were in a race for the batting title with Nap Lajoie, I would make sure that if last time the answer to the question on this topic was "Ty Cobb", this time it would be "Nap Lajoie" or "second base" or "Cleveland" or whatever.
Then I just pull books off the shelf that are likely to fit the topic. I like to make sure I have a mix of really narrow topics ("Pasadena Chronology") and really wide ones ("20th Century Year by Year"). Unless a year is particularly appropriate for it (say, 1964 and rock music), I like to limit the number of books used on a particular topic. I like to cover the whole world if I can (there are only so many Asian or South American or African sources, of course) and I like to cover a lot of topics--art, literature, music, sports, daily life--along with the usual political and military things that people might know off the top of their heads.
The books get put on a wire rack in my office, short books on the top, tall on the bottom. My rule is 46 questions minimum; there is no maximum but except for oversize books, I won't go over the size of the wire rack once I've hit 46.
I usually use one of the broader sources for the bonus, because I like a good bonus where the double answer is integral to the question. Again, if I were doing 1964, I might use a narrower source like a Beatles chronology (I probably have a dozen of these), because it's not hard to get a double answer out of it. I suppose I might end up with Arizona and New Mexico as a dual answer for 1911.
On to actually picking the books.
The next thing I do is to look at my Chronologies database. This is a database of over 2100 chronologies which are the building blocks for games. I'll discuss the rules of how that works in discussions of the first game of 2011, but for now just assume there are about 90 books I need to check to see if they have entries for 1911 (which isn't hard to check, since all the books are entered by first and last dates, so I only have to look at the ones that show data in between). These are books I haven't used in 2010 yet. It's a small number because it's the end of the year, but also because a lot of these books are on specific years or really narrow ranges, like a book that covers nothing but Stonewall Jackson's service in the Civil War, which is just 1861-63. A number of the others aren't really there, they're lost, but I haven't deleted them from the database because I might find them or I might replace them and I'm anal that way.
My guess is that at most I will have two or three sources I have to use because of this. It might indeed be zero, because the last game I wrote was 1903, and a lot of the sources I had not used yet that cover this general time period were used in that game.
Next, I check the piles of unused sources, which are not in my database but just lying around the office. I like to use about two or three new sources every game. One reason for this is that it keeps the games fresh, particularly when there's a great new source, either covering a new topic or covering a topic in an unusual way. Another is that based on the rules for how I write the games, it's bad to have a lot of narrow sources, either by topic or time, used in the same game. Again, I'll elaborate more on that for the first game of 2011.
If I've written a game on the year before, I'll probably re-read that game. I certainly have written on 1911 before, because I've done every year of the 20th century at least once, and many of them five or six times, and I have all the games in my files. I re-read both to remind myself of the big events of the year and to make sure I don't inadvertently write the same question. So, just to pull something out of the air, if Ty Cobb were in a race for the batting title with Nap Lajoie, I would make sure that if last time the answer to the question on this topic was "Ty Cobb", this time it would be "Nap Lajoie" or "second base" or "Cleveland" or whatever.
Then I just pull books off the shelf that are likely to fit the topic. I like to make sure I have a mix of really narrow topics ("Pasadena Chronology") and really wide ones ("20th Century Year by Year"). Unless a year is particularly appropriate for it (say, 1964 and rock music), I like to limit the number of books used on a particular topic. I like to cover the whole world if I can (there are only so many Asian or South American or African sources, of course) and I like to cover a lot of topics--art, literature, music, sports, daily life--along with the usual political and military things that people might know off the top of their heads.
The books get put on a wire rack in my office, short books on the top, tall on the bottom. My rule is 46 questions minimum; there is no maximum but except for oversize books, I won't go over the size of the wire rack once I've hit 46.
I usually use one of the broader sources for the bonus, because I like a good bonus where the double answer is integral to the question. Again, if I were doing 1964, I might use a narrower source like a Beatles chronology (I probably have a dozen of these), because it's not hard to get a double answer out of it. I suppose I might end up with Arizona and New Mexico as a dual answer for 1911.
On to actually picking the books.
The Last Game of the Year
It may not have been the first time, but the first time I remember guest-hosting Flashback for ToddLok was the last Wednesday of 1995, which would have been December 27. Todd, of course, was pretty strict in limiting the years he covered in his games to 1960 or later (with a couple of exceptions). And he always began with a question that revealed the year.
My background is in history, so I thought it would be fun to run a game on a year way before 1960, in fact, one hundred years before the year we were about to begin. So I wrote a game about 1896. I began it just like Todd did, with a question that required people to guess the year. I don't remember the question (my pre-1999 games were destroyed when a hard drive fried) but I do remember the reaction, which was pretty close to emptying the room. A few friends remained and a few others who came in (back when the rooms needed to be wedged into to get in, remember that?) stayed, but there was a lot of "WELCOME TO FLASHBACK TO 1896" followed by a TOS-approved version of "WTF?" and "Online Host: ______________ has left the room."
I don't remember if I hosted for Todd at the end of 1996, but by 1997, I was the permanent host of Flashback, and the question at the beginning to set up the year went out soon afterward. I was starting to experiment with years all over the place, and it just didn't make sense to surprise people who might be expecting a pop music game to give them the popular music of 1655. So instead, the next game was announced at the end of the prior game, met with anything from groans to applause.
But the tradition of doing the "century" for the last game of the year continued. And having just written a game for December 22, I am now confronted with writing the next game, which tradition dictates will be 1911.
My background is in history, so I thought it would be fun to run a game on a year way before 1960, in fact, one hundred years before the year we were about to begin. So I wrote a game about 1896. I began it just like Todd did, with a question that required people to guess the year. I don't remember the question (my pre-1999 games were destroyed when a hard drive fried) but I do remember the reaction, which was pretty close to emptying the room. A few friends remained and a few others who came in (back when the rooms needed to be wedged into to get in, remember that?) stayed, but there was a lot of "WELCOME TO FLASHBACK TO 1896" followed by a TOS-approved version of "WTF?" and "Online Host: ______________ has left the room."
I don't remember if I hosted for Todd at the end of 1996, but by 1997, I was the permanent host of Flashback, and the question at the beginning to set up the year went out soon afterward. I was starting to experiment with years all over the place, and it just didn't make sense to surprise people who might be expecting a pop music game to give them the popular music of 1655. So instead, the next game was announced at the end of the prior game, met with anything from groans to applause.
But the tradition of doing the "century" for the last game of the year continued. And having just written a game for December 22, I am now confronted with writing the next game, which tradition dictates will be 1911.
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