There are three kinds of book that have the label "Chronology":
The first we can dismiss right away, they are "chronologies" only in the title sense. What they really are are discourses on chronology, usually biblical but sometimes archaeological. They are entirely useless for writing Flashback.
The second you know about: they are real books where the data is provided in chronological order by year or some other date (like by day).
The third are books that are called chronologies but are actually encyclopedias of facts, arranged alphabetically with the date data supplied with the alphabetical information. British railway chronologies are almost always done this way. You have to scan the entire list looking for a year. I should just not buy them, right, but usually you're buying something from abroad it would be cheaper to keep than return and anyway, I'm stubborn.
The worst one is the Chronology of Florida Post Offices. 91 pages of two columns alphabetically listing post offices.
I mean, who cares?
But I got a good question out of it for once.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
What were the odds?
I have a lot of books with titles that begin "100 Years of . . . ." But very few with titles involving 75 years.
So what were the odds I'd pull two books off the shelf (actually, one book off the table where I keep books I've never used before) that had these titles:
75 Years of America Reading
Three-Quarters of a Century at Washington
Someone else can calculate the actual odds, but the number of titles I have in my database with 75 or some variation thereof is three (the other one is "75 Years of Children's Book Week Posters", which I used two weeks ago.
So what were the odds I'd pull two books off the shelf (actually, one book off the table where I keep books I've never used before) that had these titles:
75 Years of America Reading
Three-Quarters of a Century at Washington
Someone else can calculate the actual odds, but the number of titles I have in my database with 75 or some variation thereof is three (the other one is "75 Years of Children's Book Week Posters", which I used two weeks ago.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
The Triumph of Randomness
A lot of time, when I announce the year for the game, some players will make comments asking when the "X" question will occur. The "X" question is based on someone's idea of a particular fact that is, in that player's mind, iconic for the year in question.
Well, here's another clue for you all, the "X" question may or may not be in the game. I do not, typically, scour sources looking for that iconic fact of a year, to make sure it's covered. A lot of the time, obviously, it will be covered, but a lot of the time it won't. Why? First of all, because I've done all the years of the 20th century multiple times, I may not have a new approach to a topic, so it won't come into the game. Other times, quite simply, it just doesn't come up as I read my sources. When I open a source, the first reasonable question for that year is usually what I come up with. I don't have time to be comprehensive, to read every possible fact in each of 46+ sources (sometimes as high as 100) that pertains to a year. So your X may just not come to my attention.
On the other hand, and this leads us to the topic for this post, sometimes I have no idea something happened in a particular year and the sources lead me to it. Right now, I'm writing a game on 1956, and I just found a really cool fact in a source called "The FBI's Ten Most Wanted List," a wonderful source because it goes through the list in strict chronological order. And someone was put on the list in 1956 that makes a great question. Someone else might have, too, but when I got to these guys, that was enough for me.
Well, here's another clue for you all, the "X" question may or may not be in the game. I do not, typically, scour sources looking for that iconic fact of a year, to make sure it's covered. A lot of the time, obviously, it will be covered, but a lot of the time it won't. Why? First of all, because I've done all the years of the 20th century multiple times, I may not have a new approach to a topic, so it won't come into the game. Other times, quite simply, it just doesn't come up as I read my sources. When I open a source, the first reasonable question for that year is usually what I come up with. I don't have time to be comprehensive, to read every possible fact in each of 46+ sources (sometimes as high as 100) that pertains to a year. So your X may just not come to my attention.
On the other hand, and this leads us to the topic for this post, sometimes I have no idea something happened in a particular year and the sources lead me to it. Right now, I'm writing a game on 1956, and I just found a really cool fact in a source called "The FBI's Ten Most Wanted List," a wonderful source because it goes through the list in strict chronological order. And someone was put on the list in 1956 that makes a great question. Someone else might have, too, but when I got to these guys, that was enough for me.
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