How to Create a Literature Quiz

Answer: In which year was the book first published?

The only one of these that would be acceptable to ask about a book is "In what year was the book first published?", as it's interesting and relevant. Notice that the question asks when the book was FIRST published; many books, especially popular ones, go through numerous reprintings and are published more than once. If you look inside of a book, you'll notice that the copyright date isn't necessarily the date the book was first published; sometimes you have to do some digging to figure this out. The questions "Who published the book?" and "How many pages are in the book?", besides not being very interesting, are also susceptible to change.

There are many different editions of books printed in various countries and in various languages, so it's not a good idea to ask questions as specific as these.

While you may think "Who wrote this book?" is a good question, it's actually not; we require that you state the author's name in either the title or Intro of your quiz. Many popular authors, such as Robert Jordan and Judy Blume, have their own subcategories; really popular ones, such as Stephen King and Shakespeare, have subcategories of subcategories!

Answer: False

This is a common assumption that many quizmakers make; however, it's not true. You should always write a quiz, whether on Literature or some other subject, as if the player is totally ignorant of the book or whatever the topic is. Believe it or not, some people actually take quizzes on books they've never read or movies they've never seen in order to learn something new! Your quiz should show your enthusiasm for the book and/or the author and make people want to read it, if they haven't already.

Answer: A quiz on Shakespeare's sonnets

While you may think that all of these quizzes belong in the Literature category, actually only the Shakespeare quiz would fit. All of the others would belong to some other category: the Nancy Drew quiz would be filed under For Children: Nancy Drew: Books; the Emily Dickinson quiz, since it's based on her life rather than her work, would go under People: Writers, Philosophers, and Psychologists; and the mythology quiz would be put in the Humanities: Mythology category. To get a better idea of what category or subcategory to put a quiz in, check both the category guidelines and the list of subtopics for that category. Be careful when writing a quiz on a book for children or young adults; the subcategory may be in either Literature or For Children. For instance, series such as Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and Goosebumps are under For Children, while such series as Sweet Valley High and the Princess Diaries are under Literature in Young Adult. If you're really unsure where a quiz belongs, the editors will place it in the correct place when they put it online.

Answer: Hamlet

Fill-in-the-blanks can be problematic; that's why we don't allow new quizmakers to use them. Generally, FITB answers are limited to four words and can't have punctuation in them. The only one of the above answers that's short, easy to spell, and punctuation free is "Hamlet". (By the way, "I Never Sang for my Father" is a play by Robert Anderson; Bohuslav Balbin was a Czech author).

Answer: all of these

When you're writing a quiz on a book, play, poem, etc, you must be careful to put all of these thing in quotes: titles, passages or quotes from the book, quotes from other sources. Names of characters and authors don't belong in quotes.

Answer: Check out a website on literary criticisms of the book

There is never an excuse for not being able to find interesting information! Just go to a search engine like Yahoo or Google and type in either the name of the book or the author. You'll get many different hits, depending on the popularity of the book/author, including the author's home page (most have one nowadays), literary reviews or criticisms, lesson plans on the book for teachers, pages made by fans of the author, biographical facts on the author, etc. What we're looking for are tidbits that are INTERESTING regarding the book, poem, play, or author.

In general we discourage the use of passages or quotes from the book for interesting information; you can select a passage that demonstrates a point you want to make, but if that's all you have for your interesting info, it's neither interesting nor information. We also require that all of your information is factual and from a verifiable source; even though your Aunt Marilyn may have read the book 100 times, she is not a verifiable source (unless she happens to be a literary critic).

Many books and plays have been made into movies, and they are most often NOT the same. If you want to say something like, "In the book, Scarlett wears a green dress to the ball, while in the movie, it's red", that's fine, but don't use the movie as a source for a quiz on the book (or vice versa). A special note on quizzes on something that's both a book and a movie: If you're making a quiz on "The Shining" by Stephen King and you want to include questions based on both the book and movie, we ask that all of your questions be on the book only if you're submitting to Literature. The title of the category IS Literature, not Movies- many people who read books don't watch movies and vice versa. Again, you can mention things about the movie in your interesting info, but it's not fair to ask questions about the movie in a book quiz.

Answer: all of these

Yes, any or all of these will cause your quiz to be returned to you for revisions. Most editors will correct the occasional spelling, grammar, punctuation, or capitalization error, but if there are too many the quiz will be shipped back to you. There are a couple of reasons for this: we edit many quizzes and don't have time to spend fixing a whole lot of errors. Also, if we fixed everything for you, you wouldn't learn anything.

It's a good idea to type your quiz out first in a program like Microsoft Word and then run the spellchecker on it- most of these programs will spot grammar and capitalization errors also. We also ask that when you write a quiz on a book, poem, etc, that you pick either past or present tense and stick to it throughout the whole quiz.

It makes it awkward and confusing for the player to read a quiz that switches from past tense to present and then back again. Since most books are written in past tense, that is the preferred tense for quizzes, but present is fine also as long as you're consistent with it.

A quiz in ANY category will be rejected if too little interesting information is provided; we are especially strict on this in Lit, though. The best quizzes are those that have a lot of interesting information with them; if you don't believe me, check out the highest-rated quizzes (the ones with the sunglasses icon) and see how much interesting information is in them.

Answer: In "Postmortem", what item does Kay leave at the restaurant?

The answer to "What is Dr. Scarpetta's first name?" is way too obvious- even people who have never read the books know the answer. Questions that are too easy are no challenge and therefore no fun, especially for people who like to read (especially mysteries).

The one about which novel is the best is not appropriate because it's based on opinion, not fact; there can be no correct answer. Remember, quizzes on all subjects must be based on FACTS. The one about the man's last name is a no-no because it's what we call a linked question- it references another question in the quiz. If you write a question that references another question, the editors will ask that you reword it so that it stands on its own.

The reason for this is that if the question is chosen at random for either Multi-Player trivia or the Daily Quiz, it will be answerable.

The best questions are ones that are not too easy and not too hard, interesting, and relevant to the plot of the book, play, etc.

Answer: "Jane Austen Heroines"

The only one of these that's acceptable is "Jane Austen Heroines"; the others are all way too general. A quiz title should be as specific as possible, both so that we know where to place it and so that the player knows what's in store. If you're not sure where to put a quiz, look through all of our subcategories; some have subcategories of subcategories! The best titles have some creativity or humor in them- everyone likes variety.

Answer: all of these

As with albums, books go through different editions and versions. Thus, a sentence that appears on page 78 of an American edition published in 1990 may appear on page 79 of the French edition published in 1994. Again, this is simply not interesting- the player has learned nothing from this statement.
Thanks for playing- now go out and make a good Lit quiz!