Anatomy of a Great Trivia Question

When was the last time you played Trivial Pursuit? Odds are it was a while ago. Even greater still are the odds that the questions were stale, boring and horribly outdated; nobody remembers the actor who played Uncle Jesse on “The Dukes of Hazard,” or who won the Tony award for best actress in 1977.

The simple fact is that writing trivia, like most things, can be done either the easy way, or the hard way. The easy way is to just take base facts, statistics or “general knowledge” and repackage it into question form. The result is, well-  boring trivia questions intended for a wide audience.

I like to do something different, which means the hard way. Since I never want my trivia events to feel like just a live Trivial Pursuit game, whenever I sit down to write trivia I always look through the same question-writing prism, a formula which is the following:

1. Fun

2. Nostalgic

3. Relevant

Let’s look at these in order:

1. Fun – Whether it’s a corporate team building event, a client entertainment activity or a pub quiz, the trivia itself has to be fun. Even the most dynamic host in the poshest venue can’t deliver a great event if the trivia is boring! Fun questions are creative, cover a wide variety of topics, and come from different angles. Rather than only asking “Who did X” or “How many is Y” questions, mix it up with “Name 3 of the 5 X who have done Y.” This forces the group to think harder and interact more, and ultimately have more fun (there’s that word again). Ask questions about topics they wouldn’t expect to find in a Trivial Pursuit box, like current events (or anything from after 1982, for that matter) as well as pop culture references.

2. Nostalgic – Nothing sends positive vibes surging through a room faster than the “Oh my GOD I REMEMBER that!” feeling. I guarantee you if you ask a question about Koosh balls or Freezy Freakies, POGS , Lite-Brite or the game of MASH , you will be hitting trivia gold!

3. Relevant – The best trivia questions are designed with the audience in mind.  Trivial Pursuit is no fun when daddy gets all the questions, because your family’s edition came out during the Carter administration.

Ask questions targeting the audience’s age, demographic and gender breakdown at a bare minimum; if you can, throw in some geographically specific questions with regards to the venue, or perhaps some stuff about recent events that you know they’d be following (a roomful of law associates may not know much about the upcoming royal wedding, but you can be sure they are keeping tabs on the 2012 presidential election)

Can you think of any other ways to make a trivia question unique, entertaining and exciting?