I thought of another quiz, this time in Sci/Tech. I have sent a note to the editor and will go no further till I get a reply

I kind of feel the same way. *sigh*

I have the feeling that it is going to be a VERY long slog.

There ought to be a warning at the start

Yes, it looks as if it will be a marathon. Since there is no time limit, you can take as long as you like. I've made a bit of progress, but have no idea how far along I've got. When I get tired of trying, I'll take a rest. As November always has the quiz writing challenge, I am finding Adventures useful in prompting me to keep writing.

To put it simply, this is not a game for those seeking quick badgelets.

AA was created for two reasons: (a) to give new authors a way to learn about the site in an interactive, fun manner that shows what they learn practically and in simpler language than our guideline pages and (b) to keep things interesting for our prolific authors who always enjoy fresh ideas and new challenges.

So far, I think it's been working; new authors are playing it and, like it or not, submitting great quizzes and older authors are eagerly anticipating each next step.

The badgelets are certainly incentive, especially for non-authors, but they're far beyond the point. You may notice that no one has the first badgelet yet. I'm still at least few quizzes away from it...and I made the thing.

If you feel as though the AA game is seemingly aimless, it wasn't really designed that way. There is a defined beginning and end and a story to go through, no matter what route you choose to take. Hopefully by the end it gives a bit more perspective and insight into quiz submission and improves your writing if it needs it.

If not, then maybe quizwriting just isn't your thing. There's a lot to do on the site; it only makes sense. I am glad that I've had the opportunity to make it though, and to see new authors crop up.

I like writing quizzes and prefer rules to work within

It was unfortunate that I came up against a mistake in the coding

Now I know what a slog it will be, I will continue at a more moderate rate

As one of the 'older' authors (and feeling ever older with each new twist) I'm definitely enjoying it. It removed my writer's block, when I wrote nothing but a few single questions, and then only when I had to because of the Daily challenges, during October. Eager anticipation is right. If I can't get a badgelet any time soon, at least I'm closing in on a new badge which will fulfil my New Year's resolution.

"Adventures in Authoring" is not a race. It is a challenge in quiz writing and it will, over time, present you with very different tasks to complete. It will also teach you some of the finer points of authoring which you should take slowly and gradually, maybe even writing other quizzes in between.

For anyone but the most ambitious authors, I would suggest to take the AinA at one or two quizzes per month, not more.

(Zippolover, your next quiz that you have been talking to me about sounds like it should easily meet the criteria, so you will then advance. Maybe we can make up for it later down the road when you run into trouble at a different stage. Right now, unfortunately, we simply don't have the tools available that would allow us to manually grant you an advance, otherwise we would have done that.)

Q8 just written, two more to go - You Have Been Warned!

I have submitted my quiz, "It was a present from my Mother".

More waiting now.

I am so glad I could cheer you up, zippo. And I look forward to your sci/tech quiz.

My goal is to speed right through the AA, but I know that's not going to happen... SO I've decided to take it slow and really work on it well. It's super fun, so I don't want to exhaust myself trying to get it done quickly. Haha.


And I agree with you, zippo. I work much better with the criteria that I must meet. We used to not have anything like this before, not even the author's lounge. Looking back, I have no idea how I thought of ideas for a quiz before I was given guidelines to follow. :P

I bombed out

Apparently the quiz is only fit for General

I give up

Don't give up! Take comfort from the fact that you have written a quiz that has made it online, even if it didn't meet the particular requirements you had in mind. You might find it interesting to see the experiences others are sharing in the Authors Lounge as they make their way through this adventure. There is also some useful advice, such as letting the editors know if you particularly want the quiz to fit into a certain category. If you include that information in the box for messages to the editors, they can then discuss with you what changes might be needed to make it fit there. If you just submit the quiz, they will try to move it to the best category for the quiz as it stands. Please engage in the discussion - that is a significant part of the Adventures in Authoring experience.

In case you haven't yet found the Authors Lounge, here is a link that I keep on my favorites bar.

http://www.funtrivia.com/bb.cfm?boardid=2222222

You can access it by going to Author Central, then selecting The Authors Lounge under Resources on the left side of the screen.

Thank you

The quiz did *not* make it online because I asked for it to go into Sci/tech.

At the moment I am still debating with myself; do I make lots of changes, or do I change the category to General and wait and see what that editor thinks, or do I delete and give up.

This site is called "Fun" trivia but it is no longer fun. I am not mentally strong enough for repeated boots to the ego.

Quiz writing can be very demanding. I have had more than a few moments of despair over my quizzes, but have always been glad that I found the resolution to persevere. Remember (and I know it's hard, because I've been there) that quiz rejections are not rejections of you or your quiz writing abilities, just a step in helping you become a better author.

One piece of advice that the editors and our prolific authors tend to toss around is that you can't take it personally when you receive corrections or are asked to make changes, especially when you have one clear vision in sight for a quiz. Everyone receives correction notices for a variety of reasons, but they are not sent without reason. We are working to place the best possible works online that we can and we hope that our authors feel the same way.

In the case of your recent quiz, the S/T editor felt that the questions were aimed at a more general audience and not so much a scientific audience. She then gave some tips on how to recompose your submission if you wish to convert it into a Science quiz. Your quiz is still great to go online and will likely be enjoyed by many players, but sometimes our own submissions aren't exactly what we need them to be. As has already been said, we're trying to establish healthy dialogue between editors and authors to make the whole process smoother.


FunTrivia quizzes are published to the site in the same way that books are published and sent to bookstores; if authors refused to make the changes required to make the books suitable for a target audience, an editor would send it back for revisions. As much as this can be the hardest, most emotional thing, especially if a book is a life's work for instance, it's done with the best intentions. We would like nothing more than to help our authors and their quizzes succeed.

zippolover - I think what you may want to do is simply forget about Adventures in Authoring for a while. You are creating very good quizzes which are far better than what we see from most beginning authors, it's just that you seem to struggle with our (not always easy) concept of categorization.

What I suggest is that you run with your creative nature - write some quizzes, let yourself be inspired by author challenges to come up with fun and unusual concepts and don't worry about the Adventures right now. Instead, if you want to work towards a badge, go for the one that requires you to complete 10 Author challenges and on the way you might well also pick up the 5 categories.

If in the process you happen to create a quiz in one of the three categories asked for in the authoring game, you can simply return to it at that point and claim your advance. But don't pressure yourself - do what you do best and that's turning creative concepts into quizzes, even if they don't wind up in the category you think they might be in.

In that case, please move the quiz to General

I've moved it for you - you may want adapt the introduction a bit (altering the science reference to look less than a Sci/Tech quiz) and obviously remove the editor note before resubmission. Otherwise I'd say you can confidently resubmit it.

The categorisation can be a real nightmare. I had one where I was confident that I'd followed the guidelines and put it with other quizzes on a similar topic, but I still found it moved. I needed it in the original category too, so had to retitle that one and write another. It happened again during the sprint challenge we did in the Authors Lounge. The editor did her best to make it fit, but we had to admit that it didn't eventually. So I had to write another one, having run my idea past the editor first.

I've played your quizzes, zippolover, and they are really good. I'd like to second L_T's invitation to visit the Authors Lounge. It's a good place to pick up tips and it's not at all serious or 'exclusive'.

I've also had a quiz or two not work at all... Because I did not realize the category had recently closed. So I had to rewrite it completely. I much prefer category changes than having to scrap the entire quiz.

And I agree with what has been said, your quizzes are very good, zippo. I look forward to more submissions from you.

I write my quiz and the correction notes help to refine my quiz. It's great, I try to solve quickly to adjust my quiz, the players in FT are fantastic and know about many topics.

I want write my second quiz about the New Year.

I moved on to the next level. I have no idea how.

Thank you very much :-)

That's good news. I really hope the adventure goes smoothly for you from now on.

Thank you.

I think "smoothly" is a little optimistic, but I will plod on

Sometimes when I have only a few minutes I might scan a few quizzes to see if there are any that can be easily dealt with, without taking a lot of time. If a quiz is going to take more time than I have at that moment then I will back out.
Now this doesn't necessarily mean that the quiz requiring more time is in worse shape than the one requiring little time, the reverse could actually be true as well!

My quiz got online today!

Back to my next AinA quiz writing now.

Congrats!

I have now submitted a quiz for the next round, so more waiting now

Thank you, Skunkee. Onwards and who knows where?