Famous Writers’ Quirks: A Multiple Choice Quiz from Molly MacRae

 

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

Recently, Susan Van Kirk gave us the Memorable First Lines quiz here on Writers Who Kill. That was so much fun, and I’m essentially lazy (I call it being enormously busy), that I stole her idea and have put together a quiz of my own.

I’d planned to write a post about writers’ quirks. For instance, when I take a break from writing and step away from the computer, I pat the keyboard and tell the work-in-progress that I’ll be back soon (more friendly than quirky, maybe). Here, though, are the quirks of ten famous writers. Can you guess whose? You’ll find the answers at the bottom of the page. (I could have guessed a few but probably would have only gotten one right.) 

1.      Who always slept facing north with the belief it improved creativity and writing?

a.      Virginia Woolf

b.      P.G. Wodehouse

c.      Charles Dickens

d.      Edith Sitwell

 

2.      Who, when suffering writer’s block, went to a secret closet, chose one from among the nearly three hundred hats inside, and wore that hat until re-inspired?

a.      Dr. Seuss

b.      Wilkie Collins

c.      Esphyr Slobodkina

d.      Charlotte Macleod

 

3.      Who, when starting to write a new book, will only do so on January 8?

a.      Janet Evanovich

b.      Chris Grabenstein

c.      Isabel Allende

d.      Richard Osman

 

4.      Who, before beginning work for the day, would lie down in an open coffin because it helped to clear the mind and give focus?

a.      Edgar Alan Poe

b.      Edith Sitwell

c.      Alfred Hitchcock

d.      Mary Higgins Clark

 

5.      Who insisted on writing drafts in pencil, so always kept twelve pencils on the desk perfectly sharpened and ready to use?

a.      John Steinbeck

b.      Agatha Christie

c.      John Updike

d.      P.G. Wodehouse

 

6.      Who wrote fiction only on blue paper, poetry on yellow, and articles on pink?

a.      Dorothy Parker

b.      Alexandre Dumas

c.      Colette

d.      E.B. White

 

7.      Which poet bought 10,000 of their favorite cigars, to make sure they always had them on hand while writing, in order to keep the creative spark going?

a.      Elizabeth Barrett Browning

b.      Robert Frost

c.      Stephen Vincent Benét

d.      Amy Lowell

 

8.      Who said the best time for planning a book is when you’re doing the dishes?

a.      Agatha Christie

b.      Mary Higgins Clark

c.      Anne Perry

d.      John Grisham

 

9.      Who wrote standing up because, “Writing and travel broaden your ass if not your mind and I like to write standing up.”

a.      Mark Twain

b.      Agatha Christie

c.      Dorothy Parker

d.      Ernest Hemingway

 

10.  Who liked to write in a massive Venetian oak bed with comfy pillows (also with cigars and cocktails handy)?

a.      Colette

b.      Virginia Woolf

c.      Mark Twain

d.      Robert Louis Stevenson

 

Image by Catalin Stefan from Pixabay

Answers: 1. C, Charles Dickens  2. A, Dr. Seuss  3. C, Isabel Allende  4. B, Edith Sitwell  5. A, John Steinbeck  6. B, Alexandre Dumas  7. D, Amy Lowell  8. A, Agatha Christie  9. D Ernest Hemingway  10. C, Mark Twain

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Twitter  or Instagram.

First Lines by Nancy Eady

            One of the most prevalent pieces of writing advice I’ve heard for those of us who wish to be published is to pull your reader into the story immediately. I am still working on learning how to do that, so I skimmed through some of the first lines of books that I’ve read. Can you match the first line or phrase below with the correct book?

1)         “Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

2)         In the second century of the Christian era, the Empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind.

3)         It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

4)         As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place where was a den, and I laid me down in that place to sleep; and as I slept, I dreamed a dream.

5)         In a hole in a ground, there lived a hobbit.

6)         When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.

7)         There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.

8)         It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

9)         It was five o'clock on a winter's morning in Syria.

10)       In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

11)       One summer evening in the year 1848, three Cardinals and a missionary Bishop from America were dining together in the gardens of a villa in the Sabine hills, overlooking Rome.

12)       On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the market town of Meung, in which the author of Romance of the Rose was born, appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as if the Huguenots had just made a second La Rochelle of it.

13)       The Jebel es Zubleh is a mountain fifty miles and more in length, and so narrow that its tracery on the map gives it a likeness to a caterpillar crawling from the south to the north.

14)       In the corner of a first-class smoking carriage, Mr. Justice Wargrave, lately retired from the bench, puffed at a cigar and ran an interested eye through the political news in the Times.

15)       Petronius woke only about midday, and as usual greatly wearied.

            How do you think you did?  What is your favorite first line of a book?

A)        Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

B)        The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

C)        The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

D)        Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

E)        Ben-Hur:  A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace

F)         Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

G)        The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

H)        The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

I)         And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

J)         Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

K)        Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz

L)        The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

M)       A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

N)        Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie

O)        The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Answers:  1) F, 2) G. 3) D, 4) B, 5) H, 6) L, 7) A, 8) M, 9) N, 10) O, 11) J, 12) C, 13) E, 14) I, 15) K.