Originally Riddle Me This started as a Christmas calendar for a loved one in 2016. Since then it has evolved into a joyous tradition that guarantees to brighten my winter and hopefully yours as well - making what I like to call brain popcorn. Riddle Me This used to live on Instagram and it’s only been a newsletter since 2022. I changed my social media habits and wanted others to join Riddle Me This off the Gram as well.
So for the past eight years, November has had this special perk (besides being a hot contender for Gloomiest Month of the Year) - writing riddles.
7 Steps to Writing Riddle Me This
Step 1: Realize that I’ve written riddles about most films that come to mind. It only took 168 riddles to realize I had lost sight of all the films I had already written about. So I had some humble pie and finally created an Excel Sheet, which has been my friend (control + F) since.
Step 2: Find 24 new films to write riddles about. This task gets trickier every year as I’m trying to write about films that not only the arthouse geeks or blockbuster buffs have seen. So despite being seemingly spoiled for choice, I’m not really if I want to keep the canon accessible.
Step 3: Re-watch films or dare I say watch films I’ll write about for the first time. Oh yeah, this is why there are almost no horror films in Riddle Me This ever (sorry not sorry) - because I only write about films I have seen. And I don’t watch horror.
Step 4: Get in the mood to write limericks. It’s been the rhyme form from the beginning, so I’m sticking to it. 5 lines is long enough to offer enough clues and a great limitation that gets me to rack my brain. But what is a limerick Paula, you may wonder.
A limerick (/ˈlɪmərɪk/ LIM-ər-ik) is a form of verse that appeared in Limerick, Ireland in the early years of the 18th century.
It is written in five-line, predominantly anapestic and amphibrach trimeter with a strict rhyme scheme of AABBA. (Wikipedia)
Step 5: Write! Everywhere! On the couch, in bed, in my kitchen armchair, if not at home, on the go, on the tram, on the train, on planes, in cafes, on my laptop, on my phone, in my brain when I’m on my bike. Last year I made a little reel about some of the places, I wrote riddles in.
Step 6: Make ‘em pretty. This part is the reward for getting one riddle done (they take me anything from 30 seconds to hoooooours to write) - put them in a frame. Each year looks different and it’s fun to see the style change over time. But all riddles have been mostly in Futura font and shall be for the foreseeable future.
A little style gallery of 7 years…
Step 7: Write it, cut it, paste it, save it, load it, check it, quick – rewrite it. Sounds familiar? Yup, this is why. Ironically the only thing left out of that sequence is the one I do in Step 7 - post it!
So for now, I’ll put my thinking cap on and hand it over to you on December 1!
Cheerio, Paula
