CRUCIVERBALISM
Wednesday - QUIZCHANGER
Themes:
The art of writing a crossword is a recent one, but a beautiful one. Truly a rabbit hole of its own. If you want to learn a bit more, check out this Youtube video by WIRED!
As someone who grew up a fan of all word games, I was quickly turned to crosswords, and tried to make my own. And boy howdy is it hard!! I’ve submitted a few to the New York Times over the years, and love making them.
Each crossword comes with an overarching “theme”. This can be anything, and allows you to show off your creativity. Here’s a good one:
The chemical symbols here are the atomic symbols based on the question numbers atomic symbols! Li for lithium = Atomic Number 3! How neat!
Here’s another one that copped a LOT of flack when it predicted an election result and was accused of favouritism:
But using the clues, you can get CLINTON or BOB DOLE! E.g. 39. black Halloween animal can be either BAT or CAT!
The Rules of cruciverbalism
After you choose your theme, you then start filling in the grid. There are a few rules for this.
Three Letter Minimum for all words (except for interesting themes)
Black Squares must be symmetric
All squares must be answerable by two clues. I.e. every single square is part of an across answer and a down answer.
Now that you follow those rules, there are a few unspoken rules:
Use as few black squares as possible (though this is much harder, and longer words are more difficult to get usually)
Try not to repeat words, or “parts” of words. I.e. don’t use 3 words that end in “ING”
When clues are difficult, tricky, punny, or obscure - don’t have any that “cross over”. I.e. there should be no white square that is tricky on both the across and the down clue.
Try to use words that aren’t seen in many other crosswords. A few very rare words crop up ALL the time because of the value of their letter frequency and in the right places. This is called “crosswordese”. Avoid it, and strive for more unique words. (E.g. APSE, ESAU. ALEE, HMM, ETC, etc.)
After all of this is said and done, your crossword is quite constrained, and it can be a fun puzzle in itself just creating something that fits!
The clues!
Finally, you can now write your clues! This is the time to dazzle with your personality. Are you into puns? Clever wordplay? Descriptive answers? Trivia? Do you weave your theme throughout the quiz?
But the rules here are more subtle. Write easier than you expect, as a blank grid can be daunting. Never cross a “style” of clue with itself - as if someone doesn’t “get it”, they’d dead on that cross. And perhaps most importantly, don’t be afraid to go back a few steps and change up the grid if it doesn’t quite work!
My Crossword
As such - here is a crossword I wrote! I stumbled across an absolutely beautiful anagram, and couldn’t resist making one surrounding it!
NOTE! I AM NOT GOOD AT CROSSWORD MAKING. I just like it.
I tried my best to make it “doable”… but as will all crosswords there are some annoying places of difficult words. The left middle, and a spot up in the top right are a bit annoying.
To try to mediate this, I’ve written it in three different ways. The first is straight-up questions, that are hopefully a bit more explanatory. I’ve also included word lengths (e.g. (4) LATE, but (2, 2) for something like ET AL).
The second is the same crossword, but a bit punnier, a bit more flair, and a bit more personality.
The third is the same crossword again, but it has some fiendish clues in there intentionally written to walk you down the wrong path initially.
Feel free to play whichever you like! Let me know if you have any feedback! Oh, and if you’d rather play online, I have .puz files of all three quizzes - but sadly they wont upload to Substack. So message me!
