Constructing Crosswords
Richard Strong Bowen
Extra-Curricular Talk
Cornell CS Student Brownbag
May 9 2018
Crosswords!
This talk:
American-style crosswords (like NYT)
Constructing the full puzzle
Tips for writing clues
Steps
Theme
Themeless
Puns
Portmanteaux
“Before-and-after”
Removing or adding letters (+ revealer)
Quotations
Etc.
Today’s example
11 letters: Cold War worries at Cornell?
11 letters: Poe’s Plague at Cornell?
Today’s example
11 letters: Cold War worries at Cornell? BIGREDSCARE
11 letters: Poe’s Plague at Cornell? BIGREDDEATH
(disclaimer: this theme is mediocre at best for non-Cornell audiences)
Grid
Guidelines:
Theme clues should be the longest
No “cheaters” (add them later if needed)
No 1- or 2- letter words
Not too many black squares / not too many total words (NYT guideline: at most 78)
Rotationally symmetric (usually)
White squares connected (preferably 2-connected)
Grid: my process
Start by choosing first-row and first-column block sizes.
Here: 4-5-4 and 3-4-6. Avoid 3x3 blocks.
These screenshots: QXW (https://www.quinapalus.com/qxw.html) for grid and autofill
Grid: my process
Matter of experience: what will fill easily? Add themes ASAP. All other clues should be shorter than the themes.
Grid: my process
At every step, make sure there is at least 1 fill, even if it’s not very good.
Not too many long words (hard to fill), but not too few (boring puzzle)
I like 6x3 blocks like these!
(Oops! 2-letter words here!)
Filling
Goal is to fill in the grid with words to clue later.
Lots of tedious backtracking (this is NP-Hard!)
Start with key words:
Make sure there is always at least one fill!
Filling
Key words:
“Constructors should emphasize lively words, names and fresh phrases.” -- NYT submission guide
Filling
(fixed the 2-letter issue)
Filling
Start filling in the separated sections.
Don’t rely on the dictionary too much. I added DLP here (“Democratic Labour Party”) which is not in my wordlist, to make the rest of the south section fill better.
Filling
Big blocks of medium-long words are hard! Do them early.
This took a long time with lots of backtracking. Not wild about “HOOVEN” or “LLYN” but for the sake of time I kept going...
Filling
Fairly straightforward from there.
Not wild about a few of these:
HOOVEN, AMOY, IMER, ROAN, LLYN…
(doing this For Real, I would fix them!)
Small “local” changes
Keep an eye for these. Example, to fix HOOVEN, I might consider:
Fill: things to avoid
Partials: avoid ANIGHT as “____ to remember (1958 film)”
“NATICK”s: two crossing clues that are both obscure
Etymologically-similar words (like IDEA and IDEAL)
Crosswordese: words that appear disproportionately in XWs like “NEE”, “EPEE”, “ARETE” (or worse, really obscure words like “STOA”)
Too much foreign-language
Overly obscure: I know “REMISE” because it’s a fencing word. Maybe not in the general vocabulary?
Breakfast table test
Clueing conventions
Puns: BIGREDDEATH -> Cold War worries at Cornell?
Abbrs: REG -> Rule, to a Sgt.
Person-and-occupation clues: ELLA -> Singer Fitzgerald
Half a phrase: ALSO -> Didn’t win (with “Ran”)
Foreign language: CINE -> Movie theatre, in Madrid / Movie theatre, to Diego
etc..
Cool clueing things to do
Mess with parts of speech
False capitalization
“Mini themes”: SAT -> 2 days before (10-across) / MON -> 5 days before (25-down)
Alliteration: IRONMAN -> Ferrous Fellow ?
Wordlists
Wordlists are very important!
New software!
I have been doing this a bit in my spare time (ha!). Using z3 as the backtracker:
Other ideas:
Links!
QXW: https://www.quinapalus.com/qxw.html
“Sage advice”: from the cruciverb website
NYT advice: on themes
“Cluer”, a database of clues from NYT/USA Today/LA Times/many others: http://www.otsys.com/clue/
These slides: https://goo.gl/bKjBxE
Shameless plugs: My puzzles and 2 git repos: Z3 stuff, useful utilities