Cruciverbalization
Jan. 19th, 2006 04:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidTea at three today was milk and cookies, and a presentation by one of the editors who's also a cruciverbalist. I hadn't known that he was the first to make a puzzle with eight 15-letter entries, nor that he's in the top 25 crossword solvers in the country (as determined at timed competition in CT), though I did know he's had puzzles in the NYTimes.
In the States, there are a lot of crossword conventions that were put in place by Margaret Farrar: that grids need to have 180 degree rotational symmetry, be square, and have an odd number of squares to a side. Also that there should be themes. There were a lot of examples of themes, impressive for the levels within levels, such as the one where all the theme clues were LL alliteration, which was clued both by all the clues starting with L, and all the black shapes on the grid being Ls as well. Or the one about the stages of going to bed, where the middle black shapes were Zs. Or the one (not published) where the three theme words are people who were beheaded in the French revolution, each with the first letter missing from the beginning of their name (but the first letter of the word above it): they'd been beheaded here too.
So, the strategy for making a crossword is to come up with a theme and words that fit it (pairwise the same length, since the convention is to have the theme words placed in the grid symmetrically), then to make a grid that fits the words (and whatever shapes are wanted, if that's a part of it, rather than just what happens to work), fill in the rest of the words (starting with the longer words first), then write the clues. He uses shareware called Cruciverbalist which automatically fills in the symmetrical block when making the grid, shows how many words of different lengths are used, and which words will fit the grid with the letters already in place. Very neat.
Grids must have 180 degree rotational symmetry (in the US), and some have 90 degree rotational symmetry. Some also have mirror symmetry, along the vertical and horizontal middle. We got to see one grid that had all of these, and diagonal symmetry as well, all the symmetries of a square. Things that are not allowed (in the US): one-letter words, two-letter words, and squares that have only one clue. Elegant puzzles also have a minimum of three-letter words. Also, for weekday 15 by 15 puzzles, there can be up to 78 words in a puzzle; there isn't space enough for clues for more.
Once the words are in place, then come the clues. There are conventions, that clues have/are the same part of speech as the word, that they're short, that answers that are abbreviations either have abbreviations in the clue or (abbr.). Also, difficult words should have easy clues, or be crossed by easy clues. There shouldn't be too many tricky clues in a puzzle, either.
Even with the software, it takes this person about 10 hours to make a puzzle. Submitting a puzzle means sending the editor the clues with each word, a blank grid, and the filled grid. If it's accepted, anywhere from a quarter to three quarters of the clues will be changed (to match the needed difficulty level, for instance). If accepted, the pay for a daily puzzle is $70 (Sunday puzzles are $250-$300, while the NYTimes pays around $700 for a Sunday puzzle).
Fascinating stuff; definitely the best tea I've been to in a long time.
Oh, and there's a movie showing at Sundance this weekend on puzzlemaster Will Shortz, currently the NYTimes crossword editor and puzzlemaster on NPR's Sunday Edition, though I still think of him first as the editor for Games magazine. I hope I get to see Wordplay someday.
In the States, there are a lot of crossword conventions that were put in place by Margaret Farrar: that grids need to have 180 degree rotational symmetry, be square, and have an odd number of squares to a side. Also that there should be themes. There were a lot of examples of themes, impressive for the levels within levels, such as the one where all the theme clues were LL alliteration, which was clued both by all the clues starting with L, and all the black shapes on the grid being Ls as well. Or the one about the stages of going to bed, where the middle black shapes were Zs. Or the one (not published) where the three theme words are people who were beheaded in the French revolution, each with the first letter missing from the beginning of their name (but the first letter of the word above it): they'd been beheaded here too.
So, the strategy for making a crossword is to come up with a theme and words that fit it (pairwise the same length, since the convention is to have the theme words placed in the grid symmetrically), then to make a grid that fits the words (and whatever shapes are wanted, if that's a part of it, rather than just what happens to work), fill in the rest of the words (starting with the longer words first), then write the clues. He uses shareware called Cruciverbalist which automatically fills in the symmetrical block when making the grid, shows how many words of different lengths are used, and which words will fit the grid with the letters already in place. Very neat.
Grids must have 180 degree rotational symmetry (in the US), and some have 90 degree rotational symmetry. Some also have mirror symmetry, along the vertical and horizontal middle. We got to see one grid that had all of these, and diagonal symmetry as well, all the symmetries of a square. Things that are not allowed (in the US): one-letter words, two-letter words, and squares that have only one clue. Elegant puzzles also have a minimum of three-letter words. Also, for weekday 15 by 15 puzzles, there can be up to 78 words in a puzzle; there isn't space enough for clues for more.
Once the words are in place, then come the clues. There are conventions, that clues have/are the same part of speech as the word, that they're short, that answers that are abbreviations either have abbreviations in the clue or (abbr.). Also, difficult words should have easy clues, or be crossed by easy clues. There shouldn't be too many tricky clues in a puzzle, either.
Even with the software, it takes this person about 10 hours to make a puzzle. Submitting a puzzle means sending the editor the clues with each word, a blank grid, and the filled grid. If it's accepted, anywhere from a quarter to three quarters of the clues will be changed (to match the needed difficulty level, for instance). If accepted, the pay for a daily puzzle is $70 (Sunday puzzles are $250-$300, while the NYTimes pays around $700 for a Sunday puzzle).
Fascinating stuff; definitely the best tea I've been to in a long time.
Oh, and there's a movie showing at Sundance this weekend on puzzlemaster Will Shortz, currently the NYTimes crossword editor and puzzlemaster on NPR's Sunday Edition, though I still think of him first as the editor for Games magazine. I hope I get to see Wordplay someday.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 09:06 am (UTC)And yes the cryptic crossword is king, others tend to be called "quick crossword" or something similar.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 01:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 01:55 pm (UTC)On the other side of the coin, I've actually constructed two (http://people.brandeis.edu/~kleber/Papers/cross.pdf) puzzles (http://people.brandeis.edu/~kleber/Papers/weirdoes.pdf) myself. I could boast that they've been published, but they appeared in the Mathematical Intelligencer, for which I am an editor, so it's kind of cheating. (Intended for a math-y audience; the first one is probably impenetrable to anyone without a math background.)
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 03:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 08:01 pm (UTC)I'm really pleased with the first one, so I kind of regret warning you away from it. The second is only so-so; it was printed partly in the hopes that other people will realize they don't need to have really clever ideas before they can submit puzzles to the MI.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-19 10:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 12:23 am (UTC)And something about typing that last word made me think: Red-Headed League? Moose Path League? before snapping back to the right one. Weird.