The Age letters page occasionally runs brief comments by aghast readers, lamenting a sexist or off-colour clue. Recently Child gets currency in return for bodily organ (6) was rejected, and in hindsight I guess it could have been controversial. Occasionally my editor will refuse clues because they are gory or make light of a serious subject. Fair enough, I work for a family paper and not Viz Magazine (NSFW). I often write shockingly rude clues in my drafts, and afterwards dab sadly at the delete key while I rejig my moral compass. Make sure your clues and answers aren't offensive As for Spoonerisms, I still don't know how I feel about them - but I try to use them only every second week. For that very reason I tend to avoid those diabolical "reverse hiddens". I'm not supposed to throw too many curveballs at the Monday audience. It depends on the level of difficulty you're going for. By the puzzle's completion, you should have used nearly every clueing device: containers, initialisms, charades, homophones etc etc. Always use a nice spread of different cryptic clue species in every puzzleĪs you're constructing the puzzle, keep tabs on which type of clues you've used and which you haven't.
CRYPTIC CROSSWORDS CLUES PLUS
I'm chuffed when I only use four anagram clues in a whole puzzle, plus maybe a handful of partial anagrams. If a word just cries out (icers?) for an anagram clue, then of course go for it. Think of them as your get-out-of-jail-free card. They're the easiest type of clue to compose, so don't use them unless you have to. Trying to clue BIRTH CONTROL still haunts me to this day. Later you find that it's impossible to come up with good clues for some of the words you've selected.īasically, before you commit to having a word in your grid, be sure you can come up with a decent clue for it. NIGHTMARE FODDER 2: You mindlessly fill the grid. One or two obscure words is ok now and then, but if you get in the habit, solvers will tire of it and you will be fired humiliatingly by the powers that be. SCHWICK: I still to this day don't know what this word means. UNTERSEE: the smaller of the two lakes that together form Lake Constance PATACA: the basic monetary unit of Macao, equivalent to 100 avos Some obscure words I tried to sneak into my early work: NIGHTMARE FODDER 1: You have difficulty filling the grid, and therefore are forced to include (a) very obscure word(s) that no-one will ever have heard of! There are two upsetting scenarios an inexperienced cryptic compiler will face. Without fail, there will be a couple of clues that will now seem wanky or desperate with the benefit of hindsight. The phenomenon is especially observable when you get a chance to revisit your old puzzles once you don't remember the clues. But it's a good mantra to adopt as a setter, particularly when you catch yourself stretching a definition just to make a clue seem more elegant. Writing clues is easier than solving clues Nearly all words should have more checked squares than "unches" (unchecked squares) (Fig.1)ĭouble unches should be a rarity or avoided entirely where possible (Fig.2)Īny more than two words on any grid row threatens to make your puzzle too cluey. If the grid was a maze, you should be able to follow the white squares from one corner to the other Here's the cryptic grid genome according to LR, (including some wtf for L-platers).
I'm not a very visual person I suppose, because after looking at cryptic grids for 13 years, I still hadn't picked up on all the idiosyncrasies - and I constructed some terribly offbeat grids in my early days. Grids have to look a certain way for some reason No matter how elite your solving skills, there is a steep learning curve ahead for any newbie compiler, as I found out. So, if your own clue snobbery becomes chronic, perhaps it might be worth trying your hand at a little compilation. Being able to plug in EROS after seeing Love god blah blah (4) is a blessing and a curse of being a top seed. Now in the clueing game myself, I realise that many solvers find a certain cosiness in well-trodden formulas, but also that there is no harm in a gimme clue here and there. "I could do so much better" I sobbed into the page shreds. At the height of the conflict, I would routinely abandon a puzzle mid-solve if I met this "classic" reversal trope, ranting ink-fistedly at my bewildered housemates about what I saw as reprehensibly clueing. I presume every devoted cryptic solver has a nemesis word - EROS was mine, particularly if the wordplay played out as above. God of love was in pain, retreating (4) EROS
Painful return for Greek love god (4) EROS
0 kommentar(er)
