STEINBERG: Now is also a good time to mention a couple more rules. Because of the consonant-heavy nature of the English language, it helps to have consonants doing double duty: If you have JACOB in your grid going across, better to place black squares so the word crossing it begins with J, rather than ends with J. LAST: That graphic is great! One wonkish aside - if you look at, say, the average Friday or Sunday grid structure, you can see that upward stair steps (also known as black squares set on a diagonal) are more common than not. Our theme is probably a Tuesday or Wednesday level. On the other hand, Saturdays are wide open, which leads to more zing in terms of longer entries, but also more trade-offs in smoothness when those long entries have to yield good shorter fill. Mondays are generally closed off (note all the black squares around the edges), which tends to lead to smoother fill. STEINBERG: Remember that we also we want plenty of space between theme answers … with all of that in mind, how’s this? CALL NUMBER is our only other 10-letter option, so in it goes. So once we lock in MACBOOK AIR, we have to stick a theme entry with the same number of letters in the opposite, lower-right slot. LAST: Yup! And those symmetry rules mean theme entries must be arranged symmetrically. And the software places the numbers in the grid for you, which is really convenient. All you do to add a symmetrical pair of blocks is press the period key in one of the two squares (or in the exact center, if we’re being precise). Maintaining rotational symmetry can be a pain, but fortunately, CrossFire takes care of that for you. One longstanding rule is that grids must be rotationally symmetric, which means that they look the same if you turn them upside-down (other kinds of symmetry exist, too, but that’s a topic for an advanced grid-design column!). STEINBERG: Before we do that, though, let’s back up a little. When I worked as a summer intern for Will Shortz, he showed me an old crossword reference book which had pages and pages of, say, five-letter words that have the structure “?W?.” I’m definitely glad we have our robot overlords to do those sorts of searches for us now. There’s a case to be made that manual construction helps you learn the contours of the English language better than software does, but maybe the biggest boon is how much faster the software is. To answer your question, I use CrossFire - although I got my start with pencil, graph paper and online dictionaries. LAST: O.K., O.K., I’ll take three orders of the software, and a Shamwow to boot. Natan, what are your thoughts on manual construction? And which software do you use? Looks very cool, although I’ll confess I haven’t played around with it much. The biggest downside to Crossword Compiler is its price - if you want the full Professional Bundle, it will set you back $169.Ī third, brand-new option is Keiran King’s free, web-based crossword construction program, Phil. For example, Crossword Compiler has much more user-friendly environments for searching and editing word lists. It doesn’t have as many bells and whistles as the Windows-only Crossword Compiler, though. If you’re on a Mac like me, I highly recommend CrossFire, which has a nice grid-filling environment and, at $50, it won’t break your budget. STEINBERG: There are a few ways to make a crossword puzzle, including the good, old-fashioned graph-paper-and-pencil method, but there are several excellent software programs that make designing and filling grids easier. STEINBERG: If only! Choosing the Right Tool NATAN LAST: Wait, practice? I thought we just plug our lovely theme answers into a piece of software and, voilà, a beautiful crossword emerges. Let’s watch them work it out.ĭAVID STEINBERG: I’d say grid design is the hardest part of the construction process to get the hang of, but we believe in all the aspiring constructors out there! All it takes is a few guiding principles and lots of practice. The goal is to place the theme entries and black squares in such a way as to get the best chance of filling the puzzle with sparkling, lively nontheme entries. Just as in theme development, there is a lot of trial and error. Vigeland left off to demonstrate the next step in making a crossword puzzle: setting the theme entries in a blank crossword grid and placing the black squares. Their fellow constructors, David Steinberg and Natan Last, pick up where Mr. DEB AMLEN: In Part 1 of “How to Make a Crossword Puzzle,” the puzzle makers Ben Tausig and Finn Vigeland developed a theme for a crossword puzzle by bouncing ideas back and forth until a cohesive set that follows the rules of constructing came together.
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