Two of my New Year’s Resolutions for 2020 are to write more blogs (at least 5), and arguably more interesting, to create a crossword puzzle interesting and good enough that some publisher puts it out into the world, no matter how small. So this is my first blog post of the year and hopefully the start of my crossword creation journey!
First the puzzle can be found here. If you think you have solved it or just want to see the answers that can be found here. All I ask is that if you do try it, please, please, email me and let me know what you think of it. I am looking for criticism to get better - I can already tell this is a tough goal! My email is {myfirstname}.{mylastname}@gmail.com. If you get confused look at this site’s URL!
I have a feeling some people reading this will also be interested in how I created this first one, so I’ll write about that here. Beware, though: spoilers for the puzzle will be below! Print it out, try it out, and come back if you want!
It’s worth noting first that the guide series created by the NYT is incredible and was a great source of knowledge for me as I started this process.
The first thing I did with this puzzle was think of the theme. For me, “The Office” is one of my favorite shows (as might be evinced by this!), so I knew I had to use this as inspiration. I decided to use THEOFFICE as my “key” word and then make a number of couple clues that would relate to that. The most fun way, and a challenge that I really wanted to try, would be to hide the names of characters from the show throughout the puzzle. This comes through in BIT[TOBY]TE, C[ANDY]BAR, MU[GABE]S, IWO[JIM]A, and DO[PAM]INE.
Once I had the “theme words” picked out, I needed a grid to put words on. The software I used starting from here was the wonderful website created by Keiran King. It has a “generate grid” function, which I used until I got a grid that I felt I could work with. I modified it until I could fit all my theme answers symmetrically in the grid (which is surprisingly difficult!), and then from there the next step was to fill in the rest of the words!
I did this very painstakingly, as you might imagine for someone who hadn’t done crosswords seriously until recently. For this step, the website onelook was a godsend. I mostly just placed in patterns I needed to match, and went through possible words manually, thinking about the patterns it would create for the crosses as much as possible. This led to some really tricky spots, and I think only one area that I’m not super thrilled with. This is BPAU, which I am imagining that when I get feedback from people, this will be their least favorite clue.
Once I finally had the grid fully filled out, I had to go through and write the clues for all of the words. This was really easy for some, and surprisingly difficult for others. I think I realized very early on that I enjoy the kind of “clever” clue that is not confusingly written but purposefully obfuscates the answer by making you think about the clue more carefully. Some examples of clues that I am pretty happy with:
I really hope you enjoy the puzzle, and even if you don’t please email me and let me know your thoughts! I’m hoping this will be the first of many.