Wednesday, August 15, 2007
First Crossword Completed
One of my hobbies is solving crossword puzzles, which I've been doing for nearly 15 years now. But I never tried making them myself before I met another person who had just started doing that and pestered me to try as well. So now I finally got my first crossword finished, and tomorrow I'll send it to my test solver.
I started by first putting in all the words into a free-form grid so I could move the black squares when necessary. This phase was very much like solving a crossword. It's easier because the grid is not static so bad words can be replaced by longer or shorter ones as well, but it's harder because there is no certainty that even with good words it's possible to complete.
Figuring out the clues I had been doing a bit during the grid making as well. I started with a list of 50 clues or so, and expanded on it by about 20 when new good words appeared in the grid. Eventually I managed to use about 40 clues and had to invent 70 new ones after the grid was complete. I don't think I did a really good job with this, but I'll just wait for the solver's opinion.
The final part is then writing the clues. In a Finnish crossword the clues are usually embedded inside the grid, so getting them there legibly takes some serious penmanship. I mostly managed, but I can also understand why the usual method is to draw the crossword on a larger sheet and then shrink it for printing (in fact, I had also prepared for this alternative).
I started by first putting in all the words into a free-form grid so I could move the black squares when necessary. This phase was very much like solving a crossword. It's easier because the grid is not static so bad words can be replaced by longer or shorter ones as well, but it's harder because there is no certainty that even with good words it's possible to complete.
Figuring out the clues I had been doing a bit during the grid making as well. I started with a list of 50 clues or so, and expanded on it by about 20 when new good words appeared in the grid. Eventually I managed to use about 40 clues and had to invent 70 new ones after the grid was complete. I don't think I did a really good job with this, but I'll just wait for the solver's opinion.
The final part is then writing the clues. In a Finnish crossword the clues are usually embedded inside the grid, so getting them there legibly takes some serious penmanship. I mostly managed, but I can also understand why the usual method is to draw the crossword on a larger sheet and then shrink it for printing (in fact, I had also prepared for this alternative).
