It will be for a while. There are over 2500 questions still needing processing. New Qn game is good to go for quite some time!

Things have changed remarkably in the past 4 months. There are now 148 authors with at least 5 puzzles to their names, and 26 with in excess of 75 crossword puzzles. Short of creating a spreadsheet and painstakingly collating the info, I have no way of knowing how many categories have been achieved by these players, but I know there are at least three of us who have written in all twenty categories.

There is definitely a new interest in creating crosswords, and in improving their standard. If you are serious about being open to suggestions, I will be happy to contribute to a message forum with like-minded authors/editors. It would be helpful if you could tell us what is possible/too difficult, as many of us (particularly me) do not understand the mechanics that make it much easier to credit quizzes in a category, but not crosswords, which also fit into the same 20 categories. (That's not a dig, Wesley; I just would like some guidelines).

As we approach the end of QueWriMo (2021), a number of crossword authors have participated in an informal challenge. Some have targeted producing 20 linked puzzles (one per FT category), while more saner souls have been content with five themed crosswords.

Crossword lists would be an ideal vehicle highlighting these connected works.

Badges certainly provide motivation. Anything that encourages people to attempt crossword creation would be a good thing in my book. I'd definitely support further "rewards" for those managing to produce a variety of puzzles.

Looking at the "Crosswords" area on Fun Trivia, there are around 7.5k published puzzles, with about 3.6k of those in "General". "Music" has just over 600 and the numbers fall away from there. A scheme to encourage cruciverbalists to write puzzles in a variety of categories could only be a good thing imho.

There's been some very good work done over November stretching the bounds of topical creativity - the Shakespeare puzzles as an example.

Something I'd like to see is some stretching of what I guess you might call the physical bounds of puzzles - the grids. As an example, a Christmas challenge where the words and clues may or may not be on topic, but the grids must be - in the shape of a fir tree, say, or a wreath or a snowman.

Because this is where CWs are different from quizzes - they have a shape. There is room for creativity there that has barely begun to be explored. CWs are not just quizzes with fewer words, they are a different thing entirely. I'd love to see a way to encourage some expansion in the direction of things a quiz can't do.

You mean something like this one, just for Christmas?

https://www.funtrivia.com/crossword/play.cfm?gid=5035

The problem with themed grids is that it's not easy to get the required minimum filled percentage however. The kitty barely qualifies with 145/225 = 64.4%. A tree or snowman would be hard to get over even 50%, much less 60, on a square grid.

Yes, and there was a nice one with a house not too long ago.

And you're right, it's challenging, which is to some extent the point. A CW is composed of two elements, the words and the shape. We're starting to see some real creativity on the "words" front, in response to challenges that have either been set to the authors, or which the authors have set for themselves. I'd love to see what authors could come up with if they were challenged on the "shape" aspect. Maybe not making pictures out of the grid at all, maybe something else...

Creative shapes would be easier if players could, to some extent, choose their grid sizes. Authors with a few crosswords done might be able to freely set width and height between the current lowest and highest numbers (11 and 17), including even choices. So you could do 11 across and 17 high for a nice tree or the opposite for a landscape. You could also just do an even-sized square which, with a symmetrical grid, would be an entirely different experience to odd-numbered because it focuses on words with even lengths instead of the usual prevalence of odd ones. If we want to encourage grid creativity, we should allow more sizes.

Small, Medium and Large would simply use threshold numbers for total squares - small is anything up to 169, medium is 170 to 239 and large is 240+

A suggestion then, instead of playing around with the existing grids which appeal to troglodytes like me, why don't you create a 'novelty' grid, which relaxes the three letter minimum rule, and allows small islands? It would simply be accessed from the point where you declare Large, Medium, Small. There would still need to be rules of course, such as minimum fills, and a certain number of crosses.

I just played around with a grid over the past half hour, and have created a quite attractive tree with a large grid, but it has a couple of boxes with 2 letter words, and I think a couple of stars or snowflakes in the top corners could bring it to just 60%, but without making it messy and hard to define the stars would have to be separate from the main picture.

I'm having to get my head around a whole new concept (for me) here. Until recently I thought a crossword, to be considered a crossword, and not a word puzzle, needed to conform to a certain disciplined format. I have been forced to acknowledge that a large part of the world has a totally different perspective, and considers symmetrical grids with separated words, that is, not running parallel and touching, to be uncreative 'checkerboard', and boring.

To me the creativity is in seeing how well you can come up with new and surprising words within the discipline of a traditionally (to me) conforming grid. Working to a theme further gets the creative process working hard.

Agony rightly mentions the Shakespeare set as examples of new, good work. Most people would assume ceetee (who created them) to be an old hand, but he had barely two or three crosswords to his name when he took up the challenge. Similarly, Ladynym was also a neophyte who has turned out some excellent work. In fact, I think the challenge (which was experimental, and therefore invitational) turned out an excellent new body of work by all participants. Personally, I am uncomfortable working within a small grid, so it was excellent discipline for me, and really got my creative juices working, trying to stay on theme through 20 puzzles.

The real beauty of psnz's initiative though, was the sneaky way he got the crossword editors involved, getting them to divulge some arcane secrets about the art of crossword making. They even contributed lots of crosswords of their own while holding down a fulltime job of editing so many November challenges.

Thanks to Windrush for the mention :-). I don't know whether my experience may be of interest to anyone who is starting out on a career as a cruciverbalist, but I'd like to share it anyway.

In the course of our "November challenge", I wrote ten CWs, divided into two series, and covering ten out of twenty categories. I worked with a few tried and tested grids, and realized how important a good grid can be in the construction of a good CW.

What really made this experience unique for me, however, was the challenge of creating a themed crossword by selecting only a few starting words, and building it almost from scratch. In most of the CWs I wrote for the November challenge, I managed to keep all or most of the clues relevant to the topic at hand. Of course, this is easier to achieve if your focus is broad rather than very specific (as in the second of my series, titled "Eclectic"). On the other hand, I was amazed at how easy it was to connect apparently unrelated words to the main topic of the CW.

Perhaps you make a little light of how easy it was, Nym, but not all of us have an extensive education in language. You were a cruciverbalist waiting to happen, while most of us mortals work hard at it. I find it much more of an enjoyable challenge than a doddle.

I never meant to imply that the way I went about creating those CWs would necessarily be easy for everyone. I just wanted to relate a positive experience that I had when writing my first batch of CWs for a challenge. Maybe I was unable to convey my meaning, for all my extensive language education.

Well, just as there is not only one way to write a good quiz, there is not only one way to write a good crossword.

Which is only to be expected, because "good" is pretty subjective.

There are also the two different viewpoints of author and player that may or may not coincide - it's possible sometimes that what may be fun and satisfying to write might not be that, so much, to play, and vice versa. Just as what may be an interesting and inspiring challenge for an experienced author could be an insurmountable barrier for a new one.

From a staff point of view, we want to nurture and encourage *all* of these aspects. That's why I threw out the idea of CWs taking different shapes - not so much because we necessarily need that, but to make it clear that we can welcome creativity in directions that you might not have thought of.

Not every fun idea will be workable - either for playability reasons, or for technical ones. And some may be workable, but impossible to fit within the badge system. But it's still worth talking about, and thinking about - you never know where it might lead.

Something I've been working on, is a potential Author's Lounge Challenge. The basic idea is a Tetris Video Games puzzle, where the grid black-square shapes have to portray each of the tetromino shapes. It's definitely doable. My "proof-of-concept" puzzle is a large (17x17) one with 68 blocks, so the letter squares make up just over 76% of the grid. It's also 180 degrees symmetric.

I do like the Christmas idea. I think larger grids provide more scope for meeting the letter square requirements.

There is no three letter minimum rule at present, so that doesn't need to be done. Your two letter words are fine, as long as both letters are crossed.

Allowing islands would mean it is no longer a crossword, but something else. (Something else could be good, of course.)

(Wearing my crossword editor's hat.)

Actually, having islands would just make it multiple crosswords in one grid and actually, this is something German puzzle magazines sometimes do with a 2-way split (inside and outside, typically a circle in a square) where the clues for one half include solutions from the other half.

As an extreme example, if I were to just keep the 9th row and column in a 17x17 grid all black, I would be winding up with four 8x8 crosswords in one template. I could imagine this to be a fun and legit puzzle, especially if the four were themed, say, to the four seasons.

Another interesting variant somewhat popular in Germany that is not covered by our current rules is "back and forth" crosswords. It's a conventional grid with clues, but some of the words are written backwards (right to left or bottom to top) - a clue "popular quiz website" could thus have the answer AIVIRTNUF in conventional reading.

(Germany, in general, is very fond of variant crossword type puzzles - there are several magazines dedicated to all kinds of variant: You won't find a single standard crossword in there, but all of them are various offshoots of the basic concept and usually anywhere from tricky to almost impossible in difficulty).

Both the "two/four in one" and the "back and forth" setup should be doable with current technology if we wanted to allow them. Maybe add a new category "Variant puzzles" where such special-rules games could live?

With perhaps some restrictions - only approved authors can write in that category, say. We've had such restrictions in the past.

I like the idea of Variant Puzzles (or whatever name we agree on) with restrictions on who can make them. Wes could be the first to try one



I like this too. Years ago I bought crossword books with Easy to Expert crosswords, through several difficulties. Once I'd finished the harder puzzles, I'd do the easy ones backwards, starting from the bottom right to make them more challenging.

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Editor in Movies, Brain Teasers, Geography and Crosswords

I grew up with Italian-style crosswords, which are quite different from the American-style ones, and can be quite challenging. In the type illustrated in the link, you have only two letters and one black square in the grid, and the clues are only listed as "across" or "down". Figuring out the two starting words is generally the hardest part. I don't know whether something like that would be feasible on FT, but I am sure it would appeal to dedicated CW players. Here's how it looks: IO.IT.PNG

That link doesn't seem to be working, but it sounds something like a kind of CW we have here in books, where all you get are the clues and you have to work out the grid yourself. Best done in pencil rather than pen!

Pencil definitely, or erasable pen (if they are still available). Sorry about the link not working - I don't know what went wrong. Let's try again: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/IO_IT.PNG

They exist in Germany as well. Usually you get an entirely empty grid with the first definition across and down guaranteed to actually start at the top left corner. (They have to be reasonably easy of course, otherwise you have no starting point)

I think something similar could be doable with the current tech although the black squares would have to be given although it would be kind of a pain to write. You list the definitions in alphabetical order instead of matching their numbers - except for the #1s. Essentially requires that you write all definitions offline, then sort and paste.

They are called "diagramless" puzzles here, and the books of which I spoke always have/had a full section devoted to them. They were fully crossed "American" style puzzles when completed, and the first row could be deduced by the numbering of the clues. The key then would be to work opposite corners, or at least mark in the known blank squares to start building the grid. Lots of fun to solve

I'm currently reading "Thinking inside the box: Adventures with crosswords and the puzzling people who can't live without them" by Adrienne Raphel. Robinson: 2020.

Chapter 11 of this book is titled: "This is Not a Crossword" and is based on artist René Magritte and his "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" work. What follows is a series of crossword puzzles containing Magritte's pipe shape, including a regular one with a series of circled letters. Drawing lines between those circled letters reveals the pipe shape.

You're quite right, Agony. There are grid aspects which have a potential seldom used by CW authors.