Hii!! Sorry I've just been getting really into cryptic crosswords, thanks to you-know-who, and I'm struggling with making my own first cryptic, so I was curious if you'd happen to have any tips for writing a cryptic crossword? Ty in advance, love your posts!
hi!! ahh that's so cool, yay for getting into cryptics!! thanks you-know-you 🥰💕 i don't know if i have any useful advice but i can try to talk about it a bit and hopefully there's something in here that'll be helpful for you?? presumably you don't need any basic info about clue types etc so i'll skip over that 😅
in terms of resources & practical advice, i recommend this tool for making grids. under New you can generate different types of grids and under Edit you can autofill — i usually run the autofill, then go through and manually change most of the words to ones i like better. the tool helpfully suggests words that would fit and warns you of ones that will screw up your grid further down the line. even with all that, i find making the grid BY FAR the most difficult tedious frustrating part of the whole process
once you have the answers you need to clue, write down some definition options for each. best to pick a definition you like before starting on the wordplay. the idea is for the whole clue to feel coherent. to be safe with a definition, try using it in a sentence in place of the answer, make sure they really can replace each other ('having a conversation' might work for 'talking'; it does not work for 'talked'). if the definition is creative or unorthodox you may want to slap a question mark on it
speaking of punctuation, my view is that you should do what you like with it to make the surface read well. as long as the words are all there in the right order for the cryptic reading to make sense, it's okay. but the cryptic reading DOES need to make sense, punctuation notwithstanding. it can be as simple as x y (=) z, in the case of a charade, where z is the definition and the = is implied. just don't go including extra words and letters that help the surface if they don't make sense in the cryptic reading. consider your options for words that can mean =
i recommend having some sort of broad theme or vibe in mind, something you like, don't try to stick to it 100% but let it inspire wordplay when you're coming up blank. picking a word that begins with S is much harder than picking a word that begins with S and has something to do with blorbo, you know? 💖
this is my favourite anagram website, and merriam-webster's wordfinder can be very helpful too. it's fine to use these things. you still have to do a lot of old-fashioned manual chewing of words, which is good because that's the fun part! i like to write the answers + definitions down in a notebook, go away and play with them by myself for a while. alternating notebook and laptop is the best way for me. if i've been looking at it for twenty minutes without getting anywhere, i know i need to go and do something else before trying again. solving is also very helpful/inspirational when i'm stuck
what else? lists of indicator words can be good inspo but you're not beholden to them; consider the word carefully and judge whether it fairly means the thing you're using it to mean. chaos is all around us, there are as many anagrinds as are there are stars in the sky. ✨
wahh tysm for the excuse to yap, i hope some of that helped!! please feel free to write again any time you like, i'm happy to elaborate or chat and definitely happy to give feedback if you have any clues you're unsure about!! 💕 i'd love to hear how you're getting on & i hope you'll share your work when you're ready 🥰
obligatory plug for my fic that pretty faithfully portrays my thought process when setting. and below the cut, a little more involved yapping that might be kinda helpful too
ime charades are by far the hardest type of clue to set. this is partly because they often rely on conventional substitutions & abbreviations that assume a specific frame of reference. i don't really share that frame of reference and nor do most of the people solving my puzzles (i assume), so i generally don't use them. you always have to make assumptions about what the solver knows, or should know. who are you setting for? yourself, your friends? people thirty years older than you? brits, americans? the less you assume about the solver, the more people you want to reach, the fewer substitutions you have at your disposal
for example, i assume my solvers should know that 'thousand' can mean the letter m, but ultimately that's an arbitrary decision i've made based on what i believe about them. if i assumed solvers should be familiar with the fritz lang film M, then i would have the option of 'fritz lang film' as a substitution for the letter m. 'frenchman' is a conventional substitution for the letter m, and if i assumed solvers should know that, then i would have that as an option too. the less i assume, the fewer my options, the harder it is to compose a charade clue
this shifts emphasis away from knowing specific things (crossword conventions — historically, they say, mostly based on things you would know if you went to a posh school) and towards the seemingly more democratic and universal sphere of ingenuity and lateral thinking, suited for a popular platform like minute cryptic. 'knowing things' and 'working things out' are two unavoidable pillars of cryptic solving, but the less you lean on the former, the more you lean on the latter. popular clues don't expect you to know that frenchman = m. they ask you to be cunning with uses of words that everybody should know. of course, an arbitrary decision has still been made about what everybody should know, but the circle has been redrawn to include many more people
tbh i do think the greater emphasis on ingenuity over conventional references is more democratic and more fun, but if you want to solve newspaper puzzles, it's worth trying to learn some conventional abbreviations, even if you don't use them for setting. many are actually not that esoteric, they're just things you can't necessarily intuit for yourself. they are their own body of knowledge which is slower to grasp than the wordplay rules, and therefore popularly discarded. alan connor's annoying but sometimes helpful articles are more annoying than helpful in this area, but somewhere to start
Britcom RPF Exchange is a fic and art exchange for all fandoms under the British Comedian RPF fandom umbrella. This will be a full round this time, not a flash! Minimum work requirements are one complete fanfic of at least 500 words, or one nice sketch of original art, digital or traditional, on clean, unlined paper.
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Schedule
Nominations open: 13th Jun 9PM UTC
Signups open: 20th Jun 9PM UTC
Signups close: 27th Jun 9PM UTC; assignments will be sent out at the latest by June 28th.
Assignments due: 9th Aug 9PM UTC
Collection reveals: 16th Aug 9PM UTC
Authors reveals: 23rd Aug 9PM UTC
For this exchange, a Fandom can be the main umbrella British Comedian RPF fandom, or it can also be any relevant shows, such as Would I Lie To You? RPF, or Taskmaster RPF if you want to specify the relationship within the context of that show or time period. For example, if you want Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton within The League of Gentlemen time period, you would nominate those two as characters under The League of Gentlemen RPF fandom. If you want the same people during Inside No.9 period, then they would be nominated under Inside No.9 RPF, and so on.
All other rules can be found at the dw comm link above!
Hey if you See This can you reblog this or comment on this with a character you headcanon as aromantic, asexual, or both. It can be canon it can be founded on absolutely nothing I just need more aroace stuff on here #yay
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