The Stickler Weekly 121 Solution

When I first joined the Australian Crossword Club (ACC) in the early 1990s, there were some super solvers in the group, ones that never made a mistake with their answers to the monthly crosswords in the ACC’s publication, CrOzworld. I asked one of them at an annual get-together if they’d ever had a go at writing clues instead of solving them, and the response was an emphatic “no”, stating that she wouldn’t know where to start. I think most solvers “have a go” maybe with the odd original clue or by trying to improve on somebody else’s clue, but very few solvers have the mind to take a word and reconstruct it as coherent pieces rather than just put the pieces together. It does take practice and trial and error, of course, but it is a different way of thinking.
I regularly get asked about the crosswords I solve and my crossword-solving ability, and recently this started me thinking whether all good setters are good solvers and whether all good solvers would make good setters. The latter I’ve answered, no, being a good solver isn’t a guarantee that you’d write good cryptics, however, I do believe the former is true: good setters invariably are good, if not great, solvers. First, most newbie setters take the plunge largely because solving has become too easy for them, and they are looking for something more from the hobby – it’s not a natural progression though, just as an avid reader rarely has a go at writing. Setters and solvers need to be able to view a word as its components, but a setter must also be able to manufacture a grammatical process to put the components together to form an answer. Only those with an excellent understanding of the workings of cryptic clues can do this – that is, experienced solvers.
I’m happy to be challenged on this – do you know a good setter who confesses that they aren’t (or once were) a good solver?