Australian Crosswords

I think all solvers have experienced that phenomenon where a seemingly impossible clue or puzzle becomes solvable after a break or maybe a night’s sleep. It appears that previous misconceptions are cleared out and new pathways found or maybe the brain works in the background while the conscious is doing other things. The same thing happens to setters in a way as a word that appears to have only one clueing option suddenly reveals itself as a word with multiple opportunities. There’s a major difference, or course, in that a solver is looking for the only path while the setter looks to explore many paths in order to find the best one. I’ve always believed that every reasonable word has a “best clue”, but time often prevents a setter from finding it. It’s always about time and effort and a minimum standard. When I used to write the daily Stickler I gave myself a max of about five minutes per clue, any more and I simply wouldn’t have enough time to get it done. In some ways I cheated, as I avoided difficult words and included only words (at grid-filling time) that I thought wouldn’t be too hard to clue – I actually formed an idea in my head about each clue before committing answers to the grid. This didn’t always work as a crossword’s answers and clues mustn’t be considered in isolation so changes would often be needed to the original ideas. Mental tiredness and illness are also handicapping factors as a setter must be completely switched on to produce a good crossword – I could tell how good I was originally feeling as I did my final check of a week’s Sticklers (created some six weeks before) at the time of submission.
Does your performance as a solver vary or does it totally depend on the crossword?

I sometimes get asked about how I come up with clues like 15-across: Central feature of ice age? (8), a clue-type called an &lit (and literally). It must be remembered that a good setter will always approach the writing of any clue with the intention of creating a (seamless) link between the definition and wordplay. That is, once the definition has been explored, the job of the setter is to hunt out wordplays that can be tied in with an appropriate definition. For example, in 9-across, Surgical procedure dealt with twitch connected to the eye (5), a plausible story is told with the wordplay which is then connected to the definition. Since this mindset is in play in every clue, it’s not unusual for potential &lits to surface, but it is relatively rare for a true &lit to be the end result – it’s much more likely that the &lit potential turns into a standard two-part clue with good surface reading. As the whole clue must double as both definition and wordplay, it takes only a small misfitting to knock the &lit on the head. I’ve lost count of the times I thought I had a chance of constructing &lits, and wasted a lot of time pursuing them, but most times they end up just missing. A good setter will resist the temptation to use an inappropriate or non-anagram anagram indicator or the like just to make a clue work. A near &lit is just another poor clue.
In the case of 15-across, it started in the normal way with the identification of possible definitions (you must have something to work towards) and exploration of what could be used in the wordplay. “oldness” stood out as a potential wordplay piece, and “age” surfaced as a suitable synonym. Without any idea of &lit potential, I searched for words containing “c” that naturally precede “age”, and came up with a list including “ice”, “school” and “space”. It was at this point that I realised “ice age” ties in nicely with “coldness” and the &lit clue was born. Note that if I couldn’t find a way to indicate the “c” in “ice” appropriately the clue simply wouldn’t work. A number of things need to happen and I must say I love it when they do.

I imagine most people at one stage have said “I wish I had a dollar for every time…”. There’s no doubt that I would be a rich man if the sentence ended with “…someone expressed the desire to learn how to solve cryptic crosswords”. It’s rare that someone shows no interest at all in what I used to do for a living. Some say they want to learn, while others confess that they simply don’t understand how cryptics work. With so much supposed interest, how is it that desire doesn’t get turned into action? I think in some ways cryptics suffer from having a relatively simple cousin, the “straight” crossword, that is designed for everyone to solve with minimal instruction. There’s no extended learning period or mental adjustment needed, just a fundamental knowledge of the English language, which is developed enough by the end of high school. Give a straight crossword to almost anyone and they would know what to do even if they can’t or don’t want to solve it. It’s not the same with cryptics, although, on the surface, it may appear to be the same. It’s reasonable to look at the clues of a crossword and expect to be able to find the answers, since that’s how straight crosswords work, but we know, without instruction and guidance, it’s almost impossible for an uninitiated solver to solve good cryptic clues. How frustrating it must be for regular (good) straight solvers to be thwarted by an unknown code, and more so when they find out it’s not just a rule, instructional, or “how to” thing – it’s a completely different world with a long road ahead.
I can’t think of any game, interest or pastime that has branches so different but based on one fundamental concept. Can you?