Australian Crosswords

I was told when I released the first Stickler Boxed Set that I was “giving it away” at the price I was asking, but believed I really couldn’t ask for more as the included crosswords had already been published. I did add some value by bringing them up-to-date and globalising them, and by adding clue help and worked solutions to the website, but I saw this as necessary to provide as much cryptic reach as possible. I also made it available according to how it was to be used: individually or in a group. I had to trust that buyers would purchase the appropriate version and that people who did receive it wouldn’t copy it or simply attach it to a email and send it to friends. The pricing strategy was meant to encourage people to buy their own copy rather than trying to source it via alternative means. Trying to protect the product digitally is very expensive unless there’s a good chance of high-volume sales, so this was out of the question. So far I’ve had one U3A crossword course leader pay the group price even though I’m aware of other groups who use the Stickler Boxed Set 1 in their classes. There was always a possibility this might happen as course leaders “try out” the crosswords to make sure they are suitable for their course, but the hope would be that a Stickler contribution would follow if the puzzles ended up being used in class. I’m not too disappointed by what is effectively human nature, but it does bring home to me the lack of money that is in crosswords, the dilution of all things caused by the internet, and that making a living again from crosswords is simply not possible.

I was reminded a few weeks back that as a setter I must not only cater for a huge range of solvers with different abilities but consider where people may be at in their lives and what experiences they may have had. Even though I look at words as being made up of other words and letters, the words and answers I use, and the clues I phrase can mean different things to different people. I’ve often wondered whether I could get into trouble for writing a cryptic clue that reads as a disparaging remark yet the answer and how it’s derived bear no resemblance to the original clue. In theory the clue is a puzzle, and only the definition (and answer) means something, but a casual reader could easily be offended if they didn’t have cryptic insight. Some publications have crossword rules about acceptable answers that include the non-use of diseases etc and anything that may cause offence, which is rather broad. A cryptic crossword setter may get away with a risque word as the right clue will soften the blow creating a kind of inside joke.
One non-crossword word puzzle app I’ve done work on excludes words related to alcohol, tobacco, magic, religion, death and sex in order to secure a “G” rating. The context doesn’t matter so a word like “undertaking” can’t be used due to its association with death. It’s a black-and-white world when it comes to such things, with no exceptions. Thankfully with crosswords a setter provides a context and ultimately determines which definition is at play even if a clue may appear to be pointing in a different direction.

I’ve been solving cryptic crosswords since I was 15 – that’s almost 40 years. I compiled my first published crossword in my 20s in a staff magazine and considered myself a professional setter in my early 30s. Those early compiling days were interesting, not just because of the lack of technology, but because my setting skill relied almost totally on what I’d gleaned from solving. This had a profound impact on the crosswords I designed and the clues I wrote. It’s amazing how little I had really picked up as a solver, something I see repeated regularly when experienced solvers have a go at setting. Even UK Times solvers-turned-setters who have been fed the most rigid clues for decades can start using questionable devices they have never seen used before. How can/does this happen? A solver will break down clues, apply indicators, substitute abbreviations, extract letter fragments, all without really understanding what’s happening – they don’t need to understand to solve, they just need be able to piece together a wordplay and find an answer. Thus, as a setter, an anagram indicator becomes just a mechanism to change letters and its tense or position grammatically gets totally overlooked; or an indirect anagram is used even though as a solver they had never seen one used in a major publication. The use of obscure abbreviations is a common trap, where the novice setter has taken the use of some abbreviations in their favourite crossword as an endorsement of all abbreviations, no matter the source or usage. The lesson? If you want to have a go at setting, don’t totally rely on your solving experience to guide you – read books by professional setters, expand you solving horizon, read crossword blogs where solvers write about their concerns with clues, and get at least one person with lots of solving experience to test your work. This last piece of advice only works if you are prepared to act on any constructive feedback given, which is possibly the biggest stumbling block in becoming a respected setter.