Designing Cryptic Crosswords

It seems that not a day can go by without us being fiercely bombarded by encouragement and motivation to exercise the physical being; but what about a way to exercise one's mental well-being? Without a doubt, a cryptic crossword is what to look for when seeking the ab-king pro of strenuous psychological stimulation!

Decryption is one thing, but encryption is an entirely different kettle of fish, and is what this article intends to tutor. There are three steps to constructing a cryptic crossword. First of all, the grid itself must be designed. Secondly, the solution to the sleuth must be carefully selected and words allocated appropriately. Finally, the solution must be encrypted to the extent that the answer can be deciphered, but not given on a silver platter. For the purposes of this article, I will provide a few of the simplest examples of encryption in cryptic crosswords. Don't be fooled, though, even the simplest make a Sudoku look like child's play.

The grid. This may seem to be the simplest part of designing the crossword, but it really isn't. First and foremost, the grid should be symmetrical and balanced. The easiest way to do this is to obey the rule: what you do to one side, you must duplicate on the other. Start by drawing up an 11x11 square grid. Should you choose to shade the most extreme top left square, you must therefore shade the most extreme bottom right also. The same goes, for example, with the square of the third column on the second row from the top left. The balancing shade goes into the square of the third column on the second row up from the bottom right.

The solution. You should always consider balancing shaded squares with word squares. Ideally, for every one shaded square there should be two to three word squares. Furthermore, words should be positioned so that the numbers of letters they contain vary from between three to about eight or nine, including perhaps one word of the full eleven letters. The logical placement of spaces for words should be taken into account. Remember which spaces would make the most practical sense in intersecting other words. As you create spaces and shaded squares, start to formulate which words you wish to place in which spaces, and create intersections at spaces where you intend vowels or common consonants. Reserve room for word forms, i.e. words ending in ing, ed, de, and so on.

The encryption. Creating the enigma is perhaps the hardest part of constructing the crossword. Deception and trickery come into play regularly in cryptic clues. Always bare synonyms, homonyms and homophones in mind. The clue should sometimes contain the answer itself, perhaps through anagrams or by hiding the solution inside a clue itself. For example, the clue 'Romans used Grecian styled originals in carpets', implies that the word 'originals' allude to the first letters of 'Romans used Grecian styled', which gives 'rugs', a solution supported by the word 'carpets' in the clue. Anagrams can also be used like in this example, 'Zeus transforms the Middle East', which through 'transforms' implies that 'Zeus' changes to relate to 'the Middle East'. With a bit of general knowledge, the answer is 'Suez'. Playing with words lets the deception escalate to higher levels. For example, 'sprints past tents in errands' implies that the past tense (tents) of 'sprints' is 'ran', which is also 'in erRANds'.

Encryption really has no rules, so long as it is logical and decipherable for an intelligent mind. Be careful not to make clues too impossible, or decryption loses interest, but also be careful not to make it too easy, and remember to have fun with it!