{"id":469,"date":"2008-01-22T05:00:35","date_gmt":"2008-01-22T13:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/22\/death-of-the-novel-a-literary-crossword\/"},"modified":"2008-01-22T08:00:20","modified_gmt":"2008-01-22T16:00:20","slug":"death-of-the-novel-a-literary-crossword","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/whatever\/death-of-the-novel-a-literary-crossword\/","title":{"rendered":"Death of the Novel: A Literary Crossword"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Click for larger version (pdf format). Commentary below.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/xwords\/xword1-clues.pdf\" title=\"death of the novel: a literary crossword\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog-images-08\/xword1.jpg\" alt=\"death of the novel: literary crossword puzzle\" height=\"744\" width=\"435\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A daughter got me doing crosswords over the holidays. One thing that struck me was that the persona of the puzzle maker emerges pretty clearly from the puzzle &#8212; and many come across as, well, <em>unhip, <\/em>for want of a better word.<\/p>\n<p>With my usual arrogance I figured I could do better. And I soon got my comeupance, because I found constructing the puzzle difficult.<\/p>\n<p>Most crosswords today follow rules originally established by Simon &amp; Schuster:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No orphan letters (all letters must function in both down and across words)<\/li>\n<li>No two-letter words<\/li>\n<li>The puzzle must be diagonally symmetrical (A black square at top left must be echoed by a black square in the inverse position at bottom right, for example)<\/li>\n<li>Not too many black squares (fewer than one sixth of total, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.crossdown.com\/howtomake.htm\" title=\"making crossword puzzles\" target=\"_blank\">says Sam Bellotto, Jr.<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Most puzzles are 15 x 15, although bigger puzzles are seen, especially in weekend papers<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There are also aesthetic factors:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A pleasing puzzle pattern<\/li>\n<li>Trend toward theme puzzles, meaning a handful of related words, both down and across<\/li>\n<li>Not too many grotesqueries (obscure acronyms, names, archaisms, foreign words, etc.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I did three versions of this puzzle before settling on this one. The first two were just too ugly. This one is better, although I wish I had managed to use more of my theme words. And I did have to resort to a couple of unappealing words.<\/p>\n<p>I think the puzzle will be fairly easy for anyone with a passing familiarity with world literature. Maybe it would have been better with more oblique clues. Feedback welcomed.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/xwords\/\/xword1-solution.pdf\" title=\"solution to the crossword puzzle\">Solution to the puzzle is here<\/a> (pdf format).<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Click for larger version (pdf format). Commentary below. A daughter got me doing crosswords over the holidays. One thing that struck me was that the persona of the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightreading.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}