How are crossword puzzles made?
Most crosswords have themes, and the theme is usually where the long answers are tied together in some interesting or humorous way. So the starting point is to come up with those long answers. Crossword grids are symmetrical, which means that if you rotate them 180 degrees, they’ll look the same upside-down as they did right-side-up. This means if you have a twelve-letter theme answer in the upper left portion of the grid, then you also have to have one in the lower right portion of the grid to balance it. You place your long answers in the grid and place black squares around them so that you feel that you can complete the grid with other vocabulary, then you actually do that other vocabulary, polish it to the best of your ability, and then the last thing is to write clues. Q: How long does that take? A: The first one that you do can take days and days, weeks and weeks. The experts can create a daily New York Times (puzzle) in, oh I’d say, maybe four to eight hours, and a Sunday from e
