Abridged Too Far

Michael Schlossberg is a doctor at St. Charles Medical Center, in Bend, Ore., specializing in internal medicine. He started constructing crosswords in 2018 after reading the series "How to Make a Crossword Puzzle" on The New York Times's website.

This is his sixth puzzle for the paper and his first Sunday. The idea for it came to him after he heard the answer at 121-Across in conversation and thought, I bet there's a literature-themed puzzle in there.

Sunday! This puzzle has a two-part gimmick: a title within a title, and a single clue that describes both works. I started by breaking apart shorter, well-known titles. A search of *H*A*T*C*H*E*T*, for example, resulted in THE CATCHER IN THE RYE. I wound up with a pretty small list, so I was happy to find five theme entries plus a revealer that gave me pairs of 18, 19, and 21 letters.

I like OTHELLO and HATCHET the best, MEDEA and HEIDI are solid, and DUNE is only meh (it's four letters, and you can find it within another of today's long answers). One neat find was that HEIDI also fits into the 21-letter gem WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. I had to go with the 19-letter THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS, though, because it paired with FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS.

The hardest part of this puzzle was writing the themed clues. I told myself that the editors wouldn't bail me out if I botched the one clue/two works execution. Fortunately, those clues survived pretty much intact. Not so much for most of the clues for my fill words. I am glad that my clue for 16-Across made the cut, though.

I hope you enjoyed this literature-themed Sunday puzzle. And I hope that everyone has a great 2023!

Some great finds! These can be discovered programmatically — assemble a list of book titles, write some code, sit for a few days while your computer chugs away — but, amazingly, Michael found so many pairs of books that 1.) nest one inside the other, and 2.) are similar enough that a single clue could describe both of them.

HEIDI and THE WIND AND THE WILLOWS both fit the clue so aptly! Incredible that such specifics as "children's classic" and "country dwellers' friendships" are spot-on.

HATCHET is a classic of middle-grade lit. Gripping survival story that I highly recommend. The clue is a bit stretchy to encompass both books, but it mostly works.

There's something so impressive about a long title like OTHELLO inside FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS. However, when you have to broaden a clue like describing OTHELLO in "Southern Europe" … that's not as impressive.

Nor is describing DUNE so generically — how many millions of books are about family and free will?

TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT didn't work for me. That would have been a perfect revealer if you could find something like LOVE or MORTALITY within FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS, or EGOTISM or ALIENATION in CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. That can also be done programmatically, but it's a much broader search space that might make your computer beg for mercy.

Is there a better revealer? Or do you even need one? A title like Two-for-one Special of Story Within a Story could have been excellent.

While there were some character development issues, I loved the novel-ty of this concept.

Ow, stop sticking me with those sharp plot points!