New York Times, Thursday, August 14, 2014

This is my 2nd published puzzle. I'm glad to be back!

How are crossword construction and crossword solving similar?

First, they both allow for great "aha!" moments. I had one such moment when I hit on crossing UNDERPASS and ELEVATED HIGHWAY in the manner used in this puzzle. It got even better when I found another 15-letter word that fit the theme and provided reasonable crossings.

I hope solving this puzzle gives you a similar "aha!" experience. I tried to leave the clues on the theme answers vague enough to enable a mid-solve discovery of the trick underlying the puzzle.

Second, my Achilles' heel in both construction and solving is that I can't spell to save my life. My first submitted grid contained PEROGATIVE, which (I learned) should be spelled PREROGATIVE (d'oh!). Fortunately, I was given a second chance, and I was able to produce the revised grid you see here. I blame growing up in the era of auto-correct for this deficiency.

Anyway, I've always admired the grid art that constructors such as Elizabeth C. Gorski can create. This may not be art, but I did enjoy working some grid "civil engineering" into my puzzle.

As Jason noted, when I first accepted this puzzle last spring, the answer at 16A was PEROG/ATIVE. Perhaps I didn't notice the misspelling because the entry was broken into two parts. Anyway, it wasn't until I came to editing that I thought "Hmm, that doesn't look right." I returned the grid to Jason for a fix — which he managed to do with even better fill than before. I hope the puzzle's trick gives solvers a nice "aha!"

Fantastic idea. There have been many puzzles where words jump from one place to the next, or go off the edge and "warp" back to the other side, but I don't think I've seen an actual underpass like this (which actually looks like an underpass!). Really neat idea. I find it mesmerizing to look at the grid — like watching traffic patterns unfold around a cloverleaf.

It was too bad there wasn't a symmetrical entry to UNDERPASS. That might have made this one of my all-time favorites. Yes, it would be difficult to incorporate an extra themer, but it's definitely doable (assuming you could find something that fits — maybe something to the effect of DOWN AND OUT?). For those of you who don't want the curtain pulled back, skip the next paragraph.

At first, it may seem like filling this grid is a magic trick, as you'd have to fill two disparate corners simultaneously through the breaks? But as with many eccentric constructions, it can be broken down into steps to make the process easier. After filling out the middle of the puzzle, you can put together a mini-grid (seen to the left) by squishing the two halves together (leaving the DELI of DELILAH and the ITOR of TRAITOR) and then filling normally. The results can then be transferred back to the original grid.

Finally, a note about three-letter words. Typically Will doesn't allow more than 22 of them except in special cases, because they break up a puzzle's solving flow and can be inelegant. From a construction standpoint, they can also cause problems. Check out all those threes running down the middle of the puzzle. Even though it looks like it should be easy to cleanly fill, it's not, because the number of acceptable three-letter words is limited. In fact, it would likely have been easier to fill this swath cleanly if it was four squares wide, because there are roughly 3x as many acceptable four-letter words than three-letter words!

A beautiful concept, strong enough that I didn't at all mind the blips here and there in the fill.