New York Times, Thursday, September 2, 2010

ANDREA:

This was my first Thurs and the most complicated idea I had ever had. I wanted all the words in the grid to be OTHER words if read backwards. I envisioned three sets of clues: Across, Down and Backwards. There is no way I could make this grid on my own, so I went to the genius aka Patrick Blindauer. We bandied about how we could have a reveal in the grid itself. Either a phrase like TO AND FRO, BACK AND FORTH. Both he and Will felt it would be too easy to have a third set of clues.

Then Patrick managed to create a grid with the phrase EVERY ACROSS / ANSWER READS FROM / RIGHT TO LEFT (written from right to left). I didn't originally want something that looked like gobbledygook in the grid, but there was no denying this was an incredible solution and that it broke into three balanced phrases that could be read backward was breathtaking. One of the early drafts had several palindromes that I suggested were "cheating" which was a poor choice of words, which caused a lot of stress between us, but Patrick managed to get rid of most of them. (I bring this up not to tell tales out of school but to be honest about the difficulty of collaborating at times. Especially if one person feels they have done the lion's share of work.)

This is a delicate topic with partnerships. My personal feeling is whoever comes up with the idea should get full and equal credit/money, whereas Will told me a good idea could come from anywhere and doesn't necessarily deserve credit. Needless to say, I don't agree. I'd rather be extra generous with credit as we have so little else. I had been a writer in Hollywood for many years and was well aware of the heartbreak, rifts and lawsuits not giving proper credit can bring. We also didn't want partials that couldn't stand alone without a clue, like INOR even though it could be clued as Rice-a-___, but INOR when read left-to-right, out of context wouldn't stand on its own, so we were sensitive to that as there would be only the clues for the words going backwards, but would still look like good words read from left to right.

My fear was also when people caught on what was happening, they would have to erase or start completely over or have a big mess if solving with pen...and it was the first time ever I worried about pissing off solvers! But am super proud of the concept and the result.

Each across answer has to be entered into the grid backwards. Remarkably, all the across entries except for the three long ones are legitimate crossword answers in either direction.