New York Times, Monday, September 28, 2015

DAN: I am thrilled to be debuting in The New York Times today, and I am grateful to Joel and Will who encouraged me, and to Jeff, who helped take the original concept to a higher level.

I always liked words that contained each vowel once (including Y), and I thought it would be fun to use such a list in a theme — words like PRECARIOUSLY and COEQUALITY. After a bit of research, I found such words range from the technical and thus unusable (ACTINOMYCETOUS) to the more common but not especially exciting (TENACIOUSLY). And there are quite a few adverbs (FACETIOUSLY — all six … in alphabetical order!).

As a new constructor, I tried not to overextend myself, and I chose three 15s that fit the theme and were not obviously connected: COUNTERCYCLICAL, UNCOPYRIGHTABLE, and (in various versions) INSTANTANEOUSLY (hey, that uses the A twice!), VOYEURISTICALLY (ditto the I), and finally, GRANDILOQUENTLY.

The fill, however, was weak, and the circled theme letters were scattered haphazardly around the grid (like the results of five fowl competing in chicken poop bingo). Will/Joel were interested, but after I made several attempts, they suggested I should work with a more experienced constructor. Enter Jeff.

Jeff said he liked the concept but proposed that we "think bigger," and suggested we use — instead of the "trivial" all-vowel-inclusive words I had proposed — more colorful phrases that followed the theme rule but punched up the puzzle. He also arranged the circled theme letters in a way that showed some uniformity and intent.

I pondered the question of single words (GRANDILOQUENTLY) vs. multi-word phrases (SOCIAL BUTTERFLY) for a long time. On one hand, it's sort of neat to see such long words with exactly one instance of each of the vowels (AND Y of course). On the other, I'm not super fond of single-word themers as a solver.

There's something so cool about multi-word entries. Not only do they help distinguish "good crosswords" from "bad crosswords" — or worse yet, from computer-generated ones — but there's so much potential for snazzy phrases. It took a while to come up with all-vowel-plus-Y ones such as THE DYNAMIC DUO and THING OF BEAUTY, but Dan and I agreed that these types of answers would make for a more fun experience. We were glad that Will agreed.

Dan and I also discussed packing in five themers, one for each of the five vowels, but that proved to be too restrictive, if we wanted an orderly presentation of the five circled letters. I didn't totally balk at the original layouts Dan sent over with random circle placements, but I always appreciate layers of elegance in a puzzle if they're possible. We tossed around putting the five vowels on a diagonal leading to the final Y, but this layout resulted in smoother fill.

This type of grid skeleton, featuring six long downs, is something I use all the time. Spacing out these long guys and separating them with adequate black squares often makes for a surprisingly easy filling process. I'm not a fan of APO, but to get ARM CANDY and AW GEE — along with locating the O in the proper spot — felt worth it. I encourage constructors to try out similar skeletons, shifting black squares liberally.

Dan is patient, hard-working, and he took constructive criticism extremely well, always thinking about what would make the best experience for solvers. A pleasure to work with.