374 Part IV: The Part of Tens
✓ Easy access to resources (whether books or a computer)
✓ Ample time to complete the puzzle — or at least to make a good effort!Analyzing the Theme
Not every puzzle constructor creates themed crosswords. You’ll often see
crosswords that don’t have titles, which means they don’t have themes. But
all the puzzles I edit, including the ones in this book, are themed, and the title
hints at the theme.
The theme of a crossword is simply a central idea that the longer clues tie back
to. For example, I created an Easy puzzle for this book called “Now’s the Time”
that contains many time- and date-related clues.
If a puzzle does have a theme, try to keep it in mind as you read each clue.
Doing so may help you tap into the puzzle constructor’s point of view, which
may make solving clues easier.
The puzzle title doesn’t always present the theme in a crystal-clear way:
Sometimes you have to give the title a bit of thought (and work a few clues)
before figuring out what it means. For example, the Tough puzzle in this book
titled “Open Wide” could, I suppose, have been about dentistry. It’s not. Instead,
many of its clues relate to speech and speaking.Focusing on Fill-in-the-Blanks
As I explain in Chapter 1, fill-in-the-blank clues are often the easiest type to solve.
These clues usually involve a familiar phrase or title from which one or more
words have been deleted. The puzzle constructor uses an underline to indicate
where those words are missing, and you have to determine what they are.Studying Crosswordese
I bet you didn’t realize that working crosswords involves learning a new lan-
guage. In truth, crosswordese is just a subset of English words — specifically,
a group of words that you often run across in crosswords but don’t often
use when you talk to your friends and family. Puzzle constructors love cross-
wordese because it’s chock full of short words (usually three to five letters
long) that can get them out of jams. They try not to use too many of them in
any given puzzle, but they do lean on them pretty regularly.