Why it’s harder to make an easy puzzle
“I’d love to understand what makes the difference between an easy puzzle versus a hard one. And can you ask new questions to make an easy one harder?” — Laurel Bernstein, Bloomfield, N.J. From Christina: One of the fun facts about crossword puzzles that people are often surprised to hear is that it’s actually more difficult to make an easy puzzle than a hard one. The reason is that it takes a lot of time and consideration to make a grid where each word is familiar — it would be much easier to hold a grid together with entries like INEE, ARAR, STOSS, ENARE or ATLE than to ensure that each word is recognizable to solvers. If a constructor is making a puzzle with a straightforward theme, we would generally like to run it on a Monday or Tuesday, and that person would need to make the grid friendly for early-week solvers. To make an easy crossword grid, you have to sift through a lot of words and rule out tough vocabulary, obscure names and unusual abbreviations. When I make a puzzle that I think will be best suited for a Monday or Tuesday, I often avoid entries that I might otherwise consider assets in a later-week puzzle. Fresh, slangy phrases that would feel fun on a Friday might be tough for Monday solvers to understand. Creating an easy grid is an exercise in patience. A puzzle can also be made easier or harder with the clues. Many constructors will tell you that they have a difficulty level that comes naturally to them. Some people are great at writing easy clues, but find it hard to write difficult clues. Others naturally write tough clues but struggle to make easier ones. One of my jobs as an editor is to notice subtle things that affect the difficulty level of a clue. For instance, take the entry HOT, which has multiple meanings. The first thing you’d probably think of is the weather being hot, so an easy clue for HOT would be a synonym like [Sweltering], which doesn’t really have other meanings. HOT can also mean popular or trendy, and a Saturday clue for the same entry could be [In], which has multiple meanings and different possible interpretations. Similarly, for the entry SPINE, a synonym like [Backbone] would be straightforward for a Monday. [Pluck], on the other hand, is a synonym that could also be read as a verb, which makes it more appropriate for a Saturday. We also often clue words with examples of that thing. HOTEL might be clued as [Ramada or Radisson] on a Monday, because those are very clear and obvious examples of hotels. On a Saturday, though, we might give only one example, and pick a hotel name that isn’t immediately obvious: [Grand, e.g.]. The more possible interpretations a clue has, the harder it is for a solver. We might also use trivia to increase the difficulty level, picking more obscure trivia for a themeless puzzle than for an early-week puzzle. [“The Giving ___” (Shel Silverstein title)] is an example of an easier trivia angle for TREE, while [Yggdrasill, in Norse mythology] would be a little tougher. Writing clues for Easy Mode can be a challenge, because we have picked the grids specifically because they have vocabulary that feels appropriate for a Friday. It’s not always easy to write easy clues for tough entries. It can also be quite hard to write really clever and challenging clues for a Monday grid because the vocabulary appears frequently in crosswords and it’s tough to think of a new angle for words that have been clued dozens of times.
Solve Friday’s Crossword on Easy Mode!
In today’s Wordplay column, Sam Corbin writes about new entries in the crossword. For expert hints on today’s puzzle, read her column. Were you able to solve the Friday puzzle with Easy Mode? We want your input! Share your experience with us by email. Easy vs. HardIn today’s Friday puzzle, 17-Across is clued [Going against the grain?]. This is one of my favorite kinds of clues because it uses a familiar idiom in an unexpected way. In this case, we’re not talking about someone flouting convention. I wrote a more straightforward clue for this one: [Safe for someone with celiac disease to consume].
How are we doing? Thanks for playing! Subscribe to New York Times Games. If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can sign up to receive it regularly here. Correction: Last week’s edition of Easy Mode misstated the year that The New York Times acquired Wordle. It was 2022, not 2020. P.S. The answer to Easy vs. Hard is GLUTEN FREE.
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