1. The quote must contain all the letters in the author/title acrostic. Beware works by Zola and Fitzgeralds! A good quote may even lack a "v" or a "k".
2. Make sure you get the quote right and note the source page. A personal preference: if the quote is neither beautiful nor funny, choose another.
3. For an average 26-clue puzzle, the player must be able to fill in about six of the answers easily. So use a minimum of six clues that will be easy for your target audience to answer, regardless of level. Beginners think they need to answer all the clues directly so you may want to make most of the answers obvious for them.
4. If you are a novice constructor, do everything to make your first puzzle as easy to solve as possible - it's always harder than you think. So make the quote short, the number of clues small, and the average length of an answer about 8. Also, if you choose a quote with a percentage of vowels close to 40 %, you will find the task of selecting a suitable set of answer words relatively easy.
5. If you choose a long average answer length, necessitating the use of multi-word answers, choose those first. Use up any over-represented letters as quickly as possible.
6. Some clues are unobjectionable; these include:
This type of clue could, in principle, be solved by using the right reference book. The taxonomical types could be solved via a search engine. Fill-in-the-blanks could be solved via a concordance or full-text search. All of them could be solved by a good computer program.
For me, the perfect puzzle is one that is difficult enough to tempt me to look something up, but just easy enough that I manage to resist that urge and solve the puzzle anyway.
7. Admissibility of the other types of clues is debatable. They beg indulgence from your readers one way or another. The types you choose are subject to your personal preferences. If the preferences of your audience don't mesh with yours, they will not enjoy your puzzles.
Constructors use debatable clues to make the puzzle harder, or more interesting, or just to make all the necessary letters fit. These type include:
You may want to limit the number of debatable answers in your puzzles. You may want to warn the reader that a clue or answer is debatable by ending the clue with a ?. Editors of traditional printed puzzles will reject puzzles containing the debatable type of clues, especially made-up phrases.
8. Technicalities:
9. Try not to repeat yourself (or others) with any part of your puzzle: clues, answers, the "initials" acrostic, the quote.
10. "As far as phrases go, anything used often in speech or writing is OK and not made up.
Using an article in front of a phrase is only OK; it is not unacceptable, but to be
avoided if possible, and if used, the clue should match well."
| code | Interpretation of Reviewer's Codes |
| E | Easy obvious answers - must cover over 20% of clues (and letters) |
| G | Good clue - both answer and definition |
| M | Made-up phrase - no text reference; not a commom idiom |
| R | Rare answer word, requires using reference works |
| D | Definition needs improvement; answer is ok |
| S | Spelling error in the definition or the answer |
| W | Word count is wrong or missing, eg (3 wds) |
| H | Hyphenated designation needed (hyph) |
| A | Abbreviation designation needed (abbr),or imply it in clue |
| F | Full name designation needed (fn), or word count |
| V | Variant designation needed (var) |
If no codes appear, the answer and clue are acceptable. Usually, if a puzzle is acceptable, the reviewer will make the suggested changes and possibly schedule the puzzle. If the reviewer determines that you need to do more work, the reviewer will request that of you. In some cases,the puzzle will be rejected.