» Will Shortz explains how he puts together the NYT crossword
One of his answers in a very interesting Q&A with NYT readers:
I receive 75-100 freelance crossword submissions a week, from which I select my favorites for publication in The Times. Some of the contributors are frequent, others not. Since the payment is modest ($200 for a weekday puzzle, $1,000 for a Sunday), most contributors make crosswords mainly for the pleasure of doing so and for seeing their names in print. More than 100 different contributors appear in The Times each year.
When I select a puzzle for publication, I factcheck it (of course) and edit the clues. On average about half the clues in a Times puzzle are my own. I edit first for accuracy, because it doesn’t matter how clever or interesting a clue is if it’s wrong. I also edit for the appropriate level of difficulty given the day of the week, as well as for freshness, playfulness, humor and overall balance of subjects.
After I edit and typeset the puzzles on my handy Mac, I send them to three test solvers, one of whom rechecks the accuracy of every clue and answer again. These testers are Frank Longo (a talented crossword constructor and editor himself), Nancy Schuster (a former crossword editor as well as a national champion solver), and Evie Eysenberg (my “everyman” solver). All three call me with their comments and corrections. I polish the puzzles and send completed electronic files, a week at a time, to The Times, where they are test-solved by a fourth person, Ellen Ripstein, who’s also a former crossword champion. Ellen prepares the files for online publication and other formats, but also serves as another backup.
This used to be the entire process. Some years ago, though, I noticed a person on the Times’s crossword forum, Martin Herbach, who wrote incredibly literate and knowledgable comments about little flaws in the published puzzles. And I thought, why should I wait until the puzzles are published before getting Martin’s feedback? So after Ellen finishes her work on the files, she sends PDFs of all the puzzles to Martin. Our understanding is that if he sees a problem, he lets me know immediately, in time for me to make a change. And, if he doesn’t, all is well.
This procedure isn’t 100 percent foolproof for preventing errors, but it’s pretty close.
July 21, 2009, 12:02pm Comments
