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role of the crossword constructor

So, just what do constructors do when they design and fabricate a crossword puzzle? To summarize, crossword puzzles are their babies; as with animal kingdom mothers and fathers, they bring them into the world, nurture them, and take them seriously. What is their role in bringing new puzzles into the world? After you explore this page, you should have a much better idea of what it means to be a constructor.

role of the constructor

The primary role of the constructor is, as the title implies, to construct (devise) new puzzles. Most constructors are professional constructors, serious amateurs, or avid readers of publications that publish puzzles. Most professional constructors have two jobs; they produce puzzles as a sideline; only a few make it as full-timers.

relationship with the crossword puzzle editor

Although the public is the constructor's primary consumer, in most cases a constructor's channel to the public is through the crossword puzzle editor of a printed publication. Since it's up to the editor to shape and approve a constructor's baby before a publisher will print it, the editor is the constructor's primary interface.

If, as a solver, you may blame crossword puzzle constructors for coming up with those really-hard-to-solve mind-kicker puzzles, try showing them some mercy. Constructors are not the only ones to blame for all those hard-and-next-to-impossible-to-solve puzzles out there. Editors, bent on achieving a name for themselves, typically reserve the right to make changes to puzzles with or without a constructor's permission or knowledge. To give you an idea of how often and how extensive changes can be, the New York Times crossword puzzle editor has stated that he changes as many as 50% of a constructor's clues and answers. So we see that solvers are not the only victims.

  • See more about the constructor's relationship to the crossword puzzle editor: click here.

other relationships

A few constructors—only a handful of the very best—are good enough and dedicated enough to be their own editor and publisher. These kinds of constructors bypass the print media editor and reach their audience directly through the internet or through print media they privately control.

Many constructors chiefly target the public at large; they live and breathe to please their audience and to reach as many solvers as possible. Some of these constructors develop a style of their own and enjoy a cult following. Others seek to please other constructors and certain elite solvers whom they respect. Still others fall in love with their own constructions; they seek to please themselves or to achieve a puzzle coup. For example, one constructor has spent a lifetime on a quest to construct a puzzle with the fewest black squares. (He now holds the record.)

the solver-constructor

Solvers have been interested in construction since the earliest days of the crossword puzzle. The first puzzle in the world appeared in print in the New York World newspaper in 1914; only a short time after, Mrs. M. B. Wood, a reader, submitted her own puzzle and became the first reader-constructor, starting the tradition of the solver-constructor. The tradition not only survives today, it flourishes.

The advent of software that helps people construct has only served to add fuel to the fire. Today. every corner of the world of crossword puzzle solvers, from professional to serious amateur to hobbyist to layman to the merely curious, contains a segment that uses a computer to construct its own puzzles. Probably, most puzzles constructed by solvers are curiosities that end up discarded; but many see the light of day.

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