My favorite type of word puzzle is called the crostic, anacrostic, double cross, or quote-acrostic, depending on the publisher. It’s like a crossword in that there are clues that must be filled in, but instead of writing them into a crossword grid, you enter them in spaces designed to reveal a quotation from a published work. The first letters of the clue answers spell out the name of the author of the quotation and the title of the work in which it appeared.
I thought about walking readers through a step-by-step solution, but that would be a long process, and it would no doubt get tedious after a while—for both you and me. Instead, I’ll write in more general terms how I go about solving these puzzles, which I find to be a great escape from the stresses of everyday life.
The top photo shows the words I filled in on my first pass through the clues in this puzzle from Games Word of Puzzles magazine, which I subscribe to. I consider seven to 10 words to be a rather good start. This was not a rather good start.
After I get the letters from my first few words filled in, I can usually spot where at least one common word like THE, AND, or BUT should go. You can also fill in S’s at the end of clues that are plurals or present-tense verbs and ED’s at the end of one-word clues that are past-tense verbs. (If a clue is two words, the ED might not be at the very end, as in PASSED AWAY.)
Then I go through the clues again, which helps me fill in more parts of the quotation, which leads me to figure out more clues, and so on.
It took me a little while to remember that YEOH is the last name of the Best Actress winner for Everything Everywhere All at Once and then that her first name is MICHELLE. I also figured out that “Tiffs” is probably SPATS, based on the fact the letter after the U in the second row of the quotation was likely either P or S; that THE STARRY NIGHT is the van Gogh masterpiece; and, after deciding that the last two words were ANOTHER THING and then putting H in space 195 in clue N, that UTAH has to be the state with the motto “Industry.”
Eventually, I had enough letters at the beginning of clues filled in to figure out that the author was HEMINGWAY and, because BRETT was almost filled in, that the work was THE SUN ALSO RISES. (I recalled that the main female character in that novel is named “Brett.”) That meant I could fill in all of the remaining first letters of clues.
After a while, every word you fill in leads you to figure out another word or two or three words elsewhere in the puzzle. After you get to that point, the entire solution fills in quickly.
I like that in Games’ Double Crosses, there’s a pretty good assortment of clues, including ones about pop culture, literature, history, and geography. As you can see from the example in the photo below, most of the clues in the dozen or so collections of crostic puzzles I purchased from Penny Press are straight-up synonyms.
Doing these Penny Press crostics may improve my vocabulary—I learned in a recent Penny Press puzzle that LUGUBRIOUS means “Like a dirge”—but I wish there were more variety in the clues. When I’m running low on these Penny Press crostics, I’ll buy some anacrostic collections from Dell, Penny’s sister company. They seem to have more different types of clues.
I’ve done enough Penny Press crostics to know that “Showy flowers” is inevitably ORCHIDS. CUBBYHOLE had come up in the previous puzzle with the clue “Snug compartment.” I’ve learned the people who put these compilations together don’t pay attention to repeated answers in consecutive puzzles, so I figured it was very possible CUBBYHOLE was correct here for “Snug place.” I know a CESTA is the thing jai alai players use to throw and catch the ball, but I didn’t know what the arena is called and I still didn’t until the last letter, the first O, was filled in. (I wouldn’t hyphenate “jai alai” before “arena.”) I had entered CAUSING for clue O, “Producing effects,” but entering G in space 202 left me with a two-letter word ending in G, which I thought was unlikely to be what was wanted. I also put in BEAUTIFUL for clue S, “Gorgeous,” but I erased it after I saw that resulted in an I in space 35, which meant there was a four-letter word ending in I, which seemed wrong unless this puzzle was about the Magi. NECKLACE seemed like a safe bet for “Jewelry item,” because it meant the last word in the title of the work was FUN. I was also confident in at least the UNDER part of UNDERRATE to indicate “too low.” I would similarly have been confident in starting a word with RE if the clue included “again.”
I figured out D had to start clue J, because the writer’s last name must be GOULD, after the G, O, U, and L were in place. (Sometimes, the person’s first and last names are given, sometimes only the last name is given, and sometimes a first initial or first and second initials are given with a last name.) In this puzzle, the name of the published work was truncated; the solution for the source of the quotation reads “(Flocking to Quebec’s Carnaval) For Some Frozen Fun.”
As you can see, they don’t give you much in the way of punctuation, including no apostrophe in TRINIDAD’S. But for whatever reason, the editors thought the hyphens in PORT-OF-SPAIN were crucial. If I were to create crostics, which I might like to do someday, after I retire, I would be inclined to include all punctuation, including commas and periods.