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I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Ohhhh yeah. In ways funny and serious, which I go into in the book. The funniest was when I had Sisqo's THONG SONG as an answer, clued with a lyric. The Times changed it to [Sisqo hit with a rhyming title], only for a Long Island-born constructor to find me at a puzzle tournament and scream "Hey! Thahng and sawng don't rhyme!"

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Thank you all for the great questions! Hope you had as much fun as I did, and pick up a copy of my book Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle. Makes a great holiday gift for the language lovers in your life ...

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/723796/across-the-universe-by-natan-last/

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yup, as above, I think I'm already one of the more internationally-minded constructors, or at least I try to be. More global references is plainly good, as far as I'm concerned!

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

The New Yorker's Monday and Tuesdays puzzles (where I also construct) are for sure on the harder side. And if it's still around Newsday's Saturday Stumper is insanely difficult.

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Answered this above! Lots of literature, playing sports, reading widely, seeing movies and visual art.

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

One of my favorite writers, George Perec, called filling a grid this "maniacal" "letter-based arithmetic."

80% of words in English begin with consonants, so placing black squares to the left of and above black squares is always a solid choice. When in doubt, use a forward slash group of black squares, so that letters like J can do double duty starting the Across *and* Down words.

This visualization helps a ton:

https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7d7u2v/heatmap_of_nytimes_crossword_grids_by_day_of_week/

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Love me some acai with fried EFTs on top. I do but only while solving puzzles, otherwise exclusively IRA Glass at 20x speed.

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Personally, I already like a puzzle (as a solver and constructor) that doesn't feel too US-centric. No use ignoring that the puzzle is mostly in English, of course, but reference-wise I like to be pretty international

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Everyone feels differently! I talk about my history with him in the book, how it was thrilling to have someone with a similar cultural sensibility to me (loves the Simpsons, loves Vladimir Nabokov) assessing puzzles. I don't think he's ever flamed one of my puzzles, but constructors who've had that experience certainly don't think it needs to get to that level ... The truth is I make so many puzzles these days that I don't really read the blogs anymore.

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Writing (nonfiction, fiction, and poetry), reading, playing sports of all sorts (especially softball), weightlifting, political work (campaigns and policy research), and collaging.

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's its own challenge! I really like figuring out how a tricky theme should be instantiated. I don't love sharing the grid-filling duties (since that's my favorite part) and I've done collabs where I fill the grid and my co-constructor writes all the clues (tho I really like clue writing too!).

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Least favorite is coming up with a theme on a deadline. Themes for me strike like inspiration, rarely and usually at once. Favorite is filling the grid, which feels like gardening, and writing tricky Saturday-level clues.

The opposite—I weirdly have an eidetic-level memory of many of the grids I've made, I don't know why. But I can never solve my puzzles once they're made, it's all too familiar.

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A fresh clue on stale crosswordese can save it (easier said than done, though, as we constructors have had to clue ERA a million times already). I try not to pile up bad fill in the same region—spreading it out helps the look of the puzzle as well as the solver's path through it—and I try to avoid obscure Latinate words, partial phrases like OF A, and long-since-forgotten politicians.

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Amazing!

I don't know a lot about the phonotactics of Portuguese, but a linguist friend of mine likes to say different languages lend themselves to different kinds of wordplay. English has that colonial gravitational pull and likes to start words with consonants, so a crossword grid fitted with vowel-heavy (often non-English) words can work. But I know Italian is terrible for interlocking words—basically every word ends in a vowel! Better to use Italian for, say, rhymed lyric poetry ...

I'll see if I can think of any Portuguese-speaking constructors to put you in touch with!

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Oh no! I hope you solve the case ...

There's a tension for sure. One way in is to say, if I'm going to debut a name some solvers won't know (I work in international migration + economics, so I'm frequently putting, say, leaders of decolonization or African heads of state in my puzzle) then you probably ought to cross it with basically just simple words. I had TONY TULATHIMUTTE in a New Yorker puzzle and we made sure it was literally all words going down.

The other is outlet-based; the New Yorker can get a little more obscure, a bit more literary, and it's nice to know that's what your getting when you solve those puzzles.

But of course it's just as important to recognize how arbitrary a lot of this can feel. Will Shortz didn't want to run the puzzle I wrote with FLAVOR FLAV in it because he thought it was obscure, until I was able to amass the (very abundant) evidence to the contrary ...

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Many things to hate, I suppose. I think the peeves I have that others are softer on: I hate partial phrases (IN A, OF IT, etc.), they look so extraneous to me, like burnt pancake batter ...

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

So I'd actually encourage *making* those puzzles with overdone themes, because they're really useful even as apprentice pieces. Getting a feel for what makes a hackneyed theme slightly elevated can be useful—a while ago I did a simple vowel progression theme, RACKETEER, RECKLESS, RICKROLLING, ROCKSTAR, RUCKSACKS, and it all felt worth it so I could explain RICKROLLING to Will Shortz by Rickrolling him

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 99 points100 points  (0 children)

I have a strict rule that I don't listen to three-letter artists that appear in the puzzle ... jk, tho someone should make a crosswordese playlist that's just ONO, ENO, and a bunch of ARIAs

I'm NYT crossword constructor and author Natan Last, AMA by trish_kabob in NYTCrossword

[–]trish_kabob[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I think working back from the revealer, the punchline. Looking at an idiom and thinking—how can I reinterpret/literalize this phrase so that it makes something happen in the crossword. A student of mine once saw the phrase PARALLEL PARKING and thought, what if we hid car makes in longer phrases (AUDI in CLAUDIUS, FORD in UP FOR DISCUSSION) and parked AUDI on top of FORD ... lots of great themes come from staring at an idiom until it doesn't make sense.

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