Michigan Daily Crossword Style Guide

Basics:

• Must be 15x15 for Sundays, 5x5 or 7x7 for Minis
• Must be contiguous (you must be able to path between any two white squares using only white squares)
• Minimum word length of three letters (two letters for minis)
• Must have rotational symmetry (not necessary for minis)
• If you use a word in a clue, you can’t use it in an entry & vice versa (some exceptions at the editor’s discretion)
• Aim for around a Monday-Wednesday level of difficulty by the NYT standard
• A lot of the technical details discussed below refer to Crosserville, which is the software we will primarily be using for puzzle creation. You’re allowed to use whatever you’d like to construct, but Crosserville is definitely the best free option that I’m aware of.

Minis:

• If it’s your first time making a mini, I strongly recommend two guidelines that will make the process much easier:

• Use a 5x5 grid
• Use at least two black squares

• In order to create a 5x5 or 7x7 grid on Crosserville, you first need to go to the “New Puzzle” page. Once you’re there, go to “Size Presets” and select “Custom.” Make sure you also adjust your symmetry to “Unspecified” if you don’t care about grid symmetry in this puzzle.
• Because you’re allowed to use two letter words in your minis, you can technically put a block in the center of a 5x5 grid. This can be limiting sometimes though, because Crosserville won’t help you with the fill if you have two letter words.
• When you’re starting to fill, choose the longest entry and choose really any word you want. If you want an easier fill, Try and pick your word based on common letters and the position of its crosses. For example, in this grid, I could use CACTI for 1-Down, but it would limit my flexibility later because 7-Across would have to end with an I. It would still be doable, but my options are less limited if I choose PARIS.

Theme:

• Always the first step of the puzzle
• Themes generally follow the 3-1 rule (3 theme entries with one revealer), but they don’t have to. 3-1 rule implies two pairs of even-length entries due to symmetry.
• Use the template feature on Crosserville to help you with 3-1 themes. Find a grid where the theme slots align with the lengths of your theme entries.
• Use your theme entries and your chosen template to create a skeleton of your puzzle. Skeletons serve as your basis for filling the rest of your grid. See the example to the right, can you figure out the theme?
• As long as proper crossword convention is satisfied, theme acceptability is at the discretion of the Sunday editor.
• Generally speaking, themes should be clever and employ some wordplay to connect otherwise unrelated entries. Of course, alternative approaches exist and are valid.
• The best places to find inspiration for acceptable themes are previous Daily puzzles and the NYT puzzles.
• If you’re struggling to make a theme work, ask the crossword team or your friends for help! Extra brains always help with theme creation.
• Make sure you get your theme approved by one of the editors before you start filling your grid! Oftentimes a small edit will make all the difference in a theme, and it’s much easier to make these edits before it’s filled.

Grid:

• Once you have your skeleton, start your fill with the entries that are shaded in yellow. If there are none of those, start with either the longest entries or ones with problem letters already in them (X’s, Q’s, ending U’s, etc.).
• Make sure you don’t duplicate words in your fill. You cannot have BITE and GRAB A BITE in the same puzzle, even though they’re different entries.
• It is helpful to think of your grid as a bunch of different smaller sections with one or two anchor entries that connect them to other sections. For example, in the above skeleton, 46-Across serves as an anchor entry between the bottom left section and the rest of the grid; anchor entries are some of the most important ones in your grid, as they dictate the possibilities and difficulty of their given sections.
• To find the best possible entries for your grid, use the “Fill” tab in Crosserville. Use the “Find Slot Options” and the “Evaluate Options” buttons to generate the grid scores for all the possible entries. The longer it takes to evaluate your entries, the less accurate it probably is.
• Crosserville calculates grid scores using a combination of an entry’s given word score and the potential entries that could be used adjacent to it. There are a few nuances with grid scores that you’ll become more comfortable with the more you use them. Don’t trust the algorithm blindly; the entry with the highest score might not always be the best entry!
• In this example, after calculating the grid scores for 5-Across, we’re given a list of potential entries. Here, SAUCE will be our best option because of its word score of (50) and grid score of 1.59
• If you see a strong entry with a word score of (30) or lower, you should assume that its grid score is a little bit higher than calculated. For example, REUSE has a word score of (30) even though it’s a good enough entry to be a (50). Therefore, if I was struggling with this fill, I’d try REUSE before some of the (50) entries above it such as SAUCY and DOUSE.
• You generally want to avoid entries with a grid score of (5) or (10), but they’re acceptable if you can think of a clever or accessible way of clueing them or if they’re vital to the inclusion of other really good entries.
• If you have any weak entries, make sure that the entries crossing them are relatively easy
• If you want to find other options to fill your grid, try OneLook or even your own brain; there’s tons of Gen Z slang and niche trivia that isn’t on Crosserville.

Clues:

• Clueing in my opinion is the easiest yet most tedious part of constructing a crossword. All of the hard work is basically done now, you just have to make sure your clues pop.
• General Clueing Convention:

• General capitalization rules apply
• No periods at the end of clues unless used to abbreviate a word
• No oxford commas
• Entries that are shortened or abbreviated must have their clues abbreviated in some way (i.e. “EL school” for MSU) or explicitly state it (Spartan school: abbr.)
• Clues that use wordplay to subvert the solver’s expectations should end with a “?” (i.e. “Trip vehicle?” for LSD)
• When clueing a blank (like the clue “Grab a ___” for BITE), it is always three spaces long no matter how long the entry is
• Entries with blank clues should never be more than five letters
• Never use italics, always use quotation marks
• When referring to other entries, say 32-Across, 12-Down, etc.
• Don’t end clues with periods, even if they’re sentences
• Should never really be more than one sentence

• Crosserville has its own clue database under the “Lookup” tab, which you can also access from the “Clues” tab by clicking on specific entries. You can even filter them by difficulty and publication.
• You are allowed and in fact encouraged to throw in a few difficult and “?” clues. When you do this however, you need to be cognizant about the difficulty of that entry’s crosses. Generally try and avoid tricky clues crossing each other.
• If you’re struggling to think of a clue and Crosserville isn’t being helpful, try your entry on wordplays.
• For your theme entries, try and ensure that your clues are generally consistent if applicable to the theme.