In such cases, one might in fact need to write some of the clues before making the grid!īut in general, the grid almost always comes first. This is speculation, of course, but there are plenty of other puzzles out there where the clues, rather than the entries, are the stars of the show. It’s not clear when, exactly, he decided that the clue for each of these theme entries would just be the name of the genre of which the person in the entry was a “queen,” but it’s possible that this was a case of writing the clues before the entries. The constructor wrote in his notes that he had wanted to build a puzzle around DONNA SUMMER’s being the “Queen of Disco” and had then set about finding other musical “queens” to include. For instance, if a puzzle’s theme is really based on the way the clues are written, rather than a relationship between theme entries, the constructor would need to know that in advance.Ĭonsider this puzzle from last week. You might be thinking, How on earth could you write the clues before you know what the entries are going to be? But to give our construction-curious straw man a little credit, there are some cases in which some of the clues might come first.
Now, to people who are intimately familiar with crossword puzzles, this seems like an impossibly silly question.
I’ll discuss the theme in more depth below, but first, inspired by the clue at 64A, I want to talk about a question that constructors hear surprisingly often from people who are unfamiliar with the crossword construction process: “Which comes first, the grid or the clues?”
MONDAY PUZZLE - Congratulations to Ian Rathkey, who is making his New York Times Crossword debut today! He is the 76th constructor to debut in 2021, and he does so with a bright and cheerful Monday puzzle that is sure to send some constructors on nostalgic journeys to their music playing apparatus of choice.
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