The War on Fill
We're coming up on the hundredth anniversary of the crossword puzzle, and it's amazing how it's changed in that time. These changes are largely seen as positive steps towards enhancing the enjoyment of crosswords in modern times. If two-letter words hadn't been banned, we'd likely be sick to death of closed-off corners and many, many bigrams that would appear therein. Rotational symmetry lends a welcome aesthetic quality to the puzzle. The list goes on. To an extent, we should expect this evolution to continue. However, I've noticed a trend in some of today's puzzles that I believe is detrimental to the fun of crosswords and the art of their construction. In keeping with the manufactured outrage displayed on 24-hour news channels, I've dubbed it the War on Fill.
The "fill" simply refers to the words in the grid, typically excluding theme answers unless it's one of those themes that applies to the entire puzzle. Because it's at least the vast majority of the answers in a crossword, the bulk of the solving time is spent on them. Without the fill, simply put, you don't have a crossword.
I understand that a theme is the most memorable part of a puzzle and frequently provides the biggest aha moment. I agree that it needs to be good to consider the puzzle good. But the fill, being a more pervasive element, can impact your solving experience a lot more. You can mentally shove aside a weak theme and focus on everything else, but there's no getting around writing in all those shorter answers.
Thus, I hold that the fill is the most important part of a quality crossword. So I must ask: Why does good fill seem to be decreasingly prioritized in today's puzzles?
All regular solvers have seen their share of unsavory fill. The cheap partials (OF IT, IN NO, etc.), the abbreviations nobody ever uses in real life, the tired crosswordese, the boring obscurities. Some are merely little warts that can actually be very easy to figure out, while others can frustratingly keep the solver from full success. Naturally, some of these poorer entries are inevitable; the rules of American-style crossword construction are challenging and sometimes require concessions. (This is another reason some prefer cryptic crosswords, in which only about half of the letters need be crossed.) Plus, one's mileage may vary with so-called obscurities. ("How can it be obscure? I know it!") Even taking these factors into account, the fill in some recent puzzles has been, in my view, lackluster.
I don't mean to suggest that every puzzle I've ever made has been resplendent, nor that fill standards are gone completely, but I do think they've eroded quite a bit. It's possible that I, as an inveterate solver and occasional constructor, have become overly sensitive to this matter. I find it hard to believe, however, that the solver wouldn't enjoy the experience more if some of the junk were replaced, even if it were with ordinary, everyday words that aren't particularly peppy. You can always bring the liveliness in the clues.
Is it laziness? It does feel that way sometimes; on occasion, a corner seems so blatantly refillable with superior entries that one has to wonder why the constructor settled for his/her version. Even so, I don't think indolence is a fair charge to throw around; there's no real evidence to suggest it. (If you ARE a lazy constructor, though: Stop it. Stop it right now. Try harder.)
I believe the War on Fill is, at least in part, the result of how the crossword-solving community has evolved. Nowadays, several puzzles a day are available with just a few mouse clicks, and, through the blogosphere, solvers and constructors alike are deluged with opinions about all of them. All this content drives up the pressure on puzzlemakers to create something innovative. When you've seen your hundredth add-a-letter theme, it feels, and very likely is, less desirable for constructors to make and for editors to accept. Plus, it's natural to want to knock a tough crowd's socks off with something new.
As I implied above, people don't really remember a puzzle solely based on its fill words. The fill might be appreciated and enjoyed, but it's not what gets Puzzle of the Year nominations. An ingenious theme gets far more attention, and it's the starting point for making a crossword, so trying to make that stand out makes sense. I certainly sympathize; struggling to come up with good themes is a big reason why I haven't been constructing too much lately. The catch with themes, however, is that they still have to be molded to fit the crossword, and it can be very difficult to let go of a good one, no matter how it resists a smooth execution. This can lead to some strained shoehorning in the form of weaker fill.
It was a highly regarded member of the crossword community who said, "It used to be that if a theme didn't work, you wouldn't do it." It is very easy to slacken one's grid standards if one feels the theme is worth it. In my view, though, it usually isn't worth it. I've seen some themes that are, make no mistake, utterly brilliant, but the concessions made in the fill kept me from enjoying the puzzle. You might disagree and suggest that this is my problem, and I see your point. Obviously, I'm stating my opinion here. In the end, though, we're solving the crossword because we enjoy crosswords, and thoughts like "That's a thing?" and "Well, I guess that's right" lessen the joy of solving, no matter what genius lies in the theme.
I have even stronger opinions when it comes to themeless puzzles, in which innovation comes in the form of stacking fifteen-letter answers or using as few black squares as possible or what have you. I'll be blunt here: If I never see a quadruple-stack of fifteens again, it'll be too soon. Sure, it's eye-popping, but it's no fun at all to muddle through the inevitable handful of weak answers crossing the stack. My favorite American-style crossword is one that's tough as nails, well-filled, and fair. That's it. I don't need or want the grid to show off. I'll take a solidly filled 66- or 68-word puzzle over a sub-60-worder every single time with no hesitation.
So that's my take, for whatever piddling amount it's worth. I know I'll continue to put a lot of effort into turning out the best grids I can, and I hope my fellow constructors do likewise. Viva fill!
On criticism
I don't know about my fellow solvers and constructors, but I consider crossword puzzles to be a balance of art and science. I find a well-filled grid or an elegantly executed theme to be aesthetically pleasing, and on the other side of the coin, there are rules and principles that should be observed in making a good puzzle. The interpretation of those guidelines, though, can vary, and personal tastes vary even more. A puzzle's quality is often questioned, sometimes leading to agreement and other times to hot debate.
I've certainly jumped into the fray, as my #badpuzzles tweets will attest. Most of the time, these posts target mediocrities and flaws in the USA Today and Universal crosswords. I don't talk about everything I dislike about them because many of my objections are tedious and/or repetitive to bring up, such as cluing a transitive verb intransitively. (That's another topic, but ever since my eyes were opened to this mistake, I can't stop noticing it.) Other times, though, something will be worthy of a mini-rant. For example, a recent USA Today puzzle clued BANGUPJOB as "Good, as a job by a demolitionist?" Not only does this clue break the cardinal rule of echoing part of its answer, but it suggests an adjective while the solution is a noun. These mistakes simply wouldn't appear in crosswords I hold in higher esteem, and I can't resist calling them out.
By the way, if you haven't read my solving Q&A and are wondering why I waste my time on poor puzzles: It's because I can; I'm a pathological completist/weirdo. The subtitle of this blog ain't hay. Plus, there are at least a few seasoned puzzlemakers who would be excellent editors and don't have the opportunity. I'd like to be on record in wishing that a mediocre crossword with high exposure would be replaced by the acclaimed work of one of these people.
Though I believe that there are objective qualities that a good crossword should have, I also recognize that there is a gray area, that puzzle enjoyment is a subjective matter to a large extent. Work that is lauded by some might well be loathed by others; check out the comment thread on just about any Rex Parker blog post if you don't believe me. While I'm confident that most USA Today solvers would prefer the New York Times or Los Angeles Times puzzle given the opportunity to do it regularly, that doesn't change the fact that my viewpoint of these puzzles is a mere opinion.
It also should be noted that, taking into account the spectrum of crossword quality, the puzzles I criticize are much closer to the positive end than you might suspect. With rare exceptions (which, assuredly, are always met with #badpuzzles tweets), the USA Today and Universal puzzles obey the standard rules of crossword construction. They are symmetrical, every letter is part of two answers, there is a reasonable number of black squares, the word count is sufficiently low, and every entry has at least three letters. The clues are frequently flawed, but usually passable. The themes are similarly erratic, but do exist. Most, though certainly not all, of the answers are familiar. In other words, these puzzles are at least recognizable as examples of the conventional American crossword.
Sadly, that's more than I can say for the stuff out there that's laughably horrible, jaw-dropping hackery that I don't think even I could bring myself to tackle on a regular basis. Take this example of The Press Crossword, which my friend Alex Boisvert has been rightly savaging on his Twitter feed lately. In case the ridiculous black-square count and two-letter answers aren't enough to put you off, here's a taste of the awfulness Alex points out in this puzzle:
- Clues include "Alicante's 7th largest city", "Squash bug genus", and "Longest river in Ayrshire". I'm all for learning new things from puzzles, but they should be at least slightly interesting.
- Abbreviations are clued simply by their meanings, such as "Kilometers per hour" for KPH. And apparently SLD is a short form for "Sealed". When's the last time you saw that? That's what I thought.
- I've saved the worst for last: "Given with gold & muhr" = FRANKENCENSE. I don't even know where to start.
Again, disliking puzzles is a matter of taste, but I think we can agree that misspelling both an answer and its clue is pretty terrible. I find myself wondering about the motive of the puzzlemakers who turn out this dreck. My suspicion and my hope is that they don't care about the quality; they're just trying to fill space. The lack of a byline on that puzzle seems to corroborate this idea. However, the other mediocre puzzles I've mentioned do have bylines, and I think those constructors do take pride in their work. Unfortunately, this has no bearing on my opinion of that work.
Nonetheless, this is an important point to keep in mind, as it's easy to go overboard with one's criticism, a lesson I've learned the hard way over the years. On the old incarnation of my blog, on at least one occasion I savaged a constructor's work as well as the constructor herself. My opinions about the puzzles were valid, I feel, but I regret how I treated the latter. If one doesn't like a puzzle and has reason to believe that the compiler tried to make a good one, there's simply no place for attacking that person's motives or work ethic. You'll notice that neither this entry nor my #badpuzzles tweets mention the names of the constructors or editors; this is intentional. However sarcastic or irritated my points sound, I want them to be about the puzzles and not their creators. Certainly, there are those whom I consistently dislike, and I make no apologies for that, but no good comes of pillorying them routinely. When I advocate installing a new crossword editor somewhere, it's because I believe they'd put out better puzzles than the current ones, and I want to see better puzzles. That's all.
As crossword solvers, we're spoiled for choice; there are a lot of puzzles out there vying for our solving hours. We can poke fun at the ones we don't like, fawn over the ones we love, and debate the quality of the rest, but in the end, the most important thing to remember is that this is a diversion. Enjoy the solving!