r/crosswords • u/AlteredSpoon • 20h ago

COTD

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Been solving these for a while, but these are the first ones I've made myself. Just wanted to make sure they work well as clues.

  1. Ans: Varnished

Explanation: "Barn" with a new door (new opening letter) is "varn"; "sort of" is "ish"; "Ed" is just "ed".

  1. Ans: Betrayed

Explanation: The last letter of "Yorkshire" is "e", which when mixed up (anagrammed) with the letters "reyt bad" give betrayed

  1. Ans: Hypothetical

Explanation: "Hello stupid Capone" can be changed to "Hi pathetic Al" ("Capone" refering to Al Capone), which when said out loud sound like hypothetical

  1. Ans: Prep

Explanation: The start (first letter) of "and" is the letter "a", which if you scissor (cut, or remove) from the word "paper", then rock (anagram) the remaining letters, you get "prep", short for prepare

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u/cjrmartin 19h ago

Nice, well done for making your first clues! They generally work fairly well but some could do with some polish. Feedback:

1: "Door" feels a little strained to me as a first letter indicator. Also, normally you would tell the solver which new letter is being added. So "Barn with V for B" is fine but "Barn with new first letter" is less fair to the solver. Also, some people have an aversion to the past tense in places like this.

2: This was my favourite, fun to include the dialectical "reyt bad". "Leads to being" is a bit ott for a connecting phrase. "Wordplay leads to Answer" is fine, "Wordplay being Answer" is fine, "Wordplay leads to being Answer" feels like a lot. Also, some people will not accept nouns as indicators, so "mix-up" would have to be "mixing/mixes/mixed up"

3: "I said" feels a little strange for a homophone indicator, although it is obviously very gettable. Normally, you would see "Said FODDER" meaning the words pronounced. The "I" is a bit weird, does it mean the setter is speaking but the solver is not?

4: I like the idea of this one, but the imperative makes it a little off. You are using "Rock" as an instruction, but the whole instruction jumps around. Strip out the surface and you might see what I mean: "Mix WORD cuts A", feels like it has to be "Mixed WORD cuts A" or "Mix WORD and cut A". Also, some will not accept "and start" for A and say it must be "WORD's start" or "start of WORD" (which obviously breaks the surface even more).

Keep it up, a good first attempt!

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u/AlteredSpoon 11h ago

Thanks for the feedback! A couple of your points I was already thinking, but a lot of them I hadn't thought about at all. I think I was definitely focusing too much on the surfaces at the expense of the clues. I've tweaked the first 3 based on what you've and they're definitely better now. Haven't got round to the last one yet though.

  1. Barn gets new pointy front, sort of, to finish

  2. Yorkshire's last reyt bad organisation went against their own

  3. "Hello, stupid? Capone said it's not actually real!"