Puzzle 198: Freestyle 166. Tastes like chicken!

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.31

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The seed for this grid was, as you’d guess, the center answer across. One problem, though — for some answers (like this one), nice as you think they are, you don’t really think about how tough they would be to clue without using a word from the answer in the clue (which is, obviously, a no-no). I managed to think of one, obviously, but… it’s a consideration for next time.

You’ll notice that most of the long answers, across and down, are all pretty close to the center. That was by no means my intent — even after I came up with the central horizontal stack. It was very fortunate that it all fell together — there were a couple spots where only one or two entries fit, but just happened to work with the surrounding ones.

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Puzzle 197: Freestyle 165. Well, that’s a relief.

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.28

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I don’t know why I don’t go this route as often as I do — stacking two long answers as opposed to three — because it’s a lot easier to construct and, obviously, easier to find two nice entries to stack on each other than three. Thus, all four fifteens were intentionally plucked from my list of seed entries (yes, one of the 15s has been used in grids before, but I still liked the entry enough to want to put it in a grid myself). The pairs of 15s I used both stacked so well that the most difficult parts of the grid to construct were the left and right center.

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Puzzle 196: Freestyle 164. Can I get a second opinion?

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.51

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This grid was only supposed to have one 15-letter answer, which was the seed entry, 7-Down. The evolution of this grid meant that the horizontal grid-spanner came into play too. Luckily, it wasn’t just a throwaway 15 but an entry that I also really liked. You might notice something funny (odd-funny, not “ha ha”-funny) about the juxtaposition of two answers on the left half of the grid — know that that was, believe it or not, unintentional, just a happy accident.

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Puzzle 195: Freestyle 163. That’s what she said [snicker]!

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.49

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Another instance where 70 worked out better than 72 for me. Obviously the opportunity to pare it down to 72 lay in splitting what’s now 6-Down and 30-Down, but it would have made the area above the bottom stack and under the middle very awkward with some not-so-nice entries. Also, you’ll get the rare  “one helper square stacked on top of another” animal here — it helped both of those corners immensely. You’ll also see a sort-of dupe in this grid that I let go because it wasn’t worth tearing apart an area that I think came out pretty well.

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Puzzle 194: Freestyle 162. It’s just common sense, right?

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.31

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Breaking news! I added blocks for aesthetics instead of practicality. It was in the corners — I had to add the pair in the upper left and lower right and, though I don’t usually think this, I thought, “Boy, that looks weird”, and put another pair in the other two corners. It definitely helped with the fill, of course, but I didn’t absolutely need those two other black squares. I remember doing that waaaay back in my first ever grid for this site, and it was for the same reason.

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Puzzle 193: Freestyle 161. Rules were made to be broken.

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 68
Mean word length: 5.65

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This grid has 68 entries, but it felt like a breezy 68 to construct. As soon as I established the network of 23- and 45-Across with 6- and 24-Down with the middle entries, filling the corners wasn’t too bad. I’ve been constructing for long enough that I generally have a feel for whether a grid has too many entries, so I counted after I started filling the grid and was surprised that it was only 68.

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Puzzle 192: Freestyle 160. Hold on, I’m having a moment.

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.31

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The perils of tunnel vision. The last corner to fall into the grid was the upper right. I was SO fixated on including a particular answer in that corner that I considered making various concessions that I would never ordinarily consider (like partials and obscure words) simply to make that entry fit.  I think I was so frustrated because I had the vertical 9-letter stack in place (with that aforesaid entry) and couldn’t believe that there was no fill I could muster up in the horizontal stack. In retrospect, I can’t believe that I spent so long on that before I abandoned that idea; it was a pretty nice entry, but, honestly, it wasn’t one that should have merited breaking my “cruciverbal morals” to include.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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Puzzle 191: Freestyle 159. What a buncha nonsense!

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.39

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The main consternation in the building of this grid occurred in the upper left. Namely, it was the intersection of two entries that I amazingly didn’t notice were dupes. I had gotten well into the cluing when I had the dreaded “uh-oh” moment. How was I ever going to fix this. Unbelievably, the existence of what is now one of the down answers miraculously rescued me from having to tear out a giant section of the grid — probably the entire upper-left stack — after I thought I had completed the whole thing. The crossword gods were on my side, to be sure.

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Puzzle 190: Freestyle 158. So what’s the holdup?

Last Tuesday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 72
Mean word length: 5.42

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Whenever I can interlock more than two entries that are colloquial expressions (i.e. things that people say to each other as complete sayings) like 6-Across, 16-Across, and the seed, 7-Down, I’m happy with myself. Those are my favorite kinds of entries. For some reason, I feel like this grid may play a bit easier than normal, but I think it was because I was in more of a forgiving mood when I clued this. Your mileage may vary, of course — that’s the main reason I generally don’t put any difficulty ratings on these grids.

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Puzzle 189: Freestyle 157. Take it on a case-by-case basis.

Last Friday’s freestyle solution

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Word count: 70
Mean word length: 5.49

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Whenever I have a standard “four-corners” freestyle grid like I do here, I have a hard time letting a section go without including one seed list entry in each section. I mean, there’s no reason not to, right? And, just when I say in the last post that I rarely seed grids at 1-Across or otherwise on the first row, well, here I go with a seed entry at 1-Across! Truth be told, I actually tried that entry in the second row and the third row before I (somewhat reluctantly, actually) put it in the first row. You might notice also that I could have made this 72 very easily — this is the rare time that I had the opportunity to do it and didn’t.

As always, I’d like to know, folks… comment is welcome! Come say hello! What did you like? What could I do better?

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