puzzle creation – How do I construct longer cryptic clues without overly complicated parsings?
I dabble in cryptic-clues, especially as part of Puzzling SE’s chat game. I believe I have a solid grasp of how to construct an acceptable clue: how indicators work, what makes a fair definition, etc. I’ve made several clues that I’m personally proud of. But those clues that I’m proud of are quite short. For example, this one is about as complicated as I’m comfortable making a clue, given its three “parts”:
Musical played with stuff in space. (9) [HADESTOWN (a musical) = HAD + E(STOW)N, where “space” = EN space]
But more often, the clues that I feel come out “well” are even shorter. For example, this one is a def + cdef:
Tempt down together. (4) [COAX = co-ax (i.e. ax/down together)]
I’m well aware that I could make a longer clue simply by having more moving parts to the parsing (example that I’m not proud of), but I’d rather not do that. It’s just needlessly complicated for the solver. Plus, part of the fun of cryptic clues is finding unexpected and elegant ways to construct the answer. Chopping up an answer and mangling its letters is the opposite of elegant. In addition, I try to avoid “fluff” words (extraneous “and”s etc. that aren’t included in the parsing) as much as possible, because I think they make clues less elegant.
I have made exactly one clue that fulfilled all the following:
- Non-awkward surface
- Non-excess of moving parts (again, I generally draw the line at 3)
- More than six words
… and that clue was only eight words long, so not much longer.
I want to make clues that are longer while still being elegant. When I look at cryptic crosswords posted to Puzzling (recent example), they have a nice mix of clue lengths. Yet, my good clues lack such length variety. Longer clues also allow for more surface misdirection. My “co-ax” clue, being only three words, didn’t offer many false roads for a solver to go down.
How do I construct longer cryptic clues without overly complicated parsings?