Additional Guidelines for Constructors

Additional Guidelines for Constructors
One or two non-MW words in a crypt are fine, especially if they’re well-known (such
as topical references) or easily deduced from the rest of the message. Try to avoid
singletons in non-MW words. Solvers who submit solution lists won’t be penalized for
missing singletons in non-MW words if they’ve solved the rest of the cryptogram
correctly.
Try for consistency and plausibility. Unless you serve the point of the message by
doing so, don’t mix American and British spellings in the same sentence; don’t drop
one archaic word into an otherwise modern-English crypt; don’t begin Medieval
samurai inspects digital watch . . . -- unless, of course, the anachronisms are the
point.
Try to make your message interesting or amusing. A crypt that’s funny, clever,
punnish, or thought-provoking is more satisfying than a contrived string of words.
Some telegraphese is acceptable in order to avoid short, common words like and, a,
and the that can make a crypt too easy to be interesting. This clever crypt,
constructed by Arachne, uses telegraphese typically: Girl drops from blue, wears
ruby flats for trip down golden road toward leaf-hued city. Movie fans tickled pink.
Pattern words (words with repeated letters, like the Us in usual) tend to make a
cryptogram easier. Avoid them if you’re trying to make a harder crypt.
The very hardest crypts use unusual or obscure words. A typical example (by
Micropod): Hindu nastika thumps mridanga, gift from Bhutani. Kali objects,
dispatches death-bent demon. Even this is not an extreme example: occasionally a
message is so full of uncommon words that it’s just as unintelligible after solving as
it was before! The more obscure the message, the more important it is to play fair
with the solver. Be sure the message makes coherent sense. Here, for example,
nastika (an atheist) and Kali (a god’s name) are both words used in Hinduism, and a
mridanga is an Indian drum -- all appropriate to a message about a Hindu and a
Bhutani. Here, the only singletons are the L in Kali and the J in objects, well below
the maximum of six. These things can help make even the hardest cryptograms
more enjoyable and satisfying to solve. Usually, though, what the editor needs most
are neither the very easy or the very hard crypts -- these are more often in good
supply than crypts of moderate difficulty made of common words.