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I've always enjoyed solving crosswords of all styles, but my firm favourites are the ones that revolve around the things I'm most interested in and the things I enjoy reading about in my favourite magazines. Once upon a time nearly every magazine featured a regular themed crossword, nowadays it's not always the case.

Working on the principle that if I missed them it was quite likely that others would too. I decided to see if I could learn how to write (or compile) crosswords for my fellow enthusiasts. I trained as an aircraft fitter and have considerable experience as a commercial pilot, so you can probably guess what types of magazines I read and what my chosen theme is. Yes! you guessed Aircraft and Aviation, but it could equally have been something quite different for the purposes of this article.

When I first thought I'd give compiling a try I vividly remember finding some graph paper and laboriously designing a symmetrical grid pattern based on a crossword I'd seen in a local newspaper. The next step I assumed was to fill the grid with suitable words and worry about the clues later. This assumption was was sound, but filling the grid with relevant theme words proved to be quite another matter. The fact is that after countless attempts I had to resort to 'cheating' simply to fill the grid with suitable words.

By cheating I mean I had to add and remove squares on a selective basis, and sprinkle in a few one and two letter words to make sure that the various bits joined up. It looked dreadful, and frankly if it had appeared in a magazine I'd bought I wouldn't have give it a second look.

Still nothing ventured nothing gained, I had a grid of sorts, the next step was to see if I could write some clues. In my case this wasn't as hard as filling the grid, and I knew it was a going to be a question of practice and passing my efforts around some like minded colleagues for "constructive" criticism.

As you can imagine the criticism wasn't in short supply, but this criticism was of immense value as they pointed out the blindingly obvious flaws that in my enthusiasm I'd either ignored or considered as important. There were plenty of flaws, but I struggled with another grid and tried again, having looked closely at some other themed crosswords, and taken on board the comments of my colleagues.

To be quite honest I started to lose interest in the idea after a couple more attempts. Constructing the grid and filling it with theme words was proving no easier with time. I could have filled them many times over with any old words from a dictionary, but that wasn't my goal.

Having some experience as a software designer I spent some time attempting to design an application to make life easier, and even had some moderate success, but soon realised that perfecting it would be a huge and very complicated task, with no guarantee of a successful outcome.

It soon became clear I needed some specialist software to take the grind out generating and filling a grid, and leave me free to concentrate on the enjoyable and creative process of writing the clues. Time for Google. I typed in Crossword Creation Software and was presented with the usual message telling me there were hundreds and thousands of results. In the time honoured tradition I looked at the choices on page 1 and downloaded a few likely looking applications.

Some software promised to do everything including writing the clues and making a pot of tea! Others had simply ceased to exist, but at least I had a few to try. Frankly most were disappointing and most wouldn't work at all for theme words, but fortunately one application emerged that really did what it said on the box.

The application is called Crossword Compiler and in my view is a work of genius and quite stunning in it's effectiveness. There may be others, but after three years of using Crossword Compiler I've never felt the need to look elsewhere. Crossword Compiler won't actually write your crosswords for you, but it will provide you with a framework, templates and all the tools you need to be creative and deliver a polished product.

After spending some quality time learning to use Crossword Compiler I felt I was back in business, and could get creative and think about seeing my work in print. As is the way of things I set about things in quite the wrong manner and failed to get so much as a response from any of the publishers I approached. To be perfectly honest in the early days I`d have quite welcomed a rejection as it would at least mean someone had noticed me.

I felt my crosswords were probably OK, but my marketing and presentation were letting me down. I spent a long time on the Internet looking for guidance and picked up quite a few tips and hints here and there, but in the end I had to work things out for myself.

Eventually I found a system that worked, and now find myself with regular theme commissions from mainstream Aviation and Computing publications, and ad hoc work for associated newsletters and Websites.

"How To Compile Themed Crosswords For Publication."
This is the Manual I wish I`d had when I first set out on my journey.

I wrote this for potential Theme Compilers who want to see their work in print, and get paid for it! It's in Electronic format so you can download it and read it as a PDF file, or make a printout and read it on paper if you prefer.

I can`t guarantee you'll make a million, but I`m confident it will help on your way to seeing your work published and getting paid a good rate for something you like doing.

Dave Robinson
May 2007
Content-Delivery

How To Compile Themed Crosswords For Publication

"This is the manual I wish I`d had when I first started." Dave Robinson

E-Book In PDF Format

Contents

• Nomenclature

• Looking good

• Creating & filling grids

• Use of software

• Building word lists

• Knowing your users

• File conventions

• Checking for errors

• Writing themed clues

• Regional variations

• Commercial considerations

• Puzzle varieties

• Publishing Online

• Packaging for the printer

• Marketing your services

• Preparing your sales pitch

• Market research

• Pricing your work

• Sample sales letter

• Useful links

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