prog: (zendo)
[personal profile] prog
OK, I have managed to solve a handful of Cryptic clues, after completing a self-made exercise where I marked the wordplay/definition splits in a list of example clues and answers. Until that point, I didn't even know how to look for that division, so I really had no hope of solving any clues by myself.

Here is my solving strategy so far:

  1. Find and solve an easier clue. (Generally, this means clues with less words, since every word in a good cryptic carries its own information payload, so long clues can have protein-fold levels of twisty complexity.)

  2. Try to cravenly backsolve everything that crosses it. Then backsolve anything that crosses those, etc.

  3. Go to step 1.

Well, it's something.

Date: 2004-10-03 01:34 pm (UTC)
cnoocy: green a-e ligature (Default)
From: [personal profile] cnoocy
One thing that I do (not being a cryptic crossword whiz) is to look for clues of a type that I find easy. For me, this consists mainly of finding anagram-based clues (words like "crazy" or "confused", a set of words that has the same number of letters as the answer) and words hidden inside other words.
And you should not feel at all craven for using the crossing letters. If that wasn't part of the puzzle, they'd be cryptic quizzes.

August 2022

S M T W T F S
 123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
28 293031   

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Aug. 12th, 2025 06:48 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios