Construction Resources

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Our favorite items are marked with a ⭐.

If you’re new to DCL, welcome! Make sure to check out our daily listings of new crosswords.

Getting Started

  • “How to Make a Crossword Puzzle: The Series” is a detailed walkthrough of the process of making a single puzzle from generating a theme all the way through the editing process. With advice from all-star constructors and NYT editors along the way, the series covers most of the basics of how a (themed) crossword is made.
  • ⭐Patrick Berry’s “Crossword Constructor’s Handbook” is a more in-depth look at each stage of the process, with individual chapters devoted to theme development, grid design, fill, and clues. At only $10, it’s well worth the investment for amateur and professional puzzlemakers alike. It also comes with a pack of 70 solveable puzzles.
  • The best thing a would-be puzzle creator can do is solve more puzzles. One doesn’t need to be a championship speed solver, but regularly solving more puzzles from a variety of outlets will familiarize you with industry standards and trends and what sorts of puzzles are likely to be accepted at various outlets. Of course, we offer a full listing of daily puzzles.

Mentorship and Community

  • If you are a member of a underrepresented group in crosswords (women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ people, and disabled people), you can find a mentor in the Crossword Puzzle Collaboration Dictionary facebook group. (Please don’t request a mentor if you are not a member of these underrepresented groups.)
  • The Cruciverb facebook group is for creators of standard crossword puzzles to discuss issues around creating, editing, and publishing puzzles, and is a great place to connect with veteran constructors for advice.
  • ⭐Crosscord, a Discord server where aspiring, amateur, and professional constructors discuss solving and constructing.
  • ⭐Twitter – Many mentorships and collaborations have begun on crossword Twitter. Begin by following your favorite constructors.
  • Twitch – Constructors and solvers have developed communities (and cultivated aspiring constructors) using the streaming platform. One of our favorites is CrossweirdTV.

Construction Software

Most professional constructors use one of the following software options. Each has its advantages.

A handful of other free web-based options exist. It’s worth looking into the pros and cons of each one before deciding on one to stick with.

Demos and guides

These demos can help you decide which features are important to you, but each of them also covers some basic points of construction that can be applied to any other program.

  • Matthew Stock (YouTube) on grid layout and black square placement.
  • Christopher Adams (pdf) guide that covers building a themed grid with much detail about themer placement and blocking.
  • Brian Thomas (Twitch) using Crossword Compiler, makes a puzzle using some randomly generated constraints.
  • Will Eisenberg (Twitch) builds an easy themed crossword while giving a full demo of the features and functionalities of CrossFire.
  • ⭐Sid Sivakumar (YouTube) has two lengthy videos covering all aspects of construction while making themed puzzles in CrossFire.
  • Ross Trudeau and Amanda Rafkin (YouTube) generate a themeset and make a puzzle in CrossFire with help from friends.
  • Erik Agard (YouTube) using CrossFire, demonstrates some lesser-known techniques and writes a full set of clues.
  • Crosserville tutorial (YouTube) that builds an easy themed puzzle

Wordlists and other tools

Wordlists are an important tool in making your puzzles true to your voice and interest. Each of the various wordlists have different pros.

A variety of tools exist for assistance in finding words and wordplay that fit your theme or puzzle.

  • ⭐Wordlisted from Adam Aaronson is a do-it-all tool. It stands alone in that it requires zero coding experience, offers a wide variety of searching tools, and has options to search a user’s own wordlist.
  • OneLook calls itself “a search engine for English words and phrases.” While it cannot search a user’s personal wordlist, it does have functions that Wordlisted does not, such as finding concepts and related words.
  • Rhyme Zone has basic dictionary and thesaurus modes, but it is also especially useful for farming for phrases that contain given words, a really good starting point for creating “question mark” clues.
  • Qat is a little more technical, but has more robust searching mechanisms and a handy user guide.
  • Crossword Nexus has some unique tools for finding things like double occupancy clues, writing clues with a collaborator, and clues pulled from “The Onion” headlines. There are also a ton of tools for creating acrostics and other variety puzzle types.
  • XWordInfo has a ton of NYT-specific data on grids, entries, clues, constructors, and more.
  • Cruciverb, while a little outdated now, is a good collection of all kinds of info but one resource that still holds true is this extensive list of theme types.
  • Clue Databases – Ginsberg is quite comprehensive (and it integrates with CrossFire seamlessly) but stopped getting updates mid-2023. We now recommend using Saul Pwanson’s database which is still getting regular updates.
  • Diary of a Crossword Fiend, Cruciverb ($), XWordInfo ($), Crossword Tracker are helpful when trying to determine if a puzzle idea you’re working on has been published. Searching for your revealer or theme entries usually works.

Submitting for publication

Matthew Stock’s spreadsheet of publisher specs is a collection of the specs and guidelines for each publication. Matthew keeps this up to date very regularly. It is very common for a puzzle to get rejected by one outlet but be accepted elsewhere. It is also very common to collect a pile of rejections when submitting to some of the largest outlets first.

There are a handful of puzzle > pdf converters out there, but Nam Jin Yoon’s NYT Submission Editor is the best. If you’re submitting to The New York Times, this is a must for producing the format required.

Self-publishing

Most authors who choose to start a puzzle blog use blogger or another free service. Most puzzle blogs use ⭐Amuse Labs to host and embed their puzzle content. Crossword Nexus is a great option too, especially for certain tricky mechanics that .puz files cannot handle. Crosshare is another option.

Blogs and Review Sites

Having a look around some of the review sites can help you get a sense of the kinds of themes and fill likely to be found (and published) at various venues. Tread lightly; commenters are not always kind.

Miscellaneous

Are we missing something? Let us know!