Bill Pipal author page
1 puzzle by Bill Pipal
with Jeff Chen comments
See the 4 answer words debuted by Bill Pipal.
| A | N | T | I | C | A | D | O | H | O | M | E | R | ||
| D | I | A | N | A | P | O | R | A | B | O | V | E | ||
| U | N | R | I | G | R | H | A | P | S | O | D | I | C | |
| B | E | S | T | I | R | T | O | H | E | E | L | |||
| A | R | I | N | E | A | R | E | S | T | |||||
| A | G | A | V | E | H | A | V | E | N | |||||
| B | O | S | C | D | O | N | E | G | A | D | O | T | ||
| B | R | I | T | S | I | T | K | A | L | A | N | E | ||
| C | A | R | I | B | D | O | I | N | O | M | E | N | ||
| L | I | V | E | R | U | N | G | E | R | |||||
| D | A | R | T | G | U | N | A | S | S | |||||
| T | E | C | H | I | E | S | A | L | L | O | W | |||
| C | A | N | O | O | D | L | E | D | M | I | L | N | E | |
| A | L | O | N | G | I | D | O | E | M | A | I | L | ||
| D | E | S | K | S | C | U | T | L | O | Y | A | L |
Crosswords are usually built around a set of three to six long theme phrases, taking up a ton of the grid's real estate. Once you thread a few long bonuses through them, then fill the rest of the puzzle with shorter answers, you hardly have to think about the maximum word count of 78. Most of the time, it just naturally happens.
It's anything but natural to work in reverse, starting with short theme answers. It took Bill and me ages to come up with any sort of layout that would place the theme pairs so that the letters C O R N E R S would appear in order. After that, the 78-word limit openly mocked us. Derided us TO HEEL.
ASS SWELL is right.
It would have been a piece of cake to fill an 80-word grid solidly, and we might have appealed to Will Shortz for an exception, but we decided to work to the letter of the law. And oh, those letters were unlawful.
For example, RHAPSODIC was our last-ditch effort to make this darn thing work. Any reasonable entry broke the north or the northeast sections (or both) because it had to thread through not just one pair of intersecting themers but two.
I had all but given up when on a whim, I asked XWI's resident virtuoso musician Jim Horne about the word RHAPSODIC, expecting him to UNRIG and BESTIR me. Thankfully, Jim is full of surprises, saying that it's much more than just an acceptable word, and went on to rhapsodize on its beauty.