Welcome to “Acrostics,” the first in my “Variety is the Spice of Puzzles” series that looks at the underappreciated Variety puzzles that appear in the NYT Sunday Magazine.
Acrostics and crosswords are similar in some ways. Neither comes with instructions, which confuses new solvers. In crosswords, you don’t know until you hit a wall that puzzles get harder as the week progresses. It’s not obvious that you sometimes must squeeze multiple letters into a single box or fill in answers backward.
Acrostics also come with mistaken assumptions. I often hear, “I don’t try acrostics because I’m not good at quotes.” People assume some famous literary passage will emerge, and they’re going to feel dumb not to recognize it. Rest assured, that’s hardly ever the case, and it’s not at all the point. The quote can be from anywhere, as long as it’s insightful, or amusing, or clever, or at least interesting.
How to solve an acrostic
As with crosswords, you start by finding a few clues that seem to have obvious answers. You might find only one or two, and that’s by design. Alternate between looking at the clues and guessing letters in the quote. Single-character words are probably I or A. But they might not be! Is that three-letter word THE? Maybe.
The reason acrostics are so much easier to solve electronically is that it’s vastly simpler to try things, realize they don’t work, and erase them. All the complicated cross-referencing happens automatically.
How to construct an acrostic
Simple, really. Find a fascinating quote from a book that is about (but no longer than) 216 characters, including spaces. Make sure the author plus the book title is between 24 and 26 letters and that every one of those letters is in the quote. Then shuffle the quote letters, using each one to assemble interesting answer words, each starting with the correct letter from the author+title, with no letters left over. How hard could that be? I’m leaving out many details, but that’s the gist.
For over two decades, NYT acrostics were written by the brilliant team of Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, known to insiders as Hex. They polished this art form to such a high degree that it’s hard to imagine anyone replacing them. And yet, after the Times decided to no longer publish their work electronically, they decided it was time to retire.
I wondered what a new voice might bring. I exchanged emails with Will Shortz about expanding the range of sources and topics. Most Hex acrostics were from non-fiction books, which has the huge advantage that you don’t need context from a novel. It got me thinking, though. Maybe I could try something new.
Can I try one for free to see if I like it?
I’m glad you asked! I challenged myself to find a quote Hex would be unlikely to use and build an acrostic around it. You can solve it here for free. It’s not an official NYT acrostic. It hasn’t gone through their editorial process, meaning all the clues (and all the mistakes) are mine.
Why do I have to pay to solve NYT variety puzzles on XWord Info?
That website is very expensive to run, and digitizing the Variety Puzzles, including Acrostics, is tricky manual work. Your payment helps cover the costs of running the site.
Philosophical Question
Now that I’ve written my own puzzle and have it published on my website, does that mean I can call myself an Indie Constructor?
Didn’t think so.
thank you for continuing to provide acrostics online. We have an xword account just to do acrostics.