twickster: Do you usually start with a pre-made grid? If so, are these self-created or taken from a stock? Lastly, is it safe to assume that you select the long answers first—the ones that puzzles tend to be centered around thematically?
Yes.
Copied from an existing grid, which may then be adapted to suit my needs.
Yes.
Clues for STARE:
Easy:
–Not blink
–Look steadily
–Ogle
–She fixed him with an icy _____
–Watch intently
Medium:
–Promgoer’s reaction to his date?
–What Kitty often does
–Fashion catwalk: _____way?
–Mom’s admonition: “Don’t _____!”
–Model’s expectation
Hard:
–Legal term: _____ decisis
–Canonized auxiliary verb?
–React to a supermodel
–Title for a porn mag?
–This never bothered Helen Keller
I have not seen any clues from other posters, but I will post these and then have a look.
EASY
Look
Gawk
Rubberneck
Goggle
Fish-eye
MEDIUM
Eye impolitely
Fixate (on)
_____ down
What two might do in a contest
It may be glassy or icy
HARD
“Don’t ____!”
It can be icy or chilling
Optic nerve?
Not flinch
To stand with Caesar
Wow…great minds think alike on such things as “_____ decisis.” But some good ideas have been done, and I must admit, I’m kicking myself now for not even thinking of basilisks or Medusa.
“Blink and it’s gone” is genius. Why didn’t (why couldn’t?) I have thought of that one? Argh!
Oh well. Looking forward to comments. And thank you, twickster, for following up and giving us another word!
Optic Nerve? Effing brilliant. Those are the ones, when you finally decode them on the crossword (usually with S_ARE at that point), you just smile at and go “oh, Will Shortz. I love you.”
Optic Nerve? = Effing genius
Those are the clues that keep me interested. I love the weird clever pun clues.
Sorry—IE timed out and didn’t think the original posted. Silly birdmonster.
Not crazy about Not blink – the parallel structure thing is a wee bit askew. The others are fine, though.
Like the cat clue, as a cat-owner – this is probably the single best clue of the batch. Very vivid. The “stareway” clue is also nice – but you can’t break compound words. Nice phrasing on Mom’s admonition.
1 is fine; 2 is tricky but way too out there to actually use; 3 is okay, but not actually all that hard (I’d swap that and Model’s expectation as far as difficulty is concerned); 4 in not the best taste, and 5 getting darned close to “ew.”
Overall – B-.
The first three are fine – nah, good – the last two are a bit too hard to be “easy,” I’d call them medium. I don’t have an instantaneous response to either of them.
1 is good; 2 you’ve got a parallel construction problem (it’s “stare at” vs. “fixate (on)”; 3 is too hard without some more info (there’s all kinds of five-letter words that could go before “down”); 4 is excellent, and 5 is also extremely good.
1 is totally context-free, which isn’t hard, it’s unfair. 2 is actually less good, and less difficult, than the version with the mediums. 3 – good lord, I’m impressed. Damn good clue. 4 – enh. 5 is hard +, but I could see possibly using in (perhaps with a question mark?) in a top-level puzzle.
Overall: A.
<bows> Hot damn. Thanks.
H2: I guess I was trying for “icy” as in snooty vs. “chilling” as in blood-curdling, but yeah, too subtle by half.
easy
look intently
gaze hard
intense look
medium
glower
glare
peer
leer
hard
stand out
be obvious
bristle
Easy:
Fix one’s gaze
“_____ in the face”
Ogle
Medium:
_____ decisis
rorrim eht ni ti od uoY (ERATS)
Astonish, with “make a”
Hard:
Stand on end
Fifth brightest, in the sky
“_____, pry, listen, eavesdrop.” (Walker Evans)
Opposite of 1999 Kubrick film
Okay but really uninspired – synonyms aren’t a very interesting way to go, and some of your synonyms aren’t that great. (Leering and staring aren’t really the same thing – you can leer without staring, or stare without leering).
C
Okay – but 2 isn’t really a common phrase, so it’s not great.
#1 is okay, but I’d prefer a parenthetical to it, as I’ve mentioned above. #2 is out there. You could do something with “look in the mirror,” but by turning the whole clue around, you’ve just gotten confusing. Would you specify “erats” in the clue? The only way you could do something like this would be to have your theme entries written backwards … enh. No. For #3 – don’t know the expression – is it a Britishism?
Okay, here you redeem yourself. I don’t get #1, but the other three are all pretty damn good. #2 I think should be “in a constellation,” not “in the sky” – right? for #2, remove the period at the end of the Walker Evans quote (see my guidelines in the OP), but it’s good. You’d need an “a” in the Kubrick clue (see my guidelines in the OP), and I think I’d want some kind of startoff for it: It’s the opposite of a 199 Kubrick film, perhaps. It’s really hard, but it’s legit.
C+
Well, I guess I’ve got a little room for improvement. Still, though, it was an interesting and fun exercise. Thanks for the critique, twickster!
This is quite the interesting thread, twickster, thanks. I tried it before reading the thread - then found out that every clue I came up with was already here (or close to it). For example, my first thought was “___ decisis”.
I find the quirks of crossword puzzles fascinating, like all the little words that end up filling out small spaces. (Who would talk about Uri Geller, if not for puzzles?)
One of my personal pet peeves, though, is with pop culture. You say “Pop culture and current events references are often good for” [medium clues]. And I can see that agrees with many of the puzzles I see, but it absolutely drives me nuts. To me, those are the last ones I get - those are my “hard” clues. Many “hard” clues I have no problems with, but I just don’t know the latest celeb names. Put a few of these in a puzzle next to each other or crossing, and there’s a section I just can’t finish. (I freely admit this is a personal bias, of course.)
To a certain extent I agree with you – I hate the use of too many names in puzzles, and will often go in and start rewriting a grid for no other reason than to get some of them out.
OTOH, I like pop culture – I’d subscribe to Entertainment Weekly and read the occasional tabloid even if I weren’t in the biz – and I rejoice that we have Mlles. Mendes and Longora joining Miss Gabor on the list of famous Evas. Absolutely any topic, though, there’s gonna be some people who love it and some people who hate it. I ran kind of a mini-survey in a crossword book I was editing a few years ago; I expected Bible clues to be popular (basic cultural literacy and all that), but a to-me surprising number of people said they don’t like them. I’m weak on the Bible myself (despite my multiple degrees in religion, it was not a document central to either the tradition in which I was raised or the subjects of my studies), and always assume other people know more of it than I do. Not so, apparently.
I think I learned “Esau” from the bible, and his relationship to other bible characters, almost wholly due to crossword puzzles. 
[quote=twickster]
#2 is out there. You could do something with “look in the mirror,” but by turning the whole clue around, you’ve just gotten confusing. Would you specify “erats” in the clue?
[\quote]
Of course you wouldn’t specify ERATS in the clue, 'cuz that’s the answer. Reflected. 
[quote=twickster]
Okay, here you redeem yourself. I don’t get #1, but the other three are all pretty damn good. #2 I think should be “in a constellation,” not “in the sky” – right?
<snip>
You’d need an “a” in the Kubrick clue (see my guidelines in the OP), and I think I’d want some kind of startoff for it: It’s the opposite of a 199 Kubrick film, perhaps. It’s really hard, but it’s legit.
[\quote]
#1 is the same sense as teh Caesar clue. I think I saw it in reference to a dog show or something. There’s apparently something called a stare brush (I assume sta-RE?) because you use it to make the hairs stand on end. And I thought “in a constellation” would be too easy.
As for the Kubrick film, would it really get an “a” since there was only one 1999 Kubrick movie? Just curious.
Thanks for this thread, it’s an education.
sinjin, who watched the Alito hearings and thought that stare decisis was about as pedestrian as you could get. :smack: