CRUCIVERB.COM
Constructing => General Discussion => Topic started by: SkaBro on January 15, 2025, 05:31:05 PM
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Newbie here.
I received my first three rejections this week.
Two said "The theme didn't excite us as much as we would have hoped." I'm guessing this means that there is no way to save them and re-submit.
But another one said, "The wordplay felt a little open-ended for us." Does anyone know what exactly this means or how I "close the ends"?
And are these boiler plate responses?
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Two said "The theme didn't excite us as much as we would have hoped." I'm guessing this means that there is no way to save them and re-submit.
The NYT editors are saying that the theme as a whole didn't sparkle enough to make the puzzles work for them, so you won't be able to salvage them with the New York Times. For puzzle consideration, the theme is the #1 issue that needs to work well before an editor will consider accepting it. There are other venues you can try to submit these to and see what happens. The New York Times tends to be the apex on this kind of thing, but other places will accept more simple not necessarily as entertaining themes. You may want to pick another source (LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsday - Wed-Fri, Sun, Universal, USA Today, etc) and submit them there if there aren't any other major flaws.
As a tip, broadly solving these venues will help so you can study what they do accept and tailor a place that publishes what seems to be like your themes.
But another one said, "The wordplay felt a little open-ended for us." Does anyone know what exactly this means or how I "close the ends"?
This one confuses me (as a lot of the other "glittering generalities" phrases like I see in submission sheets). But I'm guessing you have some kind of word play going on that isn't exactly inductive towards your intended answers that can't exactly be fixed by rewriting the clues.
And are these boiler plate responses?
I'm sure the NYT editors get a lot of submissions and tend to run through responses to them as quick as possible. I'm curious about the second one, myself, along with what people with more experience might have to say about this one.
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Thanks Glenn!
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I've never received the "open-ended wordplay" feedback either. That's a new one. My best guess is that whatever wordplay was used in the theme was not consistent enough in type for them between clues. For example, if one entry used a perfect homophone pun and another one used a vowel substitution to achieve the pun the technique might be described as "open-ended."
Just a guess.
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Hi - tacking onto this topic...
I recently received a rejection from NYC that stated my submitted puzzle was unusable because it exceeded the max word count of 72 for themeless puzzles. (I think my puzzle had 76 words)
That feedback confused me because I often see themeless NYT puzzles that have >72 words! (recent example = Feb 18th).
Can anyone explain this apparent contradiction? Is there some special way I should be counting total words?
Thanks!
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I recently received a rejection from NYC that stated my submitted puzzle was unusable because it exceeded the max word count of 72 for themeless puzzles. (I think my puzzle had 76 words)
That feedback confused me because I often see themeless NYT puzzles that have >72 words! (recent example = Feb 18th).
Feb 18 is a Tuesday puzzle, which is a themed puzzle. They allow more words for themed puzzles. Themeless puzzles are expected to be wider open and are often expected to be a lot more sparkling than average for word choice and so forth. But yes, themeless puzzles are expected to have a maximum of 72 words. Themed crosswords have a maximum of 78 words on spec. See https://www.nytimes.com/article/submit-crossword-puzzles-the-new-york-times.html (https://www.nytimes.com/article/submit-crossword-puzzles-the-new-york-times.html)
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Hi - tacking onto this topic...
I recently received a rejection from NYC that stated my submitted puzzle was unusable because it exceeded the max word count of 72 for themeless puzzles. (I think my puzzle had 76 words)
That feedback confused me because I often see themeless NYT puzzles that have >72 words! (recent example = Feb 18th).
Can anyone explain this apparent contradiction? Is there some special way I should be counting total words?
Thanks!
Hi,
The theme information is shown here: https://www.cruciverb.com/data.php?op=showpuzzle&puzzle_id=34738
-Kevin
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OK thanks very much for the clarification. Feb 18 was just one of many I found with >72 words that I *thought* was un-themed - but thinking my definition of 'theme' was too narrow.
I've been doing the NYT crossword forever and thought I knew them inside and out...but I had no idea Tuesdays were always theme puzzles (because I usually skip Monday and Tuesday...and usually Wednesday...)
Thanks for the quick reply -
Back to the drawing board!