Crossword Tips: What Helps Most, Counted
Crossword tips for beginners: start with the answers you're sure of, let the letter count and the theme do the work, try common letters, use the word bank.
Sunroom Games · Updated
Crosswords reward a few simple habits more than a big vocabulary. To find out which habits matter most in our puzzles, we counted: we looked at all 484 answers and clues in our twenty themes, and at a thousand of the puzzles our Crossword builds from them. Some of the numbers surprised us, and they changed the advice below.
How our crosswords work
Each puzzle has twelve answers on one theme, such as Thanksgiving, the garden or backyard birds, fitted together in a criss-cross grid. Every answer crosses at least one other, and the number after each clue tells you how many letters the answer has. The clues are plain definitions or fill-in-the-blanks: no puns and no trick questions.
That's different from a newspaper crossword. In those dense grids, nearly every square belongs to both an Across and a Down answer, so each word you solve hands you letters everywhere. In a criss-cross puzzle, the words only touch where they cross.
What we counted
| In our puzzles | |
|---|---|
| Squares in a puzzle | about 64 |
| Letters each answer shares with other answers | about 2 |
| Letters of the other answers you have after solving half of them | about 1 in 6 |
| Theme words with the right length for an answer | about 5 of 24 |
| Times only one of those fits once the crossing letters are in | 87 in 100 |
| Answers that end in S | about 1 in 7 |
| Answers with a double letter, like COOKIES | about 1 in 5 |
1. Start with the answers you're sure of
Read through all the clues before you write anything, and fill in the ones you know at once. Fill-in-the-blank clues are usually the quickest: "Trick or ___?", "Jingle ___ (holiday song)" or "Mary had a little ___". Only about 1 clue in 20 of ours is a fill-in-the-blank, so they're worth spotting.
2. Think about the theme
Every answer is about the theme, so before you start, picture the theme for a moment: the foods, the colors, the sounds, the places. For Thanksgiving, you might think of turkey, pie, family and the parade. Many answers will already be on your list.
3. Let the letter count do the work
The number after a clue is the most useful thing on the page. In a theme of 24 words, only about five usually have the right length for a given answer. In our Thanksgiving theme, the six-letter words are TURKEY, AUTUMN, LEAVES, PARADE, FAMILY and SQUASH.
Add the letters you already have from crossing answers, and the choice usually comes down to one: in our puzzles, that happened 87 times in 100. If a crossing answer puts a Y at the end of that six-letter answer, only TURKEY and FAMILY are left, and the clue decides between them.
4. Use the crossings, but don't wait for them
Each answer in our puzzles crosses about two others, so solving one gives you only a letter or two elsewhere. Even with half the answers filled in, you'll have only about 1 letter in 6 of the rest. In a criss-cross puzzle, the theme and the letter count carry you further than the crossings do, so keep working on the clues themselves.
Crossing letters help most when an answer is nearly there. One or two letters in the right places, especially the first, can make a clue click.
5. Try common letters and endings
When you're stuck on a word with a few letters missing, try the most common ones. In our answers, E is the most common letter (about 1 letter in 9), followed by A, R, O, I, S, N and L. Vowels make up nearly 4 letters in 10, so a gap between two consonants is very often a vowel.
Endings help too. About 1 answer in 7 ends in S, often because the clue asks for more than one thing, like "Fried potato pancakes" (LATKES) or "Little helpers in the North Pole workshop" (ELVES). About 1 answer in 5 has a double letter, like the OO in COOKIES and BALLOONS or the PP in APPLES.
6. Use the word bank or a hint when you need one
Our printable crosswords can show a word bank: all twelve answers in alphabetical order. With the bank, it's mostly a matter of matching. The letter count alone picks out the answer about 1 time in 5, because on average about three of the twelve answers share each length. A crossing letter usually settles the rest.
When you play on screen, Hint fills in one letter of the answer you're on, the first one that's empty or wrong. One letter is often all it takes. When every square is filled, any letters that aren't right turn red, so you can find and fix them.
7. Take a break
If a clue won't come, leave it and come back. A fresh look often helps, and by then the crossing answers may have filled in a letter or two.
Solving together
Crosswords are lovely to share. Print one copy for the group, read the clues aloud, and let everyone call out answers. Show the word bank for a mixed group, or hide it for keen solvers. Our printable crosswords put the grid and the clues on separate pages, so two people can hold one each. For more ideas, see puzzles for groups, and for other word puzzles, our word search tips and word scramble tips.