Tips for setters

Setting tips

Craft clues that are fair, playful, and satisfying.

Glued fairness: solvers must be able to derive the answer from either side. Definition + wordplay should both point cleanly to the result.
Stick the definition at the start or end of the clue. The surface can be wild, but the definition itself must be precise.
Choose indicators that clearly signal the device (anagram, container, reversal, deletion, homophone, etc.).
Keep enumeration honest—tell solvers where word breaks and hyphenated segments sit.
Play with imagery, but ensure the finished clue parses exactly as intended.

Indicators include words like 'mixed', 'wild', 'drunk', 'reworked'. Grab the nearby letters and rearrange them.
The fodder may stretch across punctuation; look carefully on both sides of the indicator.

Look for 'inside', 'within', 'part of', 'smuggled', 'hiding'. The answer is literally embedded inside other words.
Count letters: the hidden segment must match the enumeration exactly.

Indicators: 'around', 'holds', 'keeps', 'wearing', 'surrounds'. One chunk of letters wraps another chunk.
Sometimes the container is built after an anagram or deletion, so follow the story step by step.

In these across-style clues, look for 'back', 'rev', 'returned'. In newspaper crosswords you may also see 'up' for down entries.
Often used in combination with other devices (e.g., reverse an anagram).

Watch for 'heartless', 'endless', 'no head', 'oddly', 'every second'. These remove specified letters or keep only certain positions.
If odds/evens are mentioned, mentally tally the sequence so you know which letters survive.

Indicators like 'we hear', 'reportedly', 'sounds like'. Solve a synonym, then find a word that sounds like it.
Remember that regional pronunciations may differ—setters usually rely on standard British pronunciation.