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For those of you who are interested in how I make
WONDERWORDs, here's the scoop. The first
thing I do is select a theme or title and put
a vocabulary together. I have part-time assistants
Nadine and George, who help me research themes.
Some are easier than others such as topical puzzles
like holidays (Christmas, Easter & Thanksgiving),
food related categories (Italian restaurants,
fajitas, Take-home) and seasonal (A day at the
beach, Autumn leaves, Planning your summer vacation).
For
the most part the words just come from my head.
Others are more difficult such as celebrities
or cities. The team and I will find relative
words out of magazines or newspaper articles.
I find magazines such as National Geographic to
be very helpful when making puzzles on far-off
lands. I subscribe to a variety of sources, which
gives me many ideas; one for every day of the
year! We must buy 100 or more books a year to complement our efforts!
After
the theme is selected and the words are collected,
Sophie, George or Nadine, types them out on a special form in alphabetical order. When
it's time for me to get down to work, I use these
lists and put the words in a special grid. When
I'm done, Linda types them up and has them checked
by Nadine and Sue. Then I, after proofreading them one last time, send them to Universal Press Syndicate in
Kansas City, where they are once again checked
by Joyce Mott, the syndicate's editor.
While
all of the above may sound scientific, the actual
making of the puzzle itself, the interweaving
of the words into a puzzle, is more of an art.
The puzzles require a certain level of difficulty,
else the challenge to the reader is gone; yet
if the words are too buried, the puzzle becomes
more work than entertainment. This balance cannot
be defined, but regular WONDERWORD solvers
know exactly what we mean.
Once
all this is done, they are distributed to 225
newspapers in the USA, Canada and overseas.
You
will be pleased to know that all puzzles are handmade
and computers are never used.
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