Crossword puzzles have become a part of newspapers and a pastime for millions of newspaper readers around the world. The black and white boxes are being published in newspapers compulsory since 1990s. Crosswords today are created by programmed software that is directed to find words that are a perfect match for the grid. However, simplified version of crosswords can be created by hand without the need of any software. Hence a person who is creating a crossword puzzle needs to have above par literary skills.

The first step in creating a crossword puzzle is to create a grid of how many characters that you want. Write down the longest word that you want to enter in the crossword in the horizontal line anywhere along the grid. It is preferred that one enters this word in the middle of the grid. The next step is to enter the next word vertically that has one letter common with the first horizontal word. The word needs to intersect with the shared letter. Now continue doing the same for the rest of the letters in the horizontal row. Now try to find horizontal words that have two or three letters in common with the entered vertical text. Keep filling as many as you can, this is a little challenging. You can use a dictionary here. You can blackout any unwanted grids. Now keep a few letters in the grid and delete the rest. Number the words in the horizontal rows and columns and list the clues to these words.