I'm trying to put together a fairly straightforward rebus puzzle, where the rebus is just a single word. I've looked through previous rebus puzzles on Xword Info and note that some of them place entries symmetrically and some don't, and I'm wondering what the 'rules' or standards are in this regard. In particular, I noted an April 26, 2012 puzzle by Julian Lim which is very similar to what I'm trying to do and is not at all symmetrical.
I have two main issues. One is that I could place the entries symmetrically, but I would have to substitute some less than stellar entries for much better ones and I really don't want to do that.
The second issue, and the one I'm really hung up on, is that I have a pretty good 15 letter entry with the rebus as the last square. I can make that work if it's the fifteen right across the middle of the puzzle, but then I have another rebus-based entry on the right crossing it but no matching one on the left.
For some reason I lean towards thinking that that might be more acceptable if it was the central down cross rather than the across, but it's just as asymmetrical either way.
Any advice or information is appreciated.