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Difficulty guidelines

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Benniemc:
I'm having trouble determining puzzle difficulty levels. It would seem that creative clues affect difficulty the most. Are there any guidelines for constructing harder puzzles?

mmcbs:
I will let the experts on the tough themeless puzzles comment on their tactics, but one rule of thumb is to have as few as possible entries (say, none) that can only be clued one way or must be clued with a fill-in-the-blank. And then, when writing the clues use no clues that provide a clear path to the answer. In other words each clue should have more than one possible answer of the requisite number of letters.

cranberry44:
I'm not an expert re: tough puzzles; but I do try to solve them. I have noticed that the ability to get one answer doesn't necessarily help the solver to get the cross. Also, every once and awhile I see an acronym that's not that well known.

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