I am thinking of submitting to NYT a puzzle where the rebus squares are only read in the down answers, and the rebus squares are dropped entirely from the across answers. I don't want to spoil anything, but the reason for the dropping is coherent with the theme (two people test solved and confirmed).
For an immediate made-up example, let's pretend the rebus squares said "FIN" and we had a down answer RAT[FIN]K. Let's say the long crossing answer was SE[FIN]ALOFAPPROVAL. We want "FIN" dropped from the across answer so that we just have SEALOFAPPROVAL.
I am currently using Crosserville which automatically dictates rebus answers in both directions, so it would give RATFINK and SEFINALOFAPPROVAL for the answer list when exporting as an NYT submission. This strikes me as tacky if we wanted the across answers to elide the rebus.
Is there a specific rule for how to enter the answers in the clue/answer list in these kinds of submissions? Should I be changing it to RATFINK and SEALOFAPPROVAL manually?
Sorry that my example doesn't give thematic justification for why "FIN" would only be read in one direction; I just haven't come up with another theme and didn't want to give away my real theme.
Appreciate any knowledge you can bestow.
