I Make Connections. Here’s What I’m Actually Thinking.

I expected that my process would evolve, but didn’t quite anticipate the role of solvers in that change. We’ve built on each other’s expectations. When KAYAK, LEVEL, CIVIC and MADAM appeared on a board in December, solvers might reasonably have expected them to form a palindromes category. But this time the palindromes belonged to four separate ones — it was, as the solver community calls it, a rainbow herring.

These days, the biggest challenge, and the most rewarding, is trying to present something unexpected. Maybe it’s a couple of words that seem like they belong together, but don’t. DEAN and FACULTY can evoke an academic institution, but they might belong in categories of classic Hollywood actors or synonyms for aptitude. Or maybe there’s a message spelled out on the board, like “K POP DEMON HUNTER,” “HEATED RIVALRY” or “FINAL DESTINATION.” (I was obsessed with “Final Destination: Bloodlines” last year.)

As the categories have gotten, well, weirder, I’ve tried to create balance by not mixing tricky wordplay with hard trivia, so that there’s a path to a solution. If there’s a particularly hard-to-spot category, I might try to include a hint on the board. While cards are usually arranged to mislead the solver, sometimes the arrangement can be used to help, too. The category of “Anagrams of Famous Painters” was tough, for example, so the top row of that board read “EGADS SCRAMBLE ARTIST NAME” (EGADS is an anagram of “Degas”).

One tip: If you don’t know what a word means, maybe you don’t have to. Check if there is another word hidden at its beginning or end, or say it out loud and see if it’s a homophone. Because the puzzle’s format is such that if the solver identifies three categories, the fourth is given to them, I’ve come to see the fourth category as a stand-alone brainteaser. It can be an extra challenge, like a bonus round in a game show, but knowing why four words work as a category is not necessary to winning the game.

I’ve loved seeing the meta-gaming that’s emerged as solvers make Connections their own. Terminology has emerged: There’s the aforementioned “rainbow herring,” when four words that could be grouped together each belong in different categories; “wobniar,” or “rainbow” backward, when you solve in order from trickiest to most straightforward, or Purple, Blue, Green then Yellow; and “grellow,” the ambiguity between the Green and Yellow categories, for those trying to get a wobniar.