Unsatisfied and unhappy with the daily New York Times puzzles, Ben Lauring and his brother, Max, decided to tackle the seemingly easy task: to make their own. Spending their summer creating and revising their puzzle, the pair emailed it to the New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz. A couple months of waiting and many edits later, Ben and Max have their puzzle published in the print and online versions of the New York Times.

The end result is a 15 x 15 mystery themed (Ben says to “solve the puzzle and find out the theme!”) puzzle; however, the puzzle did not materialize in thin air. Although the duo had expected making the crossword puzzle to be easy, they were shocked when they encountered the difficulty of fitting their themed hints in the 15 x 15 space. “Seeing people around me, like Mr. Whitehead, make puzzles, I expected making them to be challenging yet doable.” But many drafts of hints and attempts of puzzles proved the task to be much harder than the pair had expected.

In addition to the difficulty of creating the puzzles, the brothers were met with demands from the editors. With a first draft that included words like “urethra” and “edibles,” they were told that their “too gross” hints needed to change. When asked about how he felt about his puzzle being changed and edited, Ben said he “understood why the edits were being made,” and added that “the edits were a learning experience and helpful for future reference.” Although he considers his original puzzle’s hints to sound more like himself, he and his brother believe that the puzzle is overall more sophisticated and professional with the edits in place.

Ben states that he is “excited to make more” and can see himself making puzzles as a hobby. The Lauring brothers hope that the next one will be better—and maybe make it on a Tuesday publication!