The general conventions of a DoubleAcrostic are described at the bottom of Rachael's page, although the uprights aren't necessarily at the end of the riddle. They could be at the beginning, or elsewhere: in "Out at Sea" below, I wanted to make them clued by all the stanza clues put together, but I couldn't get that to work.
I have a few ideas for different variations of this type of puzzle, but here's my first try to start with.
One could be a photon or a ripple on my surface; Two is far-off relatives, or a bird above the ocean. Three is one of myriad streams which course above my furnace, Four an air-filled coat against calamity in motion; Five the final voyage for each sailor and his brother; Uprights form the setting for these lives and every other.
Yay, excellent :) Has anyone else made any progress with this? I've solved everything except number 2, which is still eluding me. --Rachael
Alex, could we have, not an actual hint, but an indication of whether number 2 is something embarrassingly obvious and kickselfworthy, or a fiendishly clever cryptic clue and/or CategoryAwfulPun? --Rachael
I think I know what 2 is, but I'm not certain I'm correct so I'll leave the hints to Alex to avoid accidentally leading you down the wrong path. --qqzm
I suppose 2 is a little tricksy, because it uses one straight description and one wordplay-style (cryptic) clue. No, I don't think it's embarrassingly obvious. I did consider a number of words with this starting and ending letter and wondered about shoehorning them into the theme (like I did with 5), but I came up with one that fits the theme very clearly. There's a word in 2 that I could change to make things less ambiguous: although I'm generally in favour of ambiguity it seems like 2 is too hard. :) --AlexChurchill (hope that's the right level of hints) Update: it seems some people didn't think my intended solution to 2 existed as a word! Online dictionaries suggest it does (synonymous to a more common version), but it may not be obvious to everyone. Hmm. I think I'll have to leave this as is, and just bear the lessons in mind for the next one I try. --AlexChurchill
I regret I still can't figure out 2, even having done an online dictionary search for <correct first letter>*<correct last letter> --CH
How unfortunate. I've changed a word in 2 ("distant" --> "far-off"), but that probably won't help enough. I realised I ought to post the answer on here at some point just for future random surfers, so I'll link to /DoubleAcrosticHintsAndSolutions. It'll start with a hint or two. --AlexChurchill
Er - can someone please tell me the answer? I'm so stuck ;_; I got 1 (thanks to MoonShadow) and I've guessed the uprights, but I can't make anything else... - SunKitten
Something just occurred to me: how do people edit /DoubleAcrosticHintsAndSolutions to discuss puzzle 2 without seeing the solution for puzzle 1, and even the solution for puzzle 2 if/when that gets posted? --Rachael
At this point, might I point people towards the ROT13 box in the bottom-right corner of each page? ;) - MoonShadow
ROT13 what - the solution on the other page, or key words in the discussion which goes on this page, or... ? --Rachael
The ROT13 box is rather fiddly to use. But your point about the way editing means seeing previous solutions is a good one. I do want to keep the discussion off this page, so with apologies for spawning extra pages, I'll create a /DoubleAcrosticDiscussion page for that. --AC
This one definitely gets cryptic in places.
My first is a mark of success or distinction, My second a nuisance which flowers call forth. My third is what you do most simply; a question Can then be revealed by appending my fourth. My fifth's a small sphere for a royal detection; You'll note that my sixth is perfect one-eighth scale... My uprights describe every one of these answers; Do the simplest thing: you can't possibly fail.