Reading Cryptic Clues

First of all, I find trying to find a rhythm in the Surface, like a line of a poem or a song, often helps me work out which part is the Definition and which is the Wordplay. If you have been looking at the example clues you should have noticed that the apparent sense of most words used, is not usually the sense required for the answer. And they are often not even the same part of speech. So once you have separated out what you think is the Definition and Wordplay, you need to look at both parts almost word by word and try and think of all the meanings you can. A word used in the clue as a noun, eg ‘cut’, might be required as a verb or an adjective. And if it is required as a noun it most certainly won’t be the meaning that is implied by the clue. Many simple verbs use the same form in different tenses, eg ‘cut’. So the tense implied by the whole clue might not be the tense required for the answer. You might find that the words which imply one tense are in the Wordplay, while the actual verb (which may have a number of tenses) is in the definition. Early on I mentioned splitting up words which have a strong relationship, the Divide and Separate. ‘Doctor Who’s tattoo (4)’ for ‘show’. ‘Doctor’ = ‘tamper with’, is the anagrind. ‘Overturn High Court’s decision making process (5)’ for ‘upset’. (One for the tennis buffs.) Sometimes you will need to go further, and split a single word and treat each part separately. ‘Amis: Mr Anti-novel? (6)’ for ‘Martin’. The anagram indicator is ‘novel’. Or do the reverse and put two words together and treat them as one word. ‘Couples together all owing rental (7)’ for ‘letting’. All + owing = allowing. Don’t get fazed if the clue contains a word or a name you don’t know. Often you will only be required to manipulate the letters, so the meaning or importance is irrelevant. As a recent example: ‘Thinker Friedrich Nietzsche, returning unfulfilled, begins to work (6)’. You may think ‘Friedrich Nietzsche, what do I know about him?’. And the reality is that you don’t need to know anything. Again we have Divide and Separate where the Definition is ‘Thinker Friedrich’ and the Wordplay is ‘Nietzsche, returning unfulfilled, begins to work’. So we get ‘En’ from E{hcsztei}N (backwards with the stuffing removed) plus ‘Gels’ (begins to work - as in ‘the plan is starting to gel’). The answer is Engels, the other great 19thC German thinker called Fred. Keep in mind that some clues are expressed in terms of answer gives workings, rather than the more usual reverse. Why did the compiler use these particular words? Times: ‘Confederacy endures having leader demoted as far as possible (3,5)’. This was a down clue and I had decided on a Definition of ‘confederacy’ and the Wordplay indicating find a word/phrase meaning ‘endures’ and move the initial letter to the end. At this stage all I had to help me was ---,-o---. Then I started to wonder at the use of the phrase ‘having leader’ rather than ‘with leader’ or any other appropriate combination. So I thought maybe it might be an ‘h’ which had to be moved (whether initial or some other letter). In that case I would now have ---,-o--h. This very quickly produced ‘Old South’ which I realised could be derived in acceptable fashion from ‘holds out’. As it turns out the original leading letter was the ‘h’, so I have no idea if the use of ‘having’ was deliberate or accidental. But considering the possibility certainly helped me solve the clue.