Plus, you don't even have to be a great artist or anything (I prove that all the time), but with a little imagination on your part, there's a tremendous potential to make something really cool. To illustrate the steps, I'm going to draw a complete maze for you, albeit a rather simple one.

Step One: Make an Outline

The first step is to make an outline to contain your maze. Leave an opening for the entrance, and one for the exit. The outline can be any shape you desire. I've used a non-descript squiggle for an outline in my example. Your imagination will certainly come into play here, in your choice of a shape.

In my Mazoons, I've used balloon letters, cartoon heads, a hammock, a mouse trap, a cup-o-noodles, and many other assorted shapes.

Some alternative words you can use, instead of in & out are entrance & exit, start & finish, begin & end. You can make your maze begin and end anywhere on the page you want, or even within the maze itself. The main thing is to make sure that your start and finish are clearly labeled as such.

Step Two: Start Drawing Pathways

The second step is to just start drawing pathways, starting from the entrance. Here, I've drawn a single path from the entrance.

A lot of people think that you have to plan the way through first, but this isn't necessarily so. You can do that, of course, but I've rarely used that method. Instead, you just make it up as you go along!

It's purely arbitrary and nonsensical, but later it'll give others and you the strong illusion that you planned it that way!

(Usually, the pathways don't start talking to you. If they do, you know you've been at the drawing board too long...)

It's kind of important to keep all your pathways a consistent width (as best you can), and draw them clearly. Since a maze is a puzzle where you can't cross any solid lines, you want to make sure all your lines are solid, and that all your breaks are clearly breaks.

This might also be a good place to say that nowadays I always draw my mazes in pencil first. Then, when I get the whole thing drawn just the way I want it, and it all works, I go over it in ink (Except for this example, which I am taking some liberties with!).

Pathway Population Control

Dead ending pathways isn't really cruel, it's just what must be done to every pathway except for one. But don't worry-- they don't suffer much....

If the dead ends (false paths) are too short, they're also too obvious. But if they're too long, they take up too much space.

You'll find yourself rehearsing the whole maze from the beginning many times, trying to select as the true path the one that the solver will be least likely to choose.

You'll also generally want it to be a path that's been all over the place. The longer the better. Which is why you don't want false paths taking away from it too much. So there's a balance there.

Step Three: Connect the Final Path to the Exit

Now, here's the basic central logic: However many pathways you create, you're going to eventually "dead end" them all except for one.

Finally, connect the last remaining path to the exit. Connecting a live path to the exit is how you know there's a way through the maze. Hey, I told you it was simple!

In the end, when your maze is finished, it winds up looking like you knew what you were doing all along, even if you didn't! And I like that!

Well, those are the basics. However, there are some....

....Other Considerations

My example maze is okay as an example. However, it has a small problem. It would be very easy for someone to solve it by working it backwards. Since the natural inclination is to split your paths from the top down, someone could solve it backwards easily by just always taking the upper path. So, when you make mazes, you have to allow for this.

You should try to make them difficult to solve backwards, too, by doing a little bit of step two starting from the end. And from the front end, try to keep in mind the backwards route whenever you split a path (like, "how would this work in the other direction?"). Welcome to my headache!

Personally, though, I don't like having to spell out any rules (like "No Backwards Solving!"). I think the maze's rules should be self-explanatory.

Finally....

In school, I used to make a maze in one class period and give it to someone else in the next class to solve. However, it's an even better idea to go to a copy shop, run off a few copies of your finished maze, keep the original, and hand out the copies instead.

I haven't gone into detail about some of the other maze-making techniques I sometimes use (there really are only a few), but I guess I've got to keep something to myself (or for next time).

I realize that the method spelled out above isn't the only way to make mazes. But it's a way. I certainly don't knock anyone else's way, as I happen to love mazes in general! I love the op-art quality of them!

I hope to eventually start a page of reader-submitted mazes (and possibly even cartoons). If this page has helped you learn how to make your own mazes, I hope that you'll e-mail me and let me know. Also, let me know what you think about the reader-submitted mazes idea.

Thanks!

Jody Hall