CELEBRITY SCRABBLE™
by Amanda O'Connor
Solution: WATER WAGON
This puzzle requires solvers to reconstruct a Scrabble game that was played between an average guy and an Evil Author. Because the author's answers are coded, you need to glean from the clues and author's word list that the famous evil writer you need to identify is Stephen King. The words that Stephen King plays on the board are the names of his novels; they are clued in the "player notes" by the name of the main character in that novel. The introductory puzzle text alerts you to the fact that the celebrity can play multiple-word phrases each turn, exceed the 7-tile limit, and that he drops the word "the" from some of his plays. It's no coincidence that the letters John has left over at the end are E-V-I-L.
Stephen King's actual plays are listed in red text in parentheses below, to the left of the completed Scrabble board. (Blanks on the board appear in black text.)
| STEPHEN KING | M | I | S | E | R | Y | D | |||||||||
| Louis (Pet Sematary) | 21 | U | E | |||||||||||||
| Charlie (Firestarter) | 60 | Q | U | I | C | H | E | A | ||||||||
| Paul (Green Mile) | 22 | O | D | |||||||||||||
| Jack (Shining) | 22 | B | O | O | T | P | Z | |||||||||
| Frannie (Stand) | 21 | O | E | C | U | J | O | |||||||||
| Clayton (Cell) | 6 | B | A | G | T | E | N | |||||||||
| Donna (Cujo) | 29 | R | A | X | I | S | L | E | ||||||||
| Johnny (Dead Zone) | 189 | W | A | V | E | D | E | F | L | O | P | |||||
| Bill (It) | 6 | E | M | O | ||||||||||||
| <exchanges letters> | 0 | S | H | I | N | I | N | G | A | N | G | I | N | A | ||
| <exchanges letters> | 0 | T | M | I | T | O | ||||||||||
| <exchanges letters> | 0 | A | F | I | R | E | S | T | A | R | T | E | R | |||
| <exchanges letters> | 0 | N | L | R | ||||||||||||
| Paul (Misery) | 33 | D | U | K | E | W | A | Y |
Once you reconstruct the game, you can read the phrase WATER WAGON diagonally in the completed board (illustrated in blue text).