QEDThreads
Promises and questions your story opens - and whether they're paid off.
Threads
A thread is a promise or question the story opens and (maybe) pays off - a mystery, a goal, a conflict. Its status is a fold over its events: a resolve closes it, a later reopen re-opens it. A thread can fork into strands (per subject) - e.g. one layoff thread, one strand per person.
Threads is the home of a tabbed rail; its siblings - Character Arcs, Entities, and Lore - share the tab strip.
The thread map for Romance of the Three Kingdoms: every promise the story makes, and where it pays off.
Reading the map
| lane color | the archetype (mystery · promise · conflict · task · foreshadowing) |
| lane opacity | solid = open · faded = resolved |
| ● open | the event that opened the thread |
| • advance | an event that develops it |
| ◆ resolve | an event that closes it (the gate is met) |
| ◌ reopen | a later event that re-opens a closed thread |
| columns | scenes in reading order - click one to read it |
| chapter bands | the wrap-layer groups scenes by folder; toggle with the layers button |
The sheet (click a thread)
A chapter railway: each chapter is a station - a filled stop (●) where the thread has events, a hollow stop (○ ··) for a chapter it stays quiet, a ◆ terminus where it resolves. Events are cards under their station; click one to expand its full moment, the evidence dialogue it was drawn from, the surrounding scene context, and its cast. The hollow stops show how long a thread goes silent - a slow burn, or a thread left hanging.