Preptober: plot the mystery before November's draft.
Pin every clue. Earn the reveal.
Pin your whodunit's suspects and clues to a corkboard, chapter by chapter. The board shows which clues the reader actually gets before the detective names the culprit, which stay off the page, which come too late, and who the clues point at. Then a fair-play reviewer says whether the book plays fair, and what to plant where.
The board
Swipe the board sideways to see every chapter.
- Earnable clue against the culprit
- Kept off the page
- At or after the reveal
- Red herring
- ||||On-page clues pointing at a suspect
What the page counted (the reviewer cites these)
The thresholds - culprit on stage in the first third, two earnable clues, not all crammed into the last quarter - are genre rules of thumb, not laws.
1 The case
2 Suspects
Everyone the reader could suspect. Mark exactly one as the culprit, and the chapter where each first walks on.
3 Clues
What the reader is shown, the chapter, and who it points at. Off the page means only the detective sees it.
The whole case as text - copy it, paste an outline in, or drop a .txt or .json file
One line each. Title: ... Chapters: 24 Reveal: 22 Suspect: name | role | motive: ... | ch 2 | culprit Clue: ch 3 | what the reader sees | -> suspect name | off. Any other lines become the premise.
4 Ask the fair-play reviewer
The reply could not be read as a review - here it is as it came: