Setups and payoffs

A setup is something the story plants and has to pay off later: the gun on the wall, a promise, a clue. A payoff is the passage that pays it off. Rescriptus lets you mark both ends, so that nothing planted is forgotten. You mark them yourself; Rescriptus does not guess.

Mark a setup

In a chapter, select the words that plant it and choose Mark as a setup (the flag in the bar above the selection, or the More menu). It gets a short name, the start of the words by default, which you can change under Details. A small S flag sits at the end of the passage: an outline while nothing pays it off, filled once something does.

Mark a payoff

Select the words that pay it off, possibly in another chapter, and choose Pays off a setup (the tick in the bar, or More). Pick which setup it is for; the ones still open come first. A P flag marks the passage. One setup can have several payoffs. A setup with none is open.

See what is still open

The book's page has a Setups and payoffs card once you have marked one: open setups first, then paid ones, each with a link that opens its chapter with the passage selected. The Ready check also says when setups in the book are not paid off yet. It is a reminder only: it never stops a chapter being ready. Exports never include setups or flags.

When the words change

Rescriptus finds a marked passage again after you edit the chapter, the way it finds a beta reader's comment: by the words, then by what is around them, then by a close match. If you rewrite it beyond that, the passage is listed as Can't find this passage. Under Details you can select the new words and choose Mark again on the selection, or take the setup or payoff out. Taking one out changes nothing in your chapters.

If you delete a chapter, its setups and payoffs are listed on the book page under Left without a chapter, until you take them out. Renaming a chapter keeps them. Merging two chapters moves them into the one that is left. Splitting a chapter does not move them, so a passage that went to the new half shows as Can't find this passage until you mark it again.

Where they are kept

In a plain file in the book's folder, books/<book>/setups.yml, next to book.yml. Each setup has its short name, the words, a little of the text either side, the chapter's name (the part of the file name after the number) and, if the scene has a plan, the scene's short name; its payoffs are listed under it. Nothing is written into your chapters, so marking a setup never changes one. If the file stops making sense (a slip when editing it by hand), the book page says so and leaves the file exactly as it is until you fix it.