Connecting Clues

[kingaling]

I'm almost positive that there's another board with this question. But, I'm stuck, it's 6:00 in the morning. I'm going for it.

I just made it to ACT II of my script. I thought I had outlined it pretty well before I started. and then it hit me. Out of a handful of clues that I have, I've only used 2 of them. the others are important but I have absolutely no idea, all of a sudden, of how to connect clues or have the characters solve them and peace them together.

Any thoughts / tips, would be greatly appreciated

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

I'm almost positive that there's another board with this question. But, I'm stuck, it's 6:00 in the morning. I'm going for it.

I just made it to ACT II of my script. I thought I had outlined it pretty well before I started. and then it hit me. Out of a handful of clues that I have, I've only used 2 of them. the others are important but I have absolutely no idea, all of a sudden, of how to connect clues or have the characters solve them and peace them together.

Any thoughts / tips, would be greatly appreciated

Keep going, write the solutions and resolutions, then go back and change the clues to fit and don't tell anyone you did not mean the story to work that way all along ?

[Franzeska]

That's 'piece', not 'peace'. 

I agree that finishing a first draft and then going back and editing is a great idea.  You may find that some of the clues are implausible and need to be eliminated (e.g. forensic evidence when none of your characters could possibly know anything about forensics).  Maybe others need to be introduced earlier or later in your story than you had originally intended.  Without more specifics, it's hard to give specific advice.  Are you writing a play?  Is there a gun on the mantelpiece? 

[Cophet]

I'm certainly not an old hand at this, but I'll throw in my two cents.

I can't come up with any specific examples, but the Dresden Files is one series where this happens a bit. Something will happen, some information will drop, and neither the protagonist nor the reader will know what to make of it. Then at the story's climax, Harry speechifies what he figured out from said clues (He's not a cripple!), and it magnifies the reader's interest in the climax because the reader didn't put it together himself.

I wonder, the clues that you say you have planned out, are these only redeemable at story's end? I think the reader stays more engaged when there's a kind of intercourse going on throughout the book, but that's just me. I suggest finding yourself someone experienced to proof what you have, and talk to them about what exactly you want to accomplish with your 'clues' (that can mean so many things). It seems like one of those things that can't be understood unless they're in context.

Good luck, though. Let us know how things turn out.

*Edit: Typo. I don't have thumbs.
**Edit Edit: I also sometimes forget to use conjunctions.