Name-bearing document disclosure

A name is revealed by an encounter, not by possession

A sealed letter can move through several hands without anyone reading the dedication inside. Its exterior may nevertheless carry a name that the author has already linked to the same identity. A copy can travel farther than the original, and closing the envelope again cannot remove what a character explicitly saw. These differences matter when a plot depends on when a name becomes available.

This tool replays a limited physical-document model. You declare actors, surfaces, enclosing containers and chronological actions. The report shows which actions could occur under the supplied custody and seal state, which named forms were explicitly exposed, and how the first exposure compares with an intended reveal window. It retains rejected actions as findings rather than making them happen merely because the outline needs them.

An exposure is not comprehension. The program does not infer that a character recognized a disguise, remembered a spelling or believed a claim. Your form-to-identity associations are author declarations used for the audit. If the reader or a character cannot yet connect an exterior alias to its owner, write that interpretation separately; do not describe the mechanical exposure ledger as proof of their knowledge.

Original fictional scene: the dedication travels alone

Maren was the public name written on an envelope at a fictional reading room. Inside, a dedication ended with Arel. The writer used both forms in the author’s private identity plan. The invited guest received the sealed envelope at time one and read the outside at time two. The draft outline described the name as hidden until the envelope opened at time four.

At time five, the guest copied only the dedication for the archive keeper. The original envelope remained with the guest. At time six, the keeper read the copy and asked why the private form had been used in a public invitation. The guest had not sent the whole object, but had sent the surface carrying the intimate name. Keeping the original sealed afterward would not withdraw the copy.

The author initially tried to repair the outline by moving the opening later. That did not address the exterior reading at time two, and it also made the copying action impossible before the new opening. The problem was not that one character had guessed too well. The outline had treated custody, visibility, copying and recognition as one event called receiving the letter.

The revised scene let the exterior name remain public while making the deduction about its connection a later dramatic step. In the physical worksheet, both forms could still refer to writer, so the report honestly kept the early exposure to that authored identity. A separate interpretation note explained what the guest could not yet conclude. The keeper’s question at time six then concerned the choice to copy a private address, rather than pretending the exterior had never been read.

The reading room, people, names and timing are original fiction. No actual history, established etymology or real archive practice is asserted. The distinction between a public and intimate form belongs to this invented relationship. The program records explicit surfaces and actions; it does not establish whether copying the dedication was considerate or whether the later question was justified.

Try a different-name counterfactual. If Maren were merely the heading of an event rather than another form of the writer’s identity, its identity association would need to change. The first exposure to writer could then be Arel at time five. That is a changed author model, not a loophole to hide an unwanted warning. The plot must support the revised association in its actual text.

Describe surfaces rather than one indivisible document

The actor list contains one to thirty unique records with id and label. These IDs identify physical custodians and observers. They do not automatically identify the owner of every name. A character can hold someone else’s letter, and a dedication can name a person who is not present as a physical actor in this worksheet.

Initial props are one to forty physical surfaces. Each has exactly id, label, kind, parent, form, identity, sealed and holder. A container can enclose other surfaces and may carry its own exterior writing. A text surface must carry a nonempty name and cannot itself be sealed. Its enclosing container supplies the barrier when one is needed.

Only root surfaces have a holder, which must be a declared actor. A child uses holder null and moves with its containing root. Parent references must point to initial containers and cannot form a cycle. This models nested envelopes or cases without inventing independent custody for an inner page that has not been removed. Removing or reparenting a page is outside the current action contract.

A container with no name on its exterior uses an empty form and identity null. A nonempty form needs an explicit identity ID. The report does not derive that ID from spelling. Two different forms can share an identity because you declared it, while equal spellings can be assigned differently when the fictional situation requires it. Explain those decisions in the scene notes.

Keep an exterior label separate from hidden contents

A sealed ancestor blocks access to a descendant surface. It does not hide its own exterior label. Someone holding a closed envelope can explicitly read the name printed outside while being unable to read the enclosed dedication. This is why moving a hidden-name scene later may leave an earlier exposure in place.

Every open, close, read, show or copy action requires the actor to hold the root containing the target. It also requires every enclosing ancestor to be open. Opening an inner case through a sealed outer envelope is rejected. The report names the blocking ancestor, so an author can revise the missing physical action rather than replacing it with vague suspicion.

Opening does not automatically expose writing. A separate read, show or copy event does that. Closing changes future access but never erases an earlier exposure. These rules keep a closed-again object from becoming an accidental memory eraser. The model does not simulate forgetfulness; if a character later misremembers, handle that as a separate narrative claim.

There is no inferred distant viewing, photography, transparent material, magic or accidental glimpse. If those are important, this particular physical model is insufficient as written. Do not treat an absent action type as evidence that such a scene cannot occur. Scope the worksheet to the declared surfaces and explicitly supported actions, then document the additional production question elsewhere.

Replay actions in the order the scene actually gives them

The events array accepts up to 120 unique event IDs. Times are integers from zero to one million in nondecreasing order. They are author-defined units, not automatically seconds, days or chapter numbers. Equal times retain supplied order. Opening and then reading at the same timestamp can work; reading and then opening at that timestamp produces a rejected first action.

Every event has id, at, actor, action and target. Read, open and close have no additional fields. Transfer and show add to. Copy adds to and copyId. Unsupported fields are rejected so that a misspelled parameter cannot look like a respected constraint. References to surfaces created later are evaluated at the actual event, not assumed to exist from the beginning.

Transfer applies only to a root. It changes custody of that object and all its descendants without implying any reading. A guest receiving a sealed envelope therefore acquires the physical object, not its hidden name. Trying to transfer an enclosed page as an independent object is rejected under this contract; the tool does not quietly detach it from its container.

Show explicitly exposes the selected visible form to the named recipient and leaves custody unchanged. It does not imply that every nearby actor also saw the surface. This helps distinguish a deliberate showing from a general scene description. The author is responsible for deciding who the event includes and whether the prose actually supports that declared audience.

Follow a copy as a new physical object

Copying exposes the copying actor to the selected visible surface and creates a new unsealed text root held by the declared recipient. The new object retains the literal form and authored identity association, along with its original surface ID and copy lineage. It does not copy descendants, seals or an entire nested packet.

Receiving the copy does not automatically expose its recipient. They need a subsequent explicit reading or showing. At time five in the example, the keeper has archive-copy but no recorded reading. At time six, the read event creates that exposure. This difference is important when an outline compresses making a copy, delivering it and understanding it into a single sentence.

A copy ID must not already exist when its event is applied. A duplicate attempt is rejected atomically: it does not overwrite the old copy, change its holder or add a new exposure for the copying actor. Later events continue against the retained state. A failed action should not leave half of its desired consequences behind.

Lineage survives further copying. A later surface can point back through several copy IDs to the original name-bearing face. The evidence helps locate which physical branch carried a private form outward. It does not prove that anyone understood its emotional importance or that the fictional material can legally be shared; those are separate author and real-world questions.

Audit the first exposure, not the most convenient one

Each intended window names an observer, an initial identity ID, earliest and latest. Up to sixty unique observer/identity pairs are allowed. The first explicit exposure to any form associated with that identity is compared with the window. Later exposure to a more dramatic form does not replace an earlier one in the calculation.

In the default example, the guest’s window for writer begins at four. Reading Maren on the exterior at two is early because the author linked that form to writer. Copying Arel at five does not erase the finding. The keeper’s first exposure at six falls inside the separate six-to-eight window. The same physical sequence can therefore satisfy one planned disclosure and violate another.

An early finding is an editing question, not an automatic plot error. You may intend the audience to see a form before understanding its connection. Keep the exposure finding and explain that interpretive delay in your outline. If the association itself was wrong, change it openly and review the consequence instead of renaming a surface just to obtain a reassuring status.

The replay cutoff lets you inspect the outline partway through. Future events remain queued and have no effect on custody, seals, copies or exposures. A window not yet due is pending. If no exposure has occurred by its latest time and the cutoff has reached that deadline, the state is not observed by deadline. Missing information is not silently converted into a successful reveal.

Use rejection as a physical continuity note

Rejected events remain in the timeline with a reason and access evidence when available. A missing surface, the wrong root custodian, a sealed ancestor, an already open container or a duplicate copy ID each points to a different repair. The software does not invent an intervening handoff or opening to rescue a later scene.

After a rejection, subsequent actions use the state left by successful prior actions. This makes consequences reproducible. If a keeper failed to obtain the envelope, they cannot open it in the next event merely because the script moved on. Add the legitimate transfer if it belongs in the story, then replay the actual sequence.

The physical state table shows roots, holders, parents, seals and copy chains at the cutoff. Read it beside the exposure table. One describes where objects are now; the other preserves what was explicitly shown earlier. Treating those as the same thing is how a returned or closed letter can accidentally make a story forget its own revelation.

Preserve the reason for keeping a name private

The private audit contains source records, actions, rejected steps, exposure evidence, windows and current surfaces. Copies, favorites and comparison retain observer IDs and physical paths. Project saving restores editable parameters. These documents can disclose private forms and later plot events, and none is advertised as a reader-safe handout.

Use the context field for the dramatic reason that matters: the guest can read a public form but has not interpreted it, or the keeper’s question concerns copying an intimate address. That note does not change visibility rules. It keeps the mechanical finding attached to the scene’s emotional purpose, so a later editor can repair continuity without flattening the relationship into a simple secret-known switch.

Does receiving a sealed letter reveal its inside name?

No. Transfer changes root custody only. An inner face needs all enclosing containers open and an explicit read, show or copy action. The exterior label remains separately readable.

Why does the public alias count before the private name?

The window uses first exposure to any form you assigned to the identity. It does not infer that the observer recognized the connection. Keep a later recognition scene separate from the physical exposure record.

Does copying a face mean the recipient has read it?

No. Copy exposes the copying actor and creates a new unsealed text root for the recipient. A later explicit reading or showing creates the recipient’s exposure. Only the selected face is copied, not all nested contents.

Can a failed action partly change the story state?

No. Rejected events retain their reasons but have no state or exposure effects. Later actions use the previous valid state. Equal timestamps preserve supplied order, so a missing prior opening cannot be repaired by automatic sorting.