Questions & tasks

#A question beside what it needs

A question is written in a scene's detail, so it shares the canvas with whatever else is there. It shares it only with the visual it needs. A table and the question that reads it make one point; a question beside a graph it does not use adds a second point to the canvas, and the reader looks to the graph for an answer that is not in it. A question that needs no figure stands on a canvas without one.

#The task opposite the question

Where the narrative sets the reader to work, a task in the narrative sets it and a question on the canvas opposite takes the answer: the prose says what to do and why, and the canvas is where the reader does it.

scene{
    With an even number of readings there is no middle one, and the
    median is the mean of the middle two.

    task{
        Find the median of 3, 8, 1, 9, 4 and 6.
    }[
        Sorted, the readings are 1, 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9. The middle two
        are 4 and 6, so the median is 5.
    ](
        title: An even count
    )
}[
    question#even-median:maths{
        The median of 3, 8, 1, 9, 4 and 6.
    }(
        expect: 5
    )
]

#After the reasoning, not the answer

A question placed straight after the sentence that answers it checks whether the reader read that sentence, not whether they understood it. It belongs where the reader can apply what the scene has taught — to a case the prose has not worked, or a consequence it has not stated — so that answering takes a step of reasoning.

#A task's worked answer

A task's detail is its held-back half, rendered inside the callout and collapsed until the reader opens it. A task carries its worked answer there, so a reader who has tried it can check what they did; a task without one leaves them unable to tell whether they finished it.