Cross-clue technique · Advanced
Conditional Discharge
Firing a conditional clue: forward when its trigger becomes true, backward (see Contrapositive Reading) when its consequence becomes false.
Why it works
A conditional clue is a stored rule, not an immediate mark. Discharging it means checking, on every pass, whether the board has finally satisfied either direction.
Trigger
Any conditional clue still sitting in your ledger, re-checked every time the board changes.
Common mistake
Writing a conditional down once and forgetting to re-check it — the discharge moment is often several passes after the clue was first read.
Example
'If Mina is the baker, Theo owns the turtle' sits idle until the board confirms Mina/baker, then it fires immediately, exactly like a direct clue would have.