Mystery

Everything you need is in the thread

A mystery told in messages is a fair one by construction: every clue the detective has, you have, at the same moment, in the same words. There is no room for a withheld observation, which makes the genre unusually honest here and unusually difficult to write.

The stories in this category tend to reward re-reading. Because the entire text is dialogue, a line that seemed like filler on the first pass often turns out to have been the whole answer; and unlike a novel, going back to check costs you thirty seconds. Several of the better-rated threads here are explicitly built for a second read.

Expect a mix of the domestic and the procedural. The domestic ones; something is wrong in this house, in this friendship group, in this workplace; suit the format better and dominate the top of the ratings.