Some worldbuilding content is meant to be explored freely. Other material works better when readers encounter it in a deliberate order.
GazetteBuilder lets Entries share a Story ID and Sequence Position to create a guided reading sequence without turning those Entries into a separate content system. Each Story step remains a normal GazetteBuilder Entry, with all of the same semantic links, relationships, images, dates, and Entry Type behavior available elsewhere in the Gazette.
Sequence position 0 serves as the Story’s landing Entry. From there, a reader can begin the sequence, continue from prior progress, or restart when appropriate.
GazetteBuilder can provide reader controls such as:
- Start for a Story that has not yet been begun;
- Continue for a Story already in progress;
- Restart with confirmation when the reader wants to begin again;
- a persistent route back to the Story landing page from later Entries.
Progress is stored in the reader’s browser rather than requiring a GazetteBuilder account.
Stories can also be released over time. Each Entry may have a real-world Release Date, allowing the complete sequence to exist in WordPress while later steps remain unavailable to readers until their scheduled release.
For a continuing Story, the latest currently available Entry can display a message such as:
To be continued…
When the next Entry reaches its release date, the previous Entry automatically becomes a normal continuation point and the newly available Entry becomes the current endpoint.
Finite Stories can instead conclude with an ending message such as:
The End
Sequence order remains independent of the world chronology. A Story can therefore include flashbacks, historical inserts, or Entries with earlier Campaign Dates without disturbing the intended reading order.
This makes Story support useful not only for fiction, but also for expedition journals, serialized reports, historical narratives, guided tours, investigative sequences, adventure logs, or any other material where the order of discovery matters.