The stories on this website seem to jump through time, back and forth along a spectrum lasting tens of thousands of years. Finding the stories or recognizing how they connect can be challenging; hopefully, this information will help you find the stories you want to read.
You can scan through a list of all the stories, and when you do, you can sort the stories in various ways.
Stories are published regularly. Reading the stories in the order they were published leads you, the reader, into the path the author wants you to follow. Select “Published Date – Earliest” from the drop-down if you wish to follow this path.
If you choose, you can read the stories chronologically, which might clear up certain situations faster. To perhaps satisfy your curiosity sooner, select “Timeline Order – Earliest.”
You can of course, read each one in the reverse order and find new episodes easier by choosing “Updated latest.” It’s up to you.
There are other ways to move between stories besides simply sorting. Each Character profile shows lists every story and commentary they are mentioned or participate in.
Stories are grouped into Collections, which can be related through diverse concepts, and exploring the relationships between the same characters through their lives. Some connections are deeply intertwined, others only peripherally related.
Many of the stories have Commentary attached to them (readable through the “Read the Introduction” and “Read the Reflections” accordions above and below the story. While not required to be read to understand the stories, commentaries bring more nuance and explanation into a character’s motives or the historical perspective surrounding the story itself. It may serve to clear up gray areas.
Stories and commentary are available through the era in which they were written, and more may be revealed as Alexandra becomes comfortable with her storytellers.
Most of the stories are told through storytellers, whom Alexandra Hanlon was close to in their time. Stories reflect the abilities of the storytellers who tell them. While being able to write something readable was a requirement, the bigger requirement for Alexandra was that she be able to trust them.
Storytellers can tell stories ranging from their past, through their own lives. A storyteller who lives in another era may tell stories of the previous storyteller’s era alongside their own. How do the different storytellers explore the same time period? What stories does Alexandra only tell to the storytellers thousands of years later?
Navigating the Stories
Once you enter a story, you’ll see some buttons. Focus Settings allow you to turn off possibly annoying information. It’s particularly helpful if you have attention issues. But please, at some point, turn the information back on and delve deeper.
The Explore Connections link will open a page with links to every other story, commentary, collection, character and glossary item referenced by the story. From here, you can explore more nuanced connections between the stories and the nudge stories universe.
Clicking or Activating “Read the Introduction” will drop down the introductory commentary for the story. You don’t have to read it to start, but it will help add a deeper understanding of the story. Similarly, “Read the Reflections” will drop down the reflections of a character as they reflect on all or a portion of the story.
The point of view character and the story date are always directly above the story itself. As you read the story, you’ll see underlined words, which are glossary links and links of small numbers, surrounded by parentheses that link to end notes. Both of these can be turned off in the focus settings and will be turned off both visually and aurally.
Clicking a glossary item will open a new tab and take you to the description of the word in question. Rather than weighing the stories with constant explanations, I simply link the word’s first use to its related glossary definition. Of course, every glossary link is also on the Connections page.
End notes are links to pages referencing concepts and historical events. They might lead to some interesting rabbit holes.