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As I've said before, Part 1 of my novel is a very boiled-down storyform, where Part 2 will be a full-fledged one.

Addressing just Part 1 in this case, the inciting incident comes at the end of Chapter 3 -- the IC is assassinated (the MC's best friend then replaces him as IC and takes up the counter-argument). To show how devastating this development is to the MC and make this reversal effective, I feel SS Signpost 1 must come prior to the assassination scene -- at least, that is what's happening as I am working on it.

I'm wondering what issues I should be watching out for here with this idea.

Jeff

oops... posted this in the wrong forum... sorry.

It is fine to have the inciting incident happen after you've already started your story, especially if you've mostly been exploring the SS, MC, and IC throughlines. The inciting event kicks off the OS, however. That said, it is common to provide a setup for the OS to show how things are before chaos strikes.

Great! That's exactly what I've been doing. Glad to know my intuitions were right on this one.