#WordWeavers 2025.12.22 — If the inciting incident never happened, what would happen to your MC?
Reluctant Courier is a single story in an arc of intersecting stories, so it's complicated.
If Bolt wasn't there to take photographs a reporter needed when an interstellar gateway opened midtown Home City, a lot of the interesting supporting characters might not exist or be important, but Pigeon the Pilferer and Molt's interaction could serve to start the whole story running. The devil-girl arrives via the gateway regardless, which means the last half of the book still works. The readers never see Bolt's amazing photographs, which her maniacal quest to capture the normalcy denied her produces.If the devil-girl doesn't arrive via the gateway, that whole side story would cease, meaning I'd lose one chance to introduce the outcome of the Dragon Wars to the series as needed for a partially written at the moment abandoned, son of the main series antagonist, Rainy Days, POV story. The devil-girl arc still gets her to Home City where she's recognized as an asset the mob boss wants. This means Bolt's and the devil-girls stories still happen like in item 1 above.If the devil-girl never arrives in Home City, the whole reluctance series ceases to be written. The story subsequent to this story is the keystone work upon which the entire series is formulated. Bolt never ends up existing.[Author retains copyright (c)2025, 2026 R.S.]
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