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We examined the impact of prospective information on the processing of information occurring within the present timeline of narrative stories. Participants read target sentences that were consistent with events occurring within a protagonist's present timeline but inconsistent with events in the protagonist's future. When prospective information was readily available and/or received strong contextual support, processing difficulties were immediate, (i.e. they occurred on the target sentence). When the prospective information was backgrounded and/or not supported with additional contextual information, processing disruptions were delayed until the spillover sentence. Results are discussed within memory-based theories, specifically the RI-Val model.