One of the basic findings on situation models and language comprehension is that reading times are affected by the changing event structure in a text. However, many studies have traditionally used multiple, relatively short texts, in which there is little event consistency across the texts. It is unclear to what extent such changes will be observed when readers are given a longer, more coherent text, such as a novel. The current study discovered that while some of the characteristics of language comprehension found with multiple shorter texts also influence the reading of a novel, such as the introduction of new characters and causal breaks, there are several notable differences. In some cases, factors did not clearly influence comprehension, and a reverse influence was observed as with spatial and temporal shifts. Thus, more work is needed to develop situation model theory that can more readily account for complex, real-world comprehension. (Contains 4 tables.)