First establish that we're talking about the past?

Question

I'm assuming that before using this form the paragraph would start out using a tense that would ground the event in the past.  Thus I'm assuming you would not start out saying "Martina se llevará una gran sorpresa al ver de nuevo a su madre".  You'd instead start out with saying ""Martina pensaba que su madre había fallecido" or something else that signals we're talking about the past.  Is this right?

Answer

Hola Rebekah

Yes, you're right, this use of the future/conditional, normally found in literature, generally comes with a previous sentence that places the scene in the past tense, and then you find a later sentence using the future/conditional expressing "a future scene within that past time frame" - If you have a look at the paragraph we include in the lesson about Picasso's life, you can see that first past reference so that the next sentences make sense.

I hope this clarified it

Saludos

Inma