John Reginald Smith II was born on a cold, windy gray sort of day in late October of 1983 to his exhausted mother, Esmerelda Smith and ecstatic father, John Smith I. It had been prearranged that Esmerelda and John’s first son be named after his father, and so it was without further ado that the screaming, slimy newborn had adopted the most common and uninteresting moniker in all of the Western world.

John and Esmerelda lived in a small village in southeastern Manitoba, Canada called Carson. Johnny was born in the nearest hospital available - a rather modern and bustling facility entitled Saint Kenneth Memorial in the nearby prairie metropolis of Winnipeg. John I had insisted Esmerelda consider contracting the services of a midwife, who would negotiate the

The problem with reading about an uninteresting man in an uninteresting situation is that it is…uninteresting. An uninteresting man in an interesting situation is something different and this is what I think you probably want to do.

The 1st 13 strikes me as throat-clearing (i.e. warming up before the real story starts) and it also leaves the reader almost no work to do because you’re telling us everything. There’s no emotional impact in listing the facts of his birth and I’m not convinced by the characters on a deep level because it’s a surface argument; you’ve telling me what’s happened, not showing me.

Start the story just before the moment where John Reginald Smith’s III’s life changes in some irreversible way. Maybe you can give us a threat (existential, metaphoric, physical) to his deeply uninteresting life, but you need to give us a reason to want to know what happens next.

If he’s a deeply common uninteresting man and that’s the point you want to make, show us this by contrasting him against the dramatic events in the story.

While not disagreeing with Nick T, I'd like to add that to me, it doesn't matter what's happening. Granted, this is not what you want for the larger audience, but the writing was brilliant. If you can keep this up, you're on track.

I'm curious as to the length of, and age group of this story...

I got a little lost as to the 'who is who' for a bit. I couldn't tell if it was going back to the birth of John II, or John III (though I easily get lost). Also, I suggest establishing the character first before bringing the other Johns into the script, otherwise you may have to get creative in how to denote each John other than using I, II, and III.

I know you only have 13 lines, but you can do a whole lot in that short span to make you readers like your character and set the stage for us to want more.

That said I think your beginning is very good, and I love the idea of a seemingly ordinary person influencing important things around him. People seem to forget that and it is important that we remember both the positive and negative effects.