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The Friday Jonathan Tempos died had trudged along at a mundane pace he had never become used to over the years as a teacher. At 4:15 he sat at his desk, tapping a red pen thoughtfully against his temple as he skimmed a student report. He had a hard time stopping his gaze from crawling up the page and over the rim of his glasses to the large white clock over the class room door where minutes passed at a slow suffocating speed. He dropped the paper on the top a pile on his desk and went and opened a window.
The inviting summer day, blocked kindly out by the pane of glass before, now rushed in to fill the empty room with life. The smells of barbequing wafted in from the yards of the fenced houses at the perimeter of the school grounds. In the distance,

I felt exactly the sameway snapper, I liked what i had to a certain extent but wasnt sure how to fix it. Annepin - I noticed the lacking of the first sentence after rereading. I'm still kind of stumbing on it myself, but Im not sure how else to clean it up. here is a revision which I'm quite a bit happier with.

I'm trying to convey the dull day to day routine Jon is feeling and his buried want to break away. He sees wonderful things around him ( the summer day outside almost beckoning him) but he has always seen these things as out of his reach. Until today offers an opportunity. Maybe this is too much to convey in the first thirteen - therefore ive done a bit of a revision

Still looking for comments, anyone think this works better? thanks!

I wonder if opening a story in a summary flashback is the ideal way to start this story. It's working okay, although I'm not comfortable with a story that opens in the pluperfect tense. Too many stories begun in that tense end up with an annoying surplus of the word had,. If I were skimming this story, after the third had in the first thirteen lines, I'd put it aside.

Nevertheless, judicious use of pluperfect tense works well in summary flashback, although opening a story in a pluperfect tense is a challenging one to maintain and might lead to ever more awkwardly complex plupluperfect tenses later on. (An example of a plupluperfect construct, Had to have had a premonition, yikes!) Consider recasting into present past. The other time contexts of the existing pluperfect phrases provide effective time management so it wouldn't change the meaning. For example. [The >Friday< Jonathan Tempos died trudged along] [Jon reluctantly grew accustomed to in his >five years< of teaching] [>after< classes were dismissed]

[mundane] has two diametrically opposite meanings; the earthly realm as opposed to the metaphysical one, or dull. Consider a more precise adjective, like droll, boring, tedious, etc.

[every other weekday] every other day is an idiom for skipping a day between days. I read the phrase to mean Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Consider recasting to something like 'every workday.'

[He loathed the job, but there were bills to be paid when you developed a family and a gambling habit in community college] that sentence is heavily freighted with context, loathed job, the onus of bill paying, a burdensome family, a demanding gambling habit, a community college education. I suggest recasting into separate sentences.

[there were bills to be paid] passive and infinitive future perfect verb construction, unnecessary tense shift. 'there were bills to pay'

[when you developed] is a marked change in tenor and a change in person from third to second. I suggest simplifying or recasting the sentence. Developing a gambling habit is a common idiom, but developing a family is awkward and emotionless. The family and the gambling habit are burdens. Community college is not necessarily a burden; however, an associate's degree doesn't typically qualify a person to teach.

[At 4:15, fifteen minutes after classes had been dismissed - and exactly 8 hours] three exactly precise time marks are redundant, consider simplifying. I'd at least recommend omitting the [and] and replacing the dashed interruption with a comma. Exactly is a superfluous adverb.

The prefered punctuation style in fiction writing for a dashed interruption is two hypens with no spaces. 'word--word' However, the narrative didn't change direction or interrupt a thought or dialogue. The phrase set off by the dashes is an appositive clause. A dash is not indicated in these instances. Commas are the prefered punctuation for setting off appositive clauses. 'At 4:15, fifteen minutes after classes had been dismissed, exactly 8 hours'

[Late '80s Marquis] sentence case 'late' unless part of proper noun. The context confused me. I didn't know whether it was a late model Marquis or later year in the '80s Marquis. ['80s] is a time reference for the story's milieu. Late model means recent. If the Marquis is 30-years-old, I'd want to know when it's first mentioned.

[would barrel] unnecessay tense change to future perfect. The word [before] already makes the time transition smoothly. Consider 'barreled'.

[sat at his desk tapping a red pen thoughtfully against his temple] consider whether sat at his desk is necessary. 'Jon tapped a red pen against his temple' eliminates the gerund verb and conveys static but dramatic meaning. [sat] is passive and non-dramatic action.

[thoughtfully] is a superfluous adverb. If the word is needed, the sentence flow would be smoother if it wasn't separated from its verb. 'Jon thoughtfully tapped the red pen against his temple.' Tapping a writing implement against a temple is a simple but complete scene-building line showing contemplation. [thoughtfully] tells the reader what the action means, as such it's exposition.

[as he skimmed a student report] [as] is not typically a proper conjunction. 'while' is prefered for simultaneous actions. For that matter, I suggest beginning a new sentence to do away with the awkward conjunction altogether. Tapping his temple and skimming the report appear to occur simultaneously when they're joined in a sentence; however, separating them would show them as the separate actions I feel they are. He's making a gradual shift in focus. He's going from absentminded thinking to passive involvement.

[student report] the context indicates a possessive case 'student's report'

[His gaze kept crawling up the page and over the rim] gerund construct that implies repeated action. I think it would be more dramatic and robust if it happened once and would then lead directly to Jon's single fixation on the clock. 'gaze crawled'

[rim of his glasses] number agreement between objects, 'rims'

[class room] compound word 'classroom'

[The seconds passed in jerky muted ticks] is a beautiful line, but a little metaphorically awkward. The clock's second hand is what jerkily, mutely ticks. And a comma separates noncoordinate adjectives. 'The second hand ticked in jerky, muted steps.' or some such.

[door. . Finally, He let the paper drop from his hands and flutter down to join it's comrades that littered his desk]

Extra period and space after [door.]

[Finally,] when this word begin a sentence it's a sentence adverb, a dangling modifier, or a discourse marker in dialogue, examples of common discourse markers are; like, well, now, okay, etc. Like with most sentence adverbs, dangling modifiers, and discourse markers, I think finally is superfluous. And finally makes me think the writer is telling me the story is about to begin. Consider omitting.

The important thing is that I think it's very interesting, and I would definately read on. In my humble opinion, all you really need to do is streamline a few sentences. It would look something like this:

The Friday Jonathan Tempos died trudged along at the same mundane pace as every other school day. At 4:15, exactly 8 hours before a Late 80’s Marquis would barrel into his legs and send him soaring face first through a windshield, Jon was tapping a red pen thoughtfully against his temple as he skimmed a student report. His gaze kept crawling up the page to the large white clock over the class room door. The seconds passed in jerky muted ticks. Finally, He let the paper drop from his hands and flutter down.

The inviting summer day rushed in to fill the empty room with life. The smells of barbequing wafted in from the yards of the fenced houses at the perimeter of the school grounds. In the distance,

I liked the first version better. At least that one had my interest to keep reading and trust the pace is going to pick up soon. This one I might bail on. Let me show you why.

quote:

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The Friday Jonathan Tempos died had trudged along with the same mundane pace of every other weekday. It was a life Jon had reluctantly grown accustomed to in his five years of teaching. He loathed the job, but there were bills to be paid when you developed a family and a gambling habit in community college.

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This first paragraph is an info-dump. I think you could work this in as the story went along. This mini-bio does not grab me.

quote:

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At 4:15, fifteen minutes after classes had been dismissed - and exactly 8 hours before a Late 80’s Marquis would barrel into his legs and send him soaring face first through a windshield

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You better have a very good reason for throwing this info out. Being told the outcome of a story in the first paragraph is no good way to hook a reader.

quote:

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- Jon sat at his desk tapping a red pen thoughtfully against his temple as he skimmed a student report. His gaze kept crawling up the page and over the rim of his glasses to the large white clock over the class room door. The seconds passed in jerky muted ticks. Finally, He let the paper drop from his hands and flutter down to join it's comrades that littered his desk.

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i think this justifies any comments I make about his death in the first 13.....? I realize the story needs to shift within the next couple of paragraphs.

I feel like thirteen is a bit restricting, maybe i should just include a little more detail ABOUT the thirteen.

quote:

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I actually wasn't planning on having Mr. Tempos' death BE the story; The story is following characters surrounding his death; Family members, students, a friend, etc. And the reason he was killed, and if there was any consequences because of it.

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Than why have that perspective at all? If the tale is about how the people of his life are affected by his death than I suggest writing the story not from his POV.

Yes, I agree that 13 lines can be restrictive. In fact you should weigh what is said on here accordingly. We cannot possibly know what you have planned from here on in. However, if you are looking for a hook and if the story is about how everyone else is affected by his death, why not start the tale with his death? Witnessing the end of someone as a begining of a tale sounds like a great hook to me. A good hook would do it from his POV in the last moments of your title characters life.