You also have to make sure you're not repeating yourself. Trust your reader to "get it" without explaining every last thing. You have a very short time to catch your reader's attention - don't take too long to get to the punchline. Get back to school - you need a full-blown English class before you'll be ready for prime time.
Plot: 5/10
Writing: 4/10
Total: 9/20
I'm going to start right at the beginning. Your first sentence made me groan for three reasons. First, you changed subjects mid-stream:
Since the time WE were teens till the time YOU'RE old and gray, nothing ever really changes.
You can't do that. You have to pick one (we or you) and stick with it.
Second, not only did you switch subjects - you switched tenses, too!
Since the time we WERE teens till the time you'RE old and gray, nothing ever really changes.
How about this instead:
From the time we're teens until the time we're old and gray, nothing ever really changes.
And third: it's a cliche! Avoid them. You don't even need this one. I'm going to re-write the first few paragraphs without documenting each change, because that would be too exhausting:
So what if I'm thirty: I still watch the same TV shows, wear the same clothes and drag out the same idiotic puns I used in high school.
I still react the same way, too - climbing behind the wheel whenever things go wrong. Never mind that driving is what brought me to this point in the first place.
I know, I know - you are trying to take one man's experience and make it universal, but what you are really doing is making it boring. Forget the generalizations. Give us a character we care about and tell us his story. Not in one long flashback - in action and conversation that engages us. Here's the rest of the page re-worked:
Now I'm driving again, but instead of running away, I'm heading straight into the storm, in an ill-advised attempt to set things straight. No one is going to welcome me. They just want to show up, do their duty and get the heck out of there.
I wonder if anyone will even notice I'm not dead?
Four small, catchy paragraphs instead of a page worth of trite redundancies. Now I'm reading. Now I want to know what happened to this guy.
This story is in rough shape, but there are several simple things you can do:
1. After you finish a story, put it away and don't look at it for three weeks. Then:
2. Pick it up and read it OUT LOUD. Many errors will jump right out at you. Do this with audience and listen to any feedback you get.
3.Go through sentence by sentence and ask yourself, "Are my verbs active?"
4.Sign up for a writing class and let the teacher mark it up. Going through this one story with a qualified English teacher could help you learn many of the basic grammar rules very quickly.
Don't be discouraged. Authors go through many, many rewrites of their work. It is expected and it is more than okay - it is essential.
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Late or delayed software at Rusty Axe Games can often be attributed to the lead designer spending too much time chasing Jennifer about the office.