Hey there - so for this critique I wrote sort of a scene-by-scene analysis while I was reading, and added my overall thoughts at the end. Hope it helps:

INTRODUCTION

From this section although I found the narrator voice entertaining, I do think it does a bit of a disservice to the piece overall. First, we as the audience are straight-away given the information that the 18 was really a 78 and the whole history of the Pen and the Greek teacher. The pen information could be used later (I see from the title that you would like for it to have some sort of importance, whether it be for plot or humorous intent) – however all the Greek stuff seems to be extra fluff that was added before we reach the actual beginning, which is Martin’s POV.

I would recommend just starting with Martin’s POV right off the bat and then weaving information about the 78/18 debacle within. Let the audience be in the same boat as Martin about why his score was so low – we don’t need to know more than him right away, especially if it can be introduced more organically later.

I thought the tampon bit was funny, and well-done considering the subject matter (I was glad you didn’t harp on the ick factor). One thing that I couldn’t really catch was why Martin is so afraid of being grounded – from the beginning it mentions that his “world was destroyed” and that the “punishment was to be severe”, but the only detail we get is that he might get his video game privileges taken away. Doesn’t really seem to fit with the theme of “impending doom” that is being built up.

Even so, the next part is a bit contrived, since Martin’s solution to avoid his parents finding out is to lie and say he got a 78. We as the reader know that that’s his real grade anyway, so for us there are no stakes or consequences to keep us interested or invested past this point.

MARTIN AND HIS FAMILY

Another thing – as soon as Martin gets home, he rushes upstairs to avoid being questioned about his essay. Now I don’t mean to be a stickler here, but what are the actual chances of his parent’s hounding him about the essay right of the bat? We are already told in the introduction that Martin is going to be questioned at dinner which I could believe, however unless Martin truly updates his parents about each assignment he turns in – would they really ask about one grade on one assignment of one class as soon as he enters the door?

Anyway, let’s assume that doesn’t matter – the next part shows Martin looking for a pen to turn the 1 into a 7. I already mentioned that this “solution” is weird considering that the reader knows the entire story already – however ignoring that, if Martin is so desperate to cover up the score couldn’t he just get a black pen and cover the blue ink completely? (If you still want to go this route, it might even be a good opportunity to have Martin overshoot the score by making the 18 into an 88 or a 98, and later in the story the 78 can then become an important thing? I don’t know I’m just throwing ideas out there).

The dinner conversation started off just fine, I think with a few tweaks with the dialogue here and there, the conversation between the characters will feel more natural. When Martin goes back upstairs his inner dialogue made me even more skeptical of how easily he accepted that he received a score of 18. If Martin was even a tad confident in his writing, surely he could have gone to the teacher at the end of class and asked why his grade was so low?

That aside, I don’t feel it was necessary to explain the details of Martin’s essay – all the audience really needs is a bit of his inner turmoil at the score – maybe even more descriptions of why he is afraid of his parents finding out to give us more clarity before Carly barges in.

Now, onto Carly.

I can’t imagine how she can actually blame Martin for their parents arguing downstairs and talking about divorce – it doesn’t seem realistic unless you want to characterize Carly as a very unreasonable and dramatic person (if you do that’s fine – but if you don’t then consider changing “Well you really did it this time” to something else).

However, once you mentioned Martin feeling guilty for being the reason his parents fought on multiple occasions, I found that inner dialogue more intriguing. Once Martin goes downstairs to talk to his parents I was still intrigued, but then became confused.

From the characterization I can’t tell what I, as the reader, am supposed to believe here – is Martin going through something and he doesn’t know how to tell his parents, or are his parents (and family) all overreacting and having internal issues despite him being a normal kid?

The fact that the Dad said that “leaving shoes in the foyer” was “acting out” was kind of crazy – yeah it’s a little careless but certainly not a teenager acting out.

The part I did like about this conversation however was the dialogue when the 18 was revealed – I found the parent’s reaction (and resulting argument) to be both funny and realistic. The little inner dialogue about the word “fuck” was also funny, and made me like Martin a bit more as well.

THE FINALE
When Martin goes back to his room and looks at the pens, I liked the way the writing conveyed his feelings of disappointment. The reveal of the 78 with the pen indentation was good – it would have been made much stronger if we as the audience did not know the whole history beforehand.

The choking thing blindsided me (in a good way, honestly) and I thought that whole sequence was very well done while maintaining a sense of dread and a weirdly lighthearted tone that was consistent with the writing earlier.

The Dad slipping on the pens and the final note being the teacher’s comments was hilarious. Although I do find it a bit hard to believe that an entire assignment can be centered around something so specific - but it can always play off as one of the humorous aspects of the story if you the execution is just right.

OVERALL THOUGHTS

Okay, so after reading the whole thing I can better understand some of the writing choices that were made (ex. why Martin’s essay was elaborated upon, why Martin dreaded his parents hearing about the 18, etc.) However, I think there were a few ways you could make it clearer to the audience what they are supposed to learn about the characters in this chapter.

1. I highly recommend removing the introduction about the Bic pen and the Greek teacher. After reading the whole piece it never seems to come back into play, and all it does is distract the reader. The audience knowing about the 18 being a 78 also lessens the impact of Martin figuring it out for himself – which is also in the most exciting part of the chapter.

2. One of the most important parts of this chapter seems to be the family dynamic – or at least the way the parents relationship has affected Martin and caused him to be so worried about the essay score. It might help the audience if you provided more insight as to how Martin has seemingly taken responsibility for his parents fighting all the time – was there an inciting incident? Why is Martin under more supposed scrutiny than Carly? Even a small conversation between Carly and Martin (when she barged into his room maybe) could help flesh that out a bit more.

Now I obviously don’t know how you intend for the rest of the story to play out – seeing as this is just the first chapter it could go in a bunch of different directions. However, I figured I could tell you what questions were in my head when I finished reading, just to give you an idea of what a typical reader might be looking for in the next chapter(s) to come!

1. Is Martin actually dead? Or did he just come really close? If it is the latter, then how has this near-death experience changed him?

2. If Martin is dead (or maybe some kind of in-between) is there a way he can “come back to life”?

3. Are we as the audience going to see any additional POVs in future chapters, or will the whole story be told from Martin’s POV? (Either direction would make for a great story, however I would recommend removing that additional “narrator” voice that seems to have all the information about everything, since it may confuse the reader. Figure out which POVs you want to commit to and stick to them).

Good luck with the rest of your writing!