: Re: Am I correctly punctuating this pause? I want to convey the pause between the "then" and the rest of the sentence. But I'm not sure a comma is the correct punctuation to use. Then, when

Your first comma isn't the problem. It's that you have an interrupter and didn't put the second comma in.

Then, when the smoke had cleared, Jane rushed over to her.

An interrupter is a few words or a whole clause which interrupts the flow of the original framing sentence, and can be safely removed from the original sentence without making it grammatically uncorrect.
An interrupter must have bracketing punctuation. You can use commas, M-dashes, or parentheses, or in rare instances ellipses if you're careful.
If you take out the interrupter clause here, it just reads:

Then Jane rushed over to her.

Other examples:

Jane flung open the door, and â€” once the smoke had cleared and she wasn't in danger of choking â€” rushed over to her.
Jane felt (now that it had been a few years) like she could go back to the city.

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: Re: Am I correctly punctuating this pause? I want to convey the pause between the "then" and the rest of the sentence. But I'm not sure a comma is the correct punctuation to use. Then, when

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: In narration, stay in one tense. "She had green eyes" is fine, because your entire story is in the past tense — the "present-past," if that makes sense. If she had green eyes as a

: "Literary criticism" and "editing feedback" are two entirely different beasts. Litcrit is about looking at an existing text and analyzing it. You look at the author's intent, you look at symbolism,

: Consequences. A strikes B. Even if B provoked A, A still gets arrested, processed, tried, convicted, and serves time. A gets grief from family and friends. A feels mixed anger, resentment,

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