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Q&A Commas at the beginning of a sentence: should I follow convention or intuition?

An example from my own writing (Mother and daughter are burying their deceased dog): As planned that Friday, Mom and I underwent Choco’s burial at my home in __ (yes, she kept him in a garbag...

1 answer  ·  posted 10y ago by Alexandro Chen‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:54:12Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/14565
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Alexandro Chen‭ · 2019-12-08T03:54:12Z (about 5 years ago)
An example from my own writing (Mother and daughter are burying their deceased dog):

> **As planned that Friday,** Mom and I underwent Choco’s burial at my home in \_\_ (yes, she kept him in a garbage bag for three days). We dug a hole in the backyard, threw the corpse inside, and shoveled the soil back. **Finally,** my mom knelt down and stuck a handmade wooden cross in the little mountain of dirt. **After that** we stood there, in solemn silence, looking at the grave being bathed by the evening sunlight. I felt strange. Like I’d come visiting a hometown I’d forgotten about a long time ago.

I could have written the **bolded** parts like this:

> **As planned that Friday** Mom and I underwent Choco’s burial ...
> 
> **Finally** my mom knelt down and stuck the wooden cross ...
> 
> **After that,** we stood there, in solemn silence ...

How should I decide whether to put a comma in these cases? Should I follow my hear? Or what English teachers and spelling software tells me?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2014-12-03T16:40:34Z (about 10 years ago)
Original score: 5