With five people in this photo, there are many ways for you to use this photo for an opening scene. How would you being a story? Here’s mine:
“I told you not to let that dog off her leash.” I pulled the collar of my red coast higher.
“But she hasn’t run off for week,” my younger sister said, wiping flakes out of her eyes.
“Why don’t you leave Trixie at home for our morning walks?” A plaid scarf muffled my older sister’s voice. “Have Eric walk her in the evenings.”
My younger sister walked ahead. “She can’t have gone far.”
The trail in the park dipped down, and we followed it into a clearing. We weren’t alone. Two figures, fuzzy in the swirling snow, stood about fifty feet apart, staring at each other. They hadn’t turned as we entered the clearing.
We stopped. The strangers, a man and a woman, held their attention on each other. Why hadn’t they noticed us?
My older sister gripped my arm. “Let’s go back.”
The man moved, reaching under his coat.
You are so good at writing suspense! Here’s what I came up with:
Six years. It had been six years since my boyfriend died. Six years that his heart had been pumping in another man’s body. The heart I loved, but it wasn’t his life anymore. Through an insane string of circumstances for which I resented my Aunt Kathy (who insisted that she didn’t break the privacy policy of the hospital where she works – yeah right), there I was ready to meet the recipient of the heart that once held mine.
The plan was simple. Meet in the safety of a public park, express happiness that this stranger gets to live because of a tragedy, and finally move on with life. I had role-played the conversation in my mind dozens of times, and promised Aunt Kathy that I wouldn’t get snarky. It wasn’t this guy’s fault he was born with a heart defect. It wasn’t his fault that Graham chose a ridiculously dangerous profession and became a statistic.
I let out a shaky breath and made the final turn to our designated meeting place. A man looking just as nervous was almost to the meeting place. I most dreaded this moment. What if he was awful? An apathetic menace to society? Or worse, what if he was great? Runner-up for the Nobel Peace Prize and an advocate for the elderly and downtrodden?
We were close enough that I could no longer avoid eye contact. I would meet this person, this house of Graham’s heart.
Ugh, people. Three of them, laughing and enjoying life – loudly, of course, and two of them holding hands and in love – approaching our meeting place. I fought the crazy notion to pretend I was meeting them and just forget this whole thing ever happened. I gave a quick glance at the approaching group and felt painfully nauseous when I caught the eye of the third-wheel of the group. It was Gordon, Graham’s older brother, the operator of the crane that had been set up improperly and rolled over Graham. This meeting just got a whole lot worse.
So much to work with here! You’ve packed a lot of story in a short space. It could work well as an opening or a climax.