Story from a Photo - Subjective POV

Taken from National Geographic on Google Images

 

After you have chosen your photo, think about how you can create a character based on the person you see.  Then think about beginning your story with the blare of that person's alarm clock.  Your protagonist awakens for the day, showers, dresses, eats breakfast, and heads out to begin a seemingly normal day.

However, sometime early in your protagonist's day, a conflict arises.  Drama begins (all stories must have conflict otherwise they're going to be super boring!).  Start your story here - at the moment of conflict.  Be sure to use a third person subjective POV (i.e. - narrator can enter the mind of your protagonist and no one else).

In her book Building Fiction, Jesse Lee Kercheval warns writers about the “alarm clock” opening, noting that too often this approach delays the start of the story and bores readers from the get-go.  Avoid boring your readers; start your story "in medias res" - in the middle of the action (like in Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" or Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants").

Don't forget to add things like: character development/description, dialogue, scene setting, gestures, and the five senses.  This is just like writing your memoir, only it's fiction! :)

*Thanks to Jack Heffron's The Writer's Idea Book