A man stood in the middle of the street, his arms outstretched and raised to the sky, and his upturned face was a mask of sadness as he lifted his plea to the heavens above. At his feet lay the motionless form of an older man whose blood stained the stones of the road. Behind him stood another man, dressed in a neat, angular, black uniform with cold grey eyes. What few people remained nearby had cast their eyes to the ground and were shuffling off hastily. When the man's arms fell, the uniformed man with the cold eyes took hold of his shoulder, pulling him away. The necromancers would come soon and ascertain what secrets this body could foretell, although doubtless there would be few indeed from such a dubious death. The blood would remain as yet another stain upon the roads of the City Karador.

Thank you
-Fahrion
 

"A man stood in the middle of the street, his arms outstretched and raised to the sky, and his upturned face was a mask of sadness as he lifted his plea to the heavens above."

"Stood" is a static action that tells rather than shows an active action as it relates to the man. The man is in a still-life pose with no preceding context for why.

"His arms outstretched and raised" the action already happened in the past, before the opening. He's already standing still with his arms raised without the cause of the effect. The dead man at his feet portrayed afterward puts the cause after the effect. Depicting in the moment of an action and chronologically unfolding the action lends immediacy and orients on a focal character's sensations. Orienting on a character's sensations initiates immersion in a story through those personal sensations.

"And his upturned face was a mask of sadness as he lifted his plea to the heavens above." A run in clause not directly related to the preceding circumstances in that it's a summary of the man's emotions--rather than an expository description of his static appearance as in the previous clauses--that progresses from an expression that's already on his face before the opening into a concurrent action that's not an action concurrent with the emotional expression or the preceding static actions. "Was a mask" in the past "as he lifted" in the present and "as" signifies a concurrent action.

"As he lifted his plea to the heavens above." A summary of an action that avoids getting into the man's meaning space. An introspective plea, a spoken plea, or a thought sympathic to or condemning the dead man's loss initiates immersion through the pleading man's thoughts.

I'm reasonably sure that this story is in American English. "Grey" is the standard British English variant. "Gray" is the standard variant in American English.

[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited May 08, 2009).]
 

Main nit: "Behind him stood another man, dressed in a neat, angular, black uniform with cold grey eyes" - this literally reads that his uniform has eyes. I suspect this was not your intention. And faced with that grammar, I suspect many editors would stop reading right there.
 

Third-person objective narrative point of view's strength is that it initiates introductions, quickly drops a narrator into the background, and glides into a focal character's point of view as soon as possible. An opening sentence invariably introduces a narrative point of view. But then slips into a character's point of view right away. How to accomplish that with this opening, I don't know. There's too many possibilities I'm projecting from limited information.

The foremost purpose of an opening is introducing a reader to a story. I don't have any grounding on what the story is or an anchoring center upon which to fixate, like a character's predicament, or a conflict (diametrically opposing forces, like life and death, good and evil, acceptance and rejection); an initial antagonism compelling desire and change, and opposing purpose; a causal train of circumstances, a sympathy-induced or suspense-induced initiation of tension, a clash of characters, a collision of circumstances, a secret anxiety, an internal truth, or an intimate feeling, etc. There are hints of possibilities, but not detailed enough for me to suggest what direction to take or method to use.
 

In fiction, the opening is helped by the tableau, but the elements to move readers forward also include character and a hook. The purpose is to grab you by the collar and put you in the scene with the main character, not to have you view the tableau from behind a see-through mirror.

There are a lot of ways to skin this cat, but the key thing is to conentrate on getting the reader into the story. Who is the main character is it the uniformed grey-eyed fellow, the man pleading or someone else? What's the next action? What's at stake? Will there be an altercation out on the street? What's going to keep me interesting in moving on with the story?

[This message has been edited by Owasm (edited May 08, 2009).]
 

If it's the man in uniform, what is he thinking? How does this affect him? Is it a mystery he's going to have to solve? Is it an annoyance that's holding him back from something else he needs/wants to do?

If it's someone else, most of the same questions apply.

Instead of showing us the scene as a snapshot, show us how someone, preferably the MC, thinks or feels about the scene. That way we get to start to know who the main character is.