Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world)
I noticed a lot of chapters from this stuck in the green room. So I decided to select this as my next target. Expect a flood of reviews in the next four to five days.
First Impression: Not too bad for an opening chapter. Also bananas...this seems to be lodged in brain for some reason.
Every single stall was completely dead. Not a single customer could be seen for miles around. Well, except Buck. But he didn't really count because he was getting his afternoon tea later, from the palace, when he had lunch with the Duchess to go over strategy.
So this is interesting to start off with. You start to wonder who this Duchess is and what sort of strategy would involve making banana vendors happy.
The banana vendors had been the only ones deep enough in the jungle that week that it had been considered time consuming for the city council to track them all down. Now, they all had folded arms, snarling faces or wistful, glum eyes and slouched posture.
So here I'm assuming they were not tracked down to warn them that business may be low.
Buck shook his head and waggled his airborne leg. "Not until I see a smile on all those sourpuss faces. Come on, how about the song of the market? Maybe if I sing loud enough the prince will be unable to resist the sound of the heart of Resador!"
The woman put her hand over her eyes. "Oh, whatever. I should know better than try to stop you singing once you're on one leg."
Buck grinned, made sure his floppy red hat was in order, and began to serenade them.
This is some fairly realistic banter there.
"Buck, you're only four years older than me," Chopi said. "Please shut up."
Buck knew he should never have let the Duchess throw him that twenty-first birthday party. His face paint was brilliant at obscuring his age, but these days everyone knew just how young a spring bean they were listening to the word of.
"Well, my thanks for the water, regardless," Buck said, smiling despite Chopi’s glare.
After the other vendors, or audience members as Buck now liked to think of them, had offered their payments, he bid the marketplace farewell for the day and headed off in the direction of the palace.
So all of this makes for a pretty interesting character in Buck to get the readers immediately interested in reading further.
There were greengrocers and tailors and armorours dotted around within the city walls but this, this was the real deal.
I think that should be armorers although I use American English so maybe not.
Buck strolled along the wide dirt track that cut through the flat green plain. It disappeared over a short ridge about a quarter of a mile away, but until then at least it was completely empty. This was quite fortunate for Buck, who would launch into quick, merry skipping whenever he was seen in his face paint and costume. In the dry heat of today, he was glad of the freedom to stroll calmly along, frequently taking sips of water out of the bucket for which he was nicknamed.
High mounds of dirt and grass lined either side of the track like walls where it passed through. In the shelter of these on either side, Buck stretched his muscles and cracked his joints. The city walls were only a hundred or so yards away now, so he had some skipping to do.
That's a nice bit of description to end the chapter there.
And that's it for this one.
Overall: This works pretty well as a first chapter. Buck seems likable and he seems to be off to some scheming soon which all work to get the reader interested. So good start.
So I noticed there were like 7 reviews already for this piece so I didn't read through the lot. If I repeated anything anyone else said, sorry. And of course remember to take what you think is helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Points: 254288
Reviews: 4103
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