Common Sense

Information

Status

Hiatus

Year

2023

Author

Veneer

• Introductions - Chapter Eight
  Sep 1, 2023
• Introductions - Chapter Seven
  Aug 27, 2023
• Interlude - Chapter Six
  Aug 22, 2023
• Introductions - Chapter Five
  Aug 19, 2023
• Introductions - Chapter Four
  Aug 14, 2023
• Introductions - Chapter Three
  Aug 9, 2023
• Introductions - Chapter Two
  Aug 7, 2023
• Introductions - Chapter One
  Aug 7, 2023

Reviews

Community Reviews(7)

• k.cRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  This is an early review and thus a reflection of the current chapters I've read. There is still foundation to be laid for the story, but so far the author has done a good job at world building and introducing the MC(s).
  Style: The author shines in their descriptive depictions of Anne Tarynn, Arthur, Theodore, and the thief. Their prose is one of the author's strong suits, and I could really visualize all the scenes unfolding as I read.
  Story: So far the story looks promising. It begins right off the bat introducing Anne in an intriguing opening sequence. I look forward to when these MCs begin interacting with each other, and what adventures they'll go through at (potentially) the Fourth University.
  Grammar: Grammar is great, and I don't see any grammatical errors that deter from my reading experience.
  Character Score: All the characters introduced (as of now) all come from different backgrounds, making it interesting for the reader as the experiences they have are varied and unique. This might be due to how early on I am in the story, but it might be helpful to have a transition through each MC's viewpoint (basically placing emphasis that they're someone to pay attention to).
• StainedGlassThreadsRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 5.0

  When beginning the story, Common Sense wastes little time on explaining the plot, world, action, or major characters. Each introductory chapter sprinkles in important information, and expects you to piece things together on your own. As such, the first chapter may be somewhat confusing, or may appear to move a little fast, but once I finished that chapter things became significantly clearer. Thus far I have only read up to the Interlude. There are only the slightest hints of the plot, and I've scarcely gotten to know the characters--the main concept connecting the different characters and threads together so far is an eccentric school, run by a yet more eccentric gnomish woman. As such, though the story looks very intriguing and I see the author has a great deal of technical skill in storytelling and an excellent eye for detail which makes me inclined to trust it'll be a good story, as well as a large number of plot threads and characters to explore, I can't accurately judge the story itself as a category yet. So let's move on to some other things.
  Style and Grammar are both high-quality for this site. While there are a great many POVs, the narration is third-person limited perspective, smoothing over the transitions. Style has a rather good grasp of language and prose with a nice and varied word usage that doesn't feel very repetitive, dry, or dull. Grammar is near-perfect, save for the occasional punctuation error. I might have some contradictory opinions about semi-colon usage, but that's pretty irrelevant to what most of the site's looking for.
  Characters I don't feel I know especially well so far, especially some introduced very recently, like Kanatase. However, even this early into the story, each character has been given a very solid introduction. The demon with something approaching a sense of guilt and ethics. The two paragons, one of whom is a country boy out of his depth, the other who feels a heavy legacy from her forebears which she much act on. The mil
• R. L. EhrickRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  An intriguing setup to a school of magic story with interesting worldbuilding and characters. Stylistically smooth, with strong prose and descriptions, but a few hiccups that kept me from enjoying the story as much as I would have liked.
  STYLE: I'll forgive a lot in a story that has prose as nice and readable as what I've found here. The descriptions are nice for grounding the reader in the setting. Stylistically the prose is transparent, allowing the story to show through without drawing attention to itself. That's a good thing for my own reading preferences.
  GRAMMAR: The grammar was competent, might have been a little issue here or there but nothing that took away from the story.
  STORY: I like magitech worldbuilding, and there's a good foundation here, but I found myself feeling like I was missing some pieces of information--about the world, the kingdom, the gods, stuff like that. I know it's hard to weave that in without info dumping, but I feel like the author could have given us a little more information, seeing as two of the students are Paragons appointed by their gods, another is a prince of an important realm, etc.
  There are good nuggets of worldbuilding that intrigued me--the situation with the elves, the fact that the headmistress of the school is a (part?)gnome. But the fact that I still don't know what that means within the world bugs me a bit. I can start to see the shape of the story and what Tarynn is trying to do with her school, so that's good.
  CHARACTERS: I like multi-POV stories. But I think this story brings in too many POVs, too soon. I like the characters, but I wish we got more time to know them before we're dropped into the head of new ones. I was starting to get a little exhausted by the time we got to Erica's POV.
  Giving us more time with a few characters would allow them to be developed more. As it is I feel like I haven't had time to get to know any of the POVs I've been introduced to, and because of that their characterization feels a l
• DuskArcanistRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  Set in a land known as Lysia, the story opens with a vivid scene depicting twelve soldiers stationed outside a seemingly unassuming building, their anticipation palpable. The detailed description of the scene effortlessly draws the reader into the narrative.
  The characters come alive through engaging dialogue that brings out their personalities. The author's skillful narrative pacing and vivid descriptions create an immersive experience that keeps readers hooked
  Style: Overall the author shines in descriptions and has quite good dialogue, however what draws me back a little bit is the chapter sizes, they are quite huge chunks well over 2.5-3 thousand words, which I think is the optimal amount for a chapter. But that's just a personal preference. Their prose is very good and the story flows seamlessly due to this.
  Grammar: I didn't spot any grammatical errors in that sense, however some sentences do flow on for much too long, and the paragraphs can get a bit chunky.
  Story: I can tell that for fans of worldbuilding this is going to be an absolute treat for them, and I can already sense the effort that is going into fleshing this world out bit by bit to make it feel vibrant and alive.
• theLonelyAuthourRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  As the title of the review reads, it's a solid start to a novel.
  Style: The author makes good use of show not tell, with the use of adverbs not being terribly prominent. Through the strong use of prose, the author is able to paint a mental picture for the audience. Furthermore, the dialogue between characters is realistic and as a reader, we're able to get a clear understanding of where everyone was standing in a scene.
  Story: As seen by the titles of the chapters, we're not sure of where the story goes but we see the main stages set up and we're given a strong understanding of politics and the threats such as the
  elves and the Hells
  But sometimes it's overdone. There is a scene on a train in Chapter 4 where you go into detail about a family that we'd likely never see again.
  Character: Despite there only being 5 chapters, we get a glimpse into each of the main characters and despite there being no immediate shock value, the relationships built carry the readers through all 5 chapters and find you wanting more.
  Grammar: This wasn't horrible in the slightest, but especially in the first couple of chapters there were a lot of run-on sentences that made it slightly challenging to read. Later the problem is largely resolved, but the score is primarily based on these 5 chapters and is subject to change in the future.
  Overall, a great read and has immense potential.
• StabbybabyRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  Reviewed at Introductions- Chapter 7.
  Overview: Solid and enjoyable. I plan to keep following and reading as I love the premise listed in the synopsis, which the author delivers as promised. It's a fantasy, a genre that doesn't always get a fair shake here, but well done in this case so far. Overall the work is a good example of showing, not telling.
  Style: Enjoyable. I can easily see the author publishing the work in the future with some professional editing to round out an already well-polished approach. The author has a clearly developed idea of how they want to tell this story. I find the physical descriptions a bit sparse, but that will be addressed under characters.
  Grammar: Very few mistakes. A small number of punctuation errors are corrected almost as soon as they are pointed out. Good job here.
  Story: Lots to say here. It is well structured, with a fairly clear progression of the plot from chapter to chapter. The premise is about a group of individuals with varied backgrounds attending a college by invitation from a powerful archmage who seems to have grown annoyed at incompetence. We are still in the introduction phase at this point, so not a ton of detail or worldbuilding yet. This is in line with the style.
  The magic system in place is not too overly descriptive, and I anticipate more fleshing out of the concepts and structure later on. So far, it is a powerful tool that is not overused to support the story. Well done.
  The sentence structure of the placement of a character within a scene can occasionally be confusing or easier to miss on the first read-through. This can cause some backtracking to find out where a character came from within the scene.  Humor is in appropriate places and used as a unique flavoring, not a main course. The plot is a little slower to begin, but I think this lends more time to build the characters and world so it is at an appropriate pace for the story.
  Character: This is a bright and shiny point of the author's repertoire. At
• FirstNexusRoyal Road

  ★★★★★ 4.5

  I normally use the overall score to show my enjoyment of the story, so it's an easy 4.5/5 for me because I liked what the author has done here in terms of world and character building.
  Style: The style uses third person, and is very distinct. The descriptions are put together well, the dialogue flows decently well, and the storytelling using this style makes this world feel very real. That said, at first I wasn't sure whether the story is being told in third person limited or omniscient. The first chapter itself follows multiple characters and honestly, this might just be easily fixed by splitting up chapters.
  Story: The story so far is an easy 5/5 because throughout the first four chapters, the world is still being built and the author has done a tremendous job of creating a believable exposition through the thoughts and dialogue of the characters. I think that the synopsis of the story does very good in explaining what occurs without giving anything too much away, so as soon as we learned a couple specific names in the first chapter, the purpose of the next few was made very clear.
  Grammar: It's not as much of a general issue, and it's not overly egregious either, but there are times when sentences seem incredibly long and don't flow as well as they could. Just doing a quick read through and splitting up some very long sentences might do some good, but other than that, there wasn't anything I caught.
  Character: I myself am not a fan of multiple POVs because of the issue of ample character development for each, but I think the author has tackled this very well so far. Each character we've been introduced to feels fleshed out and each has their own distinct personality. I think this story can be done right with multiple characters as long as the author does what they've been doing so far, which is taking their time writing each of them.
  Overall, this is an interesting read so far and I'd definitely recommend it!