Outside The Village

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Volter, barely an adult with a severe lack of responsibility, jumps at the opportunity to venture outside his village to help a person. To keep him alive, his friends, Meuko and Sylvar, accompany him.What starts as a chance to help becomes a more complicated issue, one that Volter is definitely not prepared for. But that's what friends are for, right?

Information

Status: Hiatus
Year: 2023
Author: Parla

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.3/ 5.0
Followers: 7
Views: 11,449

Reviews

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Community Reviews(5)

IcanicaRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Overall:
Promising story, though definitely needs some formatting changes
Style:
- Tone: Descriptive and, since it's first person, through the voice of the MC, a twenty year old boy stuck in a village with nothing to do, inexperienced with much of life and the greater world.
- Voice: An interesting thing about the dialogue is that the author doesn't use contractions. I think more use of contractions would make the dialogue pop a little more, it's difficult to notice it's need unless you see it missing.
- POV: First person perspective, done pretty well
- Narrative structure: The story's pacing is pretty good so far I think. The MC has his first quest and his first brush with death and combat.
- Imagery: Not very descriptive but I don't mind that kind of narration, more dialogue and action driven.
- Theme: Coming of age, seeing the wider world, biting off more than you can chew...
Story:
The first chapter is a rough start but picks up in the second one. The character development and interactions between the MC and fellow members of the village is heartwarming. I enjoy the story, it is definitely promising.
Grammar:
Very much needs to be separated into distinct paragraphs by line breaks, really hurts the readability otherwise. Keep each paragraph maximum three sentences. Sometimes punctuation is missing as well.
Characters:
The characters are alright so far, the MC is very down to Earth, wanting a chance to prove himself. The village views him as immature but the care is still there. The other characters feel well developed though their dialogue is a bit stilted sometimes.
Alexanders (Katsu)Royal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Okay...Let's get this out of the way, the story so far follows Voltron(Volter). A poor kiddo who feels he doesn't contribute enough to his village. Since everyone (And this includes their grandmas) have something to do besides him.
Story:
Follow the adventures of Voltar who embarks in a epic quest that starts saving the wife of a dwarf that got chased by goblins! How do we save her? Well glad you asked, since we will need eggs, so go and fetch me a griffin egg! And so out we go!
All good right? My only problem here would be the passing, it feels too rushed.
Style:
Paragraphing, it feels like a whole blurb all together with no spacing.
Grammar:
No problems there, but then again the paragraphing might count towards this too?
Character:
Could do with more on the presentation front, but overall I guess that it feels like a closed lit community where Voltron is the odd one out. Well him and the outsider.
Volter is portrayed as a somewhat insecure yet determined individual who seeks purpose and is willing to help others. Blago appears as a gruff blacksmith and mentor figure to Volter since only he gives him work to do. Even if said work ends with a beating sometimes.
Sylvar is a calm and collected elf skilled in archery as all knife ears are. And we got Julie depicted as a caring healer. who works hard since voltron is an was unruly kid
D.J. RintoulRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I think this story has a lot of potential. The ideas about the setting and world seem pretty sound so far. I'm curious about where the story might go in the future. There are meaningful stakes; people's lives are consistently on the line in the story so far.
I love fantasy settings with goblins and other magical creatures present, and this setting has that charm in spades. The main character lives in one of those villages that you can tell is inches away from giving birth to a chosen one or being wiped out by a monster raid.
There are also enough characters in this story to make for interesting character dynamics, theoretically.
There are a few things that I question in the execution. The characters don't feel like they have distinctive voices and personalities; they could almost be the same single person. The main character has mainly been distinguishable from other characters thus far only by being less competent. An initially weak main character is an idea I like.
Making the main character less competent than others makes it clear that he's in greater danger than them in the same situation, and it gives him more room to grow, all of which is solid storytelling. That said, here it seems to be the main thing that defines him. It's not the only thing. He is a good person, and he's somewhat naturally suspicious, but there's not much else to distinguish him from his friends yet.
The grammar is okay. There are errors, mainly tense agreement issues, which is an error I run into very often in reading on this site generally.
The writing style is a bit stilted. Formal, repetitive, a little odd. For some people, this may take them out of the story. For other readers, I'm optimistic that the story might be entrancing enough that this isn't a deal-breaker.
MoonlightGardensRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I can see some potential with this, but there’s a lot that needs to be fixed, too.
Style (4/5)
The biggest issue here is the formatting. Paragraphs are started or ended mid-sentence in one chapter barely having proper paragraph spacing at all. The author uses no contractions in any part of the writing, which makes everything feel unnatural and stiff. These vastly interfere with reading and understanding the story and I believe this is where the main issues are.
Story (4/5)
It went to the action fairly quickly, but it was hard to keep track of everything. After a while, I couldn’t quite tell what was going on. It keeps moving from one action bit to another without much time between, blurring them all together into a somewhat confusing mess. So, full points for idea… execution could probably use some work, though.
Grammar (4/5)
I found a handful of errors and several instances of missing punctuation.
Character (4/5)
I couldn’t find an interest in any of the characters. Nothing about them truly stood out, perhaps by the quick succession in which they were introduced, and they all seemed to sound the same. Honestly it was difficult to keep track of them. I think, though, that most of this has to do with what I mentioned in Style.
TheGreatGazpachoRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
[Review Swap]
This feels like some ol' D&D questing you would do during one of the first few sessions. It's very straightforward, with the author introducing us to our little adventuring party: Volter, the protagonist that wants to prove themselves; Sylvar, the classic ranged-attacker Elf; and Meuko, a woman described with Orc-like height and strength but is human like Volter. While this isn't the most unique composition for an adventuring party, they work off each other well enough, and their characters are expressed well enough.