The Truth of the Dragon Kingdom (1st draft)

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

The dragon kingdom has a mysterious dark dragon who plans to usurp the throne. But he must be stopped by four teenage dragons with differing pasts: a thief, a prince, a commoner, and one who is not afraid not get her claws dirty.

As the story continues, time and free will become more complicated and even get experimental. a

this is xenofiction, so the characters are dragons. (GOING THROUGH REWRITE!)

This is experimental writing. There is some second person and even fourth wall breaking. so be prepared

(participating in the Writathon)

FYI, edits to previous chapters might come

Information

Status: Cancelled
Year: 2022
Author: Summit-the -Dragon

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 3.7/ 5.0
Followers: 2
Views: 9,742

Reviews

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Community Reviews(5)

BlueMintishRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
I believe that this story has a lot of potential. The characters are likable, the pacing is not too slow, and the plot is intriguing. I especially liked the inclusion of multiple character POVs. It helped to flesh out the characters and learn more about how they saw the world. Through their eyes, the world is built for us, the readers.
Though I would love to leave my review there, I can't. This is a fun story with an intriguing plot, but a lack of editing and foresight holds it back. Characters will change their personalities mid-page, plot points are dropped or temporarily ignored, and grammar mistakes are everywhere. It wasn't easy to read this work in its current state. Even though this story is a first draft (as noted in the title), it desperately needs more editing.
Even so, I still give this story an overall score of 4 stars. It made me think, and that was enough. Please see below my more in-depth thoughts.
Style: Including different character POVs was a good choice. I would not have cared about the other characters if it wasn't for that. I also liked the shorter chapters, though I wish they were more focused. Out of all the areas I'm going to talk about in my review, I have no major concerns about style. The author was able to get their intent across in the way they wrote their story. However, like all aspects of this story, it is held back by the many mistakes made in spelling and grammar. Once those are fixed, I can appreciate the author's writing techniques more.
Story: The story is intriguing, but that's about it. I want to know more about the world and how the characters will solve their problems, but I also don't really care. It feels like any mysteries that exist in the story, exist so there can be mysteries. The one part that I did care about, Truth and Tiger's relationship, was solved too quickly. Any suspense I felt was quickly wiped away as the author moved on to the next mystery. Why should I care about what happens if it doesn't matter to the cha
Mr Alex666Royal Road
★★★★ 4.0
You, future readers, should keep in mind, that this story is a 1st draft and experimental. (as it says in the title)
First, I think it a nice idea to make dragons the main species for the story, it has vast potential. You should, however, keep in mind, that for most Westerners, a dragon is a huge creature, easily larger than houses (I think, the Eastern dragons aren't small either, they just lack appendages). It took me time to get rid of that notion (and figure out, these dragons are small) and see them as small. It would help readers acclimatize to the different sizes if it was made abundantly clear very early on, what order of magnitude they are. Dog? Bear? Cow? Also, it isn't often clear, if they are bi- or quadrupedal.
Story: the main plot seems to be political machinations, centered on the crown prince. My biggest beef with the story is the absence of background - who are the players, and what's it all about? The characters are moving more or less in an informational vacuum. They may know things, but the reader is left hanging. I will give a 4, but only because of the unique idea of the dragon kingdom.
Style: nothing inherently bad, however, sometimes it isn't exactly clear, why certain things happen, even after a POV-change. I will go with a 4
Characters: while the cast consists of dragons, the potential is rarely explored. From time to time, it doesn't even matter, what species the cast is (they could be Goblins or Beastkin), and I sometimes forgot, they are dragons to begin with. The cast is quite erratic in who they trust from scene to scene, and they don't exactly talk to each other. It reminds me of Lost (the TV-show): everyone was hoarding secrets and information, mistrusting and taking advantage of each other. I can't give more, than a 3.
Grammar: This part is tricky. There are whole Chapters without any mistakes, I could detect (not a native speaker here, though), and in the next chapter, a paragraph is full of typos and misuse of words/tenses/person
kanundraRoyal Road
★★★★ 4.0
Opening.
The author here is quite forward on how this is an experiment and from the get go, the chapters are short, enticing, and make you want to get to the next one. I also want to state how brave they are in putting this out there, and thanks for letting me read it, and hopefully something I say might help. Now or on the next one!
Story.
It’s very much more human than dragons, once I got past that inside my mind I could focus a bit more on the story world itself, and what was going on around us. And concentrate on it.
You need to concentrate on it, and the characters, or you’ll miss something vital in all the nuances this has in style and mystery.
Style.
Be expected to need to go backwards, and reread. Not in anyway bad, but just so you understand the depth to what’s going on. There’s a lot.
The authors style in general is testing, so there’s a lot everything you wouldn’t expect in a novel. Lots of sentence fragments. Breaking your immersion with tense changes.
There’s fourth wall breaking which you’re warned about. You’re also warned pretty early on there’s going to be a wide variety in POV’s and that adds to the view on the world from the characters.
Grammar.
This does need a good going over, for flow and a few other bits and pieces. It does get a little confusing even for me at times. It’s the unreliable narrator/character that you yourself don’t know if you can trust what they’re seeing or going through, they take it to another extreme in how you read it and how your mind works to connect all the dots.
Characters.
Tiger, Truth, Maple, are the core character this is around. With others that pop in and out for information and to enhance the story.
I read a bit further on because I was interested in the ‘god’ new side to this, and the fourth wall breaking. It gets really interesting and then there’s some alternate timelines, with and around the clock…. So I’m questioning reality on the whole as it progresses. They’re kinda in and out of portals, different timeli
David GilesRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
Grammar: No complaints grammar wise, it's written competently with no glaring errors and few minor ones
Character: I'll lead with this on the downside as it's very much where all problems stem from. The character's don't feel like dragons, they feel like humans that occasionally remember they have scales and it drags the whole story down with it.
The main character is at once a well trained infiltrator and can't even fool a child, has to make up their alias on the spot after being given their mission and in general doesn't live up to their given backstory.
Story: It suffers heavily from what I call 'the curtain problem' where the POV character knows a lot of things the author doesn't want the audience knowing and thus talks and thinks themselves in circles to avoid addressing these points properly. It's clear the author has a plot in mind but they spend so much effort not spoiling major reveal that it feels they've picker a grander scale of intrigue than they can cope with.
Style: The style is fairly flat and a bit disjointed, honestly it's servicable but there need to be a much greater focus on description especially when it involves a non-human society and POV character.
StrahdsillystrawRoyal Road
★★★ 3.0
I will state this before continuing with my review, I have a very specific image in my mind of dragons! This opinion of mine may influence my biases somewhat so take my more opinionated bits with a grain of salt!
As far as I read into The Truth of the Dragon Kingdom, it had the makings of something interesting full of hooks and the dramatics of relations between dragons. Normally this would be a page turner for me, however summit's dragons feel extrordianarily human-esque. I found myself forgetting I was reading about dragons sometimes unless they mentioned a particular body part that didn't fit a human. This, in turn, tended to jolt me out of my immersion as I had to reimagine the whole scenario with dragons.
The grammar was fine, I saw a few things I didn't care for or gave me pause, but its easily enough ignored.
I had some issues with the characters beyond them feeling rather mundane as dragons (again grain of salt), and I'm not entirely certain how to explain them. The closest I can manage is they feel something like what I'd normally expect to find in a fan-fiction, as if the characters have a developed personality and set of characteristics, but are written by someone else.
Overall, it's pretty good. I only read up to chapter six, so I speak with the information of someone who doesn't know the characters to their current fullest iteration.