The Dragon of Dreams

               OK. I’ve spent the last couple of days binge-reading through the story so a lot of it is still a bit fresh on my mind (hard to remember everything, though). To start off this review, my current chapter is 139. I’m currently taking a creative writing class at my university, but I am in no way an expert. This is just how I feel and what my preferences writing stories (feel free to leave a comment if you feel I am wrong about something).

               Now that that’s over with, let's start with what I don’t like and then end with what I like. I’ll mark the sections with three stars (***).

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               Grammar:

               I’m going to be brutally honest. I really didn’t like the start of this novel. It felt like an author who is new to creative writing wrote the novel's beginning. I say this because I made many similar mistakes when I first started doing creative writing. It just looked like you had no idea what you were doing and just kinda stumbled through the start.

               First off, traditionally, you are supposed to use italics to write a character’s thoughts. This is leaning a bit into style (I’ll mention it in that section as well), but this story is in the first person; you do not need to separate thoughts. All text—excluding quotes—is the main character's thoughts (the narrator). Sadly, this continues to occur throughout the novel.

               I’ve mentioned this in several comments, but ellipses are three dots, not two. If the ellipsis is at the end of a sentence, you add an extra dot to act as a period. You also never corrected this. It is a very bad habit that you have.

               At the beginning of the novel, your grammar was just really bad. Your most significant error with grammar is punction in the early chapters. I know you attempted/are going back through the first chapters to edit them and improve them, but I highly recommend doing a significant overhaul that won't affect modern chapters.

               Now, although you have yet to fix the issues with using a hyphen to denote thoughts in a first-person narrative and the use of improper eclipses, your grammar vastly improved. Somewhere near chapter 27 (I don’t remember the exact point, but it's probably 20 something), your grammar and overall story vastly improved. If you (a potential reader of the story) are considering reading this story, just try to read up till chapter 27.

***

               Style:

               Now style, I would say, is probably the worst part of this novel. Yeah, the grammar was bad, but your brain fills in the gaps most of the time. But not with style. And the style is not very good.

               First of all, sentences are not very complex in this story most of the time. Your writing uses basic grammar—you only ever use periods, commas, and a shit ton of ellipses (that aren’t even grammatically correct and unnecessary). Although this is fine, it really just dumbs down your writing. I believe part of the reason for writing like this is just because you are posting this story chapter by chapter on a set schedule. But I suggest using em-dashes instead of parenthesis and a cut-off sentence; make use of semi-colons to add variety in your sentence structures, and please use hyphens for stuttering in sentences. It doesn’t make sense for a character to pause on the first letter of a word when they are nervous.

               Additionally (although this is a bit fuzzy), your vocabulary is also elementary—except when talking about science and sometimes magic. Again, this is probably because of how you release the novel. But I’d suggest using a thesaurus to quickly expand your vocabulary use a little bit more.

               Another major hit to style was that sentences don’t really do a good job of reflecting how the narrator feels. You add ellipses and show emotions through what the characters say, but there is so much more to it. You gotta show how the narrator feels by changing the syntax, vocabulary, and grammar. A really good example of this is "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid. It is a super short story (it’s about 1 page, and it's free. BTW, it's supposed to be read super fast with not much breathing—listen to it with text to speech if you want). It does an excellent job of showing the narrator's overwhelmed, anxious, and angry feelings using short sentences and semi-colons.

               This was bad at the start but got better over time: paragraph breaks. You gotta remember that paragraphs will separate ideas. If you are talking about the emotions a character displays, everything describing this stays in the same paragraph. For example, lets take a look at a two sentences from chapter 4:

A sudden wave of sadness took over making me instinctively look back up at Mother.

The sadness that felt like a dark and heavy blanket wrapping around me disappeared upon seeing her pure smile.

There should be no paragraph break in these two sentences (there is also more wrong with these two sentences). You make this mistake a few other times throughout the story, but I didn’t keep notes on where and how many. But nevertheless, in writing future chapters, don’t be afraid to have paragraphs longer than a sentence or two.

               Now the perspective shifts. I also made a comment about this in one of the chapters. You are supposed to use them as a break for the reader after a long period of only viewing things from one perspective. But no-no-no, you, you use them as a shortcut for character development. You just have way too many perspective shifts. And when I say way, I mean all-caps WAY too many. I’ll talk about this a bit more in the character development section, but style-wise, it still hurts your story. First, you just keep giving us a bunch of unnecessary information! Secondly, it robs the mystery for the reader.

               Example One (very, VERY, light spoilers): chapter 107, A Black Cat. In this chapter, near the end, we switch to Captain Abbie Lassaar’s perspective after she uses her cat to scout. This perspective shift is absolutely pointless other than a cheap way to introduce and develop this character. But you should have done it naturally from Vasilias’s perspective. By switching perspectives, you took the readers out of the story and made the story's pacing longer by adding pointless information. I remember just being annoyed because I felt robbed. I want to know what will happen next in the story, but you just take me out of the story by adding a pointless perspective shift and make it unnecessarily longer than it has to be.

               Example Two: chapter 123 (spoilers), Infinite Possibilities. In this chapter, after Antonia makes a mistake, she is sent to the infirmary due to serious injuries, and we switch to her perspective. Once again, this is a completely unnecessary part of the chapter. In fact, because of this perspective, her decision to leak information makes no sense in a future chapter (that is, unless she was forced to leak information because her sister was held hostage; and/or you plan on having the sister want revenge. But based off of previous content, I really don’t think that is where this is going, primarily because of the time jump and the new arc).

               The last major problem with perspective shifts is that they rob the reader of the story’s natural mystery. I know that this story is not under the mystery genre, but all good stories that I’ve ever read have some aspect of mystery. It’s just not the focus of the story. By giving us a bunch of information about what's happening outside of  Vasilias’s perspective, you're not leaving any part of the story open to our imagination. There is fun in not knowing what all characters are thinking and doing. But by just force-feeding us the characters' true thoughts and actions through perspective shifts, you're hurting the story. Think of it like this. I told you a super funny joke, but I immediately explain the joke to you. Now the joke isn’t really funny, or, at least, it's less funny than it once was. That’s what you are doing; you are explaining too much of the story. Let's go back to the examples.

               In Example One (spoilers), when Vasilias sees the cat, we don’t know what it is and what it is doing. It piques the audience's interest. When I read that part of the story, I thought that the cat could be a mystical beast, and it was something like the Sleep Flower in the earlier chapters. But no, you immediately ruined dulled my interest by immediately switching to Captain Abbie Lassaar’s perspective. What you could have done was have the cat appear and disappear, then leave that ship of settlers from the future chapter as is. It allows the readers to theorize if the cat had anything to do with humans on the ship heading towards their land. Then when we see the cat later on, we make the connection that it had something to do with Captain Abbie Lassaar. Then we start to question Captain Abbie Lassaar. Do you see how this mystery keeps the readers engaged in the story? By explaining everything, you lose that engagement.

               In Example Two (very, VERY, light spoilers), when Antonia is attacked by her employer, it leaves the question of how will Antonia react to being assaulted? Will she be spiteful? Will she be understanding? We don’t know because she is a new character. This mystery helps to keep the audience engaged in the story. But you immediately shatter that by switching to her perspective.

               Another negative: italics/ narrator’s thoughts. First off, I mentioned this earlier, but I’ll repeat it: italics are used to show the narrator’s thoughts. Don’t use a hyphen; it is incorrect. But the more significant error is designating the narrator’s inner thoughts. This story is a first-person perspective story; anything not in quotation marks is the narrator’s thoughts. It hurts the style of the story because it really doesn’t make sense when the narrator has their normal narrative thoughts and then these random designated thoughts. It is readable, but it is not good writing.

               I’m going to write about the use of modern knowledge (I wasn’t sure if this should go into style or story, so I decided at the end to style and near the start of story). Don’t be discouraged for this being here; I actually really enjoy using modern knowledge in the story. Near the beginning of the story, your long explanations of scientific phenomena were alright. I feel like you just need to spend a little bit more time on finding a good and fun way to explain these scientific concepts, which you do an alright job at. Although, you could have done a better job explaining rail guns since they are important to the story. I also think you should have continued explaining these scientific concepts—it was fun comparing my knowledge to what you wrote and thinking about these concepts. I know you had gotten a negative review about explaining too much about modern knowledge (I haven’t read it, I just heard about it in your author’s note), but you gotta remember that you can't appease everyone. Pick your intended audience and stick to it!

               Finally, magic explanations (similar to modern knowledge, I wasn’t sure where to put this). At the beginning (one of the first chapters), you spent an entire chapter (spoilers) about how magic works for dragons. I’m going to be honest, I tunned out that entire chapter other than the part about Vasilias having 7 elements, his nodes being in his breath gland, and it not being normal to have 7. So far, I’ve been fine in understanding the story with tunning out most of that chapter. I highly recommend going back and just having Vasilias simplify magic in his own words instead of seeing his mother explain it in detail (you will probably lose readers at that chapter). You do a much better job in later chapters explaining what is going on magic-wise.

***

               Story:

               This and the next section will be much shorter, I promise!

               The story is alright. TBH the problems with style really dull the story, so it’s a little difficult to accurately rate and critique the story. But I’d say it's missing some complexity. Everything is pretty straightforward.

               (Spoilers) For example, the story arc in that kingdom where Vasilias’s parents are friends with the king and queen. When thinking about a war of expansion, it would have been nice to add some political science. Wars are not just started; they are generally started due to a failure in crisis bargaining (take Russia and Ukraine as an example). But I really don’t blame you for not writing that in.

               A better example might be again in that same kingdom (spoilers). It was super obvious that there would be an assassination attempt during the speech.

               A problem that I had with the story was also the use of torture. Again, I do not blame you for this—most web novels use torture, and it somehow progresses the plot. One of the big reasons governments don’t use torture is that it isn’t a good way to get information in real life. One, there is no way to know if the person lied and told you what you wanted to hear. Two, the party the tortured person belonged to will know that they are missing and will change their plans. And three, it mentally hurts the person who is doing the torture—this makes them more likely to commit acts of violence towards innocent people.

               Some parts of the story need more development, such as (spoilers) Eugene’s plot—it just happened randomly and ended way too quick. There is also the issue of why Asimi couldn’t see Vasilias.

               Oh, also, Vasilias is being too OP and just stomping on all his problems and enemies. I think the story needs to focus more on the story part rather than Vasilias being OP. I want to see drama! I want to see politics! And last but not least, I want to see scientific/magic development!

***

               Character development:

               Let's go back to the perspective shifts. I wrote that this was a super cheap way to introduce and develop a character. This is true; it takes away the fun in learning about new characters since you practically force-feed us information about new characters. What you really should be doing is naturally allowing these new characters to be introduced and developed through interactions with the narrator—Vasilias. Also, the narrator will help guide the audience’s view on certain characters, allowing for some surprises. It also allows for a greater feeling of depth for characters. We slowly learn about the different characters and try to better understand them in every interaction. This is in stark contrast to you just showing us how certain characters think and feel right off the bat.

               Ah! I almost forgot about this! Personality, culture, and norms! I mentioned this in a comment before: this is a non-human MC story. I am not here to see a human MC; I am here to see a monster MC. I want to experience what it is like not to be a human. (EDIT: I add new stuff beyond this point in the paragraph because I do not want people to think that the other depicts the monster MC as a human) Now I’m not saying Vasilias and other dragons act human—they don’t. I’m just saying I want to see more of this; however, keep in mind there should be a subtlety to dragon society. Do not be to direct with monster society: show it through small things in interactions and in the background.

               You do a shacky job with morals and personality. In your story, dragons are supposed to be greedy and arrogant. But you are super inconsistent with this! We see Vasilias share things, we see him not being arrogant. And you might argue, ‘but Vasilias (spoiler) is not a full dragon!’ But we don’t just see this with Vasilias; we see it with every dragon character! The only thing you stay consistent (kinda) is dragons thinking they are better than everyone else.

               Let's talk about culture and norms too. I mentioned this before: I want to see a non-human MC. I do not want to see an MC who is a monster but acts exactly like a human. You gotta change things up with how dragons do things. Have them use their wings to give head pats. Don’t give them dragon-sized houses; it seems their way of life is to make dens—use this. I want to see dragons using smell to designate their home and family.

               You should touch more on how dragons are different than humans in their everyday lives. They have far longer lives (experience time and relationships different;y). They can fly (which means larger territories/homes/land belonging to families of dragons). They have better senses (humans generally rely on sight and sound, but dragons have better senses all around: smell, mana sense, and sound). There are so many things that could cause differences in cultures between dragons and other species.

***

               Alright, this is getting super long (at this point is 2470 words—5 pages long), so I’m going to just speed run through the things I like.

1. Vasilias uses modern knowledge to get stronger.

Although I think he needs to be experimenting more with science to learn about more concepts, I enjoy reading your explanations for these scientific concepts. I said this earlier, but I like to compare my knowledge and brainstorm with the concepts you introduce.

2. A focus on the story.

Since Vasilias is super OP, I really like how the story is not just about combat and watching Vasilias stomp on the bad guys. I mentioned this before in the negative part of this review, but I just want to note that there is very little combat and an overall, bigger focus on the story.

3. The story in general.

I just really think your story is interesting, and I want to see what happens next.

4. Monster MC

Through out the story, you show that Vasilias is a monster and not a human. I like this. I wrote about this in the previous section—character development—where I said I wanted to see more differences between dragons and humans. But I just want potential readers to know that this story does do a decent job at portraying a monster protagonist. I just want to see the story double down on it and develop a sophisticated depiction of what dragon society would look like as opposed to it being slightly different than the human society. Specifically, I wanted to see dragon social constructs. (I’m sorry, this positive leaned more towards critiquing the story, but I think this point is important. I like it being a monster MC and I want to see more.)

***

               Final thoughts:

               Alright, I’m done. I spent far too long writing this review. But congratulations on reading through the entire review. Because you definitely didn’t skip anything or skim-read this, right? Right? Well… I rate this story 4 stars! I really wanted to make it 4.5 stars—that way, I could see the rating rise. But I am already being generous with 4 stars. The style really puts a significant negative hit on the story. But to be honest, this story is better than most web novels.

               Thank you so much Commander843 for writing this story! I have been really enjoying it, and I hope that this review doesn’t influence you negatively. You are doing a great job, and you should be proud of your work! You have written 144 chapters while also mostly being on a release schedule. That is truly a fantastic accomplishment!

               I can't stress this enough; if you are thinking about reading this novel, do it! You just gotta push through until chapter 20ish.

It starts with an interesting premise with the author handling the transition to a new world as well as the new species of the protagonist well. The uniqueness of the species is not at all lost. The trope about the non human lead trying to become and act as a human is not there as well. The protagonist gets OP really fast and dons an entire suit of plot armor to help him though. The world building is clearly lacking.

There are a couple of standard errors with calling forms as forums for some reason and continent as content. The grammar is not an issue as it is readable but the constant POV changes and thoughts of every other side character become jarring to read. The side characters also feel flat and are there to act as a foil to the main character instead of having any depth to themselves.

Despite of the above mentioned issues I did enjoy reading this story. The excitement the author had during writing this bled through and I could imagine how the same story could be made much better with a little rewriting and a lot of thinking on the authors' part. Its a fluffy story meant to enjoy and not think about much in detail.

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The Dragon of Dreams doesn't futz around with accumulating power for the sake of power. Our MC is OP from day 1; so the focus is on building characters and story.  The pacing is good, not too rushed but advancing the story every chapter.

Fortunately, the main character isn't an ass. While he is OP even by dragon standards, he is just excited to be in a fantasy world.

The writing does need to be worked over by an editor though. While the grammar isn't too bad, there are some cases of information leak (such as MC knowing the name of an assassin that nobody had seen until then), or an occasional POV change that isn't immediately clear whose POV it is, to some situations that are simply... ludicrous. 

While those issues might be jarring sometimes, I very much enjoyed reading and eagerly await more!