Long Live the King (Prose up for critique)

[jackelgull]

Hey I have a piece I've written that may or may not become a larger series. Would anyone mind taking a look and telling me sucks and what doesn't?


Long Live the King
Jackelgull


Eleven footsteps echo down the castle halls. The torchlight illuminates the shadows of ten heavily armed guards and I, as I approach the room of my father the king. In my hands I carry my vengeance.
Outside his door are two alert guards, their spears out. They begin to question me when I appear in front of them, but quickly stop when my forces show up. Their hands are trembling and their knees shaking. I can taste their fear. There are after all few innocent explanations for ten men with chainmail and swords in the middle of the night.
I pat one of the men on the back, enjoying the feeling of power his fear gives me.
“Well hello my good man”, I say, “Why do you look so grim?”
“I am sorry my prince, but I cannot allow the King to be in the same room as these ruffians.”
“Relax, I am here on important matters of state”, I say, showing the guard the letter in my hand. It has the official crest and everything.
“And will you need us to stay here?” The other guard asks.
“I think these fine gentlemen can handle the job. Why don’t you two take a break. The matter at hand is sensitive. ”
I can see a sideway glance pass between the two guards. They are not stupid, they know what is going on will likely be bad for the king; however, they also know that they are neither trained nor equipped to deal with this.
They scurry off, and I hear their spears clang uselessly against the stone floors. The preliminary hindrances are out of the way. Now time to deal with my father.
I order my hired thugs to stand outside the door. Things should be fine since I am armed and my father isn’t; besides, I feel that if I showed up to my father’s bedside with such an overwhelming numbers advantage, it would seem that I am afraid of my father. I’m not. He has no power over me.
I kick open the door. The loud sound wakes my father up. He is rubbing his eyes, still drowsy. When he notices me in the room, he bellows, “What is the meaning of this?”
Once his voice would have made me cower in fear. Once he would rain down violence upon me, as mercilessly as God rained down his wrath on the Pharaoh. Once he would win battle after battle in the war between he and I, but those days are over. Today is my triumph. Today I am no longer the victim; I am the survivor.
My father moves towards me in a threatening manner, highly suspicious. I draw my sword and point it at his throat.
“Sit back down father, and calm down. You are embarrassing yourself.”
The action enrages him and he froths at the mouth. “You dare point a sword at your father and king! You ungrateful wretch! You vile demonspawn!”
“About the whole king thing, well, I heard that you're resigning”, I say and show him the letter which says, “We, the nobles of the Kingdom of Iron, do hereby declare the King unfit to lead and accept his son as the rightful ruler of this land. Undersigned are the causes of our decision…”
His face visibly pales. It is a saying in our kingdom that a king who has lost the support of the people needs a bigger army, but a king who has lost the support of his nobles is nothing more than a man in a silly hat.
I turn to the vanquished foe and say, “For sixteen years you’ve waged a campaign of destruction against me father, for sixteen years you’ve tried to bend me to your will. Now it is my turn. I shall not torture you, nor shall I make you suffer as I have suffered. Violence is your tool, a brute’s tool, not mine. No, my revenge will be one of words. Your execution will be held in a month’s time. Within that period I shall spread rumours to every corner of the kingdom that you have committed the vilest crimes known to man. Rape, devil worship, avarice, this shall be your reputation. Your execution shall not be dignified by the hangman’s axe, no you shall be stoned to death at the hands of cheering crowds. And forever after, your name shall not be remembered fondly, but with curses. Such is my revenge.”
My father hangs his head resigned, and says, “So be it. I move from a corruptible Crown, to an incorruptible one.”
I usher in the guards to place my father under house arrest. Before I leave I shoot him one final parting quip.
“That is the difference between you and me father. God is not my master in heaven, he is my servant here on earth.”

 

[Synobun]

The final line was very good but seemingly irrelevant to the rest of the piece. I would love to see this piece reshaped to make that the focal point since for me that part was the most impacting. It went from a teenage son wresting control for himself to some reference of being more powerful than the Gods themselves, and that transition isn't really explained or hinted towards throughout the beginning and middle of the piece.

I'm almost never a fan of present tense narration and that applies here too, I think. The subject matter isn't particularly unique so the present tense narration on top of that is something that makes it feel ordinary.

When writing dialogue, remember to put the final comma inside the quotes rather than outside. Depending on where you live, you'll want all punctuation except for the prior comma inside the quotation marks even if you're using the quotation marks to place emphasis on a phrase or word rather than dialogue itself. That's mostly up to style choice, however.

To be honest, you're a good writer, and when I read your material there's often these moments where I go, "Yes, this is what I'm looking for," but then everything else seems like just some words. I don't know why this is. It could just be me being picky, as I am most definitely that when it comes to literature. Regardless, it always makes me feel as though you're holding out or keeping things quiet that shouldn't be kept that way, and that makes me sad.

 

[Buster's Uncle]

I think you've got something here - but my takeaway is that the prose could be leaner, to the benefit of how smoothly it scans. I could be wrong, but I think if you did a ruthless line edit to make this half as long, maybe, you'd have a better story.

This is definitely good enough to be worth another draft...

 

[Birdjaguar]

Editing it down would be good, but I think you need more rich detail about the place, the clothes, the walls, the furnishings, etc. Put your characters into a more defined context of "place".

 

[Kyriakos]

Hm, nice piece

Keeping in mind that fellow writers seldom can see past their own issues with writing (ie myself here), i could note the following, which may or may not be useful:

-The story reads more like an embellishment of a larger text, for example some notes on a father-son bad relationship. A bit like how Nietzche would insert some fiction to accompany thoughts in some books.
-Viewed from the outside, it seems like the main dynamic of the story is something already granted to it by a choice of setting: to name your father as a king already speaks volumes as to what is going on. It is (obviously) a symbol of absolute power, one which children can project onto a father, even moreso if he is abusive.
-The final sentence(s) are indeed echoing larger issues and context. While i like the brevity and dynamics, i think this short story is formed in such a way that it is more sink or swim for ensuring a reader's interest. Ie i had a very bad relationship with my own father, so it meant something to me. But what if the reader had a good or even neutral relationship?

Thanks for the reading