The start of a story I may write

[FallenXxRaven]

I got bored after MCAS today, so I decided to write something. I wanted to see what you guys thought of it.
He awoke with a start. Things in his palace were moving, but he lived alone as the queen, many years ago, had been kicked off her horse on their usual Sunday ride to church. She caught her head on a rock and quite nearly severed her spine.
"Someone could not have gotten past the guards," he thought to himself. However, he decided to have a look. He grabbed a torch off the hallway wall and started through his castle. The king had searched nearly every room when he saw the black figure seated in his chair in the dining hall.
"Show yourself!" the king demanded, thrusting his torch toward the black figure.
"Father," the figure responded, pulling back his hood "don't you recognize your own son?".
A great relief overcame the king as he asked "Malecai, my son, what are you doing here?".
"You said that one day I would succeed you, Father. I have decided that today is that day".
"What are you saying, my son?" The king asked, his voice wavering.
But Malecai had already unsheathed his sword, the very sword his father had beknighted him with on his sixteenth birthday, and driven it into his father's throat.
The king dropped to his knees, gasping for breath, and staring into his son's eyes. The last thing he would hear was his son saying "I shall try not to reign and pitifully as you have. Now, David, die like the pig you are".
As the pool of blood reached Malecai's boots, he laughed to himself and said, "It has begun...".

So yeah, any feedback you could give would be appreciated =].

EDIT:Uggh, damn things not indenting. Anyone know how to make this thing work? Ill put // at the end of each paragraph 'till I can indent I guess.
EDIT2: Alright, looks liek this is the least confusing it will get. Deal.

[dood gone krazee]

Seems like its gonna be reeeeeeeeeeeeally cliche.

[Archelos]

Yeah, first of all, this is... what, a fourth of a page worth of writing? Basically "son kills his father". That's not really enough of a demo for us to be able to appreciate anything. Why do I care that this happened? Also, how is this going to turn out? Is everyone just going to say "Oh darn Malecai killed the King guess he's the new king"? He's in the castle, so isn't he going to get pummeled by 400 other guards?

What does "he awoke with a start" mean?

And, like dood gone krazee said, this sounds like something I have seen 40 million movies of.

[ShAiOnEi]

Congratulations you have inspired me to write my own story. I simply cannot ready anymore atrocious dialogues from FFR.

[lord_carbo]

Not only is your writing mediocre, but what you have is unbearably cliche. It's acceptable that your output is mediocre and cliche; you're probably very young, and even the best writers started out with some cliche stuff (especially in their preteen years). Of all the talents anyone can have, writing takes the longest to develop. The only very young authors out there making money (Nancy Yi Fan, Christopher Paolini) are complete rubbish. For comparison, Sarah Chang and a few dozen other virtuosos played their instruments professionally and beautifully before they even hit puberty. And there's a handful of very talented painters/drawers who are young, albeit they're not noteworthy at all.

But while your age permits you to be a bad writer, you still need to realize that you are a bad writer, and you need to understand why.

The first and best step in avoiding cliche and bad writing is staying away from the whole fantasy/medieval genre. If you don't know how to write, it's a terribly inhibiting genre. And besides, for most people medieval/fantasy stuff is just a phase. We all go through phases and that's fine, but a preadolescent fascination with fantasy is a terrible phase to be through. The sooner you get over it, the sooner you'll be able to truly develop your writing.

I think if you want to develop some real style, you need to read some really good prose. I recommend McSweeney's. Read through some of the stuff on this site. Not only is it all entertaining, but the prose style is consistently high grade. I mean, there are plenty of good authors and books and short stories; this is just one suggestion. A free and consistently great and quick-to-read-in-segments suggestion, which is why I recommend it.

One last bit of advice: never post your inchoate works. First of all, nobody wants to read that stuff. Secondly, if you hold to this principle, the desire to share will be a huge incentive to complete the work.

[kitkat9]

I would really like to say that this is OK. Like all of the others before me said, it is a little cliche, Malocai will some evil dictator. Some Robin Hood character will end up raining on his parade, while at the same time getting a girl.

I would recommend (and it's just a thought, you don't have to take it to heart) is making Malocai a girl, and maybe taking it out of prehistoric times and set it in future tense. I personally would find that rather interesting.

One last bit of advice: never post your inchoate works. First of all, nobody wants to read that stuff. Secondly, if you hold to this principle, the desire to share will be a huge incentive to complete the work.

I truthfully think that getting an opinion at an early stage of writing a story is good. If you get the opinion early you know what to do, what you must look out for, and what will make it more interesting. But I do understand where it is you are going with that.