Death to the King by Simon Parker - Short, Sci Fi, Fantasy - Sent out with a scroll a young man is picked up by the kings chief interrogator. Give the names of those involved and his life will be spared. But this is a test where not all is as it seems. 5 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Hi,

Your title page is very off centre, not really a big problem.

There are a lot of really awkwardly written sentences.

Not much of a story here without any context. Who’s the king? Why does he have to die? Why is Phillip the man to do it? Why does he need to be tested?

It left me with more questions than answers.

A bit of backstory may make this more effective.

All the best.

Seemed like an abrupt shift from Phillip leaving to Phillip being shoved into prison, but that might be just me, I know this is a short so maybe that was intentional?

On the page numbered 4, there are actions that aren’t assigned to anyone “Kneels down on the dirty floor. Reaches out and gently touches his cut face”. I was confused because Phillip was the last one to speak so I assumed that these were his actions until the next sentence, where I thought they were Eliza’s…might be a good idea to be clear on this.

There’s a number of sentences that don’t end (no periods, exclamation marks, nothing)

As a stand-alone I was disappointed as far as the actual story goes. If this were to be a start of a series of some kind it might fly…but I have to be honest, I didn’t like it very much. There was a lot of build-up about Phillip, then suddenly “nah, it was all a test”.  I’m left wondering, why would they bother doing all this in the first place? Who is this group? Is the king really a tyrant or are they just saying that to get recruits? What’s the plan they hint about in the end?

Hopefully this is somehow helpful to you