Breaking Molds.

There is some good news, and there is some bad news. The bad news is that you, like millions of other aspiring writers, have chosen your tale to be set in a land of kings and princes and old world swords and whatnot. Already a cliche, and there is soo much competition I don't even know why the genre's still interesting. But it is, so for the good news - You have a good sense of drama. It's not perfected, it's rather coarse, but the sheer power and depth behind it shows is very encouraging. You have the potential to send shivers down your readers spines, and drown them in the depth of feeling in your story.1

The fisrt paragraph was a little mixed. It had both a sense of strongly forced drama and drama with real impact. The first part should never be there at all. It almost made me want to just roll my eyes and skip the entire thing. But you had GOOD sentences in there, dark, deep emotions that appealed to the inner reader. Especially that last sentence.2

The king character was done very well. I love how the writing style changed for his character. That changed things, made me see the world from his perspective. Put me in his mindset, which is something every author should be able to do if writing from the point of view of multiple characters - put the reader in their mindset.3

The other characters... not so much. They're your typical, random, everyday fantasy novel characters. This Balion character is a special dissapointment. EVERYONE knows he's going to end up some kind of hero, and there's very little incentive to keep reading a story with the most frequently used cliche of them all. He's a serious dissapointment, especially after seeing the king and you proving how well you can do a character.4

Your writing style has got talent. But it's shaky. The entire segment is sprinkled with 5

1.forced, cliched drama. 6

2.real, deeply impacting drama. 7

3.a rare talent in being able to recreate the scene, and the FEELINGS of the scene, in the reader's head.8

4.Basic, dull words that serve only to drag the story forward.9

YOu should keep in mind at all times that you're writing a fantasy cliche. You can't afford, not for a sentence, to sound like you're conforming to a hollow mold. I mean, look at the sentence, "the palace in the day would be bustling with servants and nobles" - that just feels like the words have been thrown in there to keep to the genre. Oooh, look, there's a palace, which is the place we fantasy authors fill with nobles and servants and guards, oh my. Who are the nobles? What are they doing? And what kind of servants bustle around instead of doing work at their designated places? Aren't they supposed to stay out of the way as much as possible? You need to think more on the little things to make everything mroe real. And an essential question you need to constantly ask yourself is: "How is my what I'm writing different from everything else that is already out there?"10

On the whole, I don't think this is ready to become a novel just yet. Your writing lacks flow, and it lacks the mastery of the actual talent you have. I would reccomend publishing a book of short stories before trying to master a novel. Your writing needs a LOT of work, a LOT of thought, a LOT of practise, and a LOT change so you can break free of the mold for the genre you're in and be an ORIGINAL writer.