We Called It God

Really fascinating, and really well done.

One of my favorite stories in this contest thing for sure. You can carry a creeping sense of dread pretty fantastically. It sucked me in from the get go.

Brilliant story. Your pacing is excellent, you build tension perfectly throughout the story, and the "return home" had me squirming in my chair. Your closing lines are some of the best I've read in any story thus far. I especially like what you did with dropping the full name. Simple but terribly illustrative.

For what it's worth, I didn't have any problem with the daughter or her ultimate purpose. I thought you handled her exactly right. 

This is incredibly minor and probably more personal preference than anything else, but... The word "biomass" struck me as wrong somehow. It didn't seem to fit with the rest of the story. Maybe because it's too specific or clinical? That's how good this is... I can't even properly articulate my only marginal (very marginal) criticism.

Really, really well done. 

Unique, creepy, descriptive writing, that sets itself an overall amazing imagination scaffolding to create the mental image that really allows the horror to dig in. Keep it up man!

I was compelled. I had to finish it. Well paced and vivid. It gives you the idea that it would be absolutely horrifying to be engulfed by an omnipotent being. To truly be "one with god" would be overwhelming, uncomfortable and absolutely out of your control. Well done. 

Lovely opening really drew me in and made me want more. 

The description of the town is vivid, I particularly liked the "glacier of consumerism" visual.

Some run-on sentences and a few overused words (perfect, beautiful), and occasionally the narrative gets bogged down in descriptions.

Overall a good story about how a search for peace and salvation becomes terribly twisted.  

This is one creepy story! Quite terrifying and original, it had me twitching, particularly when the narrator is hoping his daughter went to a sleepover and discovers she didn't. Yikes! Nice work!

It was well-described but I wasn't really that excited about the plot.

Yes, I know it's after the contest, and such. I just read your story, having downloaded a few to read when I could.

Your description of God entering this realm was an assault on the senses. I think one of the things I forget to write about when I compose something is the battery of senses that characters would be using. Sight is easy, but sounds, tastes and touch are not items that I regularly remember. The sounds emanating from the rift were well described, and made the moment more impressive on the reader.

I'm not trying to draw on a specific scene to not compliment the rest of your work (I enjoyed it quite a bit), but instead wanted to relay that this was what stayed with me well after the story had been digested.

I wrote about a creature coming into this world, and I forgot those elements. Of course, the narrator wouldn't have felt them, at the point that it happened, but truly, the thought never crossed my mind. Lesson learned.

*Note: This is a placeholder profile for Chuck Palahniuk we are maintining on the site.  While the below review was originally emailed to us by Chuck Palahniuk, it is being pasted here by the moderators of the site.*

'We Called It God' - Feedback by Chuck Palahniuk

This story starts out with a great premise, but takes a long time to settle into a physical scene.  The opening, for example, could end on the words “…my name is Patrick Ellis.”  The next paragraph begins with “I was part…”  That way, it would flow so quickly.  Likewise, the second paragraph could do without everything between “… where I grew up” through “farmland used to begin.”

Consider that putting a lot of general backstory in the beginning works against building your tension.  So much of the first paragraphs is generalized information, and we don’t need to know about the farmland or the increasingly secular country.  Instead, consider unpacking other details, specific details, that support the story.  Did these meals occur as potlucks?  Who brought what?  Frito Pie?  What salads?  All of that on-the-body stuff will help hook us because we all love food, especially comfort foods, and later those eaters will be ‘eaten’ by the antagonist.  All the characters become food.

I know, I know, the narrator has a damaged memory, but that’s no excuse for vague writing.  Show us a couple very specific particulars and build on those.  Create tension by claiming not to recall the host’s name, but later resolve that tension in an odd aside, a tiny victory, perhaps near the bleak ending, when the narrator does remember that name.  The reader will feel a sense of relief when even the smallest detail is resolved.

Likewise, by page three, when the praying is described as an addiction – don’t say it.  Demonstrate it.  Show the narrator behaving like an addict, getting high on prayers at work.  Getting fired.  Getting in a car accident because he was praying and high.  His bills going unpaid.  His hair getting long.  All because he’s praying compulsively.

We need very specific physical details:  food, people talking, kneeling, etc. to ground us.  If you make us believe those real-world things you’ll build your authority to the point that we’ll believe the extraordinary stuff.  Again, avoid abstracts and generalities:  a perfect little Canadian city, a glacier of consumerism, a beautiful house, her perfect little face.  Make each unique. 

Again, it’s a wonderful premise.  Really terrific.  Consider replacing every “is” and “thought” verb with some more-concrete verb.  Instead of “told me” or “telling me” create a small scene of the mother and son placing the tooth for the tooth fairy to find.  The first paragraph uses only those weaker verbs, we don’t get any better verbs until “lived” and “meet” late in the second paragraph.  How could you rework the opening with more active, physical verbs?  The entire reality of the remarkable story relies on the believability of those first few paragraphs.