A tale of desire, exclusion, and the strange hunger beneath perfect lives. A Brooklyn Thanksgiving turns cult-like as a curated house chooses its “little lamb.” Kym must survive a night where the hosts—and the house—want to consume her.
Holy Toe-Furkey! It was a delightful shock to look at my inbox this morning. Thank you for all comments. likes, subscriptions and taking time to read The Chosen Lamb.
I'll take a couple couple days to let the feedback settle in and respond to every one who commented. Thank you for doing that.
When I have the meaner / leaner The Chosen Lamb V.2 (Chuck Lamb) I'll put it up as a new post and link it here.
Of course! I should thank you. This is a wonderful nurturing environment you've created for all of us. And just to get all the flattery out-of-the-way, you've been a huge inspiration and help throughout the years.
Also, it feels surreal you've read anything I've written.
Supporting Remanon was a delight. Her story really sung through on the second reading. I hope she gets back to me about the title. It's made me wonder ever since the second read.
Thanks loads for your support Sean. I know that you know how inspiring it is to be part of this community. I am planning to make some time over this weekend to re-read all of the comments I received, so much well thought out advice to be digested and implemented.
Now, I'm sitting down enjoy your story - I already love the title (don't ask about my weirdness over book/movie titles, band names etc).
Thank you. I've enjoyed thinking out loud to you in the comments.
As far as posting this to the group, I'm open to doing it, but have trepidation.
Skip to the second-to-last sentence if you're pressed for time.
Below is my long stream-of-consciousness answer.
I will inevitably read comments and will most likely internalize them. Maybe that's not a bad thing, but I worry about being overloaded. I have a set amount of bandwidth and time. I'm definitely your Space Monkey, but I worry more comments will interrupt the flow.
Having reread this thing six times now, every single flaw is stabbing me in the perineum. I know the only way to get to good writing is through bad writing. And good writing can be great with the right help (Carver-Lish).
Realistically I can have a new, readable draft in a week, but then there are the holidays, work, life, etc. I worry the expectation of delivery will slow the effort. However, it's just another deadline. That's all life is.
This is the whole point. Feedback and having your work read. We are being generous with time, hope, and effort, regardless of how pretty or relatable the package is when it arrives.
I mentioned community a couple of times. This fun, weird little group we have online genuinely is that. I'm better off for having scrutinized photos to add captions, and for having read Yellow Brooke & Loaves and Fishes in 2025.
You know what, I'll defer to you. Go ahead and post it to the group.
Sorry, long answer, but it's the most honest I could give.
So great and so brave of you to open your process up to the group. I hope you feel the adoration and support.
Love that HHH inspired you and my only offering would be wondering if the house can become more of a “character” in ways others mentioned and expanding on some of my favorite parts you conjured like it being “the child they spoiled” etc.
And as both a former vegan and a Brooklyn hipster before returning to my bacon greasy hometown, the world you present feels very real (and it begs for parody). Back when I was vegan (25 years ago) I noticed it truly could get very unhealthy because in order to stay away from whey, caseinate, etc we would eat a ton of garbage fried in vegetable oil on road trips or less hip restaurants. Then people got scared tofu caused breast cancer. I always thought the Tofurky Giblet Gravy idea was hilarious. But the newer class of elitist vegans with their virtue signaling disguised eating disorders or orthorexic control freak sickness make a wonderfully devilish cult. Such a great twist I did not see coming and both hilarious and disturbing.
In writing I have never felt so adored and supported.
Yes House is more “present” in the new draft. I hope you read it when I put it out and would love you feedback if you do.
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That’s hilarious. On behalf of bacon and myself. Welcome back to the fold we missed you.
The story is not so much taking the piss out of vegans it is over/ hyper-curation. I’ve spent a lot of time with Paige’s and Gabe’ houses in Park Slope. Competitive curation is marvelously hilarious.
Sounds like you and I could swap stories. Hope you don’t have too many scars
Is “competitive curation” a writing technique/style? I love the effect but never heard of it. The effect is almost a living breathing NY Mag stockist. Made me think the special fashion issue gift guides of the future might be some sort of pseudo parties.
Agreed with Sam, thanks for letting us peek behind the curtain!
For what it’s worth, I have a rule where I wait to revise after sharing. The more unfamiliar I am with the crowd the longer I tend to wait, just to make sure I can digest the feedback and come back to the page with a (sort of, kind of, almost) rational head.
“He wore the shirt of a farmer but had the hands of an account!” This is an all-too-real description. I’ve met these “farmers” first hand. They are lovely and always have kombucha on tap.
I have to jump in and second your comment - what a perfect observation Sean has delivered here! I don't know how many 'farmers' I see parading on the TV or Internet now who have never shoveled shit in their lives.
Wow. I absolutely love this story. I love a good haunted house story, and I really appreciated how you subverted my expectations on that, then subverted them again, first by having Kym actually loving the experience of being consumed by the house -- finally finding the acceptance she'd always longed for -- then again when it throws her up. So fantastic!
A couple of things: I agree with Chuck about varying paragraph lengths, combining single sentences into paragraphs, and leaving single-sentence paragraphs for where you really need a punch.
One thing I'm confused about is why Paige and Gabe invited Kym at all, but especially why they thought she was going to be the lamb when they knew that she wasn't vegan. (Especially after the house rejects her and Gabe seems to go into "I told you so" territory blaming Paige for the whole thing.) Could you have Kym lie to them about being vegan? She clearly wants to belong, even though she does have some snark/distance when it comes to these people. I could see her lying to Paige and Gabe and saying she's a vegan, too, just to impress them. And that would solve the issue of why she's allowed to be at this event -- and maybe the house would be angry at Gabe and Paige for trying to feed it a carnivore, which could be fun.
I think you addressed this in your response to Chuck, so maybe it's different in your current draft, but I was unclear about Sam's reaction to the event and why he basically went catatonic while Kym was being "sacrificed". If that's still in the story, I could use some more clarity on that.
I was thinking of Chuck's question of what to do with the Spanish ex-girlfriend. And I was also thinking about the fact that Kym's stalled acting career is mentioned then dropped. (I also loved the skin-deep actor thing.) In your new ending where she's swiping right on guys from Queens and what have you, could she somehow cross paths with this Spanish woman? Maybe at or on her way to an audition? And maybe she actually likes her and they become friends? Perhaps another step in her journey of learning who "her people" really are? (Just spitballing, obviously.)
Overall, I think your story is so, so good. I absolutely love (to hate) these obnoxious Brooklyn hipster characters. "Performative non-conformity" is *chef's kiss*. (Pun only a little bit intended.) I can't wait to read your revised draft.
Thank you. This is great feedback and thank you for putting so much time into it.
The next draft house feeding needs are much more clarified as well as Sam’s. I had trouble figuring out what to do with him and his catatonia resulted. I didn’t want him to rescue Kym and I didn’t want Kym to be a girl boss.
Kym’s acting career along with why she stays in touch with Paige and Gabe is much more fleshed out in the new draft
Everybody loves this mystery girl from Spain. She has a clear through arc in the new draft. Hopefully it satisfies everyones palate.
Hopefully you read the new draft when I post it. If you do I’d love your feedback.
I really appreciated the thoughtfulness of the feedback you just gave.
Hello Sean -- You've been a 'lamb' about our back-and-forth, thank you. Today is an opportunity for you to ask me questions, and I'll do my best to respond. With your permission, I'll link to 'The Chosen Lamb' tomorrow, and people can benefit from reading the story and our discussion. Once you've created a new draft, we can link to that as well. Thanks, chuck
The new edit takes a lot of loose connective tissue in act one and two and turns it into very dense connective tissue.
All the people and objects are in place for the ritual. I want to drive the horses, but I also want to give them a chance to breathe.
Do you use a method you rely on to create space to breathe in a story?
Question #2
In the process of writing and finding everything becoming additive, do you limit yourself or do you let the adding run itself out like a tantrum?
I ask for this reason
The idea of the dog is a great one. Her name is Dunwich, she's a real horror, the one curated piece of the house Gabe and Paige can't control. She causes chaos. I see her instantly, a brindle French Bulldog. But if I add her, my gut tells me something else has to go.
In this case would you throw her in and write it out, or identify what's got to go before tossing her in the pot?
Question # 3
Couplets. The process of writing them out has been useful. Almost every one I've discarded has ended back in to the text of the story. The couplets are birthing aphorisms.
The birthing process is just an blank page on the screen where am thinking about the story and pureeing couplets and aphorisms out of the thoughts
Breathing room -- to me -- depends on pace, and nothing controls pace better than varying paragraph and sentence length. If too many bright ideas occur as single-sentence paras, then none of them get much spotlight. Clump smaller details into longer paragraphs, and only let the "pull quotes" stand alone as a single-sentence para. To check the flow and pace, read the work aloud.
Question #2
Hey, I'd much rather watch Dunwich than read about Google and programming.
Question #3
You get one couplet per story. One. A softer version is the Daisy Buchanan way of saying everything twice. Look at 'The Great Gatsby' and see how Daisy says everything twice, slightly rephrasing it the second time. That twice-said trick ensures the reader won't miss important information delivered in dialog. I tend to see couplets at the end of stories. Check out Hempel's 'Deliver Us Not Into Penn Station' and see another couplet: 'It wears you down. I am wearing down.' So think twice before using a couplet anywhere but at the end of something.
Optional Question # 4 (we meet on the level and part on the square)
I'm going to try and sneak in a Frostian Fourth Question.
Have you used word count as a constraint for writing stories
The original Chosen Lamb is 4,200 words. I'd like the next draft to be no bigger and preferably around 3,800 words.
A word count constriction will suffocate a lot of darlings — if you've 4,200 of them and only room for 3,800. That's a boat load of darlings.
Have you used something like this in the past or currently use it? Fight Club was almost 200 pages, every book after lean toward 300.
If you are only willing to answer 3 questions (I did bring up the triangle) please feel free to ignore #3 — it's a little too close to “Jeez, Chuck, where do your get all you ideas from?”
Funny story: As a student I demanded Tom Spanbauer tell me the perfect length for a story. Annoyed, Tom said, "Seven double-spaced pages." His answer was totally arbitrary, but I made it my gold standard: Seven pages.
For novels I always shoot for 185-page first drafts. That's a good Ira Levin length, closer to a novella, and it suggests a good movie. With rewrites and the editor adding chapter and section breaks, the final book can swell toward 300 pages. But 185 pages is my Holy Grail.
I’m going to try to slip in a fifth question. We’re already at the maximum number of digits on one hand, which I’ve been told is already too many to try to slip in, regardless of how politely I have asked.
The new version of The Chosen is nearly done. The problem is the ending. Nothing I’ve written feels like a button or a release. Just a series of unsatisfying stops.
Vonnegut gets to drop a nuclear bomb on his narrative in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and make the problem go away. I don’t have that kind of plot device available to me.
So the fifth question is this: when you’ve found yourself in a place where the ending felt impossible, what did you do to write yourself out of that corner?
Also, if you’ve taken the time to read this, and thank you if you did, I want to offer you my gratitude.
I think everyone had a garden variety shitty 2025. And the weeds that grew in the garden this past year are making everyone wary of a potential blooming corpse flower or voodoo lily in the coming one.
I imagine you’ve become immune to admiration and platitudes, out of sheer quantity and self preservation.
But thank you for this community, and for making the garden a little more bearable.
Thanks for all this. I'm plugging away. Where the story is and where it was, are very different now.
Kym, Sam, Paige, Gabe and Dunwich are in a better place, although I think Sundar Pichai would like a word with you.
I should have a new draft to submit to you mid-next, again trying to be realistic with the timeline.
You clearly have a process for doing this. Should I consider the comment and question part of this closed until I submit the new draft? Or is it okay if I need to nudge you for feedback between now and then?
A lack of a reply, is as good a reply, if it's the former.
I vote we open it up today. You've gotten so much feedback -- like a huge meal -- and it would be better to let the food settle. Be open to ideas but not reactive: if after a few days you still don't like a suggestion, ignore it. Feedback is just to break up the ice and see the story with fresh eyes.
ANAC (Am Not A Chuck) but I’ve found that giving myself a word count to stay under really helps me focus my story or chapter. 2500 is my typical go to.
Hey for what it’s worth I love the idea of the dog being the uncontrollable element. Even more I think it being a French Bulldog because it reminds me of the hipsters in McCarren Park. They had obnoxiously protested being kicked out of the small dog section and fought their way back into that side in what they called the French Revolution.. Frenchie Revolution.. hmm sounds made up now but maybe it was just what the other (actual) small dog owners called it as I saw the cute but giant-jawed Frenchies gnawing on tiny teacup legs.
Also now realize that unknown hack might have been why my caption did well (used my old dog’s ghost) but I am not going to let that bum me out. He was actually the one I had to remove from the battle of the Frenchies.
Sean, don't answer this, yet. I just want to poll the room once this opens up to a wider audience. But I have to wonder about:
"... the beautiful, yet unlikeable girl from Spain."
The former girlfriend is mentioned so often, she's like a specter in the story. Have you used her for a larger purpose that I'm missing? CAN you use her for a larger purpose? Once Kym goes home with Sam and they have sex, perhaps Miss Spain walks in and says, "I leave town for one night, and you cheat with some old lady?" A sort of Easter egg. It would throw more sympathy to Kym.
My point is Miss Spain has such a high profile in the story the reader would find satisfaction in seeing her pay off in some significant way.
I'm OK with her being the unfaithful Madame De Seville because she's the catalyst for getting Kym to the party. Especially if we are looking to cut the overall word count, she can be the enigma.
Maybe the ex from Spain can also build more character for the “enigma of Sam” and help you give him more personality in his emotions relating to her (or actions if she shows up).
Thanks for the input and taking time to read the story. Miss Spain (Ana) has a much more integral, and hopefully more satisfying role in the next draft.
Hope you read it. Please let me know what you think if you do.
I think it’s fine for the beautiful, yet unlikable girl from Spain to not return, to serve to explain why Kym and Sam didn’t happen, but with her gone, now maybe there’s a chance… but I also think her returning at the end and revealing that Sam was lying she was gone to hook up with Kym would be fun
Later today let's explore "horses." Per Gordon Lish's metaphor, a wagon that leaves St. Louis will arrive in Seattle still pulled by the same horses. Horses = Themes. Sean, your story seems to have illness or rejection as a main "horse," for example: Vegans being ill, the dog (offstage) being ill, the house being ill. How else can you depict this theme? If you broaden the theme to "rejection" as in vegans rejecting meat, the dog rejecting eggs, the house rejecting Kym, 'swipes' as rejection, possibly Sam rejecting Kym... How else can you depict "rejection."
Consider Amy Hempel's story "The Harvest." The horses are death and mutilation, and the ending transcends that theme: Despite the threat of sharks, the swimmer wades into the ocean, saying, "And I'm going back in."
If you identify your horses and demonstrate them in various ways, eventually you can transcend them. That creates a satisfying epiphany for your reader. You can show Kym rising above her fear of rejection.
Ok thanks. Just reread The Harvest. The ending is a devastating punchline.
Agree on the horses. Sickness and Rejection.
There is the over arching horse of "wanting".
If anything the story is poking fun at over curation. How far can you push this niche? how specifically can you dress a life.
At the end of the day do my farts have their own nutty or unctuous terroir? Let's find out.
The naming convention of the brand name is something I pulled from you and BEE.
Everyone in the story wants something. Paige and Gabe another curio, Kym wants Sam, The house another victim, all those severed hands want to be free.
My dad had a threatening, terrifying phrase "I want never gets"
Somewhere in there is the hurting vagueness of desire and the fear of them not being satisfied. Or perhaps desire is the actual illness. What do they say about alcoholism? it's a disease of "more"
Maybe you're right the ending is Kym subverting all horses with a few sentences.
"She who only wants, finally gets"
Ok I have three horse to pull the cart.
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Additions
I built out the restaurant history, Gabe appears like the Pied Piper of veganism and leads Paige and Sam away. Kym is in love with a guy who butchers meat with tattoos on his knuckles (guess whose hands are shrunken and doll like on the shelf) and wants no part of Gabe
The Brownstone object are more specific to the ritual.
Knife - Table - Furniture - Doll Hands
Gabe is a much more active participant now. He's whipping horses.
Ah, you may change the deviled eggs to something else, but let me caution you against losing the dog. As it stands, there's not much action in the first half, and the sudden flurry of action in the second half might seem too abrupt.
If you include the dog, its actions will add a texture to the first half. When it vomits, that foreshadows events in the second half.
What's more, Kym might even take the dog with her when she escapes. Yes, it's trite, but Kym having a dog -- and finally swiping for a Queens guy -- would show emotional growth and sweetness. As always, these are just ideas and are based fully on the elements you've already created.
Bear in mind all the existing mythology about being swallowed and barfed out. Jonah and the whale comes to mind, but the list is long. Considering cultural precedent, what did Jonah gain by being swallowed and puked up? It's always fun to realize what ancient saga you're unconsciously recreating with modern elements.
Oh, and I’d leave the part where the dog pukes - but just change the reason. Deviled eggs is a great anecdote, but it doesn’t quite fit at a vegan meal. Instead, maybe it’s a brick of cashew cheese or a bowl of roasted edamame. Perhaps a plate of spicy cauliflower wings. Or, for a subtle nod to the oddity of veganism, Oreos. 100% vegan.
I'm with you on leaving the dog in. It adds to the "this is just a party with people doing normal-ish party things" vibe in the first party of the story - a longer way of saying "texture" I suppose - which in turn makes the second half feel that much more jarring. people love dogs. keep the dog, and use it more.
(but I do wish you'd clump more things together to improve the flow, for instance:
"One thread of smoke drifted sideways toward Sam’s shoulder, the one she had not claimed. The air shifted. The room breathed. The smoke peeled away from him and angled back toward Kym. It rolled in the air like a lyric and passed beneath her nose."
Likewise:
"This was the right-looking room with the right-looking people. The space pulled them together. They were on the periphery of the crowd, but now more a part of it. Sam’s pinky touched hers. Their hands wrapped together. The interlocked fingers created gravity."
That's such a lovely moment, please don't chop it up on separate lines. Frigg'n magic.
The structure is an over reaction to short stories I've written that have a much denser paragraph structure. I looked the meaty paragraphs and I even I didn't want to dive into them.
All those clever thoughts trapped in thick fudge.
There's been a lot of rereading of Didion and BEE (I'm absolutely obsessed with Lunar Park so goddamn good) this year. I'm ineptly cribbing their style and muddying my own results.
Something Lish-like with out the Lish. Frankenlish.
I tried to sneak through the Kym and Sam back and forth with it. Sorry I put you through that by the way.
Part of it was result of trying to figure out what to do with Sam's character. He's still an enigma to me.
Current draft he's much more alive he's definitely vegan he's been single for a year dumped by Little Miss Spain. I won't touch the subject of her until I hear back from you.
The only additional thing to mention in relationship to the spaniard is Kym calls Paige Ms Park slope, to balance Ms Spain. A sort of semi - couplet.
Her she is Ms America....... they won the pageant. Kym didn't. That how she seeing it.
Their Ms's.... Kym's just a girl.
I think Sam goes in the ritual not Paige. The house needs Paige too much.
This whole story is a snake eating its own tail. Page going in the ritual is too on the nose.
Gabe, Paige, House, ritual equal symbiosis. The ritual? Perforative atonement.
Josh's shrunken meat cleaving hands on the shelf. Atone in our eight million dollar intensely curated brownstone for all those sows motherfucker.
Love-Hate indeed.
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I fixed the dialogue attribution through tighter paragraphing. Making similar changes to scenes.
The story is more rounded now that all the characters are established in the first Page and a half of text. It makes most of the tedious middle unnecessary.
I have a solid scaffolding for the first act. Pecking away at the second tonight.
Enthusiastically on board with the couplets. It needs to be one or all of the horses.
Something about skin I think, that where I want to go. When Sam says "One of those skin deep actresses...." There is something in there.
How deep are your beliefs, you're niche. you're ideology. What is about you skin and your beliefs.
The vegan get sick anecdote is a real one. I'm managed a lot of restaurants of my time and the vegans I always got sick first and the worst. They were all in their 20s and living in New York City so there were a lot of other factors. Eating ideologies don't dictate healthy lifestyles or outcomes.
But it was a truism you could set a viral clock to.
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I keep coming back to the Wanting, the specificity of it. Even if the want is the lack of meat.
That's the real sickness.
What happens to Kym when the thing she wants is devoured? The only thing left of him a toe.
The tofurkey is Toe-furkey now.
Not married to it, but it's where the notes lead.
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I'm trying to work with niche brand names to have a little fun and foreshadowing. A reader who accepts Paul Smith , Versace and Studio Job furniture, as grounded brands, a Gien & Plainfield coffee table or a Lizzie Borden or Nannie Doss shift dress fit the with branding. I can slip in a wiff of murder for a reader who might pick it up.
As far as at the darling go, they are all expendable, nothing in here is precious.
Loving this process, invested in it, obviously want to produce something good get an attaboy from everyone.
Hopefully the product is readable and enjoyable for the group. If not I'm still having blast doing this with you and learning tons.
if i can cast a vote, "toe-furkey" needs to be in the final edit. it's the kind of absurdity that will delight readers. or at least the ones you should care about.
This story is so fantastic it's imperative that you never lose the reader. We need to move through very specific objects, and be very clear about who's speaking. That will ground us in normal reality before the chaos. Thus I suspect you've cut and pasted this from Word because of the odd line breaks. Substack tends to break lines and add white space, so you've always got to watch for that. And attribution will help in this moment with two men and Kym. Here's Kym's POV:
Only here, she was the one who ate meat in a room full of native herbivores.
Sam’s voice pulled her back. (odd line break, consider keeping the following quote paired with Sam's name)
“Thanks for having me. (odd line break, I suspect Substack did it?)
I brought a couple of nice bottles from the North Fork,” he said. “And a vegan maple walnut pecan pie.” The words jumbled out of his mouth. (His = Sam?)
“Though it looks like you already have a few.” (Kym speaking?)
“Oh, no worries,” Gabe said, touching both their arms, they were in this together.
“Every year, the pie-to-person ratio ends up one to one.” (who's speaking?)
Be really aware of the objects you established. Kym's already collected some appetizer with a napkin. What becomes of it? The other objects -- the coffee table made from a Mustang hood, for instance -- are so good, I'd like to see them stay present. As always, the goal in Minimalism is to keep your characters, objects and setting limited so tension escalates faster. Ideally, each item you introduce must stay present and serve a continuing purpose. The crown of candles is a good example.
Okay. I've got an edit where the dialogue attribution is a better place. Added the naming structure for Paige (Ms Go Getter) and Sam (The heart throb). The repetition of heart is useful through line.
Reread the exchange between Kym and Sam and was horrified (in all the wrong ways) how much it dragged. Started whittling it down. Thank you for mentioning the locarvore comment. I was on the fence about keeping it. Will lean into it a bit more.
I'll rework the objects and strengthen the "gun" arc.
I use Google Docs to write. It's formatting and Substack might have combined to cause the issues. I'll fix them with the edit. Thank you for catching them and sorry you had to.
I wrote the story un-plotted but with two ideas.
A vegan thanksgiving goes wrong for a hapless carnivore, hijinks ensue.
And
Taking Shirley Jackson's HHH one step further, the house doesn't haunt, it digests, but with a particular appetite. Grass fed human meat.
Is the house curating the owners or the other way around? Which one is driving the wants? There is a symbiosis between them and the house
I'm not sure why.
The Deviled Eggs is a real life party anecdote I threw in. I liked it so much, I was blind to how wrong it fit the story. I will rework or delete. The dog doesn't serve a purpose other than the anecdote. Chopping block for fido.
You're seeing connections in the story I didn't Thank you for the insight on Paige's meteoric rise and the house and ritual. What did happen at that restaurant indeed?
Sam ended up being a macguffin as the story emerged.
But why is he inert during the ritual? Something from the restaurant, all those ducks whose ennui produced foie gras, the lamb who yearned to be something other than a part of a cassoulet, that stuff haunts Sam and Paige. It changed them, but not Kym.
Kym was too punch drunk on love with the sous chef to bother? The way he butchered meat was erotic. The letters h-a-t-e tattooed across his knuckles holding the sow's ear and l-o-v-e tattooed on the knuckles holding the knife which cut the ear free.
This is how a real man handles meat. Every dish he prepared was nearly brought Kym to orgasm
Every dish arrived to Paige and Sam a fresh plate of horror.
The French are up to something rotten with their food. So rotten there needed to be a corrective. A ritual corrective.
Sam's backstory with Gabe. Gabe likes to take credit for things; things like Sam. He'd remind him from where he came from. You're a programer, but I know you were a waiter and I'm not going to let you forget. Try the lentils!
Yes on the ending. It reads dull, sour payoff for putting reader going though all this.
I have a good chunk of time tomorrow to work on all this. Working on an outline to streamline object / artifacts through lines and piece together the Sam, Paige and Kym restaurant story.
Sorry if the above was too much. Fleshing this out.
Little pressed for time, killing two birds with one stone.
One structure question for you. The short sentence structure, particularly in the Kym & Sam along with the digestion sequence was designed to make it easy for reader.
Aside from the clumsy dialogue attribution, did you find this to be the case?
I'll wait to update Substack until I have a full new edit.
All of this is wonderful. Thumbs up. Please don't revise this draft. As is, it provides the best "before" that will show the success of the "after."
Another "horse" you have in play is brand names/designers. It's your comic relief, because odd designer jargon is an abstract that cuts tension. Witness "Tofurkey."
How could you play this horse at the end? Just for a small laugh.
It's nice to e-meet you here! You know any story that begins with Tofurkey is going to grab me. Here are a few running notes/ thoughts that may or may not have any value, so take 'em as you will.
• Starting with the holiday party. As a die-hard introvert, I’m already hiding under the sheet. You set the scene nicely and briskly, and I hate most of the people there already.
• Paragraphs? Wherefore art my paragraphs? At first it was a little distracting but then I got into the groove of your single sentences. You sold me. In our digital age it could be a plus, but some readers might not vibe with it.
• North Adams – all my dead relatives buried there greet you.
• “Everything had been hunted down, the press-tin toys, the coffee table that had once been the hood of a Mustang.” I hate them even more.
• Love the snark, and it’s not overdone.
• Watch phrases like “a pit in her stomach” – little general - and descriptions of facial expressions right after each other (eyes rolling, wincing). I join you on the struggle bus for creating things for characters to do so you’re not using “said”. It’s hard.
• For the ‘Lamb’ section I have a hard time visualizing what’s happening starting with “A single floating mass that breathed together.” Are they gaseous? The smoke is making me think so. Or is this a body horror/Cronenberg monster (like the end of The Substance)? Help me out, my sight is terrible anyway so I need some cues.
• Then when she reaches for the table, it’s a mass too, but one she can fall in. I think a decision needs to be made as to whether this is a fleshy/literal/body (in this case) house horror or something more like a void. If it’s both I need a little transition/description from one to the other.
• I like the way she re-enters her body and all the descriptions of pressures to look a certain way. Quite relatable.
• Here is where I’m realizing the mass of bodies is more of a real thing: “Thirty assimilated bodies rippled like a bowl of viscous fluid and began to fall apart.”
• The ending needs to breathe a little – it feels abrupt. Was there any impact to what she experienced? Did she learn anything or change as a result? You could have some fun with this – since Paige is in a certain class there could be a news story that she’s missing, fliers in the neighborhood.
Overall really nicely done and if I needed any further encouragement to not attend holiday parties, I feel supported in that decision.
I'm reading through the other comments and I like the suggestion to somehow include the dog at the end. If she took the dog with her, it would also give her a 'hero' touch.
Thank you for spending so much time with the story and the amazing feedback.
The assimilation scene is one of the weaker parts of the story. The assimilation is more Lovecraftian specifically whatever the offspring of Yog-Sothoth and Lavinia Whateley looked like in the Dunwich horror. For a body horror I see more The Thing than The Fly.
That sequence the selection and some of the mechanics are much clearer in the new draft
Kym no longer has “a pit in her stomach”. Thank god. The struggle bus is real
Stand by for more dog. More integral and clear through line.
The new draft will be up next week. Hope you read it. If you do would love more of you feedback.
I'm afraid I got here a little late and have only skimmed the comments so will keep this short. It was a great read, Sean, I enjoyed it immensely. Just a few things I'd note if I was reading this back as something I'd written. First half was great, it reminded me of couple I know who do treat their house like their child, but I found myself wondering where it was leading me. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. I don't like to be spoon fed but maybe a little tightening up might be in order?
The dog?? Mention a dog and Chuck is on it like a terrier after a rat! I like the detail of the dog, the out-of-the-corner-of-your-eye aside the distracts you momentarily from the gathering. If you're going to flesh this out into a larger work I might leave the dog for another day. It's enough that it exists.
The second part was a brilliant whirlwind and I need to re-read it. However, I loved the house's rejection of the offering. Really loved that. I'm going to re-read now, but thank you. It was great fun!
Thanks for sharing this story and letting us see how the sausage is made!
I haven’t read any of the comments yet, so forgive me if I’m going over something that’s already been touched on.
Such a cool concept, the idea of a house not only consuming someone but throwing them back up. You got me hooked with the line “The house was their child. They spoiled it with gifts.” Awesome. I wonder if you could incorporate some tension earlier on, a sense that something’s not quite right. It isn’t until we get to the candles on Paige’s head that things start feeling weird.
One question that might help, what happens after the house eats someone? How are they consumed? How are they represented in the architecture? Maybe Kym walks in, sees the wallpaper and says “the repeating pattern was strange. It looked just like Paige’s cousin’s birthmark repeated over and over.” (You can definitely do better than my example lol) The idea is to show how people are incorporated by the house while also adding to that sense of unease.
Thanks again! I’m sure I’ll be “chewing” on this story for a while.
Thanks for the feedback. I think the new draft helps make that house clearer. Causation and intent are clearer now. Along with a clear image of the ritual and what it’s about and what happening during it. Although I want to avoid is getting to in the weeds about the mechanics.
Thanks again for gnawing on the story. If do read the new version I’d love to get your feedback on it
The way the narration describes things the way Kym would is cool like “Life had rescued him from the girl.” “Sam-less room” is awesome.
It was also cool there were lots of things on a second read like “the house was their child” and a “fussy eater” after finding out what happened.
With how all the collections have stories, are the different trinkets in the house killer trophies? For the Mustang hood coffee table, did they feed the person with the Mustang to the house? Does Kym have anything they’d want to steal after they feed her?
Thank you for taking time to read it. And thank you so much for the endorsement of the Sam-less room. I’ve been the fence about that line since I wrote it.
The new draft will (hopefully) satisfy your question. Hope you read it. Let me know what you think if you do.
I'm with you and Kym, but clarity is paramount. That's why Minimalism frowns on pronouns. When I hit:
"Life had rescued him from the girl she had never liked." (this slowed me and made me think at a point too early in the story)
Here I was already juggling three proper nouns, two being female, and now there's an un-named girl. Please never be afraid of repeating names. For variety I try to give each character three names -- a role name (uncle, ex-flame, whatever), a proper name, a nickname, a formal name (used in cases when your mother would shout out your full first, middle, and last name, and you knew you were in trouble. Anything but pronouns.
For second- or third-tier characters don't be afraid to lump them as "space monkeys" or "one of those bendy girls from hot yoga." Let a little context define the forgettable character.
To prove my perversity and irrational reasoning around names, I loved that you named the shoe designers and allowed ME to realize they were shoes. That was very INSIDE the POV character. Well done.
The first sexy lead that jumps out is:
"They always had colds, vegans did. At the restaurant, the vegans were the canaries in the virus coal mine, first to get sick, first to get it the worst. In her mind, Kym pictured a sickly, phlegmy lot gathered around the Tofurkey."
It's such a smart, in-character observation and creates dread -- plus it lands on a silly word "Tofurkey." Keep in mind, these are all your words, just rearranged.
I'll keep at this, but thank you for such clarity. cp
Holy Toe-Furkey! It was a delightful shock to look at my inbox this morning. Thank you for all comments. likes, subscriptions and taking time to read The Chosen Lamb.
I'll take a couple couple days to let the feedback settle in and respond to every one who commented. Thank you for doing that.
When I have the meaner / leaner The Chosen Lamb V.2 (Chuck Lamb) I'll put it up as a new post and link it here.
meaner? OMG can't wait. You've already broken the RMB glass ceiling as far as camp and horror realism goes...cheers
Thanks kp.
Hey Chuck,
Of course! I should thank you. This is a wonderful nurturing environment you've created for all of us. And just to get all the flattery out-of-the-way, you've been a huge inspiration and help throughout the years.
Also, it feels surreal you've read anything I've written.
Supporting Remanon was a delight. Her story really sung through on the second reading. I hope she gets back to me about the title. It's made me wonder ever since the second read.
I'm all yours. Let's do this.
Thanks loads for your support Sean. I know that you know how inspiring it is to be part of this community. I am planning to make some time over this weekend to re-read all of the comments I received, so much well thought out advice to be digested and implemented.
Now, I'm sitting down enjoy your story - I already love the title (don't ask about my weirdness over book/movie titles, band names etc).
Looking forward to it. Thanks again.
Great! My method is to read and reread before I start making comments. Thank you for putting your work forward. Talk to you soon.
Thank you. I've enjoyed thinking out loud to you in the comments.
As far as posting this to the group, I'm open to doing it, but have trepidation.
Skip to the second-to-last sentence if you're pressed for time.
Below is my long stream-of-consciousness answer.
I will inevitably read comments and will most likely internalize them. Maybe that's not a bad thing, but I worry about being overloaded. I have a set amount of bandwidth and time. I'm definitely your Space Monkey, but I worry more comments will interrupt the flow.
Having reread this thing six times now, every single flaw is stabbing me in the perineum. I know the only way to get to good writing is through bad writing. And good writing can be great with the right help (Carver-Lish).
Realistically I can have a new, readable draft in a week, but then there are the holidays, work, life, etc. I worry the expectation of delivery will slow the effort. However, it's just another deadline. That's all life is.
This is the whole point. Feedback and having your work read. We are being generous with time, hope, and effort, regardless of how pretty or relatable the package is when it arrives.
I mentioned community a couple of times. This fun, weird little group we have online genuinely is that. I'm better off for having scrutinized photos to add captions, and for having read Yellow Brooke & Loaves and Fishes in 2025.
You know what, I'll defer to you. Go ahead and post it to the group.
Sorry, long answer, but it's the most honest I could give.
So great and so brave of you to open your process up to the group. I hope you feel the adoration and support.
Love that HHH inspired you and my only offering would be wondering if the house can become more of a “character” in ways others mentioned and expanding on some of my favorite parts you conjured like it being “the child they spoiled” etc.
And as both a former vegan and a Brooklyn hipster before returning to my bacon greasy hometown, the world you present feels very real (and it begs for parody). Back when I was vegan (25 years ago) I noticed it truly could get very unhealthy because in order to stay away from whey, caseinate, etc we would eat a ton of garbage fried in vegetable oil on road trips or less hip restaurants. Then people got scared tofu caused breast cancer. I always thought the Tofurky Giblet Gravy idea was hilarious. But the newer class of elitist vegans with their virtue signaling disguised eating disorders or orthorexic control freak sickness make a wonderfully devilish cult. Such a great twist I did not see coming and both hilarious and disturbing.
Thanks Jessica,
In writing I have never felt so adored and supported.
Yes House is more “present” in the new draft. I hope you read it when I put it out and would love you feedback if you do.
—-
That’s hilarious. On behalf of bacon and myself. Welcome back to the fold we missed you.
The story is not so much taking the piss out of vegans it is over/ hyper-curation. I’ve spent a lot of time with Paige’s and Gabe’ houses in Park Slope. Competitive curation is marvelously hilarious.
Sounds like you and I could swap stories. Hope you don’t have too many scars
Is “competitive curation” a writing technique/style? I love the effect but never heard of it. The effect is almost a living breathing NY Mag stockist. Made me think the special fashion issue gift guides of the future might be some sort of pseudo parties.
Agreed with Sam, thanks for letting us peek behind the curtain!
For what it’s worth, I have a rule where I wait to revise after sharing. The more unfamiliar I am with the crowd the longer I tend to wait, just to make sure I can digest the feedback and come back to the page with a (sort of, kind of, almost) rational head.
Yeah, we’re all going to make suggestions on how we would write it, but it’s your story!
Thank you for letting us all read this whirlwind house horror.
“He wore the shirt of a farmer but had the hands of an account!” This is an all-too-real description. I’ve met these “farmers” first hand. They are lovely and always have kombucha on tap.
I have to jump in and second your comment - what a perfect observation Sean has delivered here! I don't know how many 'farmers' I see parading on the TV or Internet now who have never shoveled shit in their lives.
They make very good desk farmers.
beard oil guys
I’m certain they farm the botanicals for every type of beard.
Hi Sean,
Wow. I absolutely love this story. I love a good haunted house story, and I really appreciated how you subverted my expectations on that, then subverted them again, first by having Kym actually loving the experience of being consumed by the house -- finally finding the acceptance she'd always longed for -- then again when it throws her up. So fantastic!
A couple of things: I agree with Chuck about varying paragraph lengths, combining single sentences into paragraphs, and leaving single-sentence paragraphs for where you really need a punch.
One thing I'm confused about is why Paige and Gabe invited Kym at all, but especially why they thought she was going to be the lamb when they knew that she wasn't vegan. (Especially after the house rejects her and Gabe seems to go into "I told you so" territory blaming Paige for the whole thing.) Could you have Kym lie to them about being vegan? She clearly wants to belong, even though she does have some snark/distance when it comes to these people. I could see her lying to Paige and Gabe and saying she's a vegan, too, just to impress them. And that would solve the issue of why she's allowed to be at this event -- and maybe the house would be angry at Gabe and Paige for trying to feed it a carnivore, which could be fun.
I think you addressed this in your response to Chuck, so maybe it's different in your current draft, but I was unclear about Sam's reaction to the event and why he basically went catatonic while Kym was being "sacrificed". If that's still in the story, I could use some more clarity on that.
I was thinking of Chuck's question of what to do with the Spanish ex-girlfriend. And I was also thinking about the fact that Kym's stalled acting career is mentioned then dropped. (I also loved the skin-deep actor thing.) In your new ending where she's swiping right on guys from Queens and what have you, could she somehow cross paths with this Spanish woman? Maybe at or on her way to an audition? And maybe she actually likes her and they become friends? Perhaps another step in her journey of learning who "her people" really are? (Just spitballing, obviously.)
Overall, I think your story is so, so good. I absolutely love (to hate) these obnoxious Brooklyn hipster characters. "Performative non-conformity" is *chef's kiss*. (Pun only a little bit intended.) I can't wait to read your revised draft.
Hey Karin,
Thank you. This is great feedback and thank you for putting so much time into it.
The next draft house feeding needs are much more clarified as well as Sam’s. I had trouble figuring out what to do with him and his catatonia resulted. I didn’t want him to rescue Kym and I didn’t want Kym to be a girl boss.
Kym’s acting career along with why she stays in touch with Paige and Gabe is much more fleshed out in the new draft
Everybody loves this mystery girl from Spain. She has a clear through arc in the new draft. Hopefully it satisfies everyones palate.
Hopefully you read the new draft when I post it. If you do I’d love your feedback.
I really appreciated the thoughtfulness of the feedback you just gave.
I will absolutely read the new draft when you post it. I can't wait!
I'm glad you found the feedback helpful and hopefully not too overwhelming. So many of us just loved your story so much we couldn't help ourselves. :)
This is really great feedback
Thanks for saying so! I hope it's helpful.
It was thanks again.
Comment #8
Hello Sean -- You've been a 'lamb' about our back-and-forth, thank you. Today is an opportunity for you to ask me questions, and I'll do my best to respond. With your permission, I'll link to 'The Chosen Lamb' tomorrow, and people can benefit from reading the story and our discussion. Once you've created a new draft, we can link to that as well. Thanks, chuck
Questions. 1 - 3
Question #1
The new edit takes a lot of loose connective tissue in act one and two and turns it into very dense connective tissue.
All the people and objects are in place for the ritual. I want to drive the horses, but I also want to give them a chance to breathe.
Do you use a method you rely on to create space to breathe in a story?
Question #2
In the process of writing and finding everything becoming additive, do you limit yourself or do you let the adding run itself out like a tantrum?
I ask for this reason
The idea of the dog is a great one. Her name is Dunwich, she's a real horror, the one curated piece of the house Gabe and Paige can't control. She causes chaos. I see her instantly, a brindle French Bulldog. But if I add her, my gut tells me something else has to go.
In this case would you throw her in and write it out, or identify what's got to go before tossing her in the pot?
Question # 3
Couplets. The process of writing them out has been useful. Almost every one I've discarded has ended back in to the text of the story. The couplets are birthing aphorisms.
The birthing process is just an blank page on the screen where am thinking about the story and pureeing couplets and aphorisms out of the thoughts
Do you anything different?
I'm assuming not.
Okay, Question #1
Breathing room -- to me -- depends on pace, and nothing controls pace better than varying paragraph and sentence length. If too many bright ideas occur as single-sentence paras, then none of them get much spotlight. Clump smaller details into longer paragraphs, and only let the "pull quotes" stand alone as a single-sentence para. To check the flow and pace, read the work aloud.
Question #2
Hey, I'd much rather watch Dunwich than read about Google and programming.
Question #3
You get one couplet per story. One. A softer version is the Daisy Buchanan way of saying everything twice. Look at 'The Great Gatsby' and see how Daisy says everything twice, slightly rephrasing it the second time. That twice-said trick ensures the reader won't miss important information delivered in dialog. I tend to see couplets at the end of stories. Check out Hempel's 'Deliver Us Not Into Penn Station' and see another couplet: 'It wears you down. I am wearing down.' So think twice before using a couplet anywhere but at the end of something.
Optional Question # 4 (we meet on the level and part on the square)
I'm going to try and sneak in a Frostian Fourth Question.
Have you used word count as a constraint for writing stories
The original Chosen Lamb is 4,200 words. I'd like the next draft to be no bigger and preferably around 3,800 words.
A word count constriction will suffocate a lot of darlings — if you've 4,200 of them and only room for 3,800. That's a boat load of darlings.
Have you used something like this in the past or currently use it? Fight Club was almost 200 pages, every book after lean toward 300.
If you are only willing to answer 3 questions (I did bring up the triangle) please feel free to ignore #3 — it's a little too close to “Jeez, Chuck, where do your get all you ideas from?”
Funny story: As a student I demanded Tom Spanbauer tell me the perfect length for a story. Annoyed, Tom said, "Seven double-spaced pages." His answer was totally arbitrary, but I made it my gold standard: Seven pages.
For novels I always shoot for 185-page first drafts. That's a good Ira Levin length, closer to a novella, and it suggests a good movie. With rewrites and the editor adding chapter and section breaks, the final book can swell toward 300 pages. But 185 pages is my Holy Grail.
Hey Chuck
Are you there?
It’s Sean.
I’m going to try to slip in a fifth question. We’re already at the maximum number of digits on one hand, which I’ve been told is already too many to try to slip in, regardless of how politely I have asked.
The new version of The Chosen is nearly done. The problem is the ending. Nothing I’ve written feels like a button or a release. Just a series of unsatisfying stops.
Vonnegut gets to drop a nuclear bomb on his narrative in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and make the problem go away. I don’t have that kind of plot device available to me.
So the fifth question is this: when you’ve found yourself in a place where the ending felt impossible, what did you do to write yourself out of that corner?
Also, if you’ve taken the time to read this, and thank you if you did, I want to offer you my gratitude.
I think everyone had a garden variety shitty 2025. And the weeds that grew in the garden this past year are making everyone wary of a potential blooming corpse flower or voodoo lily in the coming one.
I imagine you’ve become immune to admiration and platitudes, out of sheer quantity and self preservation.
But thank you for this community, and for making the garden a little more bearable.
Merry, merry. Happy, happy.
Thanks for all this. I'm plugging away. Where the story is and where it was, are very different now.
Kym, Sam, Paige, Gabe and Dunwich are in a better place, although I think Sundar Pichai would like a word with you.
I should have a new draft to submit to you mid-next, again trying to be realistic with the timeline.
You clearly have a process for doing this. Should I consider the comment and question part of this closed until I submit the new draft? Or is it okay if I need to nudge you for feedback between now and then?
A lack of a reply, is as good a reply, if it's the former.
Hello Sean --
I vote we open it up today. You've gotten so much feedback -- like a huge meal -- and it would be better to let the food settle. Be open to ideas but not reactive: if after a few days you still don't like a suggestion, ignore it. Feedback is just to break up the ice and see the story with fresh eyes.
Affirmative on all fronts.
ANAC (Am Not A Chuck) but I’ve found that giving myself a word count to stay under really helps me focus my story or chapter. 2500 is my typical go to.
Hey Matt,
Thanks that useful. Will tuck it away.
Hey for what it’s worth I love the idea of the dog being the uncontrollable element. Even more I think it being a French Bulldog because it reminds me of the hipsters in McCarren Park. They had obnoxiously protested being kicked out of the small dog section and fought their way back into that side in what they called the French Revolution.. Frenchie Revolution.. hmm sounds made up now but maybe it was just what the other (actual) small dog owners called it as I saw the cute but giant-jawed Frenchies gnawing on tiny teacup legs.
You hit the nail on the head. A troublesome French Bulldog has a through-line now. His name is Dunwich.
House Call Hack - Chuck loves dogs.
I love it!!
Also now realize that unknown hack might have been why my caption did well (used my old dog’s ghost) but I am not going to let that bum me out. He was actually the one I had to remove from the battle of the Frenchies.
Noted.
I actually cut the line “with a sprinkling of Frost. “
I liked the idea of the triangle not the square.
I'm follow up with questions this afternoon. Our back-and-forth has been a triangulation of Lish, Hempel and minimalism.
I'll try to keep my questions inside the triangle.
Don't forget, we've dragged Robert Frost into the mix.
Comment #7
Sean, don't answer this, yet. I just want to poll the room once this opens up to a wider audience. But I have to wonder about:
"... the beautiful, yet unlikeable girl from Spain."
The former girlfriend is mentioned so often, she's like a specter in the story. Have you used her for a larger purpose that I'm missing? CAN you use her for a larger purpose? Once Kym goes home with Sam and they have sex, perhaps Miss Spain walks in and says, "I leave town for one night, and you cheat with some old lady?" A sort of Easter egg. It would throw more sympathy to Kym.
My point is Miss Spain has such a high profile in the story the reader would find satisfaction in seeing her pay off in some significant way.
After the one night with Sam, she finds out that Sam and Spain lady get married. That would be the last line to twist the knife in.
Chekov's gun?
I'm OK with her being the unfaithful Madame De Seville because she's the catalyst for getting Kym to the party. Especially if we are looking to cut the overall word count, she can be the enigma.
El arma ibérica!
Thanks Jude
Maybe Sam ate her?
Thats one of the fun parts of writing: figuring out why your subconscious sneaks certain things in.
Maybe the ex from Spain can also build more character for the “enigma of Sam” and help you give him more personality in his emotions relating to her (or actions if she shows up).
Hey Jessica,
Thanks for the input and taking time to read the story. Miss Spain (Ana) has a much more integral, and hopefully more satisfying role in the next draft.
Hope you read it. Please let me know what you think if you do.
I definitely will! I am new to writing in any serious way so seeing this process unfold and your sharing of it all is invaluable and much cherished.
I think it’s fine for the beautiful, yet unlikable girl from Spain to not return, to serve to explain why Kym and Sam didn’t happen, but with her gone, now maybe there’s a chance… but I also think her returning at the end and revealing that Sam was lying she was gone to hook up with Kym would be fun
Comment #5
Later today let's explore "horses." Per Gordon Lish's metaphor, a wagon that leaves St. Louis will arrive in Seattle still pulled by the same horses. Horses = Themes. Sean, your story seems to have illness or rejection as a main "horse," for example: Vegans being ill, the dog (offstage) being ill, the house being ill. How else can you depict this theme? If you broaden the theme to "rejection" as in vegans rejecting meat, the dog rejecting eggs, the house rejecting Kym, 'swipes' as rejection, possibly Sam rejecting Kym... How else can you depict "rejection."
Consider Amy Hempel's story "The Harvest." The horses are death and mutilation, and the ending transcends that theme: Despite the threat of sharks, the swimmer wades into the ocean, saying, "And I'm going back in."
If you identify your horses and demonstrate them in various ways, eventually you can transcend them. That creates a satisfying epiphany for your reader. You can show Kym rising above her fear of rejection.
More soon.
Ok thanks. Just reread The Harvest. The ending is a devastating punchline.
Agree on the horses. Sickness and Rejection.
There is the over arching horse of "wanting".
If anything the story is poking fun at over curation. How far can you push this niche? how specifically can you dress a life.
At the end of the day do my farts have their own nutty or unctuous terroir? Let's find out.
The naming convention of the brand name is something I pulled from you and BEE.
Everyone in the story wants something. Paige and Gabe another curio, Kym wants Sam, The house another victim, all those severed hands want to be free.
My dad had a threatening, terrifying phrase "I want never gets"
Somewhere in there is the hurting vagueness of desire and the fear of them not being satisfied. Or perhaps desire is the actual illness. What do they say about alcoholism? it's a disease of "more"
Maybe you're right the ending is Kym subverting all horses with a few sentences.
"She who only wants, finally gets"
Ok I have three horse to pull the cart.
---
Additions
I built out the restaurant history, Gabe appears like the Pied Piper of veganism and leads Paige and Sam away. Kym is in love with a guy who butchers meat with tattoos on his knuckles (guess whose hands are shrunken and doll like on the shelf) and wants no part of Gabe
The Brownstone object are more specific to the ritual.
Knife - Table - Furniture - Doll Hands
Gabe is a much more active participant now. He's whipping horses.
Edited out.
Dog & Deviled eggs
Expositional Sam & Kym dialogue.
---
I'm typing away.
Thanks as always.
Ah, you may change the deviled eggs to something else, but let me caution you against losing the dog. As it stands, there's not much action in the first half, and the sudden flurry of action in the second half might seem too abrupt.
If you include the dog, its actions will add a texture to the first half. When it vomits, that foreshadows events in the second half.
What's more, Kym might even take the dog with her when she escapes. Yes, it's trite, but Kym having a dog -- and finally swiping for a Queens guy -- would show emotional growth and sweetness. As always, these are just ideas and are based fully on the elements you've already created.
Bear in mind all the existing mythology about being swallowed and barfed out. Jonah and the whale comes to mind, but the list is long. Considering cultural precedent, what did Jonah gain by being swallowed and puked up? It's always fun to realize what ancient saga you're unconsciously recreating with modern elements.
Oh, and I’d leave the part where the dog pukes - but just change the reason. Deviled eggs is a great anecdote, but it doesn’t quite fit at a vegan meal. Instead, maybe it’s a brick of cashew cheese or a bowl of roasted edamame. Perhaps a plate of spicy cauliflower wings. Or, for a subtle nod to the oddity of veganism, Oreos. 100% vegan.
Yup good catch. The deviled eggs are in the dustbin. but the vegan dog diarrhea and puke remain!
OH...I'm so relieved. Would hate to have the diarrhea and puke all cleaned up...!
I'm with you on leaving the dog in. It adds to the "this is just a party with people doing normal-ish party things" vibe in the first party of the story - a longer way of saying "texture" I suppose - which in turn makes the second half feel that much more jarring. people love dogs. keep the dog, and use it more.
Stand by. More dog incoming. Chuck was an absolute hound about the dog.
In the new draft a troublesome French Bulldog has a much bigger role.
Thanks again for feedback again Bryan and also taking the time to read The Haunting Probability.
Thirding this idea. Tying the dog into the end gives a nice throughline and another point of emotional connection to Kym's growth if she takes him.
Sam it was this third (ing) that sealed the deal. The pooch has a nice through line now.
gahhh, "guess whose hands are shrunken and doll like on the shelf" got me so excited. just an incredible touch in the next version of the story.
Another lesson to take from 'The Harvest" is:
Don't be afraid to use a couplet:
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
We read that poem in Second Grade, and the ending still stays with me. So good. You can steal this effect.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening
Comment #6
Great job with the 'Burnt tongue' bits of poetry:
The pit in her stomach returned.
His wrist was chained to an expensive watch.
(but I do wish you'd clump more things together to improve the flow, for instance:
"One thread of smoke drifted sideways toward Sam’s shoulder, the one she had not claimed. The air shifted. The room breathed. The smoke peeled away from him and angled back toward Kym. It rolled in the air like a lyric and passed beneath her nose."
Likewise:
"This was the right-looking room with the right-looking people. The space pulled them together. They were on the periphery of the crowd, but now more a part of it. Sam’s pinky touched hers. Their hands wrapped together. The interlocked fingers created gravity."
That's such a lovely moment, please don't chop it up on separate lines. Frigg'n magic.
The structure is an over reaction to short stories I've written that have a much denser paragraph structure. I looked the meaty paragraphs and I even I didn't want to dive into them.
All those clever thoughts trapped in thick fudge.
There's been a lot of rereading of Didion and BEE (I'm absolutely obsessed with Lunar Park so goddamn good) this year. I'm ineptly cribbing their style and muddying my own results.
Something Lish-like with out the Lish. Frankenlish.
I tried to sneak through the Kym and Sam back and forth with it. Sorry I put you through that by the way.
Part of it was result of trying to figure out what to do with Sam's character. He's still an enigma to me.
Current draft he's much more alive he's definitely vegan he's been single for a year dumped by Little Miss Spain. I won't touch the subject of her until I hear back from you.
The only additional thing to mention in relationship to the spaniard is Kym calls Paige Ms Park slope, to balance Ms Spain. A sort of semi - couplet.
Her she is Ms America....... they won the pageant. Kym didn't. That how she seeing it.
Their Ms's.... Kym's just a girl.
I think Sam goes in the ritual not Paige. The house needs Paige too much.
This whole story is a snake eating its own tail. Page going in the ritual is too on the nose.
Gabe, Paige, House, ritual equal symbiosis. The ritual? Perforative atonement.
Josh's shrunken meat cleaving hands on the shelf. Atone in our eight million dollar intensely curated brownstone for all those sows motherfucker.
Love-Hate indeed.
----
I fixed the dialogue attribution through tighter paragraphing. Making similar changes to scenes.
The story is more rounded now that all the characters are established in the first Page and a half of text. It makes most of the tedious middle unnecessary.
I have a solid scaffolding for the first act. Pecking away at the second tonight.
Enthusiastically on board with the couplets. It needs to be one or all of the horses.
Something about skin I think, that where I want to go. When Sam says "One of those skin deep actresses...." There is something in there.
How deep are your beliefs, you're niche. you're ideology. What is about you skin and your beliefs.
The vegan get sick anecdote is a real one. I'm managed a lot of restaurants of my time and the vegans I always got sick first and the worst. They were all in their 20s and living in New York City so there were a lot of other factors. Eating ideologies don't dictate healthy lifestyles or outcomes.
But it was a truism you could set a viral clock to.
---
I keep coming back to the Wanting, the specificity of it. Even if the want is the lack of meat.
That's the real sickness.
What happens to Kym when the thing she wants is devoured? The only thing left of him a toe.
The tofurkey is Toe-furkey now.
Not married to it, but it's where the notes lead.
---
I'm trying to work with niche brand names to have a little fun and foreshadowing. A reader who accepts Paul Smith , Versace and Studio Job furniture, as grounded brands, a Gien & Plainfield coffee table or a Lizzie Borden or Nannie Doss shift dress fit the with branding. I can slip in a wiff of murder for a reader who might pick it up.
As far as at the darling go, they are all expendable, nothing in here is precious.
Loving this process, invested in it, obviously want to produce something good get an attaboy from everyone.
Hopefully the product is readable and enjoyable for the group. If not I'm still having blast doing this with you and learning tons.
if i can cast a vote, "toe-furkey" needs to be in the final edit. it's the kind of absurdity that will delight readers. or at least the ones you should care about.
Healthy servings of Toe-Furkey in all three acts of the new draft.
Excellent. I very much liked "One of those skin deep actresses...."
I really like “the interlocked fingers created gravity.”
Comment #2
This story is so fantastic it's imperative that you never lose the reader. We need to move through very specific objects, and be very clear about who's speaking. That will ground us in normal reality before the chaos. Thus I suspect you've cut and pasted this from Word because of the odd line breaks. Substack tends to break lines and add white space, so you've always got to watch for that. And attribution will help in this moment with two men and Kym. Here's Kym's POV:
Only here, she was the one who ate meat in a room full of native herbivores.
Sam’s voice pulled her back. (odd line break, consider keeping the following quote paired with Sam's name)
“Thanks for having me. (odd line break, I suspect Substack did it?)
I brought a couple of nice bottles from the North Fork,” he said. “And a vegan maple walnut pecan pie.” The words jumbled out of his mouth. (His = Sam?)
“Though it looks like you already have a few.” (Kym speaking?)
“Oh, no worries,” Gabe said, touching both their arms, they were in this together.
“Every year, the pie-to-person ratio ends up one to one.” (who's speaking?)
Be really aware of the objects you established. Kym's already collected some appetizer with a napkin. What becomes of it? The other objects -- the coffee table made from a Mustang hood, for instance -- are so good, I'd like to see them stay present. As always, the goal in Minimalism is to keep your characters, objects and setting limited so tension escalates faster. Ideally, each item you introduce must stay present and serve a continuing purpose. The crown of candles is a good example.
Okay. I've got an edit where the dialogue attribution is a better place. Added the naming structure for Paige (Ms Go Getter) and Sam (The heart throb). The repetition of heart is useful through line.
Reread the exchange between Kym and Sam and was horrified (in all the wrong ways) how much it dragged. Started whittling it down. Thank you for mentioning the locarvore comment. I was on the fence about keeping it. Will lean into it a bit more.
I'll rework the objects and strengthen the "gun" arc.
I use Google Docs to write. It's formatting and Substack might have combined to cause the issues. I'll fix them with the edit. Thank you for catching them and sorry you had to.
I wrote the story un-plotted but with two ideas.
A vegan thanksgiving goes wrong for a hapless carnivore, hijinks ensue.
And
Taking Shirley Jackson's HHH one step further, the house doesn't haunt, it digests, but with a particular appetite. Grass fed human meat.
Is the house curating the owners or the other way around? Which one is driving the wants? There is a symbiosis between them and the house
I'm not sure why.
The Deviled Eggs is a real life party anecdote I threw in. I liked it so much, I was blind to how wrong it fit the story. I will rework or delete. The dog doesn't serve a purpose other than the anecdote. Chopping block for fido.
You're seeing connections in the story I didn't Thank you for the insight on Paige's meteoric rise and the house and ritual. What did happen at that restaurant indeed?
Sam ended up being a macguffin as the story emerged.
But why is he inert during the ritual? Something from the restaurant, all those ducks whose ennui produced foie gras, the lamb who yearned to be something other than a part of a cassoulet, that stuff haunts Sam and Paige. It changed them, but not Kym.
Kym was too punch drunk on love with the sous chef to bother? The way he butchered meat was erotic. The letters h-a-t-e tattooed across his knuckles holding the sow's ear and l-o-v-e tattooed on the knuckles holding the knife which cut the ear free.
This is how a real man handles meat. Every dish he prepared was nearly brought Kym to orgasm
Every dish arrived to Paige and Sam a fresh plate of horror.
The French are up to something rotten with their food. So rotten there needed to be a corrective. A ritual corrective.
Sam's backstory with Gabe. Gabe likes to take credit for things; things like Sam. He'd remind him from where he came from. You're a programer, but I know you were a waiter and I'm not going to let you forget. Try the lentils!
Yes on the ending. It reads dull, sour payoff for putting reader going though all this.
I have a good chunk of time tomorrow to work on all this. Working on an outline to streamline object / artifacts through lines and piece together the Sam, Paige and Kym restaurant story.
Sorry if the above was too much. Fleshing this out.
Little pressed for time, killing two birds with one stone.
One structure question for you. The short sentence structure, particularly in the Kym & Sam along with the digestion sequence was designed to make it easy for reader.
Aside from the clumsy dialogue attribution, did you find this to be the case?
I'll wait to update Substack until I have a full new edit.
Let me know if you'd prefer otherwise.
Thanks for the encouragement and your time Chuck.
It means a lot.
All of this is wonderful. Thumbs up. Please don't revise this draft. As is, it provides the best "before" that will show the success of the "after."
Another "horse" you have in play is brand names/designers. It's your comic relief, because odd designer jargon is an abstract that cuts tension. Witness "Tofurkey."
How could you play this horse at the end? Just for a small laugh.
It's nice to e-meet you here! You know any story that begins with Tofurkey is going to grab me. Here are a few running notes/ thoughts that may or may not have any value, so take 'em as you will.
• Starting with the holiday party. As a die-hard introvert, I’m already hiding under the sheet. You set the scene nicely and briskly, and I hate most of the people there already.
• Paragraphs? Wherefore art my paragraphs? At first it was a little distracting but then I got into the groove of your single sentences. You sold me. In our digital age it could be a plus, but some readers might not vibe with it.
• North Adams – all my dead relatives buried there greet you.
• “Everything had been hunted down, the press-tin toys, the coffee table that had once been the hood of a Mustang.” I hate them even more.
• Love the snark, and it’s not overdone.
• Watch phrases like “a pit in her stomach” – little general - and descriptions of facial expressions right after each other (eyes rolling, wincing). I join you on the struggle bus for creating things for characters to do so you’re not using “said”. It’s hard.
• For the ‘Lamb’ section I have a hard time visualizing what’s happening starting with “A single floating mass that breathed together.” Are they gaseous? The smoke is making me think so. Or is this a body horror/Cronenberg monster (like the end of The Substance)? Help me out, my sight is terrible anyway so I need some cues.
• Then when she reaches for the table, it’s a mass too, but one she can fall in. I think a decision needs to be made as to whether this is a fleshy/literal/body (in this case) house horror or something more like a void. If it’s both I need a little transition/description from one to the other.
• I like the way she re-enters her body and all the descriptions of pressures to look a certain way. Quite relatable.
• Here is where I’m realizing the mass of bodies is more of a real thing: “Thirty assimilated bodies rippled like a bowl of viscous fluid and began to fall apart.”
• The ending needs to breathe a little – it feels abrupt. Was there any impact to what she experienced? Did she learn anything or change as a result? You could have some fun with this – since Paige is in a certain class there could be a news story that she’s missing, fliers in the neighborhood.
Overall really nicely done and if I needed any further encouragement to not attend holiday parties, I feel supported in that decision.
I'm reading through the other comments and I like the suggestion to somehow include the dog at the end. If she took the dog with her, it would also give her a 'hero' touch.
Hey,
Thank you for spending so much time with the story and the amazing feedback.
The assimilation scene is one of the weaker parts of the story. The assimilation is more Lovecraftian specifically whatever the offspring of Yog-Sothoth and Lavinia Whateley looked like in the Dunwich horror. For a body horror I see more The Thing than The Fly.
That sequence the selection and some of the mechanics are much clearer in the new draft
Kym no longer has “a pit in her stomach”. Thank god. The struggle bus is real
Stand by for more dog. More integral and clear through line.
The new draft will be up next week. Hope you read it. If you do would love more of you feedback.
Thanks again.
I'm afraid I got here a little late and have only skimmed the comments so will keep this short. It was a great read, Sean, I enjoyed it immensely. Just a few things I'd note if I was reading this back as something I'd written. First half was great, it reminded me of couple I know who do treat their house like their child, but I found myself wondering where it was leading me. Is that a bad thing? I don't think so. I don't like to be spoon fed but maybe a little tightening up might be in order?
The dog?? Mention a dog and Chuck is on it like a terrier after a rat! I like the detail of the dog, the out-of-the-corner-of-your-eye aside the distracts you momentarily from the gathering. If you're going to flesh this out into a larger work I might leave the dog for another day. It's enough that it exists.
The second part was a brilliant whirlwind and I need to re-read it. However, I loved the house's rejection of the offering. Really loved that. I'm going to re-read now, but thank you. It was great fun!
Remanon!
Thank you. And yes Chuck love him some dogs.
There is much more dog in the second part of the story.
Yeah, the middle, the Kym & Sam of it all, way too long. I was still figuring this out I wrote it.
The second draft is cleaner, quicker and meaner. I hope at least.
I’ll post the new draft next week. I’d love your feedback if you read it.
Thanks again for Loaves and Fishes.
Thanks for sharing this story and letting us see how the sausage is made!
I haven’t read any of the comments yet, so forgive me if I’m going over something that’s already been touched on.
Such a cool concept, the idea of a house not only consuming someone but throwing them back up. You got me hooked with the line “The house was their child. They spoiled it with gifts.” Awesome. I wonder if you could incorporate some tension earlier on, a sense that something’s not quite right. It isn’t until we get to the candles on Paige’s head that things start feeling weird.
One question that might help, what happens after the house eats someone? How are they consumed? How are they represented in the architecture? Maybe Kym walks in, sees the wallpaper and says “the repeating pattern was strange. It looked just like Paige’s cousin’s birthmark repeated over and over.” (You can definitely do better than my example lol) The idea is to show how people are incorporated by the house while also adding to that sense of unease.
Thanks again! I’m sure I’ll be “chewing” on this story for a while.
Matt
Thanks for the feedback. I think the new draft helps make that house clearer. Causation and intent are clearer now. Along with a clear image of the ritual and what it’s about and what happening during it. Although I want to avoid is getting to in the weeds about the mechanics.
Thanks again for gnawing on the story. If do read the new version I’d love to get your feedback on it
Absolutely! I’m looking forward to it
The way the narration describes things the way Kym would is cool like “Life had rescued him from the girl.” “Sam-less room” is awesome.
It was also cool there were lots of things on a second read like “the house was their child” and a “fussy eater” after finding out what happened.
With how all the collections have stories, are the different trinkets in the house killer trophies? For the Mustang hood coffee table, did they feed the person with the Mustang to the house? Does Kym have anything they’d want to steal after they feed her?
I’m looking forward to reading the edit.
Thank you for taking time to read it. And thank you so much for the endorsement of the Sam-less room. I’ve been the fence about that line since I wrote it.
The new draft will (hopefully) satisfy your question. Hope you read it. Let me know what you think if you do.
Thanks again for the feedback
Comment #1
I'm with you and Kym, but clarity is paramount. That's why Minimalism frowns on pronouns. When I hit:
"Life had rescued him from the girl she had never liked." (this slowed me and made me think at a point too early in the story)
Here I was already juggling three proper nouns, two being female, and now there's an un-named girl. Please never be afraid of repeating names. For variety I try to give each character three names -- a role name (uncle, ex-flame, whatever), a proper name, a nickname, a formal name (used in cases when your mother would shout out your full first, middle, and last name, and you knew you were in trouble. Anything but pronouns.
For second- or third-tier characters don't be afraid to lump them as "space monkeys" or "one of those bendy girls from hot yoga." Let a little context define the forgettable character.
To prove my perversity and irrational reasoning around names, I loved that you named the shoe designers and allowed ME to realize they were shoes. That was very INSIDE the POV character. Well done.
The first sexy lead that jumps out is:
"They always had colds, vegans did. At the restaurant, the vegans were the canaries in the virus coal mine, first to get sick, first to get it the worst. In her mind, Kym pictured a sickly, phlegmy lot gathered around the Tofurkey."
It's such a smart, in-character observation and creates dread -- plus it lands on a silly word "Tofurkey." Keep in mind, these are all your words, just rearranged.
I'll keep at this, but thank you for such clarity. cp
I'm going to have "Minimalism frowns on pronouns" tattooed on my arm.
Noted I'm making the pronoun changes now. Also on the naming structure I can make that work.
I edit out a lot of Vegan observation in the opening.
"Hollowed-out figures from a Rockwell painting, eyes gaunt, mouths slack at the browned loaf in the center of the altar."
Was originally following that line I thought it was banging the vegan drum too loudly.
Thank you on the shoes, there are more brand names coming.......
"Creepy as fuck -KP Buk" Seriously use it for the back cover.